Deadly Business (23 page)

‘Then get off your mark and call me later, in Glasgow.’

I ended the call. ‘What did you mean?’ Tom asked, immediately. ‘About him wanting Susie Mum to die?’

‘Nothing. Forget I said it. I was angry, like you’re always telling me not to be.’

‘If Dad was alive, he’d be angry,’ he countered.

‘If your dad was alive, Duncan wouldn’t be there, would he?’

I sighed, feeling suddenly tired myself. I thought of Susie on her last flight and had a moment of panic. What if I wasn’t here either? None of us know the moment when it will end.

I needed comfort. I called Liam.

‘Hey,’ he said, cheerily. ‘Are you not on board yet?’

I told him what had happened, and put an end to his happy morning. ‘Oh shit,’ he murmured. ‘That’s terrible. I am so sorry. Those poor kids.’

‘Yup.’

‘What are you going to do? Go to Monaco or come back here?’

‘Neither. Audrey’s staying at home, but I still have to go to Glasgow; there will be a board meeting in the morning and I will be in the chair, as Susie wanted it.’

‘How’s that going to go down?’

‘With the bereaved widower? Spectacularly badly. With the rest of the board? I have no idea. But I have to do it.’

‘Wish I could help,’ he murmured.

‘You just did. Be there when I get back, okay?’

He chuckled. ‘I will, I will, honest.’

I ended the call and went to check the flight status. It showed ‘Boarding’. We didn’t rush to get there, as we were fast-track category, and by the time we did, most of the passengers were in place. I let Tom have the window place. He shoved his man-bag under the seat in front, once he’d retrieved his iPad (a Christmas present from Grandpa Mac; Janet had the same) and the Bose in-ear phones he’d had from me, and held them in his lap, obedient to the regulations, until we were in the air and the seat-belt sign was off, when he disappeared into a combination of Beyoncé and a Spanish e-novel called
The Sun over Breda
, one of the adventures of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s swashbuckling swordsman, Captain Alatriste.

He didn’t say much during the flight, even declining the meal, and I left him to his thoughts. He’d been introduced to death far too young to understand it fully … ‘Who does?’ you might ask … and I wondered whether the latest encounter would make him revisit the first.

Once we touched down in Heathrow, however, he was his usual self. Just as well, for I didn’t need any hassle. I’m one of those people who will take any alternative to flying through Heathrow, particularly when I have to change terminals, and my pawing in Barcelona had made me even less enthusiastic as I approached the transfer process. But we got lucky. The bus left as soon as we stepped on and our business class status speeded us through security. The lounge was packed, in complete contrast to the other one, so busy that we went for a Starbuck’s instead, and a sandwich, since Tom had decided that finally he was hungry. Looking back, the journey and its complexities formed a bubble around us both, one that isolated us from the awful thing that had happened earlier. It would come back to haunt us later, I knew, but at that moment, the presence of so much bustling life around us kept the dead at bay.

The London-Edinburgh leg was more crowded, and with only a single class of travel in that flight, less comfortable. We were in the third row, seats A and B. C was already occupied when we arrived, by a guy who looked as if he’d been a rugby prop forward in his youth, and had put on a lot of weight since. Tom gave him one glance and pushed me towards the window seat.

We arrived on time, and amazingly, so did our luggage. We wheeled it to the Hertz desk … quite a long wheel in Edinburgh these days, and soon we were on our way. It had been a while since I was last in Glasgow, so I was grateful for the satnav that Audrey had specified when she’d booked the car. It’s not that I don’t know how to find the city, but road systems change all the time, and in some it’s possible to see your destination without being able to get anywhere near it, if you don’t know exactly how. I needn’t have worried, though; West George Street still ran in the same direction as it had the last time I was there. We came off the M8 and more or less drove straight to the door.

I let the door crew take care of the luggage and of parking the car, and led Tom through the imposing entrance into the foyer of a building that had once been an episcopal church.

There have been times in my life, very few of them, when I’ve refused to believe the evidence of my own eyes. That was one of them. There was a guy standing beside reception, and for a moment I thought it was Liam, but I dismissed the silly notion and marched on without giving him a second glance, until Tom exclaimed, ‘Hey, how did you get here? You were in St Martí when we were at Barcelona Airport.’

