Deadly Business (12 page)

‘That’s okay.’ He grinned. ‘Primavera, I expect to meet Oz again one day, in hell or maybe in heaven if they’ve relaxed the entrance requirements. I don’t want him punching my fucking lights out again!’

‘Over me?’ I laughed.

‘Over you: I wouldn’t chance it. Which is your house?’ he asked, suddenly.

I nodded, eastwards. ‘That’s it, jammed up against the church.’

‘Wooo!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s quite a palace. Stone-built?’

‘Absolutely. It’s not a palace, though; that’s an exaggeration. But it is big, I’ll grant you, bigger than it looks from here; the garage is three floors below where we’re standing.’

I left Charlie in our small garden, where his kennel is, then walked with Liam down the slope, towards the beach, to put him on the path back to his hotel. He told me he’d come via the road, and hadn’t known about the shorter route.

‘I can understand why you settled here,’ he said, as we turned past the Foresters’ house. ‘In fact, I’m having trouble understanding why you and Oz ever left.’

‘That’s several long stories,’ I replied. ‘Yes, this is an ideal place for a forty-something single mother who doesn’t need to worry about money ever again to raise her kid, but for the volatile couple that he and I were, there was no paradise. We were mixed up when we were here, both of us. Neither of us had any sense of purpose. Now I do, and that makes all the difference.’ I looked at him, into those blue tinted lenses. ‘But I don’t have him, and that’s the only cloud in my sky.’

‘That’s sad,’ he murmured. ‘You know, the whole world thinks that you and he were a two-person disaster area, but that’s not really true, is it?’

‘Oh, we probably were, but what’s also true is that once we met, I was never very good at living without him, not until Tom came along. As for him, though, that’s another matter. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other when we were together, but when we weren’t the sod got along without me perfectly well.’

‘Don’t be so sure.’

I stared at him. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Probably nothing more than the way he was when he spoke about you. Even when he was calling you all the names under the sun, there was a something in his eyes, as if another part of him was saying, “Okay, but she’s my scheming manipulative little bitch!” There’s an old story about an English footballer who was being kicked all around the park by his Scottish marker. After the tenth or eleventh time, the Englishman got up and shouted at the guy, “You’re just a big Scots bastard!” and the Jock gave him a toothless grin and said, “Aye, and don’t you forget it.” That’s the sort of look Oz had in his eye when he talked about you; pride of a sort.’

I felt myself go squidgy inside. ‘Did he indeed?’ We stopped at the foot of the hill. The path to the Riomar Hotel went off to the left.

‘Yes,’ Liam said. ‘Something else too. After you disappeared, when everybody thought you’d been killed in that plane with all the rest, Oz went completely schizo. He kept up the front, sure, made his movies, did the personal appearances and all that stuff, but behind the scenes he had detectives looking for you all over the bloody world. We got drunk together one night, after a chat show we did in London, and he told me. He said that after he did the eulogy at your memorial service, he realised that he’d been playing a part like any other, because inside, he refused to believe that you were dead. Ironic, isn’t it; you weren’t, but now he is.’

‘Ironic,’ I repeated. ‘Yes, that’s a word.’

‘You know what else I think?’ he said.

‘Do tell.’

‘I think that part of Oz, maybe the bit that was his mother’s son, I don’t know, thought he should have a nice, quiet, well-ordered domestic life, and went for it with Jan, and with Susie, because that’s what they offered. But the real guy, he didn’t want that at all. The real guy wanted you all along, because you weren’t like that; you were the opposite.’

‘I’m like that now; nice and well-ordered.’

‘Are you? Are you really?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that you’ve still got it, that air of the devil about you, whatever your brother-in-law thinks.’ He grinned. ‘Not that you ain’t cool with it, mind.’

‘No, I don’t,’ I protested. ‘I’m a middle-aged mum.’

His laugh boomed out. ‘So was Maggie Thatcher, once. I’m telling you, Primavera, you’ve still got the spark about you that made you and Oz a couple. I’m not saying that you haven’t changed a thousand per cent from the last time we met, but still, I wouldn’t be in this Culshaw guy’s shoes for all the Guinness in Dublin.’

