Poisoned Cherries (10 page)

There was no background noise when they answered; a quiet night, I guessed.
 
It was time to liven it up.
 
“I want to report a sudden death,” I told the officer on the other end of the line.
 
“We’ll need a doctor and an ambulance, in due course.”
 
I gave him the address and the name of the occupant, and told him that the man’s fiancee and I had just found him.

“Are you sure he’s dead?”
 
the young constable asked.

I threw him the line from The Friends of Eddie Coyle.
 
“If he isn’t, he never will be.”
 
The boy didn’t laugh.
 
Why should he have?
 
It wasn’t funny.

Fifteen.

I woke up, dazed and confused; the phone was ringing beside my head and I had just emerged from a weird dream involving a stiff in a New Town flat, a girl pissing herself with fright..
 
.

Only, I realised, it hadn’t been a dream.

I picked up the phone, and mumbled into it.
 
“You lazy so and so,” I heard Susie exclaim.
 
“Do you know what time it is?”

“No,” I answered, truthfully.

“Half past nine.
 
Did you go on the batter last night?”

“Don’t ask about last night.”

She laughed like a bell.
 
“That bad, was it?”

I pulled myself up in bed and told her the whole story.

“Oh, the poor girl,” Susie squealed, when I told her about finding David Capperauld.
 
“It must have scared the life out of her.”

“It scared something out of her, that’s for sure.”

“Did you get the police?”

“Of course, and a doctor, and a wagon for the morgue.”

“Will you be in the papers again?”

“My name won’t be mentioned; the guy who came round was a detective sergeant called Ron Morrow.
 
I met him once; he’s a good lad, said he’d leave me out of his report.”

“What did the doctor say?”

“Much the same as me; she said she couldn’t be sure, but that it looked like a cerebral incident, rare but not unknown in a guy of that age.
 
They’ll know for certain once they’ve done an autopsy.”

“When’s that going to happen?”

“I don’t know.
 
Today, I guess.”

“Where’s the girl now?
 
Did you take her back to your place?”

“Did I hell as like!
 
She phoned her mother and told her what had happened; the police took her there.”

“Mmm,” Susie murmured.
 
“I thought you’d have bSen there with a consoling shoulder.”

“She’s better at her mother’s.
 
Besides

“Besides what?”

“Nothing.
 
How’s the baby?”

“She kept me awake half the night, but other than that she’s perfect.

Ethel’s here now.”

“Ethel?”

“Ethel Reid, the new nanny; she arrived at nine sharp, and she’s taken over already.”

“Ah, but can she breastfeed?”

“I shouldn’t think so; she’s about fifty.
 
But we’re going to get Janet on to the bottle quite soon.”

“Have you thought that through?”

“Absolutely.
 
I’m going back to work, remember.
 
I’m a builder, Oz; that’s what I do, it’s the world I live in, and I am not, repeat not, whipping out a tit halfway through a meeting with my site managers.”

“No,” I conceded.
 
“I can see that might distract them.
 
You might have houses being built in inches rather than centimetres.”

“Was than an oblique reference to the size of my bosom?”

“Not so oblique; they’re pretty spectacular just now, you have to admit.”

“Enjoy while you can.”

I paused.
 
“If that’s an invitation, I thought I might come through tonight.”

“Why?”

“I have to see Greg McPhillips, about the divorce arrangements, so I thought I’d fit it in this afternoon.”
 
I paused.
 
“Also .. . am I allowed to say I’m missing you?”

“You are .. . since I feel a bit that way myself.”

“See you later then.”

“Okay.
 
You can take me out to dinner; I’ve got a sudden urge to get dolled up in normal-sized clothes.
 
I haven’t been able to do that for months.”

I hung up, swung myself out of bed and lurched into the shower.
 
Half an hour later, after finishing off the Lome sausage and the last couple of rolls, I began to feel human again.

I was looking out over the city, getting ready to go to the Edinburgh Club, when the phone rang once more.
 
It was Alison; she sounded sad, but together.
 
“I want to thank you for last night,” she said.
 
“If I had gone in there on my own .. .”

“It’s okay.
 
You don’t have to thank me.”

“You surprised me, you know,” she murmured.
 
