Quintin Jardine - On Honeymoon With Death

‘What’s this John’s been telling me?’ Shirley asked breathlessly, holding the gate open for me. ‘Rey’s not dead after all?’

I didn’t step inside; instead, I leaned against one of the gateposts. ‘I don’t know about that,’ I cautioned her. ‘Those weren’t his bits in the pool; that’s all I can tell you.’

‘But the police have no reason to believe he’s dead?’ She sounded too eager for my liking. Shirl is pretty controlled as a rule, good at masking her feelings. I guessed that she had been more keen on Capulet than she’d admitted earlier.

‘No, they haven’t,’ I admitted. ‘But no one’s seen him for a year, remember. All of his property has been sold; not just Villa Bernabeu, but the other places as well. As far as L’Escala’s concerned he might as well be dead; he’s not coming back, Shirley.’

I felt rotten as the gleam of hope vanished from her eye, all the more so, since I had put it there in the first place. ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘I suppose not.’ Then, as if with a great effort she perked up. ‘Still,’ she went on, ‘it’s good to know that he didn’t end up at the deep end of his own pool. Do the police know whose body it is, then?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Remember the guy we were talking about in Jo’s that night?’

‘What? Sayeed the fisherman? The smuggler who went to prison?’

‘That’s the one; Sayeed Hassani. Only he didn’t get the nick; he got the bullet instead. It was him.’

‘So who put him there?’

‘The police are still working on that. They do want to talk to your pal Capulet, though, if they can ever find him. It begins to explain his disappearance, though. Maybe he had a fall-out with Sayeed, killed him over it and had to disappear as a result. Or maybe he had planned to disappear anyway and Sayeed was a loose end he had to tie off before he left.’

‘Maybe it wasn’t Rey at all,’ Shirley protested. ‘I seem to remember that Sayeed had a brother; a right bad lot he was too. Maybe they fell out. Maybe he did it.’

I knew that he’d have found it difficult from his prison cell, but I decided to leave her that one straw to clutch. ‘Maybe he did. I’m sure the police are talking to him about that even now. But I do know that they’re a lot more interested in finding Reynard Capulet than they were a couple of days ago.’

‘Well bugger him if they do,’ she said, tersely, yanking herself finally back into the real world. ‘I thought he fancied me, I really did. Stupid old woman that I am.’

‘That you are not,’ I shot back at her. ‘Why would he invite you to go to Florida with him if he didn’t mean it? Of course the bloke fancied you. Who wouldn’t?’

‘You don’t.’

‘Who says?’

‘Get away with you,’ she laughed. ‘I’m old enough to be your mother.’

‘In that case I’d better keep you and my dad well apart.’

‘Don’t you dare! I have to meet the bloke who spawned you.’

I took my cue. ‘Come for a drink tonight then. Make it around six thirty: we’ve got a table booked in Meson del Conde at half eight. Come with us if you like.’

‘Can’t do that,’ she said. ‘John and his girlfriend are taking me to Graham’s, in L’Escala, for a meal, but I’ll see you for that drink.’

‘Fine. Bring John and. . What’s her name?’

‘Virginie. No gags, please.’

‘I promise. See you then.’

Virginie turned out to be a tall, elegant Italian girl. . but aren’t they all?. . who spoke good English, although not very often. I couldn’t make up my mind whether she was shy in such a hearty group of Jocks abroad, or just naturally aloof.

Jonathan thought she was something else: he couldn’t take his eyes off her. As I looked at him, it struck me that I had known someone very similar. About twenty years back, I used to look at him in the mirror every day. I made a mental note to stay as close as I could to my older nephew for the next few years. I’ve been incredibly lucky in my life otherwise I could have turned into a real waster. No way will I let that happen to him.

John Gash, on the other hand, couldn’t take his eyes off my car. The Lada was sitting in the driveway, still fresh from a total valet job a couple of days before, when the Villa Balearic Three arrived.

‘You have to sell it to me, Oz,’ he pleaded as soon as he saw it. Then he took a look at the mileage on the clock. ‘The parts must look practically new,’ he mewled as we stepped into the house through the open French window from the terrace. ‘Worth a dollar fortune in St Petersburg. Tell you what; you give me that and I’ll buy you a brand new Ford Fiesta.’

I laughed at him until I realised that he was serious. ‘No,’ I told him.

‘Okay, then. How about a new Fiat Punto?’

I laid a hand on his shoulder and looked him earnestly in the eye. ‘John, forget it. I don’t want a new Fiat Punto; I want a used Lada Niva. . and I’ve got one.’

‘Please.’ He looked to Shirley. ‘Mum, help; tell him to sell it to me.’

‘Sod off,’ she advised him, maternally. ‘You’ll be wanting to buy his wife next.’

‘There’s more chance of him selling me than that bloody car,’ Prim muttered, as she handed Shirley a glass of Segura Viudas cava.

‘Maybe,’ I conceded, ‘but not to be broken up for spares.’

The car stayed put in the driveway for quite a while. In some parts of Spain they may take a more relaxed view of drinking and driving than we do in Britain, but Prim and I don’t.

Once Shirley, John and Virginie had gone, my dad volunteered to drive us all to Meson del Conde for dinner in his rented people-mover. On another night we might have taken torches and walked there and back, but Ellie didn’t trust Colin not to get lost in the dark. Neither did I, for that matter; he hadn’t calmed down quite that much since the dungeon business.

The wee chap was hyper, like most kids his age on Christmas Eve, all through the meal and all the way back home. Then, just as I thought we’d never get him to bed, he suddenly came over all drowsy. Five minutes later, from sitting in front of the fire peering up the chimney for Santa Claus, he was out like a light and being carted off to bed by his mother.

‘That was quick,’ I said to my dad, as Ellie climbed the stairs with her younger son in her arms.

He tapped the side of his nose with two fingers, gangster style. ‘Let you into a dark secret, son,’ he muttered. ‘See that last Coke I let him have when we got home? I slipped a bit of dark rum into it. . Not enough to make him ill, you understand, but enough to do the job. The Coke masks the taste; that’s why it’s so popular with young boozers. Aye, Santa could come in a fucking helicopter now and it wouldn’t waken the wee fella.’

‘Jesus, Dad,’ I hissed back at him, careful not to be overheard by Mary and Prim, who were making last-minute adjustments to the Christmas tree lights, ‘that was a bit extreme, wasn’t it?’

Mac the Dentist gave me a beatific smile, the one he uses when he bends over you with the high-speed drill in his hand. ‘Maybe so, but it worked with you often enough.’

I felt my mouth drop open, and snapped my teeth together hard. ‘You what. .? You mean you. .?’

‘Aye, often enough. And your sister before you.’

‘And did Mum know?’

His eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead as he looked at me. ‘You must be joking. Ellie’d better not know either, nor Mary, or it’ll be the parson’s nose for me when they carve the turkey tomorrow. You remember it though. You might find that it comes in handy at some time in the future.’

I filed away another entry in the book of wonders which my dad had written for me all through my life.