Residentially, downtown Minneapolis is condominium land, but the Warehouse District is different. It is, as its name suggests, a collection of former storehouses most of them now converted into loft apartments. Martha Wallinger’s looked as if it had been done a few years ago, but the refurbished building still looked very smart, as if it was well managed. If I’m ever sentenced to live in Minnesota, I’ll want something like it.
It had a concierge, but each apartment had a buzzer out in the street. I pressed the one for F4/3 and waited. . for about two seconds: she must have been right by the intercom. She was standing by the elevator too, when it opened on to the fourth floor.
‘Oz, I can’t tell you how good it is of you to call on me,’ she exclaimed. She had changed into a lighter, less formal trouser suit than the one she wore to work, but the makeup was still impeccable and the hair immovable.
I watched her as Prim stepped out of the small lift; she’d been standing behind me, so that Mrs Wallinger couldn’t see her face until that moment. If she had seen a photograph, it had either been a very bad one, or acting must run in the Wallinger family, for not a flicker of recognition crossed her face.
‘This is Mrs Blackstone,’ I told her.
Martha took a step towards her, hand outstretched. ‘How lovely to meet you, my dear. It must be wonderful being married to a movie star. I always hoped that my Paul would make it big in the business and that I would get to bask in his glory,’ she smiled, in a way that could have conveyed sadness or disappointment, or both, ‘but it hasn’t happened, not yet at any rate.’
She half turned towards her front door. ‘Come on in, both of you. There’s coffee on the hob.’
She led us into a spacious apartment, a big all-in-one living area with several doors leading off, not unlike Prim’s pad in London, except that it was twice the size and the ceilings were a lot higher. I expected it to be hot, since there was a lot of glass, but it was air-conditioned.
‘Nice place,’ I commented. ‘Have you always lived here, Mrs Wallinger?’ I knew the answer but I wanted to get her conversational. I learned back in the days when I was a private enquiry agent in Edinburgh that once you start people talking sometimes they can’t stop.
‘No, I haven’t, only for the last few years. John, my husband, and I lived in St Paul and we raised our family there, but it was difficult for me after his death, so I bought this place. . he was well insured. . and moved across the river. Oh, and Oz, please call me Martha.’ She turned. ‘I didn’t catch your first name, my dear.’
‘It’s Primavera,’ I told her.
‘Primavera! What a lovely name. I’ve never met anyone called Primavera before.’
‘She’s called Prim for short.’
‘How absolutely charming,’ said Martha. ‘Well, Prim, will you have some coffee? I’ve made a fresh pot.’
‘That would be nice.’
‘Oz, you too?’
‘I won’t, thank you, but if you have some mineral water, that would be good.’
‘Of course I have.’
As she went to the kitchen area to pour, I glanced around the place. It was comfortably, but not expensively furnished, there was a big television in the far corner and much of the available wall space was occupied by bookshelves.
‘You’re a big reader, Martha,’ I called across.
‘Sure am, Oz,’ she called across. ‘Mysteries, mostly; I just love ’em. Can’t get enough. You know those Skinner movies you did? I’ve read all those books, and that other Edinboro’ fella too.’
I strolled across to a long sideboard; it looked to be sixties vintage, and I guessed that she might have had it all her domestic life. Several family photographs were displayed on it: a tall, crew-cut man in US military uniform, with a chestful of medals, a graduation photograph starring a young man who looked a bit like me, another showing a second youth, slick, spotless and smiling in a sharp suit, and a fourth of the same man, older and much more casual, with a wholesome all-American blonde and two kids, girl and boy, aged perhaps on either side of ten.
‘My little family,’ said Martha, as she returned with a tray, which she put on a coffee-table in the middle of the sitting area. She gave Prim a mug of Java and me a glass of something fizzy and slightly tinted, then offered us doughnuts from a big plate. Prim took one; I passed.
She looked back towards the photo display. ‘That’s John, my late husband; he was in Vietnam, you know. He won two Silver Stars and many other decorations. Then there’s Paul, but you know him, of course, and then there’s John the Second, my other son, his wife Sheryl, and their children, Lori and John Wallinger the Third.’
I almost said that the kid sounded like a dispossessed Balkan king, but decided that that would not be a good move. Instead I went straight in there. ‘Paul doesn’t have a family, then?’
‘No, I’m afraid he doesn’t. I have to rely on Johnny for the supply of little Wallingers.’
‘Funny. When I met him he told me that he had a thing going with a British girl, and that she had just got pregnant.’
I’ll swear she went pale under the makeup.
‘Surely not,’ she murmured, her eyes suddenly shifting, as if she had been taken completely off guard.
‘That’s what he told me, I’m sure. He said that he was based in London when he wasn’t working.’
‘When was this?’
‘A couple of years back, in LA, like I said earlier. Actually, maybe it was more recently than that, maybe it was only eighteen months.’ I gave her a west-coast laugh. ‘Yes, it was winter, but in southern California it’s easy to forget, isn’t it?’
‘He told you that?’
‘Yup. You’ve been to LA, haven’t you, Martha?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Oz,’ she replied, quietly, frowning a little. ‘I’ve never been to California.’
‘What? Not even to see where Paul works, much of the time?’ I grinned. ‘Mind you, who the hell am I to talk? My father’s never been there either; he’s been too busy pulling teeth in Scotland, just like you’ve been too busy managing assets in Minneapolis. You should take a trip, Martha, even if it’s only to visit Universal Studios; you could take Lori and John the Third. They’d love it, I promise you. It might not be on the same scale as Disney World, but it’s pretty spectacular.’
She smiled again, as if she was pleased that I’d gone off on another tangent. ‘Maybe I’ll do that; too many of us never leave the Midwest, you know. And I do love my grandchildren.’ She looked at me, then at Prim. ‘You have children, don’t you? I’m sure I read somewhere that you do.’
‘Two,’ I replied. ‘Janet and Jonathan; they’re at home in Scotland with their nanny.’
Prim put a hand on my arm; for a second I thought she was going to say how wonderful they were, but she didn’t. ‘Martha,’ she said instead, ‘do you think I could use your bathroom?’ She grinned at me. ‘That root beer we had at lunchtime; you know the stuff always does this to me.’
‘Me too,’ our hostess agreed. ‘It’s that door straight behind where you’re sitting.’
‘Thanks. Excuse me.’
I guessed that she might be doing a runner to get out of talking about the kids: but then again, maybe she just needed to pee.
As soon as she was gone, Martha’s frown returned. ‘I can hardly believe my son said that to you. He was living with a British girl and she was pregnant? The damn fool.’
‘It happens, Martha; you shouldn’t blame the girl.’
‘No, I mean it, he’s a damn fool. He shouldn’t be telling you things like that.’
‘Come on, it’s a different world we live in, guys like Paul and me.’
‘Oz, you’re not like Paul. My older son is a fantasist; he sails too close to the wind, he talks too much. I’ve always feared that one day he’ll talk himself right into trouble.’
‘Come on, Martha. He’s an actor. What sort of trouble could he talk himself into?’
She looked at the floor, as if she was working up the courage to tell me: and then Prim came back from the bathroom.
‘That’s better,’ she said, with evident relief. ‘Martha, do you think I could have some more coffee now?’