‘That is true, buddy,’ he conceded, ‘but what’s the point of being a GWA superhero if you don’t exercise your superpowers from time to time?’

I stared at him, still in denial. ‘But …’ was all I could say, and then he smiled and I more or less melted into him. ‘But,’ I sighed, ‘I am so fucking glad you’re here. I don’t know why, for I am a forceful and independent woman … “My Way” could have been written for me … but I am. Now, how the hell did you manage it?’

‘You can thank my ex,’ he said, as I released him from my grasp. ‘After you called, I was sitting there worrying about you two. I reckoned a little back-up wouldn’t do any harm even if I couldn’t get to you till tomorrow. So I went online and saw there was a flight from Girona to Prestwick, today, with a couple of hours to departure. It was showing “Full” but I took a wild chance and phoned Erin. Miracle of miracles, her husband was the pilot; she called him and he got me a jump seat. I made it to the airport just in time. Honest, I’ll never say another bad word about the guy, or about his airline.’

‘When did you get here?’

‘About two minutes ago. I was just in the process of booking myself a room when you walked through the door.’

‘You don’t need to do that,’ Tom volunteered. ‘We’ve got a room spare, now that Audrey isn’t coming.’

That was true, but it wasn’t how I wanted things to work out. I looked at Liam. ‘Wait there and do nothing,’ I ordered.

I took my son across to the window to the right of the door. ‘It’s big boy time,’ I said. ‘How would you feel if Liam and I shared a room?’

‘Would it be forever?’ he asked.

‘I have no idea. But he’s a good man, I like him and I want to be with him just now. Could you handle that?’

He looked up at me, but only up by a couple of inches. ‘In my English class,’ he began, ‘we’ve been doing a poem called “The Lady of Shallot”. Do you know it?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I love it. It’s how our language is supposed to be. Do you like it?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Because when I read the words, they make me think of you, and that’s sad. Dad’s dead, Mum, he’s not coming back, and it’s time you had a loyal knight and true, not just a pageboy like me. I don’t want you to wind up like the Lady did.’

Profound? All parents think we know our kids, and what their capabilities are, but mostly we’re wrong. Our expectations are usually over the top, or we take the gloomy view, that they’ll get by and that’ll be enough. I’ve always tried to expect nothing of Tom, other than decency, honesty and integrity, and he’s shown me every one of those. But when he said that to me, I was plain flat out astonished.

‘How long have you thought that way?’ I asked.

‘For a while now. I want you to be happy. I wouldn’t want you to be with a
culo
like Duncan Culshaw, but you’re too sensible ever to pick anyone like him. I like Liam, so if you want to live
en pareja
with him, I won’t mind.’

‘I’ll still be your best pal, you know,’ I said.

‘You’ll still be my mum and that’s the important thing.’

I gave him a quick kiss on the forehead and then returned to reception, where I did a deal. Two minutes later, Liam and I had what they called a Rock ’n’ Roll suite, for a reason that still escapes me, and Tom had a room along the corridor. It had just gone six thirty; I booked a table in the brasserie for half past eight and told Tom that we’d knock on his door on the way down.

You probably imagine that we put those two hours to good use. You’d be quite right, but you may continue to imagine the details, for I’m not planning to describe them. There was a moment when it did seem a little weird to be in bed with a man on the day that a long-standing friend had died, but it didn’t take me longer than another moment to realise that if our roles in the day’s drama had been reversed, Susie would have done exactly the same thing.

The only things I will say are that it was good, and that having a man’s seed sown deep inside me … don’t worry, I was nowhere near ovulation, although I made a mental note to go back on the pill for as long as I needed it … put my Barcelona bunny friend in its proper perspective. I made a mental note to attend the next Estartit car boot sale and slip it into someone’s car, in a box labelled ‘Ten euro’ when they weren’t looking. I had the very lady in mind for the nice surprise.

