Quintin Jardine - Poisoned Cherries

‘But he’s only twenty-nine.’

‘It happens.’

‘How long has he been. .’

‘Love, I only know a bit of first aid. It’ll take a pathologist to tell you that.’ I did notice, though, that we hadn’t smelled anything unusual when we’d stepped into the hall. Right at that moment, all I could smell was pee. So could Alison; she tottered off towards what I guessed was the bathroom.

I stood there looking down at Capperauld, looking for anything that might tell me what had happened to him, but seeing nothing. When Alison reappeared around ten minutes later, she was barefoot, and wearing a man’s dressing gown, knotted tightly around her waist. She was red-eyed, and she had scrubbed off her make-up. Apart from the hair she looked just as she had in the old days.

‘What do we do?’ she asked me, her voice still shaky.

I wanted to tell her that she would call the police and I would get the fuck out of there. I didn’t need any more publicity, and certainly not like this. I couldn’t do it, though. I didn’t answer her. Instead I took out my mobile and called directory enquiries. They gave me the number of the Gayfield Square police office.

There was no background noise when they answered; a quiet night, I guessed. It was time to liven it up. ‘I want to report a sudden death,’ I told the officer on the other end of the line. ‘We’ll need a doctor and an ambulance, in due course.’ I gave him the address and the name of the occupant, and told him that the man’s fiancee and I had just found him.

‘Are you sure he’s dead?’ the young constable asked.

I threw him the line from The Friends of Eddie Coyle . ‘If he isn’t, he never will be.’ The boy didn’t laugh. Why should he have? It wasn’t funny.

I woke up, dazed and confused; the phone was ringing beside my head and I had just emerged from a weird dream involving a stiff in a New Town flat, a girl pissing herself with fright. .

Only, I realised, it hadn’t been a dream.

I picked up the phone, and mumbled into it. ‘You lazy so and so,’ I heard Susie exclaim. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

‘No,’ I answered, truthfully.

‘Half past nine. Did you go on the batter last night?’

‘Don’t ask about last night.’

She laughed like a bell. ‘That bad, was it?’

I pulled myself up in bed and told her the whole story.

‘Oh, the poor girl,’ Susie squealed, when I told her about finding David Capperauld. ‘It must have scared the life out of her.’

‘It scared something out of her, that’s for sure.’

‘Did you get the police?’

‘Of course, and a doctor, and a wagon for the morgue.’

‘Will you be in the papers again?’

‘My name won’t be mentioned; the guy who came round was a detective sergeant called Ron Morrow. I met him once; he’s a good lad, said he’d leave me out of his report.’

‘What did the doctor say?’

‘Much the same as me; she said she couldn’t be sure, but that it looked like a cerebral incident, rare but not unknown in a guy of that age. They’ll know for certain once they’ve done an autopsy.’

‘When’s that going to happen?’

‘I don’t know. Today, I guess.’

‘Where’s the girl now? Did you take her back to your place?’

‘Did I hell as like! She phoned her mother and told her what had happened; the police took her there.’

‘Mmm,’ Susie murmured. ‘I thought you’d have been there with a consoling shoulder.’

‘She’s better at her mother’s. Besides. .’

‘Besides what?’

‘Nothing. How’s the baby?’

‘She kept me awake half the night, but other than that she’s perfect. Ethel’s here now.’

‘Ethel?’

‘Ethel Reid, the new nanny; she arrived at nine sharp, and she’s taken over already.’

‘Ah, but can she breastfeed?’

‘I shouldn’t think so; she’s about fifty. But we’re going to get Janet on to the bottle quite soon.’

‘Have you thought that through?’

‘Absolutely. I’m going back to work, remember. I’m a builder, Oz; that’s what I do, it’s the world I live in, and I am not, repeat not, whipping out a tit halfway through a meeting with my site managers.’

‘No,’ I conceded. ‘I can see that might distract them. You might have houses being built in inches rather than centimetres.’

‘Was than an oblique reference to the size of my bosom?’

‘Not so oblique; they’re pretty spectacular just now, you have to admit.’

‘Enjoy while you can.’

I paused. ‘If that’s an invitation, I thought I might come through tonight.’

‘Why?’

‘I have to see Greg McPhillips, about the divorce arrangements, so I thought I’d fit it in this afternoon.’ I paused. ‘Also. . am I allowed to say I’m missing you?’

‘You are. . since I feel a bit that way myself.’

‘See you later then.’

‘Okay. You can take me out to dinner; I’ve got a sudden urge to get dolled up in normal-sized clothes. I haven’t been able to do that for months.’

I hung up, swung myself out of bed and lurched into the shower. Half an hour later, after finishing off the Lorne sausage and the last couple of rolls, I began to feel human again.

I was looking out over the city, getting ready to go to the Edinburgh Club, when the phone rang once more. It was Alison; she sounded sad, but together. ‘I want to thank you for last night,’ she said. ‘If I had gone in there on my own. .’

‘It’s okay. You don’t have to thank me.’

‘You surprised me, you know,’ she murmured. ‘The way you handled it. There’s more to you than I ever realised.’

I didn’t tell her, but I’ve seen things that were a hell of a lot more grisly than her late fiance. For some reason, I found myself thinking of a man called Ramon Fortunato.

‘I suppose losing your wife must have had an effect on you. I understand that now, being in the same boat myself.’

I felt my forehead bunch into a savage frown. Brain first, mouth second, Blackstone , I tried to tell myself, but I was too late. ‘What?’ I said; actually it was more of a snarl. ‘Was David pregnant too?

‘You’re not even on the same fucking ocean as me, never mind in the same boat. You were ready to screw me last night, remember. If I’d said the word we’d have been at my place, not his.’

‘Don’t, Oz,’ she pleaded, and the wail in her voice got to me at once. ‘I’ve been torturing myself about that all night.’

‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry. That was brutal of me, but I still can’t talk about that. I never will.’

‘I understand. That’s all; I understand.’

‘Yeah. Truce.’

‘Good.’ She paused. ‘About that thing we discussed last night?’

She was back to business already; she took my breath away. ‘Torrent?’

‘Yes. Will you still do what you said?’

‘Of course I will. Ewan might feel a bit guilty now. He’ll probably be a soft touch.’

‘Maybe we should forget him and just go with Miles Grayson. You’re right; Mr Torrent would love that.’

‘No,’ I told her. ‘Miles is fall-back. You stick with Ewan Capperauld, if you can get him.’

‘All right. When’ll you do it?’

‘This week, I hope. I expect to meet him on Thursday. I’ll call you at your office when I’ve got something to tell you. I take it you’ll be going to work regardless?’

‘I have to; there’s no choice.’

‘Suppose not. I’ll call.’

‘Thanks. Goodbye.’

She hung up and left me shaking my head. I hadn’t understood Alison before, and I sure as hell didn’t now.

Her call had left me keener than ever to get into a gym, so I caught a taxi on the Mound and went straight to the Club. I signed up for a short-term membership and let the instructor show me round the equipment, although there was nothing there I hadn’t used many times before.