Blackstone's Pursuits (4 page)

None of it worked. Before she could get the wrong idea, which would have been right all along, I held her away from me at arm’s length. ‘Come on Prim. There’ll be time for that later.’ She looked back at me tear-stained, and nodded. It’s funny how there are people you can know for an hour and it seems like a lifetime.

‘Yes, you’re right. That prick’ll be back.’ (‘
You never know,’
I thought mischievously to myself.) ‘I’ll need to work out a story that’ll protect Dawn, as far as I can.’

Dylan must have had a pressing lunch date, because the prick was back within fifteen minutes. ‘The Doc’s arrived,’ he said. ‘Her first estimate is that he was killed between ten and midnight last night by a right-handed man. If you’re up to it now, Miss Phillips, perhaps you could clear up just one or two things.’

Prim nodded.

‘How long have you been in Africa?’

‘A year.’

‘And you don’t have a key, Mr Blackstone?’

‘No, he doesn’t. Nor do I to Oz’s place. That implies a permanent commitment, and we’re not ready for that.’
‘Speak for yourself,’
I thought, falling deeper in love by the minute.

‘So who’s been using your flat while you’ve been away.’

‘I have a sister,’ said Prim. She sounded casual, but I knew she was measuring every word. ‘She’s an actress. She never knows where her next job’ll be, so she doesn’t have a place of her own. She sleeps on my couch or rooms with other performers when she’s in town. Sometimes her friends crash down here too. When I left I gave her a key and said that she could let her crowd use it as long as they kept it clean and didn’t smoke dope.

‘You could say that this flat’s been a sort of doss-house for luwies for the last twelve months. I’ve got no idea who might have been here last night. And as for the bloke next door, I told you I’ve never seen him before.’

‘How about you, Mr Blackstone?’ said Dylan quickly, with a failed attempt at slyness.

I was ready for him. ‘As Prim said, me neither.’ I chanced my arm. ‘Do you know who he is?’

Dylan shook his head. ‘His wallet seems to have been taken. There’s nothing there to identify him.’ He looked down again at Prim. ‘We’ve found some keys in the kitchen, Miss. Could you have a look at them to see if the one you gave your sister’s among them?’

He led us back across the hall. In the kitchen, a leaf of the table had been raised, and various objects were spread on it. Half a dozen keys of various sorts. An empty pill bottle. A five pound note, serial number AF 426469, cut into two halves.

She didn’t break stride, catch her breath or anything else. She looked at the keys carefully. ‘These two are for the coalshed down in the back yard. These two are for my parents’ place. That one’s for the Yale in the front door. The other fitted a lock I had changed when I moved in here.’ She picked up the pill bottle. I leaned over and sneaked a quick look. The label read ‘Prozac: Miss D. Phillips.’ She picked up the two halves of the fiver and looked round at Dylan. ‘You found my secret stash, then. Very thorough!’

Dylan looked embarrassed and nodded at a pile of muesli heaped on the floor, surrounded by the shattered pieces of a ceramic container. ‘Sorry about that, Miss. One of these clumsy sods knocked it off the counter. We can replace it if you like.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Prim. ‘I never liked it anyway. I’ll use this to buy another, one that doesn’t break this time.’ Casually, she slipped the two halves of the note into the pocket of her jeans.

‘Why did you cut it?’ asked Dylan.

‘Added security,’ she replied, mysteriously.

‘What else can we do, Inspector,’ she asked, ingenuously.

Dylan shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’d like you both to call into the Police Station in Queen Charlotte Street to give us formal statements, but tomorrow’ll be fine for that. Make it around midday.’

We each nodded. ‘So when,’ asked Prim, ‘will you be finished here?’

The Inspector sucked his teeth. ‘Hard to say, Miss. Depends on the technicians. They’ll want to pick up every hair and every piece of fluff from that bedroom, so we can match it to a suspect, sooner or later. Don’t you worry about that, we’ll get him.

‘I shouldn’t reckon they’ll be any more than a couple of days.’

‘Two days!’ She puffed up like a pigeon in her indignation. ‘What the hell am I going to ...’

I seized her hand, and my chance. ‘What the hell else are you going to do? Let’s take your kit round to my place and leave these guys to it.’

In which Jan gets a shock, Primavera meets Wallace, and I gain a sleeping partner.