“The way you handled it.

There’s more to you than I ever realised.”

I didn’t tell her, but I’ve seen things that were a hell of a lot more grisly than her late fiance.
 
For some reason, I found myself thinking of a man called Ramon Fortunate.

“I suppose losing your wife must have had an effect on you.
 
I understand that now, being in the same boat myself.”

I felt my forehead bunch into a savage frown.
 
Brain first, mouth second, Blackstone, I tried to tell myself, but I was too late. “What?” I said; actually it was more of a snarl.
 
“Was David pregnant too?

“You’re not even on the same fucking ocean as me, never mind in the same boat.
 
You were ready to screw me last night, remember.
 
If I’d said the word we’d have been at my place, not his.”

“Don’t, Oz,” she pleaded, and the wail in her voice got to me at once.

“I’ve been torturing myself about that all night.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.
 
That was brutal of me, but I still can’t talk about that.
 
I never will.”

“I understand.
 
That’s all; I understand.”

“Yeah.
 
Truce.”

“Good.”
 
She paused.
 
“About that thing we discussed last night?”

She was back to business already; she took my breath away. “Torrent?”

“Yes.
 
Will you still do what you said?”

“Of course I will.
 
Ewan might feel a bit guilty now.
 
He’ll probably be a soft touch.”

“Maybe we should forget him and just go with Miles Grayson.
 
You’re right; Mr.
 
Torrent would love that.”

“No,” I told her.
 
“Miles is fall-back.
 
You stick with Ewan Capperauld, if you can get him.”

“All right.
 
When’ll you do it?”

“This week, I hope.
 
I expect to meet him on Thursday.
 
I’ll call you at your office when I’ve got something to tell you.
 
I take it you’ll be going to work regardless?”

“I have to; there’s no choice.”

“Suppose not.
 
I’ll call.”

“Thanks.
 
Goodbye.”

She hung up and left me shaking my head.
 
I hadn’t understood Alison before, and I sure as hell didn’t now.

Her call had left me keener than ever to get into a gym, so I caught a taxi on the Mound and went straight to the Club.
 
I signed up for a short-term membership and let the instructor show me round the equipment, although there was nothing there I hadn’t used many times before.

I had a lot to get out of my system, so once I had warmed up with a few hundred sit-ups, I bench-pressed a shitload of weight, first legs, then arms, in increasingly large lumps.
 
Once I was through with that, I worked my way around the rest of the machinery in my usual pattern, and finished off with a tough twenty minutes on the exercise bike.

“If AH the Grocer could see me now,” I gasped as, finally, I swung off.
 
I hadn’t been a total stranger to physical exercise on my last sojourn in Edinburgh, but we hadn’t been the best of pals either.

Once I had showered, for the second time that morning, I walked back up to Princes Street, picked up some lunch in Marks & Spencer’s food hall, and made my way home, via the National Gallery, which stands at the foot of the Mound.
 
It isn’t the biggest in Britain, but it’s one of the best, and it’s always been one of my favourite places to chill out.

After I’d eaten, I decided to do some more work on my script; Thursday was looming up.
 
I didn’t know it, but so was something else.

I worked for nearly an hour, looking at my scenes, and going through them in my head at first, then aloud, my own very early rehearsal process.
 
Eventually I decreed a coffee break and headed for the kitchen.

When the door buzzer sounded, it took me a second or two to figure out what it was, then another few to figure out where.
 
I was puzzled as I reached out for it, too late to stop it from buzzing again.
 
Apart from Susie and Miles, and neither of them were in town, nobody knew I was there.
 
I guessed it had to be Luke Edgar.

I picked up the instrument.
 
“Hello,” I said, tentatively.

“Hello, Blackstone,” a deep voice boomed in my ear.
 
“Guess what; it’s a blast from your past.”

It sure was, and one that I had hoped with all my heart, would stay there.

Sixteen.

I could have left the bastard stood there in the street, but if he was determined I’d only have been postponing the moment, so I let him in and told him to take the lift all the way up to the top.

I left the front door open for him; he strolled into my living room, all swagger and menacing smile, came up to me and, without a word, threw a right-hander straight at my nose.