‘Ach, away with you, man,’ I said, scornfully. ‘Whatever you think, my wayward days are over.’

‘Maybe that makes you even more formidable.’

I laughed at his insistence. ‘Go on, Liam,’ I chuckled. ‘Bugger off and let me get in touch with my cop friend. My friend Susie needs saving from herself, and there’s nobody else who can do it.’

He beamed at me. ‘See what I mean?’

‘Hi, Mum.’

My body was in the kitchen, but my mind was years away, thinking of times past, of Liam Matthews, but mostly about Oz and what Liam had said, about him searching for me, all the time I was hiding out, hiding from him, because I’d believed he was behind that plane going down, and that I’d been his number one target. He’d refused to accept I was dead, but was he really wanting to make sure of it? Once I’d have believed that, but not any more.

I looked at Tom and at the other two as they reached the top of the stairs from the garage. Their hair was tousled, their faces were flushed and their clothes were crumpled, just as you’d expect from three kids who’d just been taken to a water park by a guy.

‘Are we late for lunch?’ he asked.

‘No, you’re not,’ I declared. ‘But you ain’t having any till you’ve got yourselves tidied up.’ I grinned at Conrad, who’d just appeared in the doorway, in much the same state of disrepair as they were. ‘And that goes for you too,’ I told him, although in truth I was pleased that he’d been able to relax a little himself. He takes his job as seriously as anyone I’ve ever met, and so he’s a very wound-up man.

Given the interesting morning I’d had, you might think it was a minor miracle that I’d been able to put anything on the table at all, but it’s as easy to order takeaway pizza for five as it is for one, and just as easy to serve when you cut them into slices and tell everyone to eat with their fingers. Kids don’t have a problem with that, and if Conrad did, he kept it to himself. They were done, and I’d just given them money to buy ice-cream desserts on the beach, when the phone rang.

‘Hello,’ a distant, very diffident, rather weak voice began. ‘It’s me.’

‘How’s your head?’ I asked.

‘Bloody awful,’ Susie replied. ‘Please tell me you’ve got Freddy Mercury singing “Barcelona!” full blast at your place, otherwise the bugger’s trying to split my skull from the inside.’

‘Sorry, kid,’ I told her, ‘it’s only dear old Julio Iglesias at this end, crooning softly and adjusting his balls in that fetching way of his. Drink lots of water and take a couple of codeine and Freddy might lower the volume. Could be worse though; it might have been Pavarotti.’

‘Don’t.’ I heard a heavy sigh. ‘Primavera …’ I waited for her to continue, ‘if I say sorry about last night, can we forget it ever happened?’

‘Susie,’ I said, ‘I’m surprised you can remember what never happened last night.’

‘I wish I couldn’t. I was horrible to you. I should just have ignored the whole thing, but I got drunk, and yes, I know I shouldn’t drink, I know that my treatment doctors warned me about it, but for fuck’s sake, I’m a realist and I know that it probably isn’t my liver that’s going to kill me but something else, so what the hell.’

She was right about that, but I couldn’t say so. Instead, ‘Ach, Susie, I said some stuff I shouldn’t have too.’ I paused. ‘Not about Duncan, though. I’m sorry, but I meant that; the story I told you, about the book, that’s true, whatever his version is. The police here still want me to make a formal complaint. They have him on tape, Susie, on tape.’

‘Oh God,’ she moaned. ‘Please, Primavera, don’t do that. I just couldn’t deal with it right now. You say one thing, he says another; I just don’t know.’

‘Which of us have you known longer?’ I asked.

‘You, of course. But I’m married to Duncan now …’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘A lot,’ she sighed.

‘Susie, tell me something: when he came back, did you send for him, or did he just show up.’

‘He came back; said he had missed me too much. When I told him I was ill he was really shocked, Primavera.’ Her tone was pleading; she really did want me to believe her, but I’d seen the real man, so I couldn’t.

‘Whose idea was it that he go with you to Arizona?’

