Quintin Jardine - Wearing Purple

It took us by surprise, when we sat down and talked about it. Sure, we loved each other dearly, sure we had enjoyed a few delicious, exhilarating, dangerous months together. On top of that, we really liked each other. But when I climbed back up from my nocturnal walk along the beach, when she and I sat on the starlit terrace, we both knew that the time had come to face the truth.

She didn’t want to grow old with me, nor I with her.

How we did it, I’ll never know for sure, although maybe sincerity and honesty helped. There was no blame, there were no recriminations; I won’t pretend that there weren’t any tears, but they were the friendly sort, rather than bitter. The finest achievement of our relationship, I remember telling myself as I drove across the border, may have been the fact that we were able to end it with smiles on our faces.

So I headed north in the Ozmobile, going back to the girl I should never have left, going back to fall at her feet, to make her mine, to become hers, to live happily ever after. . But then I always was a naive lad.

He loomed in the doorway. The verb really doesn’t do justice to the experience, but it’s the best I have in my vocabulary. Maybe if I add another couple of ‘o’s, you might get the picture.

Apart from a patch of carpet, all I could see as I opened the door was him. He filled the entire frame, a great dark shape in what had to be a tailor-made suit, with crinkly, close-cropped hair and designer glasses.

‘Mr Blackstone?’ he asked.

‘That’s me. But call me Oz. You’ll be Mr Davis.’

He extended an enormous hand, on the end of an arm like a medium-sized tree-trunk. ‘Yeah, I’m Everett Davis. I wasn’t sure I got the right apartment. The floors are confusing in this building.’ His voice rumbled up as if from the foot of a very deep well. It was as dark as he was, but soft too, like treacle.

‘Come in,’ I said, standing aside as I opened the door wider. I had been transcribing a statement for a client, but it was nothing that couldn’t wait. Anyway, he had called to ask if he could come to see me. ‘It’s the glass door to the left, at the end of the hall.’ He had to duck under the lintel, and step in sideways. Inside the flat he looked even bigger. I guessed that he was at least seven feet tall: and as for his weight. . I felt a cold shiver run down my back as I thought of our new furniture.

Fortunately we had gone for heavy, wooden-framed leather sofas rather than armchairs. Still, I watched nervously as my visitor lowered himself onto the two seater. . at least that’s what it is for most people. . but its joints were up to the challenge.

‘Can I get you a coffee?’ I asked, wondering if we had a mug big enough for him to hold comfortably.

‘No thanks, man. I don’t touch that stuff. Mineral water would be okay though.’

All we had in the fridge was an unopened 1.5 litre bottle of AquaPura. I rattled some ice into a tall glass, filled it to the top and took it through to him, together with what was left. ‘Just help yourself as you like.’ He smiled and nodded his thanks.

‘So, Mr Davis, what can I do for you?’

The black giant looked at me. ‘You really don’t know who I am, do you?’ I imagined that I detected an edge of hurt in his voice. I hoped that the water tasted fresh.

‘I’ve been abroad for a while,’ I offered, lamely. ‘My wife and I have only just settled down in Glasgow.’

‘Don’t apologise, man,’ he said, easily. ‘I kinda like it when someone treats me like an ordinary Joe. Most times, people make me feel like a freak.

‘I’m involved in the sports entertainment industry. I have a professional identity, a kinda alter ego. They call me Daze.’

I gulped in air and looked at him. A wrestler, for God’s sake, the guy was a bloody wrestler! And then I looked at him again.

It must have been the suit that had thrown me: that and the gold-framed glasses. The last time I had seen Mr Everett Davis he had been wearing a flaming red cat-suit and had been dropping an almost equally enormous white man on his head. It was on Boxing Day, in Anstruther, part of some live grapplefest that Jonathan and Colin, my nephews, had been watching on satellite television. My dad and I would have ignored it ourselves, you understand, but it was on, so we sat down with them.

There had been all shapes and sizes in action that day, fat men and musclemen, bruisers and athletes, heroes and villains, predictable winners and professional losers. My dad and I, being men of the world, knew of course that it was all rehearsed, but that didn’t keep us off the edge of our seats from time to time.

As I gazed at the giant on my sofa, I remembered the boys’ excitement as his entry music had begun to play, and as the huge figure had sauntered down the ramp towards the ring, a flamboyant red cape over his ring costume. He had been wearing a big gold championship belt around his waist, and he had been accompanied by his ‘manager’, a scrawny white guy wearing glasses and the loudest jacket I’d ever seen on anyone, other than a professional footballer. What a show he and his opponent, the Mastodon, or some such name, had put on; they had seemed to knock seven different colours of shit out of each other for almost half an hour. Finally the giant had decked the other fellow with a flying drop-kick from the top rope, had picked him off the floor bodily and had despatched him with the aforementioned dropping-on-head move before pinning his shoulders for the three-count.

And then my sister Ellie had come in. ‘What have I told you boys about watching that rubbish! And you two,’ she had yelled at us, ‘encouraging them. You should be ashamed of yourselves.’

Reproved, my dad and I had slunk off to the pub. I hadn’t thought of Daze again until the moment he made my sofa look inadequate.

‘So how can I help you, Mr Davis?’ I asked him lamely. ‘You weren’t really specific when you phoned. Other than saying that you had a problem.’

‘Call me Everett, please,’ he replied. ‘A guy I know said I should talk to you. His name’s Greg McPhillips: he’s my lawyer.’

I nodded. I’d known the boy Greg for quite a few years, and done a lot of work for his firm. Now I was back in business, a lot more was rolling in from that direction; but normally I went to see his clients, to take formal statements from them. It was unusual for him to send them to see me, and I wasn’t sure that I appreciated it.

‘What’s the problem? Matrimonial?’

He laughed, but in an odd way that I couldn’t fathom. ‘Hell no!’ Then the smile disappeared: he looked at me with a curious helplessness written on his huge face.

‘My problem, Oz, is that someone’s out to get me. And I’m scared.’

All I could think of, as I stared back at him, was what Jonathan and Colin would have thought if they had heard him. I could see their childish illusions shattered by those few simple words. For a few seconds I was sorry for him, until common sense took over; that and a feeling I knew from the past, the kind that comes over you when you know that you’re in danger of stepping in way over your head.

‘Everett,’ I said, very sincerely, ‘anyone who scares you is going to bloody well terrify me. What do you expect me to do?’

‘I’d like you to find out who it is.’

I smiled at the mountain on our sofa. . apologetically, I hoped. ‘Look,’ I tried to explain, ‘I don’t really do that sort of work. I’m a Private Enquiry Agent, not a Private Eye. I work mostly for lawyers, taking statements from people, and stuff like that. I’m a bore, really.’