Quintin Jardine - Wearing Purple

‘It’s not that easy,’ I protested. ‘I can’t just grab someone off the street. Whatever you say this is dodgy, so I could only take someone I trusted absolutely. There’s my ex-partner Jimmy, who does the odd interview for me, but he runs a pub these days. No way could he get away. There’s mad Ali, but he’s got an open all hours shop.

‘There’s my dad, but even if he didn’t tell me I was a bloody loony and wanted to come, his patients can’t be postponed just like that.’

‘Jesus Oz,’ Everett grumbled. ‘There has to be one person in the world you know and trust, and who’s got the balls for this job.’

Of course, when I really thought about it, there was.

‘Can this be for real, d’you think? You and I, sat here in some bloody bar in Chicago, off on yet another daft mission. Honestly, what the hell made you call me?’

‘I told you before, I needed someone I could trust absolutely to back me up on this job. When I ran down the list, there was only one person — you.’

‘But would you have called me if Jan was alive?’

‘If Jan was alive, she’d be sat right where you are. But she isn’t. The point is that I needed you and you came. Thanks.’

Prim had been a bit hard on our surroundings. ‘Some bloody bar,’ was in fact the cocktail lounge of a pretty decent restaurant on Michigan Avenue, not too far from our hotel, the Clarion Executive Plaza, on State Street — ‘that great street’, as The Man used to sing. We had jetted into O’Hare on separate flights that afternoon, she from Spain, I from Glasgow, and had met up in the arrivals area.

By US standards, St Louis isn’t all that far from Chicago, and so we faced only a short shuttle flight in the morning. It was evening and the light was going, but as I looked out of the window and up, I could still see the great needle that was the Sears Tower, now just one of many buildings that had once been the tallest in the world.

I turned at the sound of a classically discreet cough. ‘Your table is ready, sir,’ said our waiter. He escorted us into the restaurant, where he placed us beside another window which looked along the great boulevard.

‘You’re looking very well,’ I said to Prim as he went off to fetch the wine and mineral water which I had ordered. ‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you that in Barcelona.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ she replied. ‘I wish I could say the same for you. You still look on the high side of forty. Haven’t you been sleeping?’

‘Fitfully, you might say. To tell you the truth, I’ve been feeling homesick for the last couple of days. I had planned to go up to Anstruther tomorrow night, to see my dad and Mary. They’re still pretty numb, according to Ellie.’

‘What about Noosh?’ Prim asked quietly. ‘Have you heard from her?’

‘I tried to get in touch with her,’ I replied. ‘Her firm told me that she’s running their Russian office in St Petersburg. I asked them to pass a message to her, but I haven’t heard anything since. I don’t really want to, truth be told.

‘Look, Prim, let’s talk about something else. How about business in hand? You got off work no problem?’

‘Easy. I’ve got a couple of weeks owing. I’ve changed my flight back, in fact. When you go to Manchester on Friday, I fly to Glasgow. I’m off to see the folks for a week.’

‘I wondered why you had that bloody big suitcase.’ I grinned at her, and for the first time since Barcelona, I began to feel a sense of the guy I had once been. Okay, when it came to the crunch, it was Jan who had been for me all along, but I really liked Prim; she lifted my spirits.

‘What about this man Leonard?’ she asked, as the wine waiter opened our Turning Leaf, while another set two enormous prawn cocktails before us. ‘He is the guy, yes?’

‘Has to be.’ I explained the pattern of calls showing on the mobile phone statement, and told her about the way the barrier in Newcastle and the turn-buckle pad had been rigged. ‘We reckon that after Jerry was shot, Leonard was out of the arena before the ambulance.’

‘So what are you going to do with him tomorrow? And why do you need me there?’

‘I’ll decide how I’m going to play it when I see him. I want you there as a corroborating witness to whatever he tells us, but also I reckon you’ll put him more at his ease than if I went in alone, or with another guy.’

‘But if he’s made it back home, and he can’t be prosecuted, why should he tell you anything, other than to piss off?’

I smiled at her across the table. ‘Primavera, my dear, I realise that you haven’t seen the man at his best, but do not underestimate the persuasive power of Everett Davis — even from four thousand miles away.’

I don’t know why, but I’d expected St Louis to be bigger. As our 737 cruised alongside the convergence of the Missouri and Mississippi, the city — set on the western bank of the great united river — looked to be much smaller than Glasgow, or even Edinburgh.

Prim and I had retired to our respective rooms in the Carlton Executive Plaza — Why are American hotels obliged to have at least two and preferably three names? I had asked myself — almost immediately after dinner, but the time-shift had meant that neither of us slept much. We had been bleary-eyed when we met up in the lobby at seven thirty to take a cab to the airport.

We noticed as soon as we stepped out of the plane that without the cooling wind blowing down off Lake Michigan, St Louis was milder than Chicago. In fact for April, it was downright warm, and both of us felt over-dressed. From the look he gave us our taxi driver agreed with us.

‘Thirty-four seventy, Andrew Hamilton Drive,’ I told him as we climbed in, glancing at my watch as I did. It was just after midday; I hoped that Sonny Leonard’s mother’s patience would hold and that he still wouldn’t know that we were coming. We were lucky. Mrs Zabrynski’s home was in a suburb on the same side of the city as the airport, and so the taxi journey took us no longer than fifteen minutes.

Andrew Hamilton Drive was long and straight, one of many in the flat, grid-like community. As I paid the cabby and turned towards number thirty-four seventy, I saw that it was a single-storey house with a smart, white-painted wooden exterior, built on a raised deck which stood on stilts five feet tall, and with a railed terrace running all the way around.

‘Okay,’ I said to Prim. ‘Follow my lead.’ Together we trotted up the steps to the deck. I rang the bell.

The portly figure of Sonny Leonard opened the door. ‘Surprise!’ I said.

‘Oh shit!’ said he.

‘I don’t think you’re pleased to see us, Sonny,’ I went on, quickly, trying to keep the roadie on the back foot. ‘Now why would that be? We only want to talk to you. You might not remember my friend Prim, or maybe you do. She was in Barcelona; she jumped into the ring to give emergency aid to Jerry Gradi after he was shot.’

A look of terror flashed across his face.

‘Can we come in, Sonny?’ I asked. As I spoke, an old lady appeared behind him in the hallway. She looked like a really nice old dear, which didn’t make me feel too good about having deceived her.

‘Your surprise arrived, I see, son,’ she said.

‘Yes, Momma,’ Sonny replied. ‘It’s friends from Scotland. Listen, I’ll just talk to them out here on the deck for a bit. We’ll be in directly. You put some coffee on now.’ She waved and nodded. Leonard closed the door on her and pointed to four wooden seats off to the right.

‘Let’s sit down here.’

We followed him, and took seats on either side of him. ‘How is The Behemoth,’ he asked at once. ‘Did he make it?’