Poisoned Cherries (6 page)

I thought of the crashing Pacific waves.
 
“True,” I admitted.
 
“It’s the way I was brought up.”

“Rubbish,” she laughed.
 
“It’s you, Blackstone.
 
You’ve either got a voyeuristic streak, or it’s sheer paranoia .. . you’re afraid of the idea of anyone looking in on you.”

I hadn’t thought about it before, but she’d a point.
 
I’ve always liked high places.
 
I broke my arm once falling out of a tree; not even that discouraged me.

“I don’t think I’m a voyeur.
 
As for being paranoid,” I said, as I thought about recent events, ‘if I am, it’s been justifiable a few times in my past.
 
You know that well enough.”

A cloud crossed her face, briefly; I guessed who might have been behind it.
 
“Do you think about him much?”
 
I asked her.

She chewed her lip.
 
“Mike?
 
I think about him as infrequently as I can possibly manage .. . which is still quite a lot.
 
I envy you, in one way; when you think about Jan, you think warm.
 
I can’t do that. Funny, I don’t feel bitter about Jack Gantry, but I do about Michael Dylan.”

“Then try not to; Mike was weak, but most of us are.
 
He loved you.”

“No he didn’t,” she snapped.
 
“If he had he’d have stayed with me, and not got involved in all the stuff that got him killed.
 
And when that happened, he was leaving me, remember.”

I couldn’t argue with that one; I’d been there, and I knew she was right.
 
“Did you love him?”
 
I asked her.

“I thought so at the time, but not now.
 
I really don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone, not till last Saturday morning.”

“Don’t let him put you off, Susie.”

“Ah, but he has.
 
I wouldn’t know where to begin loving a man.
 
All I want is to feel safe.”

“Do you feel safe with me?”

“Most of the time.
 
When we’re together I do.
 
I like being with you, Oz, but I’ll never trust another man after Mike, and I sure as hell wouldn’t trust you.
 
I know you too well.
 
How many women have you slept with since last January?”

“One.”

She threw me a quick, guilty grin.
 
“I’ve misjudged you, then; sorry.”

“No, you haven’t.
 
I never touched Prim after what happened in Spain; neither of us wanted to.
 
She never forgot you and I never forgot Barcelona.
 
There was someone else, though, someone in L’Escala, but it was complicated.
 
It shouldn’t have happened, but it did.
 
I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise to me, remember?
 
You’re a free man.

Anyway, what’s complicated about nooky?”

“In this case, the lady was married ... to the guy Prim ran off with after she was tipped off about us.”

“I see.
 
You were all getting even, then.”

“Vero might have been, but I wasn’t.
 
You had shown me the real Oz Blackstone by that time; you’d taught me about myself.
 
Completely devoid of conscience, remember.”

Susie looked at me, indignantly.
 
“Sounds as if I taught you too bloody well!”
 
The look became a frown; she doesn’t do that too often.
 
“But you’ve told me about her.
 
Why?”

“You asked.”

She snorted.
 
“And you told me, just like that!
 
Do you think so little of me?”

“Far from it; I should have told you before.
 
It was a secret between

US.”
 
f

“Why didn’t you let it stay that way?
 
Are you just trying to put me in my place?”

I looked at her.
 
I had come clean without thinking, but I knew why I had done it.
 
“I told you because I didn’t want it there any more. It’s a part of my past that I’m not proud of, and I didn’t want it lying between us like a land mine
 
I stepped up to her and put my hands on her waist.
 
“You said you felt safe with me, Susie.
 
I want you always to feel that way, and I promise you that you always will be.”

Her eyes softened; so did her voice.
 
“What does that mean?”
 
she whispered.

“I don’t know.
 
Just that you and the baby are now the two most important people in my life, and it will stay that way.
 
I love wee Janet with all my heart; she turns my insides to mush.
 
And how could I love her without loving her mother as well?”

She pressed her forehead against my chest and I held her to me.
 
“Shut up, Blackstone,” she murmured.
 
“Don’t complicate things.”

“How am I doing that?”

She looked up.
 
“I’m afraid of you, man, don’t you understand that? I’m afraid that you’ll be another Dylan; he was a scheming, ambitious bastard, and so are you .. . well, ambitious, at least.
 
Mike didn’t have the wit or the balls to achieve his ambitions, but you do.
 
I’m afraid that if I commit myself to you, those ambitions .. . not to mention your heretofore extremely promiscuous dick..
 
. will lead you away from me, and I’ll get hurt again, only worse.”

“You’re wrong about me there,” I protested.
 
“I’ve never had a properly thought-out ambition in my life.
 
Everything that’s happened to me has been by accident, until I’ve got where I am.
 
I like doing what I’m doing now; I don’t plan to do anything else, until I go out of fashion.
 
By then, I’ll have enough dough to enjoy a nice long retirement. Shit, I have now.

“And as far as my..
 
. sorry..
 
. our pal down there’s concerned, he’s had a right few opportunities over the last few months, in Canada and in California, and he hasn’t risen to a single one.”

She was smiling again; I was happy about that.
 
“Are you telling me that from the time you went to the States at the end of January, until last Wednesday night, you were celibate?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“That beggars belief.
 
Why?”

“I wasn’t sure, until right now.
 
Remember what you said the other night, about me being able to walk back through your door any time I like?
 
Remember I said that might not cut both ways?
 
Well it does.
 
I don’t want anyone but you.”

One of those long silences sprang up between us, like a barrier, until Susie knocked it down.

