Quintin Jardine - Blackstone's pursuits

‘Then we have to wait until the police are well clear of the place, then find an excuse to go back in there to try to find the fiver. Unless that’s what he was killed for.’ That’s it Oz boy, plant as many thoughts in his mind as you can, to steer him away from the thought that you might have it. ‘Even if it isn’t him, we have to let the police get clear before we make contact again.’

Archer thought for a moment. ‘Okay. Play it that way. You still happy to work on a contingency basis?’ It didn’t take me a second to shake my head. ‘Not now. It’s a new game. I need a fee to cover my time, fifty an hour, plus expenses to Switzerland if we do find the fiver. I want a bigger cut too. Ten per cent’s not unreasonable, given the down-side to you if you don’t get that money back.’

Archer took even less time to think than I had. ‘You’re a hard man, Blackstone, but okay. If you pull it off it’ll be worth it.’ He ushered me to the door. ‘Keep in touch.’ I was outside in George Street almost before I knew it.

Back at the loft, Prim’s soft sleeping sounds sounded as if they might go on for a while, but they had been joined by the scrabbling of an irritated iguana. Wallace had his own version of ‘Don’t fence me in’. He looked at me with a cold imperious eye as I released him.

There were no phone messages, but two faxes from solicitors giving me interview commissions on a non-urgent basis. I switched on my Performa and sat down to type up my notes of the afternoon’s interviews. I had almost finished the second, when there was a shout behind me, choked off, followed a few seconds later by a long exhalation.

‘Christ, Oz, I was having a dream there about waking up in bed beside that wee man, then I did wake up, beside a bloody lizard!’

‘Dinosaur!’ I said sternly. I stood up and jumped up on to the sleeping area. Prim was propped up on her right elbow. Her left breast had rolled out over the edge of the Downie, but she hadn’t noticed, or didn’t care. I sneaked the briefest of glances. It fulfilled earlier promise, bigger than a handful, but not so large that it was heading rapidly south. I perched myself on the edge of the bed as she sat up, pulling the Downie right under her chin and in the process dislodging Wallace. He shot her a look filled with bale, and reached for the first wooden rung of the ladder to the belvedere.

‘Feel better for that?’ I asked. I reached out and touched her hand, tentatively. She took mine and gave it a quick squeeze. ‘Yes and no,’ she said. ‘The “yes” part is that you’re still the guy I thought you were before I went to sleep, if you know what I mean.’ I thought I did, and the hamster who lives in my stomach at such moments did another quick lap of the track. ‘What’s the “no” bit?’ I asked.

‘That what happened this morning isn’t a movie any more. I have to start treating it as real, and I can’t go on blanking Dawn from my mind.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Prim, it’s after six. I’ve got some work to finish off, then I have to get it on the fax. While I do that, why don’t you get dressed, then we’ll go out somewhere. A drink and a pizza maybe. In the process, partner, we can talk about Dawn, I’ll tell you about Archer, and we can decide what we’re going to do next.’

She dragged herself along the bed on her bum, until she was right alongside me, the Downie still up to her chin. Then she leaned over and kissed me, on the lips again, and not quite so chastely this time. ‘You’ve just said the magic words, Osbert. I have spent most of the last twelve months dreaming about a drink and a pizza. Now here I am, back home, about to make it all come true, and with a bloke I quite fancy at that.

‘I warn you now though: never on the first date, and I mean never!’

I didn’t know what to say, so she said it for me. ‘Sometimes you meet someone and you’re attracted right away,’ She grinned. ‘Like you’re attracted to me. So far you’re winning: it cuts both ways. Just remember! First date? Never!’

I took a hell of a chance. I kissed her, on the lips. ‘You know the trouble with women?’

‘Whssat?’

‘You just assume that all us guys are easy lays! I have to go out at least twice with a girl before I decide whether she’s worthy of my body!’

She dipped her shoulder and shoved me off the bed. ‘Go!’ she demanded. ‘Finish your work, while I turn myself into a human being again.’ I did as I was told. Behind me I heard the riffling sound of the Downie being shaken up and spread over the bed. Then Prim’s feet sounded lightly on the staircase.

I refocused myself on my reports and finished them off, neat and tidy, set out in question and answer form, with a summary attached. I fed each into the fax then slipped confirmatory copies into envelopes. Quick, experienced and thorough, that’s Oz Blackstone, Prince among Private Enquiry Agents, the man most wanted by Edinburgh’s legal community, even if much of his work does bore him out of his scone.

I pride myself that on each day of my life I try to learn something new. ‘So what’s today’s lesson, Blackstone?’ I asked myself, out loud, as I stamped the two envelopes.

‘Stick to the boring stuff,’I answered, ‘and forget the Philip Marlowe dreams. Dead people don’t look attractive close up, even if the money is good, and the work’s exciting.’

‘That’s good, Oz; now what’s the bonus lesson?’

‘That’s easy. Don’t give up believing in miracles. Most people find at least one in a lifetime.’

I turned around, and there she was, Primavera, Springtime in Spanish, standing beside the bed, fastening a single string of pearls around her neck. The jeans and tee-shirt had gone, to be replaced by a close-fitting grey skirt and a sleeveless white blouse. Her sun-bleached hair had been teased into order, carefully but casually, and she was made up with blue eye shadow, a touch of blusher and a vivid red lipstick which sat on her perfect mouth like country wine on a summer evening. She was so beautiful that she made me breathless.

I stood there, dumbstruck for a while, until the inevitable nonsense sprang to my tongue. ‘Springtime,’ I said, holding out a hand in invitation, ‘would you care to join me in my garden?’

My loft opens out on to a tiny terrace, on which a few geraniums and a woebegone palm struggle for survival in the heart of my Scottish city. I threw open the double doors, and held out my hand for her as she approached across the big room, passing through a beam of light from one of the four Vellux windows set on each side of the sloping ceiling.

If I was an aesthete I would say that sunlit May evenings are my favourite time of the year in Edinburgh. Those few days, as the year shakes off the dying grip of winter, can be sublime. They are moments not to be missed, yet all too fleeting, before the Scottish summer asserts itself in all its wet, windy drabness.

As Prim stepped out on to my south-facing terrace, I felt suddenly full up, and it came to me that this was one of those times in my life that I’ll remember on my dying day.

My fifth birthday, when my Mum baked a cake, I had a party, and my Dad gave me my first set of real football boots. My first day at primary school. My first Hearts-Hibs game. My first day at secondary school. Sneaking in among my sister’s crowd one night to watch a bootleg video of The Exorcist, and being chucked out for laughing at the bit where Linda Blair’s head spins all the way round. My first, and last, cigarette. My first fumbling, incompetent but affectionate shag with Jan at a party in her house while her folks were away. My Mother’s death. A weekend my Dad and I spent walking in Derbyshire, eating wholesome food and drinking a different beer every night, as part of his emergence from our bereavement.