We didn’t talk much, Liam and I, not for a while at any rate, not until we were soaping each other in the suite’s enormous shower … you could have fitted the whole Rock ’n’ Roll band in there. ‘Tom okay?’ he asked me, finally.

‘Tom is fine. He sees you as Lancelot … and I want no lewd cracks about that name,’ I added, as I explained what he’d said about Tennyson’s poem.

‘Bloody hell!’ Liam exclaimed. ‘I assume he takes his sensitivity from his mother’s side of the family, for it was never evident in his old man, not that I could see.’ As he spoke, he felt his nose, checking that it was intact.

I smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, he does. My mother was an author, and my dad, whom I plan for you to meet later this week, is a craftsman, in wood. That’s if you’re willing, of course. I’ll understand if you don’t want to get involved with families yet.’

‘Given the disaster that mine was?’

‘No! I didn’t mean that at all. The thought never occurred to me. We’ve only known each other … or been reacquainted … for three days. This could be just a fling for both of us. I’m not naive; I understand that. Christ, man, we live on different continents.’

‘One day at a time, sweet Jesus,’ he sang softly, in a rather nice tenor voice. ‘Primavera, my love,’ I smiled, a little coyly no doubt, at his use of the ‘L’ word, ‘I can’t wait to meet your old man. You’re forgetting, he’s the only member of your family I haven’t met yet, given that I’ve worked for your brother-in-law a couple of times, and met your sister in the process.’

‘In that case, prepare yourself for a gentle interrogation in Auchterarder, and for being taken to the pub. My father’s not a big boozer, but he does like an occasional pint of Guinness … don’t worry, though, he won’t force it on you.’

We stepped out of the shower and towelled ourselves dry, then I shooed him from the bathroom. ‘I’ve got to do my hair and put my face on,’ I told him. ‘For that I need space and privacy.’ I checked the time. ‘Go on, get dressed, we’re running late.’

I was also running on empty. I’d had a long, eventful, and inevitably tiring day. I needed refuelling, for I had to prepare for the board meeting next morning and that would mean another early start. It took me less than five minutes to make myself reasonably presentable; my hair is never a problem and I restricted myself to what I call a half face, that being more make-up than I usually wear but not the full works.

I was in the Rock ’n’ Roll bedroom of our Rock ’n’ Roll suite, dressing for dinner, when the phone rang. Liam … why are men always ready first? … picked it up.

‘Yes?’ The inevitable pause. ‘No, reception was correct,’ he continued. ‘This is Primavera’s room. Hold on a second, and I’ll pass you across to her.’

I stepped round the bed and took the handset from him. ‘Woman,’ he mouthed silently.

‘Hi,’ I began, as he read my mind and moved behind me to finish the job of fastening my bra. ‘Primavera.’

‘Who the hell was that?’ Audrey gasped. ‘And don’t tell me it was Tom. I know his voice is changing, but that one belongs to somebody else.’

‘Ask Conrad,’ I told her. ‘He’ll be able to work it out. Or ask Janet; so will she.’

‘I will, don’t worry. Whoever he is, he sounds, mmm, interesting.’

‘You got that right,’ I agreed. ‘How are the children?’

‘As you’d expect,’ she replied. ‘They were both stunned when we told them. Wee Jonathan’s in pieces. I’ve left Janet to look after him. She’s done her crying, for now at least, and she’s in control of herself.’

‘What about Duncan?’

‘Not a problem, as yet. He tried to … let’s say, assert himself as the new head of the house before they arrived, when it was just the two of us there and the housekeeper. “I’m the children’s daddy now,” he said. We had a bit of a confrontation; I told him that might be so, but they barely knew him, and that if he ever wanted to have any sort of a relationship with either of them it shouldn’t begin by him telling them their mother was dead, and that he had to leave that to me. I’d already sent Conrad a text, letting him know what had happened. Duncan got the message. He was there when they arrived, but backed off as soon as he’d said hello … or tried to. Wee Jonathan spat at him as soon as he saw him. Now he’s staying away from them. To be honest, Primavera, I don’t believe he’s interested in them. He’s been on the phone for half the day, but I don’t know to whom.’