He nodded. ‘Mr Ross told me. He also told me that you were in Amsterdam when he got taken down.’
‘Not my fondest memory,’ I admitted. There were others but, good friend or not, I couldn’t let him in on them.
‘Nonetheless, take some advice, and look out for yourself and Ms Phillips over this business. When people start playing for the sort of money that’s involved here, things can get very serious.’
Chapter 15
I pulled a grave face and made the right noises at the time, but in truth, I thought that McLaren’s warning was over-dramatic, and I didn’t take it very seriously. I had done research into Paul Wallinger that he hadn’t, and I did not have him marked down as a heavy hitter.
It was good to have him on-side; I had known that Prim’s money would be hard to catch up with, maybe impossible for us on our own. The banks would be unlikely to talk to individuals. . frankly I’d be very pissed off if mine did. . but with a police officer asking the questions they might be more inclined to co-operate.
When I went back inside, Audrey was waiting for me; she’d found a flight to Minneapolis next day, from Glasgow via Amsterdam, and she wanted me to okay it. I shivered when she told me that; I hadn’t been to Schiphol since the day Mike Dylan was shot. Nonetheless I said it was fine, and left her to go firm on the booking. I was taking a hell of a chance: I didn’t know for sure that Mother Wallinger was still in either of the twin cities of Minneapolis-St Paul, or that she was anywhere else on Earth for that matter, but we had to begin somewhere.
Conrad took us to the airport next morning; Susie volunteered, of course, but I managed to talk her out of it. It was tough enough saying goodbye to the kids, and I didn’t fancy a public emotional farewell at the departure gate, especially as I was flying out with my ex-wife. Instead, we said our serious farewells the night before, and well into the morning.
When we left Prim was carrying a very important document, a notarised copy of the interim interdict that she’d been granted the day before in the Sheriff Court in Edinburgh, ordering Tom’s return to the UK pending a full custody hearing. When we found the boy, Harvey’s instructions were to engage a local lawyer and have him petition a judge for it to be enforced. By that time, he hoped that we would have grounds for the local police to arrest Paul Wallinger.
I was bleary-eyed when I got to the KLM desk to pick up our travel documents, so when I saw that we were booked as Mr and Mrs Blackstone, I was taken more than a bit by surprise. Then I remembered that Audrey would have had to give them the name on Prim’s passport, and that was the one she’d borrowed from me for a while.
Someone else may claim to be the world’s favourite airline, but they’re not mine. I like flying with KLM or Northwest, and usually I do so out of choice. There were no horrors waiting for me in Schiphol Airport; the place is constantly changing, and so I doubt that I could have found the spot where Dylan went down, even if I’d been trying.
We had two and a half hours between flights, which we spent in the comfort of the VIP Lounge. I’d expected to be unnoticed in Amsterdam, but I caught a couple of people looking in our direction. I hoped that none of them were tabloid journalists, although if they had been they’d have had nothing to latch on to. Prim and I barely spoke during the wait, apart from when she asked me if I wanted a drink. I was too busy reading Everett’s script, trying to use the time to get into the part that I’d be acting in only a week.
I read it part of the way across the Atlantic too, until the text started to swim before me, and I knew that it was time to rest my eyes. As I stretched out on the club-class seat, I saw that Primavera was watching a movie on her monitor. What the hell was it but Red Leather. When it finished, she was smiling. ‘You were damn good in that, you know,’ she said. The flight attendant must have thought so too: he gave me a special smile as he passed me my meal tray, and filled my wine glass.
Never having been to Minneapolis before, and having been geographically disadvantaged all my life, I was surprised when we were routed over Canada and the Great Lakes. The long overland approach reminded me yet again that North America is a hell of a big place.
They say that MSP International is one of the busiest airports in the world, but it was quiet when we landed. I’ve been fast-tracked through Immigration before, but not there; still, we were first off the plane and that helped. When we got to the desk and handed over our passports and forms, the officer asked us the standard question: ‘Purpose of your visit to the United States?’
I hadn’t thought about that one, but I knew that ‘searching for a child-snatching con-man’ was not an appropriate response. So instead I told her that I was making a movie in Las Vegas and had decided to spend some time in Minneapolis first. ‘Mall of America,’ Prim added helpfully. That did the trick, for the woman smiled, stamped our passports and clipped a green entry card into each one. She even asked for my autograph. ‘We don’t get too many movie stars through here,’ she confided.
‘What’s the Mall of America?’ I whispered to Prim as we walked away.
‘Shops, shops and more shops.’
My body felt like it was after midnight, but the airport clocks and the daylight outside insisted that it was early evening, just before seven when I lifted the last of our luggage off the carousel, and we walked through the gate that led into Minnesota. The only thing I knew about the place at that moment was that they had once elected Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura, a wrestler, as governor. The guy didn’t do a bad job, sparking a rumour that Everett Davis was going to run for governor of New York. (He might, but not yet.)
The second thing I found out about the state is that they do a very nice line in airport limos; ours was driven by a guy called Charles, and it was a very plush Mercedes, not one of those awful white stretch jobs, which embarrass the hell out of me whenever one turns up to collect me. I asked the chauffeur if he could take us into Minneapolis by the scenic route, but he smiled and said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t have one.’
The posher of the twin cities turned out to be a place with mainly low-rise suburbs, but with a high-rise office and condo community in its heart. We could see the skyscrapers looming up as we approached.
We were cruising along a wide boulevard when Prim grabbed my arm. ‘Can we stop there?’ she called out to the driver. She was pointing at a wood-fronted building emblazoned with the legends ‘Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore’ and ‘Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore’, cosily side by side. ‘I’ve got nothing to read,’ she explained. Charles nodded, and probably committed a couple of traffic violations by crossing three lanes to park right at the front door.
She jumped out and I followed. Inside, the two shops were actually one; together they occupied quite a big space and it was piled high with stock. Prim headed for the mystery section and started browsing; I picked up a couple of titles myself and looked at them. I was thinking about buying an Elmore Leonard when I was aware of a slim man standing at my side, bespectacled, with a small moustache.
‘How do you do, sir?’ he greeted me, extending a hand, formally. ‘My name’s Jeff, and it’s a great honour to have you here.’
‘Thanks very much,’ I told him. ‘It’s my honour that you recognise me.’
‘A lot of people in America will recognise you, Mr Blackstone. We sell a lot of the Skinner books here, and I’ve admired your work in the movies that have been made of them.’
‘That’s very kind of you. Has your shop been here long?’
He smiled. ‘Thirty years. . at least, Uncle Hugo has. Uncle Edgar joined him six years later.’
I loved the place. ‘You’ll be the only specialist in town, I suppose.’
‘Oh, no, we have Pat and Gary at Once Upon a Crime, too. Minneapolis is quite a centre for the arts, you know.’ He paused. ‘What brings you here, Mr Blackstone, if I may ask? Are you making a personal appearance somewhere?’