It stopped about an inch short; I’ll never know whether he’d have pulled it, because I caught his wrist in mid-swing and held it steady.
 
I squeezed the bones together until the grin left his face and he winced, then I threw him his arm back.

“Hello, Ricky,” I said, evenly.
 
“You’re still underestimating me.
 
I thought you’d have learned by now.”

“Only kidding, Blackstone, only kidding.”
 
He rubbed his wrist.
 
“When did you get tough?”

“It happened along the way.”

I looked him up and down.
 
Ex-Detective Superintendent Richard Ross looked older than before, and by more than the three years or so that had passed since our last meeting.
 
He was a bit slimmer, too, but he was still a pretty formidable specimen for a guy in his mid-forties.

He and I had enjoyed ... no, that’s the wrong word; we hadn’t... only a brief acquaintanceship, but it hadn’t worked out too well for him.
 
He had ended up in a very embarrassing position, after his piece on the side was charged with murdering her husband, and his shiny career had come to a tawdry end.

Serve the bastard right, though.
 
He’d been keen to do me for said murder at one point, and had even broken into my flat in the process of trying to nail me for it.

Then the obvious hit me, and the pieces of the puzzle fell into place all at once.
 
“Let me guess,” I said to him.
 
“You’re our technical adviser for the movie.
 
Miles hired you; he gave you this addresS.
 
I might have bloody known.”

He nodded.
 
“The boy detective lives on, eh.
 
That’s right; I just thought I’d pay you a call before we all get together, to get a few things out of the way.”

I sighed.
 
“If you really want to have a go, Ricky, try it.
 
That window’s toughened glass; you won’t go through it, but I promise you this, you’ll hit it bloody hard.”

Ross gave me that loaded grin again.
 
“No.
 
If I was going to do you, son, it’d have happened by now, and I wouldn’t have got my own hands dirty, either.
 
I just wanted to say there’s no hard feelings, about what happened back then.
 
I’ve got a good chunk of pension, and I’m making more in private security work than I did on the force.
 
In a way, I’ve got you to thank for that.

“I still think you or your bird, or her sister, did that murder, but I’m past caring.”

“Well you’re wrong,” I told him.
 
“Yes, I know who did it, but he’s dead.
 
He was killed in an accident not long afterwards.”

He stared at me; I hadn’t expected to take him by surprise.
 
I thought he’d have worked it out by now.
 
“Yet you still let them charge Linda?”

“Too right.
 
Did you know about a certain attempted hit-and-run incident, up in Auchterarder?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It happened.
 
Linda Kane was the driver, in a hired car; she bloody near got all three of us too.
 
It was you who told her where we were, Ricky.
 
We both know that, don’t we?”

He grimaced.
 
“I never thought she’d do that, though.
 
First I’ve heard of it too.
 
Did you make a complaint?”

“No.
 
I told Mike Dylan about it, but that was all.
 
Are you still porking her, by the way?”

“That’ll be right.
 
After they dropped the charges, she was going to bloody do for me.
 
No, I steer well clear of Mrs.
 
Kane.
 
You’d be well advised to do the same.”

He frowned.
 
“Mike Dylan, eh.
 
A shame, what happened to him.
 
I saw in the papers that you’ve moved in on his ex.”

Actually, he had it the wrong way round, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
 
“Susie and I have both had our bereavements,” I said.
 
“It suits us, the way we are.”

Ross actually looked sympathetic.
 
“Aye, I heard about yours.
 
That was a damn shame too.
 
That was some girl you wound up marrying.
 
Mind that time I was following her thinking she was you?
 
She led me a real dance.”

I never thought that he and I would share a laugh about that day, but we did.

“Before I forget, Ricky,” I said, ‘and in case you do.
 
My bird’s sister, as you called her, is now Mrs.
 
Miles Grayson.
 
I don’t think Miles connects you with all that stuff, or he wouldn’t have hired you.
 
Best let it stay in the past.”

“Point taken.”
 
He glanced back at me.
 
“I heard a story you were there when Dylan got it.
 
Is that true?”

“All too true.”

“What happened?”

“We tracked the guy we were after to Amsterdam; Mike was with him.
 
Apparently he’d been his accomplice all along.
 
The guy made a move and the Dutch policeman shot them both.”

