Quintin Jardine - For The Death Of Me

‘This trip’s costing me a fortune,’ he grumbled, as he signed the card slip. ‘You’d bloody better be prepared to deal.’

‘I won’t even sit down with you till you look respectable,’ I told him cheerfully. ‘I’ve got an image to protect: I can’t be seen around town with a fucking tramp.’

He stared at me. ‘Is this the same guy who used to chum me to the Horseshoe Bar in Glasgow for a pie and a pint?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ I replied, ‘so get used to it.’

Prim was waiting in Reception when we returned: the green number had gone, to be replaced by a sleeveless white shirt, loafers and pedal-pushers. As it always was with her, she managed to look a hell of a lot tastier than in more formal get-up. As Dylan went off to his room to transform himself into something more acceptable, I called Conrad to come and pick her up, then walked her down the steps to the front door to wait for him.

‘You all right?’ I asked her.

She smiled up at me, almost shyly. ‘I’m better now,’ she said.

‘Have you got over being in the nick?’

A shadow crossed her face. ‘You never get over a spell in Cornton Vale. It’s not that it’s a menacing place, it’s just that there’s so much sadness there, so much hopelessness. There were no suicides when I was in, but you can understand why there have been.’

‘There are suicides everywhere, love, even here.’

‘What, as in lose the lot in the Casino then throw yourself in the harbour?’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that, but it’s a possible scenario, I’ll grant you.’

‘Do you ever go there, you and Susie?’

I laughed. ‘That’s a good one. In all the time we were together, did you ever know me to gamble on anything other than the lottery?’

‘No, but we won the lottery. Didn’t that encourage you to risk some more?’

‘Hell, no! It encouraged me to quit while I was ahead. Anyway, there are other risks in life than money, and I take plenty of them. Accepting a script that might send your career on to a new level, or set it on irreversible decline: that’s a risk. Boarding a plane: that’s a risk. Spending ten minutes alone with you: that’s a risk.’ Hell, where did that one come from, and what did I mean by it?

She didn’t ask me either of those questions, though. Instead she smiled, looking at me slightly askance through her Versace shades. . I always wear Vuarnet myself. . with the sun glinting off her hair. ‘Meeting Mike’s a risk too, I suppose.’

I considered that one for a moment. ‘No,’ I told her, decision made. ‘I’m in control there.’

‘You think?’

‘Sure. As always, Dylan hasn’t thought everything through. If I walk away, I lose nothing more than the cost of one posh lunch. He winds up with major financial indigestion.’

‘And will you walk away?’

‘That won’t be my decision, not entirely.’

‘You’re not going to kick him when he’s down, are you?’

I stared at her. ‘And if I did? Jesus, you’ve got a short memory.’

‘What? Are you still carrying a grudge because I had a fling with him? I thought you didn’t care about that, or about me, any more.’

‘I. .’ She’d misunderstood me, but I let it lie. ‘Never mind. I’m not going to put the boot in, don’t worry.’

‘Your choice.’ She shrugged, then frowned suddenly. ‘Does Tom miss me?’

‘I’m sure he does. But he’s happy, Prim. He doesn’t cry for you, if that’s what you mean. Still, I’d like you to see as much of him as you can, within the context of his wider family.’

She wrinkled her nose, and gave me that look again. ‘Why don’t I just move in with you? Make Ethel redundant and I’ll be the nanny.’ She laughed as she said it. That made it even more unsettling: over the years I’d found that Prim never said anything casually. Sometimes she’d look me in the eye and tell a flat-out lie, like, ‘I don’t care about you any more.’ Other times she’d say something incredibly flip, like the line about Ethel, but underneath it she’d be saying exactly what was in her mind.

I brushed it off with a laugh of my own, then changed the subject completely. ‘Where are you living?’ I asked her.

‘With Dad, in Auchterarder. I sold my place in London and moved in with him. For the moment at least he needs me: he’s been a lost soul since Mum died.’

‘I’m not surprised. Elanore left a big space behind her. Is he still working?’

‘He is now. He did nothing for a while, but I’ve managed to nag him into going back to his model-making.’

‘So you’ve got no social life to speak of?’

‘In Auchterarder?’

‘Okay, it was a daft question. Stay here for a few days, and I’ll see if we can introduce you about town.’

She gave me the gauche look again. ‘Thanks, but I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. All I really want to do is spend time with Tom, but maybe we’ll see.’

Two things happened at once to end our discussion. First, Dylan emerged from the hotel, looking presentable in polo shirt, shorts, and baseball cap, although his legs were obscenely white and his trainers were a disaster. Second, Conrad pulled up in the S-class, bang on cue. For a moment the commissionaire looked annoyed. . probably by those trainers. . until I stepped forward and opened the door for Prim, and until I pressed a twenty-euro note into his hand.

We stood and watched her as she waved from the rear window of the departing car.

‘Will she ever be seen again?’ Dylan asked.

‘What?’

‘Joking, Oz, joking. It just looked like a movie scene, that’s all.’

‘You’ve still got a weird sense of humour, mate. Or you’ve been watching too many movies.’

‘That’s all Benedict Luker has to do in his sad life,’ he said, with a bland smile. ‘Where are we going?’

‘For a walk. You look as if you could use the exercise. Then we’ll talk.’

I led him away from the hotel, past the car museum that is Tom’s favourite place in the entire charted world, and up an escalator to the road that leads to the rock on which Monaco was founded. It was a steep climb, and by the time we reached the square in front of the Grimaldi Palace, Dylan was breathing hard. (We could have taken a bus, or even a taxi, but I didn’t tell him that.)

‘This is very nice,’ he croaked, as we looked out across the city, ‘but it’s fucking hot.’

‘Appreciate it, Mike,’ I told him. ‘It’s part of the joy of being alive.’ To cool him down a little, I walked him through the cathedral. . hoping that we wouldn’t bump into the archbishop. . pausing for a moment’s reflection at Grace Kelly’s grave, one movie star paying his respects to another, until finally we turned into the network of narrow old streets and found a shaded bar.

I ordered a couple of bottles of Sol and leaned back in my chair. ‘Well, Benny,’ I began, ‘what do you want for the rights?’

‘A million dollars.’

I laughed so hard that the waiter looked hesitant about bringing me the beer.

‘A million dollars, just like that. You really have been living in a fantasy world, pal. This isn’t The Horse Whisperer or Gone with the Wind that you’re offering me. Let me explain something to you. Every movie project is a risk, and every investor participates in that risk. As the author of the original work, that’s what you’d be, an investor just like me. This is the way it plays: I buy an option to develop Blue Star Falling as a cinematic work. If it goes all the way, the option price is an advance against a production fee, which is a percentage of the gross budget.’

‘What’s that likely to be?’

‘Which? The percentage or the gross?’

‘Both.’

‘Okay, let’s say two and a half per cent of a budget of thirty million dollars. That’s three quarters of a million.’