Quintin Jardine - Alarm Call

‘But it hasn’t?’

‘No.’ She paused. ‘Well, it has done, a couple of times in the last fortnight. The first time, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I thought it had to be him, but it wasn’t, just some bloke looking for him. I told him he didn’t live there any more then hung up. When he called again a few days later, I got really stroppy with him, and told him to eff off. Apart from that, for all that I stared at it, for hours on end, the damn thing’s been silent.’

Her mouth twisted. ‘That’s all going to stop; the fight-back begins as of now.’

‘As of now?’ I quoted back at her. ‘Does that mean that you haven’t told the police about the theft?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘Or no; as in no, I haven’t.’

‘Why the hell not?’

She sighed. ‘I don’t know, Oz. The attitude of those two idle unsympathetic bastards who turned up when I did call them didn’t exactly encourage me to ask for their help again. Plus, I had this vision of Paul being arrested in the States and Tom being taken into care. Or maybe my mind was just fuzzed with the drink. I don’t know.’

‘It must have been fuzzed. If the police had put you off, why not call Dawn and Miles? Or why not just try my mobile number, without the elaborate charade to make me call you?’

She put down her fork, and looked me in the eye. ‘Do you remember the last time I saw you guys, when I came to Edinburgh with Nicky Johnson and Miles laid him out. . probably for his own relative safety, for God knows what you would have done to him? He and Dawn let me know what they thought of me, and you, you chose that moment to let me find out that you and Susie had a child together.’

‘Hey, I didn’t choose it on purpose; I honestly thought you must have known.’

‘Whatever! After that I could hardly come crawling back to either of you, drunk and tearful, to tell you that I’d made a complete arse of myself. Well, could I?’

‘As it happens, the answer to that is “Yes”, but all you’d have had to tell either of us was that you were in big trouble and needed help. Dawn and Miles are parents as well, remember.’

She seemed to soften. ‘How is Bruce?’

‘Nearly as big as his dad, last time I saw him, and he’s only just coming up on four. They’re talking about having another. You’ve hurt them, you know, Prim, by cutting them out of your life.’

Her eyes went moist again, my cue to clear away the salad plates.

They were dry when I returned, carrying a big pot filled with Blackstone’s special pasta pescado , as I liked to call it, and three bowls, all on a tray. She and Susie were talking quietly, and carried on until I had f inished dishing up.

‘You never did this for me,’ Prim asserted, when she’d tasted the sauce.

‘I bloody did, when we had that apartment in St Marti, before. .’ I stopped myself, but I should have known she’d carry on.

‘. . before you left me to go back to Jan.’

‘Yeah, okay.’

‘No wonder I don’t remember it, then.’

‘Hey, little Miss Innocent, if we’re casting up, what about. .’

‘Enough!’ Susie shouted. ‘We are not casting up. .’ She grinned. ‘. . or the pasta will either get cold or be thrown all around the room, and it’s too good for that.’

That was one thing we were all agreed on: it was so good that not only did Prim wolf hers down, by the time she’d had seconds there was hardly any left for me.

Dessert was easy; it was Haagen-Dazs time, vanilla chocolate fudge, with some white-chocolate sauce poured over it. Susie made a disapproving face, but she ate hers all the same; we don’t do it often. When she and Prim were finished, they went off to the kitchen with the empties. I moved back to the leisure wing. Being midsummer in Scotland there was still plenty of daylight. I was enjoying it when they returned with two coffees, and what was left in the cafetiere. I don’t drink much of the stuff these days; my way of keeping consumption under control is not to have it at all at home.

‘So,’ said Susie, heavily, after she had she folded herself into an armchair, ‘what are you going to do, Oz? This bastard Wallinger has got to be brought to book, and Prim has to get Tom back, and her money.’

‘I’ve already done something.’ I told them about my call and my instructions to Mark Kravitz.

‘I’ve met him, haven’t I?’ Prim ventured, tentatively.

I nodded. ‘A few years back.’

She gave a quick uncertain look. ‘I remember him. He’s sort of … sinister? No, that’s not the word. He’s a bit dangerous, isn’t he?’

‘He can be, but I’ve told him just to find out whatever he can about the guy and not to have anything nasty done to him.’

‘Are you sure he understood you?’ Susie asked.

‘Certain, love.’

‘Could you change that?’ Prim muttered, grimly. ‘I think I’d like him good and dead.’

I looked at her. ‘Let me tell you something: you don’t ever say that to me, or anyone else, especially anyone else, ever again. If you come out with something like that in front of the wrong person, and he thinks you mean it. . you could find yourself in so deep you won’t even see the surface.’

‘What makes you think I don’t mean it?’

‘Unless you tell me you don’t, I won’t lift another finger to help you.’

‘You never used to be quite so scrupulous.’

‘I’m not playing games, Prim.’

‘Okay, I promise, when I find out where Paul is I won’t hire a hit man. Is that okay?’

‘That’ll do.’

‘Good, because I want to rip his balls off personally.’

I remembered what Dawn had said about her. ‘When we get to that stage, there may be a queue. This man didn’t happen upon you by accident, and make it all up as he was going along. There’s a fair chance you’re not the first rich widow or divorcee he’s fleeced. Let me ask you something: when you met him up at Gleneagles, when he was on that golfing holiday, did you ever see his clubs?’

‘He told me he hired them from the pro shop.’

‘But you never thought to check?’

‘Why should I? He was my escape route.’

‘Mug. One quick question and you might have saved yourself a lot of grief: a real golfer doesn’t hire.’

‘Maybe not, but if I had asked that question, I might never have had Tom.’ She had me there; I didn’t take it any further.

‘Oz,’ my wife butted in, ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘When are you not, my angel?’

She ignored my idle sally. ‘Everett’s movie,’ she continued. ‘If you agreed to do it, you’d be in the US, and maybe you’d have time to ask a few questions.’

‘It may have escaped your notice, Sooz, but America is one hell of a big place.’

‘I know, but still. If you didn’t ask them yourself, you could hire people over there.’

‘I’ll think about it.’ Best to let it be her idea, I reasoned. ‘But I’ve got something else in mind before that. You need some top-class legal advice, Prim, and I know just where you can get it.’

I took my mobile from its hiding place in the breast pocket of my shirt and called my sister. My nephew Jonny’s voice sounded in my ear. ‘This is the Sinclair residence.’

‘And this is your uncle, kid.’

‘Hello, Uncle Kid,’ he said cheerfully. ‘What can I do for you?’ I was pleased at his flippancy. Jonny had been through a bad time a few months before; I’d been very worried about him for a while, but he was coming through it okay.

‘You can stop being bloody cheeky and put me on to your mother.’

‘I’ll see if she’s available.’

‘Why wouldn’t she be? Is Perry Mason there?’

‘Who?’

‘A fictional lawyer; before your time.’