Ross heaved a sigh.
 
“Aye, that’s what I heard, only the bloke wasn’t a policeman.
 
He was Dutch Special Forces, and he had his orders.”
 
I had suspected that, although no one had ever admitted as much.
 
“Was it quick?”

“He said something to me, then died; that’s how quick it was.”

“Ahhhhh, that Michael.
 
He was always getting in over his head, was that boy.
 
I knew when they let him into Special Branch that something bad would happen.”

“But not that bad.
 
Mike and I became good friends, you know.
 
I was gutted when it all went wrong.”

“Weren’t we all, son.
 
But it was his choice; remember that.”

“I’ll never forget it; that made it even harder for Susie to deal with.”
 
I paused and glanced at my watch.
 
“Speaking of whom, I’ve a train to Glasgow to catch.”

“Aye, I’ll let you get on.
 
See you on Thursday, then.
 
By the way, if Grayson does remember it was me he was complaining about that time he phoned the chief..
 
.”

“I’ll tell him it’s sorted, don’t worry.
 
Just behave yourself around Dawn, and whatever you do, don’t mention her sister.”

He threw me a wicked smile, with traces of his old nastiness.
 
“I heard about that too.”
 
Then he laughed.
 
“This is going to be some job; taking a bunch of actors and chancers and trying to make them behave like real coppers.”

“Is that what you were, Ricky?”

“Most of the time, son.”
 
He headed for the door.
 
“Most of the time.”

Seventeen.

Ethel Reid opened the door when I arrived at Susie’s with my travel bag slung over my shoulder.
 
She eyed me up and down, with no pretence of subtlety.

“So you’re Daddy, are you?”

“That’s me,” I admitted, as she opened the door.
 
“What do you think of my daughter so far?”

She beamed at me like an auntie, and won me over there and then. “She’s an absolute wee treasure is baby Janet.”

“Takes after her mother, then.”

“Mmm,” Ethel murmured.
 
“I can see how you get on in the pictures and such.”
 
I’d been called a smarmy bastard before, but never in such a pleasant way.

Susie was at her desk when I went into the living room, working on a pile of folders.
 
The sight made my stomach twitch for a second or two.
 
Jan and I had kept our desks in exactly the same place, looking down on the city.

“Pick it out, then,” I said to her, as I kissed her hello.

“What?”

“The restaurant; the place I’m taking you.”

“You’d have trouble seeing it from here.
 
We’re going to Rogano’s; I’ve booked for seven thirty... in my name, not yours.
 
Gantry still gets a better table in Glasgow than Blackstone.”

“Enjoy it while you can,” I told her.
 
“My fame grows by the second.

Plus .. .”
 
I hesitated; she looked up at me, curious.

“What?”

“I just had a meeting with Greg; Prim’s signed the divorce settlement and so have I. All we need to do is go through the petitioning process itself; we can do that in Scotland, right now.
 
We don’t have to wait for a year or anything like that.
 
I’ll be a free man in a few weeks.”

“And?”

“And all things will be possible.”

She held me at arm’s length.
 
“What are you saying?”

“I never know what I’m saying,” I replied, defensively.
 
It was true; I really wasn’t sure.
 
I hadn’t planned any of this; the words were just falling out of my mouth like pebbles into a pond, and I had no idea how far the ripples would go.
 
Until my meeting with Greg, I’d had no idea that the ties between Prim and me could be severed so quickly.

“Well, when you do know, tell me,” she said.

“You’d be interested in hearing, then?”

“Yes.
 
Now if we’ve finished sparring; drop the subject until you actually are divorced.”

I felt myself grinning at her like an idiot; I couldn’t help it.
 
For the first time since Jan had died I could see real happiness stretching into the future.
 
She laughed at me, then kissed me again.
 
“What do you think of Ethel, then?”

“Magic.
 
Where did you find her?”

“My father... Joe, that is ... knew someone whose daughter had her until her kid was ready for school.
 
She gave me references going back twenty-five years, and was happy for me to speak to her last employer.”

“Wee Jan’s in good hands; and so are you, for now.”

I went off to see the baby; she was awake and content so I did the Daddy thing for a while, carrying her around, showing her the view across the city from the windows.
 
