Quintin Jardine - Alarm Call

I was able to keep an eye on the entrance from my seat. About ten minutes after our drinks had been served, I saw David Phillips’s old Rover pull up on the driveway. Polite-ness, nothing else, made me go to greet them, although I didn’t expect him to wait. I saw Prim lean forward from the back seat to kiss his cheek, and say her goodbyes to her mother; then she got out. Elanore turned to look back at her as Dave drove off. I was shocked to see that she was wearing a wig. ‘Your mum,’ I said. It was a question.

‘Her cancer’s back, Oz. It’s in her lymphatic system. They’re giving her chemo down at the Western General in Edinburgh, but the prognosis isn’t too good. That’s why I didn’t say anything about Tom when I was here before.’

‘Maybe I was an idiot for making you do it today, then.’

‘No, you were right. She was blazing mad that I hadn’t told her as soon as he was conceived. Now I feel guilty as hell, for the chances are that she’ll never get to see him.’

She looked positively mournful, so I put a hand on her shoulder. ‘She will, kid. I promise you that; she will.’

‘But how, Oz? Tom’s on the other side of the Atlantic, and for all the things that Harvey and Greg are going to do in court, they’re not much use if we can’t find him.’

‘Didn’t you hear me, girl? I made you a blood oath there. You came to me for help before anyone else. I’m touched by that, and I’m not going to let you down. Elanore will get to hold her grandson.’

On the way home, I told Susie what had happened in the meeting with Harvey, and that Prim was going to have to fly down to London next day to pick up some papers. ‘If you fancy chumming her for the trip,’ I said, ‘I’ll stay with the kids, since it’s Ethel’s weekend off.’

‘Nice thought, darling, but I find London unbearably stuffy at this time of year. You’re right, though; she should have company. You go with her.’

I wished that I’d kept my mouth shut. I didn’t fancy spending my Sunday on the bloody shuttle. ‘We could always send Conrad.’

‘They’ve gone to Arran for the weekend, remember. They won’t be back till tomorrow night. No, that’s settled; you’re going.’ I waited for Prim to protest that she could handle it on her own, but she just sat there and said nothing.

As Susie said, it was settled. I booked us on to the nine o’clock flight to London next morning, returning late afternoon. I didn’t say much on the drive to the airport; I never do, but Prim took it the wrong way.

‘Oz, I’m sorry,’ she said, as we drove east along the motorway. ‘You don’t really want to be doing this, do you? I’ve mucked up your life again with my troubles.’

‘Enough of that,’ I told her. ‘If that was true, I wouldn’t be here. You’d be in a taxi with a one-way ticket in your pocket.’

The flight to London was as quiet as I’d expected it to be; there was nobody within three rows of us. I declined British Airways’ offer of breakfast, and settled instead for pretending to sleep. It didn’t fool Prim, though; we’ve lived together for a good chunk of the last decade, so she knows the real thing when she sees … and hears … it.

We were over the Solway Firth when I felt a small sharp elbow in my ribs. ‘Why do you think he did it?’ she asked me, quietly.

‘For money. He’s a professional fraudster.’

‘You don’t think he might have loved me at the start?’

‘Did he make you believe that he did?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you make yourself believe that you loved him?’

There was a long silence. ‘Honestly? No.’

‘Not ever?’

‘No.’

‘Not even when you were carrying his child?’

‘Not even then.’

Then I asked a very stupid question. ‘How about me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did you ever make yourself believe you loved me?’

‘I didn’t have to.’

‘I wasn’t worth the effort, I suppose.’

‘No, you idiot. I didn’t have to make myself believe it, because I did love you. From the moment I set eyes on you, in fact.’

For a few seconds I was speechless. Until that moment, I’d managed to persuade myself that our relationship had been based on pure lust and self-interest. Of course we’d said the three words to each other, in the early stages, but I’d said them before and not meant them, and she had too.

I decided against stupid question number two.

Instead I asked, ‘So how can you look at Susie and me, far less be with us?’

‘Because I’m a realist. I know that you never really loved me, and I know that I was as much to blame for our breakup as you were. Don’t worry, I don’t harbour any secret dreams of winning you back. I look at you with Susie, and I see how much you’ve changed. I watched you with your family yesterday. Your dad used to be its bedrock, but now you are.’ That made me sit up, since Ellie had said much the same thing the day before. ‘You used to be a taker, Oz,’ she went on. ‘With me, even with Jan, you were a taker. Now you’re a giver, not because you’re rich and famous, but because you’ve realised what you were and become a different person.’

‘If that pleases you,’ I told her, ‘you’ve got Susie to thank for it.’

‘Even though she took you from me?’

‘Well, maybe “thank” is the wrong word. But it’s true: it was Susie who made me look at myself through someone else’s eyes, and see what they saw. When I did, I didn’t like me very much. I was a very confused guy for a while. For the record, Susie never tried to take me from you. After that happened, even when I knew she was pregnant, I thought that staying with you, trying to make our marriage work, was the right thing to do, and Susie didn’t fight against that. But with me filming in Toronto, and you in LA, at the time when we needed to be together, it didn’t have a chance; not to mention the fact that you were screwing Nicky Johnson on the side.’

‘I was angry with you.’

‘I know, and I’m not knocking you for it. What I’m saying is that if I’d done the honest thing as opposed to what I saw as the right thing I’d have told you about the baby and given up the pretence.’

‘And maybe I’d have forgiven you, confessed my sins with Nicky, we’d have gone on, me loving you, you doing the right thing. Who knows where it would have ended?’

‘In a mess. So why did you run off with Nicky, if you loved me all along?’

‘To find out how much you really cared. I knew it wasn’t working; I thought. . inasmuch as I thought about anything … that it might shock you into action. I hoped that you would come down to Mexico and we’d have a big scene and that you’d take me back with you. When you didn’t, when you only phoned me, I was shocked. When I told you it was over and you didn’t argue or try to persuade me, that made it worse.’

‘So when you turned up in Edinburgh with Johnson. .’

‘I was still hoping to drag us from the wreckage.’

‘Christ, Prim, you got the clown hurt and humiliated in front of a lot of people. His career’s gone straight downhill since then, because nobody wants to upset Miles by hiring him. He’s gone from being reasonably successful in movies to auditioning for crap parts on television.’

‘God, is that true?’

‘Yeah, but don’t feel too sorry for him. Miles put detectives on him. He was giving one to someone else at the same time he was carrying on with you.’

‘That makes me look an even bigger fool.’

I squeezed her hand. Until then, I’d been making a point of not touching her, but I forgot. ‘That was then, and this is now. Until everything’s sorted we’re going to concentrate on two things, Tom and the money, in that order.’