Quintin Jardine - Wearing Purple

‘Maybe he does. But he’s my brother and his father’s son. I got to assume that he’s out to get me, just like his daddy got mine. So to hell with Sandy. I’m still looking for a mole.’

‘In that case, it could be a blessing, Sonny being in the clear, you know,’ I said.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Sort of cuts down the list of suspects. If you’re right about your brother being behind this — and I agree, when you look at the whole picture it can’t be anyone else — you have to look at the sort of person he’d buy to help him.

‘Let’s say he went for an American, with an offer of money and a job with him afterwards. Jerry’s obviously in the clear, and I’ll say Diane is, even if you won’t.’

He shook his head. ‘No. I’ll say that now.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. So, with Sonny Leonard out of the frame as well, that cuts the field down. It leaves Max, Barbara, your two women specialists, and two guys who are basically jobbers.’

Everett scratched his chin. ‘Forget Max. He was back in the States on injury vacation when the Newcastle thing happened. Forget Barbara. She wasn’t with us the night Dave Manson got whacked, and she’d have had to be, to switch that chair. The same’s true of the two women. They’re a tag team and I don’t use them that much.

‘The other guys? Ronnie Snell and Dick Ostermeyer? I suppose they could be candidates, except. . no, Ronnie wasn’t there either when Dave got it. That leaves Ostermeyer.’

‘Which one’s he?’

‘He wrestles as Dragon Davies, from Tiger Bay, Cardiff.’

‘Oh yes,’ I recalled. ‘I’ve announced him; in Newcastle and in Barcelona. He’s an American?’

‘Yup. He’s a damn fine wrestler, the best jobber we have. You see him go down, you think he’ll never come up in this life. He has a speech impediment, though, so he can’t go on the mike to develop his persona like the rest of us do. I recruited him from Japan, where that wasn’t a problem.’

He frowned. ‘I can’t see Dick being bad, but I suppose we have to look at the possibility. He ain’t on the programme this weekend, though, as you’ll see.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Mid thirties.’

‘What did he do before he became a wrestler?’

‘He was in the US Marines. Why do you ask?’

‘Because whoever rigged that miniature pistol in the turn-buckle pad must have had pretty good knowledge of handling firearms.’

‘Shit yes, that’s true.’

I looked at him as we passed under a sign for central Manchester. ‘Can you remember anything about Darius Hencke’s background?’ I asked, quietly.

‘He’s an ex-soldier too; he was in the German special forces for a couple of years. Did a tour on a UN peacekeeping force in Africa. Why d’you ask about him?’

‘Because it doesn’t have to be an American. Apart from you and Jerry — and Liam, because he got squashed — who’d be the biggest prize for Tony Reilly?’

The Nynex Arena isn’t as impressive as the stadium in Barcelona, but it’s big nonetheless. And we filled it, on two consecutive nights — two more trouble-free nights as it turned out.

I met Al ‘Cyclops’ Hendrix at the Saturday run-through. On that first encounter he was almost as scary as Jerry, but without any of The Behemoth’s redeeming out-of-character features. There was something about his attitude I didn’t like; it was as if he knew that Everett needed him and was prepared to screw every personal advantage out of that situation.

After seeing him in action I had to admit that he was able to back up his expectations with performance. He wasn’t as muscular as Everett, or as bulky as Jerry, but he had real wrestling skills, and his timing was superb. He made his first appearance from behind the curtain, ambushing the unfortunate Max ‘Axel Rodd’ Schwartz, then, carrying a great rough club, marched over his fallen body and down to the ring to confront Daze.

The big man’s flame canisters, strapped to the ring-post, shot to their usual impressive height, but even before he entered the ring he was met by a pounding from Cyclops. As I had been told to expect, they fought it out evenly, until Liam jumped up on the ring apron. Daze, distracted, went for him as per the script and was hit from behind by his opponent, with that club, which he had handed to the bell-ringer on his way into the ring, and which was really made of plastic. I knew, because I had checked.

As I watched the story-line unfold, it struck me that Daze might be more than a little gullible, but that’s the way it is with pro wrestling. Only the bad guys get to be cunning.

Darius Hencke’s match went smoothly too. Everett had been sceptical about my worries. He had reckoned that Tony Reilly would barely have heard of the German, who was still an up-and-comer in most people’s eyes.

‘Never underestimate your enemy, mate,’ I had warned him as we drove into the entranceway to the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza. I spoke from bitter experience; I still felt as if life itself was my enemy.

Everett gave me a lift back to Glasgow in the Range Rover once we were finished on the Sunday, leaving the rest of the troops to strike camp. My mind was somewhere else again, worrying away at thoughts of what I was going to do once I got home, so our conversation was fairly sporadic and trivial at the start of the journey.

We were well north of Gretna before we got back to the subject of the conspiracy which had taken over his life. ‘Oz,’ he asked, out of the blue, ‘If you were my brother Tony, would you give up now? Or would you have something else up your sleeve?’

We had reached Lockerbie before I had worked out an answer. ‘Everett,’ I said. ‘If I was Tony Reilly I wouldn’t have started in the first place. The whole thing’s got way out of control. He may be a corporate pirate and everything else you say he is, but what happened to Liam and to Jerry is at another level. We’re talking attempted murder here — and I have to tell you that I’m still shitting myself that you’re concealing that from the police.

‘Obviously I’ve never met Reilly, so I don’t know what his limits might be. But you know him; Christ, you’re his blood. You’ve got to ask yourself: would he go that far?’

For the first time a grain of doubt flickered behind the designer spectacles; but not for long. ‘His old man killed my old man; my Mamma was certain of that till the day she died, and she sure convinced me. His old man was a hood, and Tony still has some of his connections. He’d go that far.

‘Look at the pattern. The thing with the tapes didn’t cost us. The Manson incident didn’t put us off air, nor did the Matthews business. So the stakes were raised. If Jerry had died in that ring, the networks would have dropped me like a hot potato.’

‘Okay, if you’re convinced,’ I went on, ‘let’s say that he hasn’t chucked it, he’s just told his man to lay off for a bit. Ask yourself this. How did you manage to get away with it in each of the four incidents so far?’

‘Luck, I guess.’

‘Sure but as well as that, you were able to stay on air because the Saturday show is recorded shortly before transmission. . shot as live, but not actually shown live.

‘Next Wednesday will be different though, won’t it. The whole deal will go live as it happens. Yes?’

‘That’s right.’

‘In that case, if I was Tony Reilly it’s bloody obvious what I’d do next. I’d hit the pay-per-view event.’

The flat was silent when I opened the door and stepped inside, but to me it wasn’t empty. ‘Hello,’ I whispered. ‘I’m back.’

I dumped my duty-free Jack Daniels in the booze cupboard, chucked five days’ washing into my new Phillips machine, then checked through my post and my voicemail. When I had finished there were several cheques in my in-tray, and a number of new interview bookings in my diary. Apart from the business stuff, my phone messages included a call from Prim, from Auchterarder, letting me know that she had arrived safely at her folks’ place; one from Dylan, asking if I fancied a drink after work on Monday; and two from my dad, the second sounding more tetchy than the first: ‘Wondering where the bloody hell you are now, son!’ I had forgotten completely to tell him that I was going to the States.