Out in the street, I was delighted to see that the Traffic Warden from the Other Side had been so disconcerted that he had neglected to paste me up for my out-of-date disc. The blue Nissan wore no adornment other than bird-shit, and a few specks that weren’t.

I opened the tailgate door and slung Prim’s kitbag first into the boot, and then the smaller one which she had packed with a few ‘sensible clothes’ from her wardrobe and cupboard, under the supervision of a young woman detective, who, she told me, had kept sneaking astounded glances at the tiny colossus on the bed.

Neither of us spoke as I coaxed the engine into life and reversed out of my parking space. I weaved my way through the police cars which were thronging the street like ants round a peach-stone. We were heading up Leith Walk, when Prim said: ‘So where is it then? This refuge I’m bound for, this pad of yours.’

I grinned, thinking it would put her at ease. From her expression, my grin must have been more of a leer. ‘Not that far. It’s in the Old Town, down one of the closes off the High Street.’

‘And will Mrs Blackstone be gone for long?’

‘My mother is dead,’ I said solemnly.

Prim frowned. ‘Don’t be cheap. You know what I mean, Mrs as in spouse, or even Ms Something Else as in live-in partner.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t have any of those. My last live-in girlfriend was two years ago. She died of “dish-pan hands, Mummy”, or so she said. Since then I’ve preferred my independence. There are some bloody good takeaways around the centre of town, you know.’ I let the silence fill the car as she weighed up Oz in a new environment, and pondered the prospect of Oz on Oz’s turf.

‘Mind you,’ I said, after a suitable interval, looking sheepishly at the dashboard as we turned into Leith Walk. ‘I don’t know how you’ll take to Wallace.’

She gasped. ‘Wallace! You’re not...’

I relished the sight of Prim on the back foot. ‘What about it if I am?’ She looked at me, uncertain for the first time in our short acquaintance.

‘Actually, if there was anything between Wallace and me they’d have to invent a new name for it. Wallace is an Iguana. He’s the last of the dinosaurs. I named him after a wizened old fisherman uncle of my Mum’s.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘Let me get this right. You’re taking me to a flat that you share with a lizard?’

‘Wallace would be hurt by the description, but yes, that just about sums it up.’

She threw back her head and laughed. ‘The first time I saw you, Oz Blackstone, I thought there might be some mileage in you. Could be I was right.’

‘I’m touched, my dear.’

‘Yes, that was what I thought.’

‘Thank you again, on behalf of loonies everywhere. But seriously for once, we’re clear of that lot back there. Is there anywhere else you want me to take you? How about your parents?’

‘God no, Oz. For a start they’re in Auchterarder; and for seconds, sooner or later Mum would ask me about Dawn, and I’ve never been able to lie to her.’

‘But Prim, you’re going to need to talk to her. The murder might be reported on telly tonight. She could see your flat on the news.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘No, I think not. My parents cling to this planet by their fingertips. Mother’s hobby is Romantic Novels and Dad devotes his life to making model soldiers. He sells them to collectors through magazines. Anything from one-off Kilties to whole battle scenes, to order. They’re just not interested in what’s on the telly, unless it’s by Barbara Taylor Bradford or Kate Adie.’

‘Is there anyone else, then?’ Suddenly I was seized by the thought that taking this woman under my roof would be the biggest step into the unknown that I’d ever made. ‘Do you have any friends in Edinburgh?’

She turned in her seat and looked at me. ‘Do I feel the chill of cold feet? Do you want to be shot of me?’

‘Absolutely not,’ I shot back at her, too fast in the circumstances. ‘I just don’t want you to feel that you’re being ...’

‘Spirited away to your lair, were you going to say?’ Her smile was delicious. ‘Don’t worry, Oz, we fell into this thing together, and I reckon we should see it through together. More than that, you’re my best bet for a shower and a sleep. Shower first, though. Do I need one!’

I creased my nose and looked sideways at her. ‘Funny that. I was just thinking that it’s been a long time since I had a really ripe woman in this car!’ She slapped my arm, hard enough for me to feel her strength, not hard enough to hurt. I saw her tanned nurse’s bicep bunch.

We made our way up the Walk, pausing occasionally for red lights. It was a beautiful warm day in early May, and the trees in the central reservation were in blossom.