“One day, kid,” I promised her, ‘all this will be yours.”

Eventually, she became restless; maybe I was boring her, but I think she was hungry.
 
I handed her back to Susie; she plugged her in for a while, then I burped her.
 
I’d had plenty of recent practice with Bruce, but I still couldn’t stop her barfing down my shirt.

Luckily, I had another.
 
When the taxi turned up at seven-twenty, I looked not bad at all.
 
Susie looked much better than that; she wore a blue sequinned dress which clung to her in a way that made the driver’s eyes pop out like organ stops.
 
I couldn’t object; I’d just shoved mine back in.

The Rogano restaurant is one of the most famous in Glasgow; it’s in the city centre and for several generations it’s been the top watering hole for the top people.
 
Its decor goes back to the thirties, when shipbuilding was king, and its dining room is after the style of a liner of that period.

The food has kept pace with the times, though; so tlave the prices.
 
We went past the bar and straight to our table when we entered; on the way several drinkers and diners nodded to Susie; one even gave her a half bow.

“Who were they, then?”
 
I whispered as we were seated.

“A mix of council and business; the woman near the door runs a staffing consultancy, and the guy next to her is a big wheel in the city Labour Party..
 
. New Labour, very much.
 
The man who gave me the wee bow is a steel stockholder.
 
I put a load of business his way.”

As if to prove it, a bottle of champagne arrived at the table, in a bucket.
 
Susie looked across towards the bar; Mr.
 
Steel was smiling at her.
 
He dropped another courtly bow as she mimed her thanks.
 
I’d have shone up for the stuff myself, but I wasn’t about to turn it down, so I gave him a wave also, as the wine waiter popped the cork.

For some reason, I thought back twenty-four hours, to Alison Goodchild and her tale.
 
“Have you ever come across a man called James Torrent in business?
 
He’s very big in office equipment, they say.”

She nodded.
 
“Is he ever.
 
Why do you ask?”

“He’s my friend’s awkward client; the one who’s putting pressure on her to deliver Ewan Capperauld to open his headquarters.”

“I see,” her eyes narrowed slightly.
 
“I don’t envy her, in that case.

“Yes, I’ve come across Mr.
 
Torrent, or at least the Gantry Group has.
 
Back in the Lord Provost’s time, when Joe was finance director, he leased some photocopiers from him.
 
He never was the sharpest tool in the box, but still, Torrent’s salesman took him for a real ride.
 
The contract had copy charges built in, with a rolling inflation increase which was actually a blank cheque.
 
We wound up paying a quarter of a million over five years for a machine that would have cost us six grand if we’d bought it... and Joe had leased six machines.
 
One and a half mil.”
 
big bucks over five years, but capable of being overlooked when shown simply as annual group operating costs.

“It was Jan who spotted it, when I brought her in to look over my books.
 
I’d have been angrier with Joe, but she told me that he wasn’t the only guy to have been stitched up that way.
 
She knew half-a-dozen law firms and at least two big-firm accountants who had signed similar deals with Torrent and with other companies.”

“Did you take it up with him?”
 
I asked.

“No point; the leases had just about expired when we found out what had happened.
 
I just didn’t renew them, that was all, and I told Torrent’s sales director that he would be getting no more business from me.”

“Was that the end of it?”

She grinned at me; Susie loves it when she puts one over on someone, especially a man.
 
“Not quite; Torrent phoned me himself, and asked me why I had put the black on him.
 
He got quite heavy about it.”

After what Alison had told me about the man, I felt rising hackles.

“Did he threaten you?”

“Not in so many words.”

“What did you say?”

She lowered her voice, until it was little more than a whisper.
 
“I told him that I was about to ask our Group chairman, the Lord Provost, to call for a review of the City Council purchasing policy, and second, that I planned to show the original contracts to my boyfriend, a detective inspector, and ask him to have his experts check whether any of the figures had been altered after signature.”

“How did he react?”

“He got reasonable.
 
He told me that I was clearly upset, and he asked how he could make it up to me.
 
I thought about asking him for one and a half million, but if that had gone back into the books I’d have had to tell our auditors where it had come from.
 
So instead I told him I wanted six free photocopiers for the next five years.