Quintin Jardine - On Honeymoon With Death

She chewed her lip for a second or two. ‘Silly Susie, right enough.’ Her chin trembled and I could see how fragile she was. I gathered her up in my arms, lifted her clear off her feet, and kissed her on the forehead.

‘Silly Susie nothing!’ I said firmly, setting her down gently. ‘It’s me that should be sorry. I was miles away there. Welcome to L’Escala. Sit down there and I’ll make you a coffee.’ She raised an eyebrow; I remembered that sign of old. ‘Or I could get you a drink …’

‘A beer would be nice, thanks.’

I decided that I needed one myself, so I uncapped two Sols from the fridge and carried them outside.

‘Thanks again,’ said my visitor. ‘I’m fair parched.’

‘How did you get here?’

‘I flew to Barcelona yesterday, stayed overnight in a hotel and got the fast train to Girona this morning. Took a taxi from there. The driver had a hell of a job finding this address; eventually he dumped me at the big roundabout coming into town. I went into the fruit shop there and asked for directions.

‘Lucky for me there was an English woman there. . elderly, long dyed hair, dressed sort of gypsy style. She heard me mention your name and said she knew you. She gave me a lift. A right character, she was.’

‘You’re not wrong there,’ I laughed. ‘I’ll take you to her bar some time.

‘You got a suitcase?’

She jerked a thumb over her shoulder; I saw it sitting at the top of the driveway, a great big black thing on wheels, with a handle.

‘So where’s Prim?’ Susie asked. ‘Down the shops? Having a lie-in?’

I glanced at my watch. ‘Probably still asleep,’ I told her. ‘She’s in Los Angeles.’

She gave a small scream. ‘Oh my God,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve really done it, stupid wee bitch that I am.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I told her quickly, in case she got emotional on me again. I explained the situation with Elanore, painting the rosiest medical picture that I could.

‘Oh dear,’ she sighed when I was finished. ‘I’d better go, hadn’t I? I’ll check into a hotel and fly home as soon as I can.’

If it had been anyone else, I’d probably have left it at that, but not with Susie. She and I had been to the same place emotionally; she had lost a partner, and her scars were a lot fresher than mine. She didn’t have all that many friends, and I didn’t fancy the thought of letting her go back to Glasgow on a downer, embarrassed and with her tail between her legs.

‘No you bloody won’t,’ I told her. ‘We invited you, and you’re staying. For as long as you like. . How long is that, by the way?’

‘My return flight’s booked for a week on Sunday.’

‘Fine. Chances are, Prim will be back well before then.’

‘If I stay here she’ll be on the first plane,’ Susie murmured.

‘No she won’t.’

She gave me a faint smile. ‘But what will the neighbours say?’

I laughed. ‘This is L’Escala, kid, and you’ve been in town for an hour. They’re saying it already. Come on, I’ll show you your bunk.’

I picked up her suitcase and carried it into the house, then upstairs to the main guest bedroom at the front. Before the family had left, Mary and Ellie had insisted on changing all the beds. I was glad now that I had let them. For all it was unexpected and unorthodox, I was glad of Susie’s arrival too. There would be no brooding with her around. Mind you, I still had to break the news to Prim.

‘I like the new pad,’ she said, after I had given her the grand tour round the place. ‘I wish I could find one like it in Glasgow.’

‘So build yourself one.’ Susie had taken over the running of her father’s construction group; after a sticky start she was making a damn good job of it too.

She wrinkled her freckled nose. ‘I could think of twenty good reasons why I don’t; every one of them a degree Fahrenheit.’

I left her to unpack, then, when she was ready, took her to lunch at a place in the country, a nice traditional farm-house restaurant called Mas Pou, where they don’t get upset at all if you skip the main course and have a couple of starters instead. The house red there is very local, very new and fairly strong. Susie took a liking to it at once.

‘Are you two ever coming back to Glasgow?’ She dropped the question without warning, as soon as she had finished her omelette cake.

‘Sure we are, Susie,’ I told her. ‘I don’t know how much time we’re going to spend there in future, but we’re not going non-resident or anything drastic like that.’

‘So you’re not going into tax exile then?’ She smiled as she said it. The red had relaxed her; the surface tension that she had displayed earlier seemed to have gone altogether.

‘No way. I’d rather pay tax than become a nomad. We’ll still be around. We might sell the flat, though.’

She looked at me in surprise. ‘You serious?’

‘I think so.’

‘Give me first refusal, then.’

‘If you want, but why?’

‘Ach, I’ve got to get out of my place, Oz. It’s just full of Mike.’

You find your own truth in bereavement. I don’t know a hell of a lot about life, but I do know about death, and that there are things for which we can’t plan, and through which we have to find our own way.

‘Funny,’ I told her. ‘That’s exactly why I chose to stay on in my apartment. . because it seemed full of Jan.’

‘And is it still?’

‘No. It came to me eventually that it never really was. I’m full of Jan; that’s the truth of it.’

‘And how does Prim feel about that?’

‘They get along.’

She looked at the empty carafe; I caught the waiter’s eye and ordered another, only a half this time. ‘That’s nice for you,’ she said. ‘But Mike wasn’t like Jan. I want to scrub him off me, to put every trace of him behind me.’

‘Moving house might not be the answer,’ I warned her.

‘It’ll do for starters. Let me know about the flat when you’ve made your mind up.’

I took her for a drive when we left the restaurant, taking advantage of what was left of the short winter day. We looked at Pals, and then at Estartit, which was slightly less winter-dead than usual. Finally we called in at Torroella del Montgri, where Susie bought herself a nice leather jacket. . red, of course, to match the sweater. . in a specialist shop I showed her.

It was dark when we got back to the former Villa Bernabeu; late enough in the day for me to phone Prim. I called her on her mobile, rather than on Miles and Dawn’s home number, figuring, correctly as it turned out, that she might be at the hospital. She was at her mother’s bedside, so I got to speak to Elanore.

‘How are you feeling, Mother Phillips?’ I asked her. I’d never called her that before, but it had a Victorian echo, which seemed to fit her.

‘I’ve never been shot,’ she answered, ‘but I imagine that afterwards it feels a bit like this.’ She sounded tired, but there was still a booming tone in her voice that made me feel good. ‘They’re going to give me some chemicals tomorrow. Once that’s under way, there might be a chance that these fussy daughters of mine will clear off and get on with their lives.’

Prim came back on line. ‘Family gone?’ she asked.

‘Yup.’

‘So you’re on your own.’

‘Nope.’ I told her about Susie arriving and merging with my half-dream. She was fine about it; I hadn’t expected her to be otherwise, but still. .

‘I could move her into Crisaran, if you like,’ I suggested.

‘Don’t be daft,’ she retorted. ‘You’re not going to stick her out there all on her own. How long’s she staying?’

‘About ten days.’

‘Right; all being well here, I’ll fly home on Sunday. Dad’s staying on for the duration, so he can keep an eye on Dawn, and let Miles concentrate on work. How’s the script going, by the way?’