Quintin Jardine - Screen Savers

‘Have a nice day, now,’ I called out to his departing back as I closed the door.

‘What is it?’ Prim asked as I stepped back into the kitchen.

‘Parcel.’ I said, looking at it for the first time. Some people open padded envelopes carefully, so they can re-use them. I’m rich, so I didn’t bother; I just ripped the thing open. I knew before I looked at the handwritten note on top that it was a revised script for Miles and Dawn’s movie.

Quickly I scanned the letter. ‘Oh shit,’ I whispered.

‘What’s up?’

‘Listen to this,’ I told her, holding up the paper. ‘It’s from your brother-in-law. “Dear Oz. I showed your screen test to our writer when he arrived in Scotland. He thought you were very good. So good, in fact, that he’s suggested writing in a couple of new scenes for you, to replace some of the narration. This will mean that we need you on set the Monday after next, instead of on the dates I agreed with Sly Burr. When you get this, gimme a call on my mobile to discuss.” ’ The number was scrawled as a ‘PS’.

Prim’s face creased in a sunny smile. ‘That’s great. How are you placed for next Monday?’

‘I hope I’m all right. The GWA shows are in Glasgow next week, so that shouldn’t be a problem. With any luck we’ll have Susie’s stalker sorted out by then.’

‘Right let’s get to it.’ She picked up her phone again and went back to calling Joseph Donn. He took her journalist bait, hook, line, and sinker. The meeting was set for Thursday.

Most people beam the first time they see Primavera. The former finance director of the Gantry Group did too, as he saw her standing on the doorstep of his impressive villa. It was a big, brick-built house in Crawford Street in Motherwell, a town which, until then, I had known only as half of a football result. . followed, fairly often, by the word ‘nil’.

There was an impressive cherry metallic Jaguar parked in the drive to the left. Clearly, the bloke had done well from his years as Jack Gantry’s financial yes-man.

‘You’ll be Miss Phillips,’ Joe Donn exclaimed, before the beam turned to a puzzled frown as I stepped in from the side. ‘And you’ll be. .?’ he asked.

‘I’ll be the bad news. My name’s Oz; I’m Prim’s partner. We’re private detectives working for Susie Gantry.’ I didn’t give my surname; it might have led to complications we didn’t need.

The man’s expression was transformed for a third time, into one of instant and total consternation. ‘Dammit!’ It was almost a moan. ‘What does that girl want from me now? Hasn’t she done enough?’

‘You’ve got it wrong, Mr Donn,’ Prim answered. ‘This is about what someone’s doing to Susie. We need to talk to you about it. I’m sorry about my deception when I called you on Monday, but I really didn’t want to get into this over the telephone.’

Donn was a tall man; he was well-dressed, in dark flannel slacks and a green Lacoste shirt, grey hair well cut, and so clean-shaven that his face seemed to shine. As we watched him, he sighed, and shook his head, almost sadly. ‘I suppose you’d better come in. If Susie’s in trouble. .’ He stood aside, ushering us into a big square hall, then through to a study at the back of the house, which opened into a conservatory.

‘Is Mrs Donn in?’ I asked.

He laughed, bitterly. ‘Mrs Donn hasn’t been in for thirty-odd years, son. She left me for someone else; there were no hard feelings, but I gave up marriage as a bad job after that.’

He pointed to a group of heavy bamboo-framed chairs in the sun-room. ‘Sit down.’ Prim and I took seats close together, looking out into an immaculate garden.

‘So what’s wee Susie been up to?’ he asked at last. ‘Who’s doing what to her?’ He chuckled. ‘Trouble follows that lassie, you know. Maybe if her faither had skelped her backside when she needed it, rather than just patting her on the head, she wouldn’t have grown up so wilful. Maybe if her mother had lived, she’d have been a bit readier to see the other side.

‘I wasn’t all that bad at my job, you know, but there was no pleasing Susie, when Jack put her in charge of the Group, then afterwards, when she took over completely.’ I had to bite my tongue at that, for I knew from Jan’s investigative work just how bad he had been. Yet, Lord Provost Gantry was no fool; the strength of his support for his old pal Joe puzzled me at first. Later I realised that the last thing he had wanted was a competent accountant. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if someone was making trouble for her,’ Donn went on. ‘She must have upset a lot of folk in business by now.’

‘You couldn’t be wider of the mark,’ said Prim, evenly. ‘The Gantry Group has better relations with its customers and suppliers than it ever had.’

‘Aye, but not, I’ll bet, with its bankers, dear.’

‘The bank relationship is good too, but the Group is treated like any other business.’

‘Which wasn’t the case in my day. We had a special relationship then.’

No, you daft old goat, I thought. Jack had the special relationship. Like he had with everyone.

‘Be that as it may, as far as we can see, Susie doesn’t have an enemy in business. Yet someone’s been threatening her. . physically. She doesn’t want to make a big fuss over this, since the chances are whoever’s been doing it is just plain sick, so she’s asked us, as friends, to help her find out who it is.’

‘So why did you want to talk to me, Miss Phillips?’

‘We’ve been given a list of people who’ve left Gantry since Susie took over.’

‘People who’ve been fired, you mean,’ said Donn, dryly.

‘Or who’ve left by mutual agreement, let’s say,’ Prim countered. ‘Like you, for example. Over the last three days we’ve spoken to them all, and eliminated them all as suspects.’

‘It’s stretching a point to say that I left,’ the man growled. ‘I was fired to all intents and purposes. . not once, but twice, as I’m sure you’ll know.’

‘What do you do for a living now, Mr Donn?’ I asked.

‘I play golf, son,’ he muttered.

‘So you didn’t walk away penniless from the Gantry Group?’

‘No. To be fair to her, the first time Susie lived up to the terms of my contract and more. When Jack reinstated me, it all happened so fast that there wasn’t time to sign a contract. And I have to admit that when I left the second time, the Wee One was generous. I suspected at the time that it was hush money; even now I’ve no reason to think otherwise.’

‘So, having taken it, why did you contemplate going to the papers?’

Joe Donn looked at me silently for a while. ‘Susie humiliated me, lad. I was angry. I had hoped that there was a closeness between her and me, just as there was between me and Jack. I was fond of her, and when she cut me out, not once but twice, I took it bad.’

‘So you got in touch with your journalist pal,’ said Prim.

‘He wasn’t my pal, Miss Phillips. I don’t know people like that. No, he was my nephew’s mate.’

‘Stephen’s?’

He nodded. ‘That’s right. Truth be told, it was Stephen’s idea to go to the press. I think he got fed up with me going on about Susie. . I remember him saying once that I cared more about her than about him, my flesh and blood. Anyway, he suggested one day that there must be some dirt to dig. I said there might be, if we could get hold of a few specific letters.

‘Next thing I knew, he’d persuaded poor wee Myrtle Higgins to copy the bloody things. She got caught of course, and she was out too. I put a stop to it there and then. I had a hell of a row with Stephen. We haven’t spoken since, as a matter of fact.’