Quintin Jardine - For The Death Of Me

I could have stayed in the Caley, but I’d seen enough of it. Instead I went to Fife with Ellie, to look in on Dad and Mary and give them the positive tidings (I didn’t give them any details about the attack: I said it was a random nutcase and that was all), and then to spend the night at her place in St Andrews.

Every time I see my nephews, these days, I see a change in them. Jonny’s sixteen, and starting to fill out; he’s a big, good-looking boy, with a quiet self-confidence that never threatens to spill over into arrogance. Ellie says he’s like me at that age, so I’m glad he’s got Harvey around now to steer him along a conventional and responsible path. He seems to be serious about the law as a career; I’d rather see him being a pro golfer, but I hadn’t been bold enough to tell his parents that. Colin, the incorrigible imp of mischief that he’s been since he was born, has edged into his teens and, without anyone really noticing it, he’s quietened down. Of the two, it’s Jonny who’s the more outgoing now, and Colin who spends much of his time indoors, hunched over a computer. My fear is that he’s starting to turn into his father, the boring Alan Sinclair.

Cooking wasn’t an option: I told Ellie we were all going out to eat. St Andrews was gearing up for the ritual of the Open Championship the following week, and already the place was full of golfers, journalists and fans. Somehow, though, I used connections to find us a table at the Seafood Restaurant, a relative newcomer to the old grey town, as Alex Hay loved to call it when he was in the BBC commentary box. Ellie was grudgingly impressed, but not half as much as later on, when Seve Ballesteros came across to our table and asked for my autograph. We swapped, and he signed the three other menus as well, plus a fourth for my dad. He still says that Arnold Palmer is the most exciting golfer he’s ever seen, but Seve gets my vote every time. Tiger? He’s on another planet; at his best he’s chilling. It’s like watching a trained assassin at work, killing golf courses.

When we got home, the lads turned in. Colin was on the team that would man the main scoreboard at the Open, and Jonny had a caddying job next day, for a young American qualifier who’d come over early to get acclimatised. If they got on, there was the possibility he’d be hired for the championship. Bearing in mind that the previous two Opens had been won by inexperienced American qualifiers, I wished him luck.

Ellie and I sat in the back garden when they were gone, just as we used to in our younger days, each of us clutching a bottle of beer. It was a warm, balmy night by St Andrews standards, and pleasantly cool by mine.

‘He’s going to be all right, Oz, isn’t he?’

‘Harvey? Of course he is: advocates are notorious for the thickness of their skulls, and QCs even more so. When they’re ready to go to the Bench it would take a road drill to get through one.’

She laughed quietly. When she tones down the volume my sister has a beautiful laugh, just like our mother. ‘I’ll tell him that. Actually, I meant Jonny.’

‘Jonny? Why do you ask that?’

‘Ach, he’s torn, Oz. He wants to be like Harvey, and to impress him, but he wants to impress you even more. He wants to be like you too.’

‘Then send him to drama school, not law school. But better still, get him working on the golf so that in a couple of years he’ll be a candidate for a scholarship at an American university. He can study law there, then see what direction he wants to take.’

‘Golf?’

‘What are you going to do, Ellie? Tell the man what he’s going to do with his life? He won’t take that, and if you push it, you’ll wind up hurting you both.’

‘He’s a boy still, Oz,’ she protested weakly, with the voice of someone who had strained it shouting at the rising tide, ordering it not to come in any further.

I took a sip of my Rolling Rock and looked at her over the neck of the bottle. ‘You’re talking like a mother, Ellie. He’s a man. Legally he can walk out the door tomorrow, get his own place, start a career, start a family. Sure, he’s still got some growing up left, but those are his rights now, at his age. You want to help him, then advise him: set out all the options for him, even fucking dentistry, whatever Dad says, and let him make his own choice. Once he’s done that, respect it, but while he’s making his mind up, impress on him that his final choice shouldn’t be what he thinks Harvey or I might like him to do, but what he wants, in his heart.’

‘Jesus,’ she whispered. ‘Where did you acquire wisdom?’

‘Through long nights spent talking to Jan’s ghost.’

She stared at me. ‘Funny, that. Me too.’ Of course, Jan was her sister as well; I wished I could tell her, but I know I never can.

‘Will you be all right, Oz?’ she asked suddenly.

It was my turn to stare. ‘Hey, that sounds like what the bell-boy’s supposed to have said to George Best when he brought him and the latest Miss World room service. “Where did it all go wrong, Georgie?” I thought I was doing all right, thank you very much.’

‘Aye, you are, and you wear it well, too; you’re gracious. But there’s something eating at you.’

‘No,’ I protested ‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re fine and yet you’re not. Are you and Susie okay?’

‘Susie and I are perfect. I just. . I wish I could spend all my time with her and the kids, but the life I’m in doesn’t allow for that. I wish I could be there now, but Fate says, “No way.” I’ve spent the last couple of weeks on a familiarisation course of Edinburgh’s two hospitals, and chasing around Singapore and Malaysia after an ungrateful fucking cow. I’m not blaming Harvey for that, by the way. If I was in trouble he’d be the first guy I’d go to for help, and I’d get it. But when I’m away I feel unsettled, I feel vulnerable, I feel. . I can’t explain.’

‘Try.’

‘Okay, in Singapore I met this girl, Marie. She’s an actress and she helped me out with something. I liked her, we had a drink, and we had lunch together on Tuesday.’

‘And you. .’

‘No.’

‘Let me finish. You wanted to but you didn’t.’

‘Ellie, I can’t even admit to myself that I wanted to.’

‘But you did, you were attracted to the woman sexually, and maybe it was there for you. You’re a man, for God’s sake, and your profession exposes you to some of the most beautiful women in the world, and occasionally exposes them to you, from what I’ve seen of your movies. You shouldn’t be ashamed that you wanted to have her. You should be proud that you didn’t.’

She got up from her garden recliner, went into the kitchen, and came back with two more Rolling Rocks. ‘Go home, Oz. Let the police find the first Mrs January.’

‘The police? I was a policeman and I couldn’t find my arse with both hands. Mike Dylan was a policeman, and he got shot. Ricky Ross was a policeman and he got slung out for screwing the wife of a murder victim, a prime suspect in a case he was investigating. Maddy January’s in trouble because her talent for candid camera photography led her to take a picture of the top man in organised crime in South East Asia. He’s been there for years, and their police are so good that they don’t know his name or what he looks like. Ellie, if I had your confidence I’d do what you say, but I don’t. I’m the best chance this woman’s got of staying alive, even if she doesn’t know it. If I give up on her and she dies, as she will, Susie will never forgive me, Harvey will never forgive me, and I’ll never forgive myself. But you know what frightens me the most?’

‘What?’

‘Jan will never forgive me.’

‘Oz,’ our Ellen whispered, ‘Jan’s gone.’