Quintin Jardine - On Honeymoon With Death

‘That’s okay by me. I don’t want her here right now. Not till I get this sorted out.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘Yes, no. What the fuck.’

‘Och, Oz honey, I’m sorry. I wish I’d stayed in Glasgow.’

‘Do you really?’

‘No. But now I’ve traded one care for another, and I don’t know what’s worse. Last week, I was worried about myself and tripping over my lack of self-esteem. You cured that, and no mistake, but there’s been a trade. Now I’m worried about you. Take care of yourself, pretty boy. You’ve got too much going for you to chuck it all away. G’night now.’

‘You too.’

Sometimes it’s a hard life just being yourself, you know. After Susie’s call, I sat there on the beach wall, still looking out to sea. Offshore, the lights from the small anchovy boats shone like fireflies as they bobbed on the surface of the untroubled Mediterranean.

Lucky bloody Mediterranean. My troubles were pressing down on me like the world on the shoulders of Atlas and, without knowing it, my weekend lover had just added another. I didn’t know if I wanted Susie worrying about me, because that meant caring too and no way did I want that; I might feel obliged to care back, or to be really honest, and admit that I did already.

The ludicrous thing about the whole situation was that she was dead right about one thing she had said. Not many guys on the planet had more going for them than me right at that moment. Millionaire, movie actor, plenty of places still to go and the ruthlessness to make sure that I got to each and every one of them.

So why the hell was I getting myself involved in a dangerous situation into which I had stumbled by accident, and away from which I could walk without fear of retribution?

‘So why am I, Jan?’ I asked, out loud, my breath cloudy in the sharpness of the evening.

‘Good question, Oz,’ she answered. ‘And you don’t have an answer to it, my daft darlin’ do you?’

‘Not a good one, other than. . It’s a bit like sleeping with Susie; if I hadn’t, I know I’d have spent my life wondering, and probably regretting it.’

‘But what if it has consequences that could follow you, looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. . just like sleeping with Susie?’

‘What consequences could that have?’

‘Time will tell. But what if. .?’

‘They can join the queue of Oz’s secrets. The man in Geneva, Davidoff’s tomb, Mike Dylan’s death, the real Noosh Turkel story; it’s getting crowded back there. I’d ask you to say hello to them, love, but I know they’ll all be somewhere else.’

‘Thank you for that, darlin’.’

‘Do you think I’m going to wind up where you are, then?’

‘Count on it. You’ll always be where I am. I’ll always be where you are.’

‘But how can that be if I’m the heartless bastard that Susie showed me I am?’

‘You’re not. You’re angry and hurt about what happened to me. You tried to hide from it by making Prim a substitute for me, just like she tried to make you a substitute for Ramon, and for another man in Perthshire, before she ever met you, before she went to Africa. Someone she never told you about. . the reason she went to Africa, in fact.

‘But you can only cure that sort of hurt one way: it’s beyond all other forms of repair. I know, because I feel it too.’

‘So what am I?’

‘You’re what you’ve been made into. When you were a boy you were artless and innocent, like Jonny. Then you became a self-indulgent young man, fulfilling your own desires, first and foremost. Then you found yourself again, and me.’

‘How could you love someone like that?’

‘Because I was someone like that. That’s what Susie doesn’t know. Artless like you as a child, then just as self-indulgent as a young adult. Until I rediscovered you, and myself. Then it was all cut short.’

‘So what do I do?’ I asked her, aloud again.

‘You know what to do. Just don’t hurt anyone. . unless they deserve it.’

‘And what if it’s dangerous?’

‘Then you might be with me sooner rather than later.’ I’ll swear I could hear her laugh, but it was bitter, unlike any I’d ever heard from her in life. ‘What do you want me to say? “Live long and prosper, darlin’”?

‘Just look out for Jonathan, that’s all. Colin’s like his mum, but look out for Jonny …’

And then the spell was broken and she was gone, into the night. I blinked and sat bolt upright on the wall, wakened from my dream. Yes, dream for sure, except. .

I had to do it, there and then. I called the Husa Princesa in Barcelona. When they dialled her room, Prim answered on the fourth ring.

‘Oz, what is it?’ she murmured, huskily, as if she had been asleep. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I have no idea, love. I just want you to promise me something, that’s all. Next time I see you, I want you to tell me about the man in Perthshire, before you went to work in Africa.’

There was a long silence, so long that I began to wonder whether she had hung up on me.

‘You bastard,’ she hissed. ‘You’ve been interrogating my father. He and my mum are the only people you’ve ever met who know about him. Not even Dawn …’

‘No!’ I told her, trying to cut short her anger. ‘I promise you I haven’t spoken to Dave, or Elanore either. I can’t tell you how I knew, not over the phone at least. I just did, that’s all. But it’s okay, Prim; no more blame, no more recrimination, I promise. Come home tomorrow, okay?’

‘What?’ Her voice could have engraved the word in granite. ‘You’ve forgiven me for marrying you under false pretences, have you?’

‘Put it this way. If you did, so did I. Let’s just see what we can make of it, eh?’

‘I’ll see,’ she whispered.

‘Shit, check out of there right now and come home tonight.’

‘No, we agreed earlier I’d stay here. I’ll call you tomorrow, sometime or other. But now, just let me go back to sleep.’

She hung up and I stood up, my backside chilled by my stone wall seat. I remembered why I was still in L’Escala and headed for Bar JoJo.

It was open, of course; during my interlude everything else had shut down, but its light still burned like a campfire torch at the furthest oasis in the Sahara.

The Queen of the Night was at her station as always. Lionell was seated in a corner watching Sky News on the small television set. The only other customer, apart from a large black former tomcat, was perched on a stool at the bar, his broad shoulders hunched. I had recognised him even before he turned to eye me up and down and I saw the thick, grey-flecked beard.

‘ Noches ,’ Miguel grunted. I asked for a beer and, as JoJo was pouring it, sat on one of the available stools, near the heater.

‘And a good evening to you,’ I replied, in Castellano.

‘What brings you here on this fine night?’ Jo asked, as she topped off the head of my drink to a perfect depth. ‘And on your own too. I don’t ever remember seeing you without a lady.’

I gave her my best, gauche, John Hannah grin. ‘I’m fresh out,’ I said. ‘My wife’s in Barcelona.

‘Actually, I’m trying to find someone,’ I told her. ‘Remember when I was in last Thursday night, with Susie? There was a guy here, and when he was at the bar he dropped all the cards and money out of his wallet. She helped him pick them up, but after he had gone, she found a ten thousand peseta note sticking to her shoe. We reckoned that it must have been his.