Quintin Jardine - Alarm Call

‘Nary a one, mate. I’m anchored to home for a while.’

‘What’s up, then?’

‘Do you know what Prim’s been up to lately?’

‘Not a clue, mate. I haven’t spoken to her since she did her thing with Nicky Johnson. You’d better talk to Dawn. Hold on, she’s here.’

I waited for a few seconds, then heard my former sister-in-law’s soft Perthshire tones. ‘Oz. Good to hear from you. How are Susie and the kids?’

‘Fine. How about yours?’

‘Couldn’t be better. What’s this about my sister?’

‘I’ve just been speaking to her. I get the impression that all’s not well. Anything you can tell me?’

‘Just that, and no more. She vanished off the radar for over three years, do you know that? She said that she was going back to nursing, to find herself again. . our Prim can be even more dramatic than me. . and she just disappeared. She didn’t tell any of us where she was going. We couldn’t contact her; we got Christmas cards as usual but that was all. Her mobile was always switched off and any messages Mum or I left were never returned, until a couple of years ago she called and said she was coming to Auchterarder for a visit. She did, stayed for a couple of weeks, told them nothing at all about what she’d been up to, then vanished again, with barely any warning that she was off.’ Dawn paused. ‘That was it, until a couple of weeks ago, when she landed on them again. She wouldn’t say anything about what she’d been doing, not to Mum, not to Dad, not to me, other than that she’d decided to take a break from everyone. She stayed for a while, then, as before, pissed off again. You said you’ve spoken to her. D’you mean she got in touch with you?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’ I told her about the supposedly casual visit to my dad, and about our telephone conversation.

‘She said, “Much worse than hurt”? God help whoever did it, then, for there’s only one thing that my sister takes lying down. Take some advice, my dear Oz: don’t get involved.’

‘I’ll hear what the story is, Dawn, and then I’ll take a view.’

‘Let me know what’s happening.’

‘Promise. Thanks; take care of that big koala of yours.’

When I put the phone down, Audrey was standing beside me. ‘That’s done. She’s on the two o’clock shuttle from Heathrow, ticket to be collected. I didn’t know you had two sisters, Oz.’ She turned slightly pink when I explained who Prim was.

I turned to the business that had been lined up for me the day before. I called the man from the television company. He wanted me to play on one of those ‘guess the celebrity’ panel games. It would have meant letting cameras into our home, so I declined, politely but irrevocably, without a second thought.

Next, Susie, Audrey and I spent an hour drafting a brief for Mr Potter, and Clark Gow, his firm, setting out our financial position, as of that moment, and as it would be in two years, once I had completed my latest contracts and the partial flotation of the Gantry Group had gone through. When it was ready for transmission, Audrey called him and asked for his e-mail address so that she could send it.

‘You know what he’s going to tell us, don’t you?’ said Susie, when it was done. ‘He’s going to say the same as Roscoe did, that we should go and live in some tax haven or other.’

‘Probably,’ I conceded. ‘So let’s the two of us and our kids go for a walk round our bloody great garden to remind ourselves why we should stay here.’

It was a beautiful summer morning, the kind you wish you could bottle. I did the next best thing: I filmed it on my camcorder, Susie playing on the grass with wee Jonathan, Janet on the electric quad bike that I’d found for her, and all the time, the sun glistening and sparkling on Loch Lomond below us. We had no trouble convincing ourselves that we were going to live there happily for the rest of our days.

Actually we’d made the place even bigger: for added privacy and security we’d acquired some commercially useless woodland and fields from the neighbouring estate. The extension included some virtually bottomless bogs, which I’d had capped with concrete, for safety’s sake. It all meant that we had so much land we’d bought a Mini to run around in … and because it’s a lovely piece of design. Susie and I do like our toys.

The morning was so idyllic that I had almost forgotten the call I was going to have to make. It took Susie to remind me of it.

‘Will Everett’s office be open yet?’ she asked, as we finished lunch, just after one o’clock. I knew that it would.

As its name implies, his is a global business, so the switchboard in the New York headquarters is manned from seven a.m. on. I nodded and went back to the office.

I didn’t expect him to be there: the GWA wrestlers are on the road a lot, and Everett, although he controls and runs the business, is still on the active list, so, after I had told her who I was, I simply asked his receptionist where he could be found. ‘Right here, Mr Blackstone,’ she replied. ‘I’ll put you through.’

I braced myself. A few seconds later, the big drawly voice was on the line. ‘Oz, my man! This is an honour and a surprise. You found the time to call me.’

‘What have I done?’ I asked him, my voice all innocence. ‘What’s upset you?’

‘You have to ask me? You blew me out, man. You turned me down flat and you didn’t even have the stones to do it yourself: got your Mr Smooth from LA to do it instead.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘My proposition. You turned me down, Oz. I can’t believe it.’

Oh, shit.

‘What proposition?’

‘You mean Mr Roscoe Goddamn Brown didn’t even tell you about it? Well, I’ll tell you something now, I am going to pay a call on that mother when I’m on the west coast next week and he will not enjoy it.’

‘Now hold on there. Before you go off and commit homicide, or agenticide at least, this wasn’t Roscoe’s fault. Blame me, if you’re going to blame anyone. Yes, he recommended that I decline whatever it is, but it was at the end of a very positive session on other things and I wanted to demonstrate my complete trust in him. So I told him that he didn’t have to go through the details with me. I’m sorry, it was my mistake. Do you want to tell me about it now, or are you so deep in the huff that it’s off the table?’

‘If I do will you listen to me politely then turn me down again?’

‘That depends on what it is and on the time frame. In three months’ time, I’m pretty much committed through to next summer.’

‘This would work, in that case.’

‘Go on then.’

‘Oz, I’m diversifying.’

‘You’re starting a dance troupe?’

‘Hey, wouldn’t that be something? Imagine Jerry Gradi in a tutu.’

‘It worked for J. Edgar Hoover.’

He chuckled. ‘Maybe, but not for the GWA. No, I’m going into the movie business. I have a project all set up as a vehicle for Liam Matthews, Jerry and a new girl we’ve got on board. It’s written, the director’s in place and we’re all ready to start shooting. There’s only one thing left to do. I have a cameo role that I need to fill, the bad guy. It’s perfect for you and I want you to do it. I’d only need you for a couple of weeks.’

‘That’s what you put to Roscoe?’

‘Yup.’

‘How much did you offer him?’

‘A million dollars.’

‘Everett, my next three movies will earn me over twenty million euros.’

If I’d had wax in my ear, the big man’s whistle would have blown it right out. ‘Jeez,’ he exclaimed, ‘I didn’t realise you were in that bracket. No wonder your guy turned me down.’