‘He asked if I wanted him to come. I told him I did. Primavera, Audrey’s great, but even so, you have no idea how lonely I’ve felt going through this thing, having to isolate myself from the kids, having to keep it a secret from them.’

‘That’s blown, I’m afraid.’ I felt I had to admit it, even if it enraged her again. ‘You underestimated your daughter. She’s smart, she did some guessing and she put me in a position where I couldn’t lie to her any longer. So I’m sorry, Susie, but I had to tell her that you had a serious illness, that it had been detected early, and that you were having the appropriate treatment in America.’

She was silent for a few seconds. ‘You didn’t use the C word, did you?’ she asked.

‘No; what I’ve just said, that’s as far as I went. Nor did Janet. She knows as much as I reckon she wants to.’

‘But not wee Jonathan.’

‘I certainly didn’t tell him,’ I assured her, ‘and neither will Janet … but to be honest, Susie, I really don’t know what’s going on in that boy’s head.’

‘Did you mean what you said about him and Duncan? That he was worrying about him being back?’

‘Yes, and he is. The wee chap’s going to need careful handling when you come home. So’s Janet, for that matter,’ I added, ‘but she’s a strong character already, like you are.’

Her sigh was so long drawn out that I thought it might evolve into tears. ‘Not any more,’ she moaned, ‘not any more. I’ve been running the Gantry Group since my dad gave me the reins when I was twenty-four. I’ve always been in control, always been sure of my decisions, never had a moment of self-doubt. But now, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where I am. Without Phil Culshaw in Glasgow, and Audrey, who’s much more an executive than a secretary now, the business might have collapsed through my dithering. I’m lost. The only thing I know with any degree of certainty is that I’m going to die.’

‘Susie …’ I exclaimed, ready to tell her she was talking nonsense, but …

‘Primavera, you couldn’t lie to my daughter, nor can you to me; you know it. I’m not dumb, or in denial. I know the type of leukaemia I have and I know what the survival stats are. I know my own prognosis too; doctors here never want to be specific in case they get it wrong and you sue them for malpractice or causing emotional distress or anything else that a smart lawyer can come up with. But I asked mine, if he was a gambling man, how many Christmases would he put his own money on me seeing. He wouldn’t go beyond one. When I asked him if he’d bet his house on that many, he looked away and shook his head. I asked him if that meant I got a discount off the bill.’

‘Christ, what did he say to that?’

‘He smiled and said the odds against that are far longer.’

‘Are you still smiling?’

‘As best I can,’ she replied, ‘because I’m well looked after. I don’t have to worry about the kids, thanks to you, and Audrey and Conrad are bricks. But that doesn’t cover everything. I still need shoring up, and that’s where Duncan comes in. I don’t have a single adult relative, girl, not one. He’s all I have in the way of emotional support and I couldn’t do without him, now I know what I’m facing.’

‘I understand,’ I told her. ‘I’m not so insensitive I can’t see that. It’s just—’

‘Look, I know you don’t like him,’ she interrupted, ‘and I know you’ve got reason, with him hitting Tom. His story is that Tom was cheeky to him, but worry not, I don’t believe that, ’cos I know the lad too well. Anyway, he’s promised me he’ll never lay a hand on any of them again.’

Especially Tom, in case he gets another kicking
, I thought, but I let it lie.

‘Thing is, Primavera, I need Duncan.’

‘I understand,’ I said, and I did. ‘But tell me. Who did the proposing?’

‘Mmm.’ She mused for a few seconds. ‘Nobody did, really. When the treatments were over and I’d begun the recuperation programme, Duncan suggested that we should get out of the hotel, for a break. He said that Vegas wasn’t that far away, and that we could go there if I was up to the flight. The doc said I was, for that short a trip, so I had Audrey book a private plane. When we got there, the place was full of bloody brides. We laughed about it, then I think Duncan looked at me, and I said, “Why the hell not?” and before I knew it we were taking vows before some fat eedjit in a white cat suit. And I still think, “Why the hell not?” Where’s the harm in it?’

‘For you, none,’ I agreed. ‘One thing you never told me before,’ I continued, quickly, ‘other than very loosely, was how you and he met up.’