‘You know, Mr Oz Blackstone,’ said Prim, ‘this may sound like the wrong thing to say in the circumstances, but I’m glad to be home. Even Florence Nightingale must have become dehumanised after a while. If you need an example, just think back to how I reacted to finding a corpse in my bed!’

‘Hey,’ I said as gently as I could. ‘You
are
home. Just hang on to that. You’re in Edinburgh and it’s beautiful. Look around you.’ The car swept round the Elm Row island, and up towards Picardy Place. She laughed. ‘Come on Oz. That’s the St James Centre up ahead. Not even a homeboy could call that beautiful.’

‘Okay, well just hang on a minute. We’ll get to some nice bits!’

My house is in one of the nicer bits. Less than half a mile from the Palace of Holyroodhouse, so for a week every year I can say that I have the Queen for a neighbour.

‘What’s this?’ said Prim, as I slid the Nissan into my parking space.

‘My house. Where I live. It’s a conversion. It used to be a grain store or something, until a developer got hold of it. I live in that pointy bit up there. It’s more of a loft than a flat. See the bit right at the top? According to the estate agent who sold me the place, that’s called a belvedere. There’s a ladder up to it. Quite often Wallace climbs up it to sun himself. Yes, there he is, look.’ As if wakened by the sound of our arrival, the iguana peered down at us solemnly.

‘Jesus,’ said Prim, shaking her head. ‘I find a dead dwarf in my bed, and now I’m going home with a guy who has an iguana as a flatmate.’

‘A loft, not a flat,’ Must get the terminology right.

‘Loft, flat,’ she said. ‘What’s the difference?’

‘About five grand in a good market, I reckon.’ That got her attention.

We made our way up the narrow, twisty stairway to my pad, and stepped into the tiny square area which passed for my entrance hall. Two doors and a staircase led from it. ‘Kitchen to the left, bathroom door to the right,’ I said. I opened each door to demonstrate. When I opened the door on the right, a red-faced woman screamed. She was sat on the toilet, so it was understandable.

‘The rest of it’s up there.’ I said hurriedly. Weighed down by bags, I led the way up the staircase to the heart of my stronghold. Prim stepped up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Er, Oz. About Mrs Blackstone?’

I frowned. ‘I told you, my mother’s dead. Anyway, she always bolted the door when she went to the toilet. That was Jan. She does my books, but she sets her own hours.’

Well, it was true. Jan and I were at school together. She did my books. Occasionally she ironed a shirt if she felt sorry for me, On even rarer occasions, when something was troubling her or she just felt like my company, she gave me a cuddle in the night.

Downstairs we heard the toilet flush. I looked across the room. Fortunately my ledgers were spread out on my desk. Prim followed my eyes, then looked around the rest of the place.

‘You never said it was open plan!’

‘You never asked. Anyway, it isn’t. The living area’s down here. The sleeping area’s that raised part, up that wee ladder. When you’re in bed, you can’t be seen from down here. Well, hardly.’

‘Very comforting!’ She’s good at irony, is Prim.

‘Remember the pointy bit I showed you? Well, you get to that through the sleeping area. You see the foot of the second ladder there?’

‘It looks sort of like a square funnel from the inside, doesn’t it,’ she said. At that moment Wallace, the curious iguana, eased his cumbersome frame down the ladder, and swung across to walk along the railing which enclosed the raised area, and against which my bed was pressed.

She shook her head, and then did something which turned my knees to jelly. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me. Not on the cheek, on the lips. Chastely, you understand. Hands by her side and everything. But still, not on the cheek, on the lips.

‘Osbert, you may be a fruitcake, and you may live in a fucking mad-house, but you are my saviour and protector, my knight in shining armour. You’re here when I need you, and I thank you.’

The gallows answer stuck in my throat. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me, and I was unspeakably touched.

Jan wasn’t. She smiled at Prim as she appeared at the top of the stairs, and she smiled at me. I could grade the warmth of Jan’s smiles pretty well, and the one she threw at me was straight from the fridge. She’s a tall girl, with looks and dark hair that fell off a Jane Russell poster, and a chest to match.

‘Hi,’ I said. I was about to add, ‘Sorry about surprising you on the bog,’ but I thought that I’d better not. ‘Jan, this is Prim Phillips. Prim, Jan More. Prim’s got a problem, she needs somewhere to crash for a couple of days.’