‘Can’t you do something?’
I couldn’t keep the frown off my face. ‘Pull some strings, you mean? Keep her out of court? Have you any idea what your sister tried to do to me, Dawn? She tried to end my marriage, she tried to ruin my career, and she tried to extort five million quid out of me. Why? Because she wanted to get back at me, and at Susie, for the way our marriage ended.’
‘More than that, I think,’ said Dawn, softly. ‘Not just get back at you; she wanted to get you back.’
‘By ruining me?’
‘Yes. It’s happened before, remember. You left her before, for Jan, and when she died, you came back to her. The whole thing hasn’t just been about revenge. She’ll have calculated that when you came crawling out of the rubble of your life, you’d come crawling back to her. I’m sure of it, Oz.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘Because she loves you, like Juliet loved Romeo, Darby did Joan, Ronnie did Nancy. She loves you like crazy … maybe literally so, I don’t know.’
‘She loves me so much she hid my son from me?’
‘Maybe she thought he’d be the final lure to bring you back. Or maybe she knew that when she started you on the false trail she’d mapped out you’d wind up finding him.’ Her mouth seemed to tighten for a second. ‘The sad thing for me is that she’d use a little boy like that. Does she feel anything for him, anything at all?’
I thought about that, and about the way Prim had been the night before. ‘She does, I’m pretty sure. Look at him, he’s as healthy and happy a wee chap as you’ve ever seen.’
‘Are you going to take him from her?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to apply for legal custody. I’ve told my solicitor to get on to that straight away; the process will be under way by now. But I can’t cut his mother out of his life, can I? She might wind up in jail in Scotland for a while, but when she comes out, of course she’ll have access.’
‘Miles and I will supervise that if you like. . to make sure she doesn’t disappear with him again.’
I appreciated her offer and I told her so. ‘That’s long-term, though. There’s something I’d like you to do before that.’
‘What?’
‘When all this started, I gave my word on something to Prim, but really it was to your mother, and I’d like you to help me keep it. I promised that Elanore will see her grandson before she dies. I’d like you to take him there.’
Chapter 35
It took me a little while to explain to Tom that I was going to have to leave him again. But I promised that he’d have a great time with his auntie Dawn, his uncle Miles, and Bruce, and that there would be other people for him to meet as well, not least his grandpa, a great big man who’d tell him funny stories about pulling teeth.
When he was ready to let me go, I promised that I’d see him soon in Scotland, kissed him farewell, not goodbye, and drove back to Vegas, almost picking up a speeding ticket on the way, courtesy of the Californian Highway Patrol. (The officer settled for an autograph and a handshake.)
It was getting dark when I reached the Bellagio. I arranged the return of the car to Hertz, with a mental note to put a Jag in the garage of the house in Beverly Hills when we bought it. (My non-stop tour of North America had changed me: I’d decided that the next time the accountants recommended we go offshore, I was going to agree with them.)
I took the lift up to my suite, walked into my room and dumped my bag on the floor. There was someone in my bed: her red hair was all over the pillow, like it always is, and she was sound asleep. There had been no skin and feathers in the living area, so I guessed that when Liam had picked her up from McCarron, as I’d asked him to do, he’d made damn sure she didn’t get anywhere near Prim.
She was still in the Gradis’ suite when I went along there … I was pleased to see that the Behemoth’s spots were fading, finally; maybe he was going to make next week. I told her nothing, only that she was moving out, to a suite in the Mandalay Bay, at the end of the Strip, then waited as she packed and took her along there. She was tense all the way; once or twice she started, as if she was going to ask me something, but I told her to shut up, that I would talk to her when I was good and ready.
Once she was checked in, I took her to the China Grill. She looked as if she hadn’t been eating properly since I left, and I was getting peckish again.
I told her what had happened over a couple of Shanghai lobsters. She wept a bit when I told her Tom was safe and with his astonished aunt Dawn, a little more when I savaged her for keeping his existence from me, and a lot more when I told her that she probably wouldn’t see him again for quite a while.
It might have been a bit embarrassing for the waiters but, frankly, by that time I didn’t give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.
When I had softened a little, I told her about her mother; I expected her to cry about that too, but she didn’t. It seemed as if her tears were reserved for Tom. She was upset, don’t get me wrong, but what I was telling her wasn’t news. She was a nurse by profession, after all, and she’d known what was coming.
Finally I told her that I wanted her to make me some promises.
‘One, you don’t fight me over Tom’s custody. You’ll find it difficult from a jail cell, but if you do I’ll win, and it’ll be harder for you in the long run. Go along with it, and he’ll spend as much time with you as he does with me.
‘Two, you phone your father tomorrow, and this time you really do tell him the truth, so that he can prepare Elanore before Dawn turns up on the doorstep with our son.
‘Three, as long as you’re in Vegas … you’re paying for this lot, by the way, now I know you’re not really skint, so how long that is, is up to you. . you don’t come anywhere near Susie and me, especially Susie. You go near her, and she’ll tear your head off.
‘Four, tomorrow morning, first thing, you will phone Harvey January and apologise to him, until the profuseness is leaking from your ears.
‘Five, once you’ve had time to think about things, you’ll come back to Scotland and give yourself up. You’re not facing any criminal charges here, but there are things over there that won’t go away till you’ve dealt with them. I’d rather my son’s mother has a prison record than she’s a constant fugitive.
‘All of those things: do you promise them, now?’
She dabbed her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said, quietly. And I believed her. So far, I have to say, she’s kept her word.
Chapter 36
That’s not where it finished, of course. I went back to the Bellagio, woke Susie, and told her everything she hadn’t known up until then, especially the fact that I had a son neither of us had known about till the day before. (Maybe it was two days before in Susie’s case: I’m really crap when it comes to time differences.)
She took it all pretty well, although when I told her that Prim wouldn’t be liable to arrest in the US, and that I’d turned her loose, she huffed for a bit.
She stayed in Vegas with me for the rest of my commitment to Serious Impact. That’s just been released, by the way. It’s doing a bundle at the box office, and Liam, the spotless Jerry, Santi Temple, the new girl in GWA, whose name is Gamma Raye, and I are getting some very nice reviews.
When it was finished we went back to Scotland, with things to do. Some of them involved the flotation of the Gantry Group, making us even more stupidly rich. Some of them involved receiving Henry Potter’s proposal and accepting it, to the extent of going shopping for homes in LA and Monaco. Some of them involved my sister’s wedding to Harvey January, who, for some reason, asked me to be his best man. (Jonny was excellent as an usher, but Colin was a complete disaster. My dad held up well; it’s not right that a man should fork out for two weddings for one daughter, so I picked up the tab.)