“Is that so?
 
Well, do you remember when I said I didn’t care if you did or not?
 
That wasn’t exactly true either.
 
I care all right. You’re not going to make me say I love you, but I care.”

She pushed me away and held me at arms’ length.
 
“That doesn’t mean I trust you, mind.
 
When the baby and I go back to Glasgow, you’ll be a boy-about-town again.
 
It’ll be just like it was when you were here before.
 
You’re on probation, Oz.
 
I want to make damn sure you don’t revert to type, before I start believing any promises.”
 
Her eyes narrowed.
 
“You will be honest with me, yes?”

Mine widened.
 
“Totally.”
 
I meant it.

“I’ll believe that much, then.
 
We tell each other everything.
 
When you’re working here we spend as many weekends as we can together.
 
Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“What happens when this picture’s finished?”

“I’m going to Vancouver.
 
You and Janet coming?”

“We’ll see about that... if we get that far.”

Eleven.

I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure what we’d agreed when Susie took the baby back to Glasgow the following night, to be ready for the arrival of the nanny next day.

I knew that whatever it was I liked the idea, and I felt more at peace than I had done since Jan had died.
 
I knew also that I’d better get my head around Miles’s new movie, since there wasn’t that much time left.

Obviously, I’d skimmed through the script before I’d taken the part.
 
The story was fast-moving and exciting, with a slam-bang climax, set in some familiar locations in and around Edinburgh, and I decided to read the book to get myself under the skin of my character.
 
The hero was a senior police detective called Bob Skinner, a real hard bastard; I was playing his sidekick, a guy around my own age by the name of Andy Martin.

The first thing I read about Martin pulled me up short; the author described him as muscular... I could manage that okay, given the gym work I was in the habit of doing ... and as having curly blond hair, and green contact lenses.

The dye job I could live with, but I saw a problem with the contacts. I can’t stand having even a tiny piece of grit in my eye.
 
I was sufficiently worried to call Miles ... the apartment came complete with a phone and cable television.

He laughed when I told him about my problem.
 
“You say you’re okay about the dye job?
 
Did you ever see the remake of The Jackal?
 
Christ, you might not be flavour of the month with Dawn right now, but I still wouldn’t do that to you.
 
You can forget the contacts too.
 
Dark hair and blue eyes will do for the part.

“How’s tricks, anyway?”

His amiability reassured me; Miles had given me an easy time of it as director of my first two projects.
 
I didn’t know if I could handle it if he started to have a go at me on set.

“Fine.
 
Everything’s fine.”

“How are the girls?”

“The baby’s great and so’s her mum.
 
Susie’s going back to work herself in a couple of days, once the new nanny’s settled in.”

“Nothing changes, eh.
 
She’s a powerhouse, that girl.
 
You two gonna live together?”

“Part-time, probably.
 
I’ve rented a place in Edinburgh; that’s where I am now.
 
You’ll like it, I think.”
 
I described the apartment.

“Sounds great,” Miles said, when I had finished.
 
“You’re right; I plan to shoot as much of this movie as possible on location, so we’ll need a place for rehearsals, team meetings and so on.

“In fact, there’s one I’ll set up right away.
 
I’ve hired a technical adviser, an ex-policeman.
 
He’s got the script, and he knows the book.

I want him to brief the cast before we start shooting, but first I want

to meet him myself.
 
Your place will bg perfect for that.
 
Dawn and I

get into Edinburgh on Wednesday.
 
I’ll arrange it for Thursday morning,

ten sharp, then we’ll have a cast meeting that afternoon.
 
Gimme the

address and phone number, and I’ll circulate them to him and everyone

else.”
 
5

I did as he asked then went back to the book.
 
The more I read about the now dark-haired Andy Martin, the more I realised how tough he was supposed to be.
 
I hadn’t lifted anything heavier than Susie for ten days, so I called the Edinburgh Club, the best fitness centre in town, and checked out their opening hours.

I booked myself in for Monday morning, then went back to Detective Chief Inspector Martin.
 
I’d have read it from cover to cover had I not begun to feel hungry, at around seven o’clock.

I checked the fridge and found it almost bare, apart from some milk, a few tomatoes and an egg.
 
I was almost out of bread too .. . Susie and I had only picked up a few groceries and had sent out for pizza the night before.

I was also out of transport.
 
A car can be an inconvenience in central Edinburgh, but these days not having one is a bigger inconvenience still.
 
I had almost decided to take a taxi to Sainsbury’s, when the obvious occurred to me.
 
I was a lad alone in the city; where else would I go?

I hadn’t seen Ali in a couple of years, but I knew he’d be there; the boy really was open all hours.
 
His shop was a bit more than halfway down the Royal Mile, round the corner from my old loft and still no more than ten minutes’ walk from my new digs.

He was behind the counter when I walked in, his back to the door as I closed it silently.
 
As usual he was wearing a turban; if it was meant to be white it wasn’t, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided that it was cream.
 
I don’t know what religion Ali is, and I’ve never asked.
 
I do know that with him the turban is a fashion statement, nothing more.

“Shop!”
 
I called out; he spun round, eyes widening as he saw me.

“Hey,” he yelled, startling an old lady who was peering into the frozen food container.
 
“It’s the fuckin’ Oz man; the fuckin’ movie star.
 
Hullawrerr, Big Man, slummin’ it the night, eh!
 
Of all the bastards, eh!”
 
As well as being one of the most accessible grocers in Scotland, my old friend is also one of the most foul-mouthed.