‘You don’t fly it yourself, do you?’
‘My goodness no, Mrs Blackstone,’ he laughed. ‘It’s not built for pleasure flights. I employ a crew; previously they were with Air New Zealand. They’re the best, I’m told.’
The last time I flew on a private aircraft it came down a lot harder than the pilot had intended. I walked away, but nobody else did. As a result, I’ve stuck to scheduled services ever since. ‘That may be,’ I said, politely, ‘but I think I’ll pass on that, thank you. And it’s Primavera, please.’
‘Anywhere you like?’
‘I like it here. Thanks all the same.’
‘Dad,’ Uche growled. ‘Stop being a flash arsehole.’
His father looked at me, his expression pained. ‘You hear that, Primavera? The money I’ve invested my son’s education and that is the result.’
‘But he does have a fine, cultured accent, Mr Wigwe,’ Jonny pointed out. He’d finished his chat with the telly guy and come over to join us. ‘They called him the Count at ASU. It went down very well with the cheerleaders.’
‘So did they,’ his caddie murmured. ‘Very well.’ I shot him a warning glower; Tom was within earshot, and I didn’t want to have to explain the remark. . or maybe I hoped that he didn’t understand it.
But as it happened, he seemed to be in conference with Jonny. ‘Can I?’ I heard him exclaim.
‘It’s all fixed up,’ his cousin replied. He looked at me. ‘Our board boy’s called in sick,’ he told me. ‘You know, the kid who follows us round with the sign that shows our scores. The tournament director told me in the clubhouse, and I’ve volunteered Tom for the job.’
‘Is he big enough?’
‘Mum! I’ve grown two centimetres in the last month. I’m a hundred and fifty-two now.’
Or five feet tall, expressed another way; and still short of eleven years old. I found a chart online a couple of years ago, and I’ve been plotting his growth ever since. It says that he’s on course to be around six three.
‘He’s well big enough, Auntie P,’ Jonny assured me. He looked at Tom’s feet. ‘He might be better in golf shoes than those trainers, though.’ He punched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s go and see the FootJoy guys. They might just have a pair your size. Then I’ll introduce you to the guy who runs the board boys.’
‘Shouldn’t you be practising?’ I asked.
He checked his watch; his large, multi-buttoned sponsored watch. ‘I’m not due on range for another fifteen minutes,’ he said. He glanced at Uche. ‘See you there, mate, okay?’
He and Tom left, and I found myself alone with two generations of Wigwes. I recalled the serious discussion they’d been having when I’d arrived and thought it best to let them resume it. ‘See you later, guys,’ I chirped.
‘Please don’t go, Primavera,’ Kalu exclaimed. ‘I hoped we might have lunch.’
‘Sorry,’ I lied, sort of. ‘I have to meet friends.’ He was an interesting man, no question, but he was radiating interest in me as well. He wasn’t unattractive, a bit more than that indeed, but I thought of the absent ‘companion’ and decided that if he was advertising a temporary vacancy, it wasn’t one I saw myself filling.
I headed for the retail tent hoping that Shirley was in shopping mode, but if she was she was doing it somewhere else. Still I killed a quarter of an hour looking for her, then headed for the practice ground. When I got there, Jonny and Tom were waiting, alongside Lena Mankell, looking not her usual frosty, but downright glacial. I could guess why: no sign of Uche. As for my boy, he was wearing a nice new pair of shoes, with cotton liners that didn’t quite qualify as socks, and he was carrying a bag that I guessed contained his trainers.
Shirley and Patterson were in the stand, watching the action. I didn’t think that Lena was nice to be near at that moment, so I headed towards them. I passed close enough to hear Tom ask, ‘Would you like me to go and find him?’
Jonny started to nod, then stopped, frowning over Tom’s head. I followed his eyes, and there was Uche, toting the massive bag and smiling, probably as close to apologetically as he could manage. Kalu was following behind him, on his way to join us in the bleachers, or so I thought until he stopped, said something to his son, and stepped back out through the entrance to the arena. I carried on, and settled myself down beside my chums.
Shirley pointed in the direction from which I had come. ‘Who was that?’ she asked. ‘The black guy in the Savile Row suit?’
‘Uche’s dad,’ I replied. ‘He flew in for the big day; on his own jet, no less.’
She whistled. ‘Bit of all right,’ she pronounced. ‘And Uche’s mum?’
‘She’s in the arms of another; our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ, to be specific.’
‘What a shame. Uche never said his mother was dead.’ No, he hadn’t, I thought. ‘Leaves a clear field, though.’ She winked, lasciviously.
‘Which I will not be cultivating,’ I declared.
‘No?’ she exclaimed. ‘And him with a private jet? Could be your chance to join the mile-high club, and you probably wouldn’t even have to do it in the toilet.’
I frowned at her, severely. ‘No thank you very much. Anyway, I am a member, several times over.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You are?’ she gasped. ‘You dirty little bitch. Come on, spill the beans.’
‘Aspen, Colorado,’ I revealed. ‘Oz and I went on holiday there once, oh, must be twelve, thirteen years ago. That’s well over a mile high.’
‘Gawd! You must have been out of breath.’
‘Not once, my dear, not once. We weren’t in any rush.’ I smiled as some very vivid memories came back. ‘You should try it,’ I advised her.
‘You hear that,’ she said, turning to Patterson. But he wasn’t there; nature must have called while we were talking, or he’d had a severe case of the munchies. While Shirley had been wheedling my sexual exploits out of me, he’d slipped out, without either of us noticing.
Below us, Uche was on station and Jonny’s practice was under way. Lena’s expression had gone back to mildly severe, so she must have been content that his swing hadn’t altered overnight. The Irish kid and the other main contenders were lined up on either side of him, each with his own distinctive technique, each one hitting the ball straight and true, as if they were combining to show the new lad. . and me, for that matter. . what he was up against. But the new lad wasn’t watching; he was concentrating entirely on his own game. ‘Your best is all you can be, Auntie P,’ he’d said to me the night before. ‘The trick is to make that a little bit better every day.’
Still. . I won’t say that my faith in him was waning, but young Irish really did look unbeatable.
I was in danger of succumbing to nerves and maybe even despondency, when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I couldn’t answer it on the stand, so I whispered an apology to Shirley, and slipped down from the stand. There was a ‘missed call’ message on the screen by the time I was able to take it out: Alex Guinart.
‘Shit,’ I muttered. ‘What now?’ I remembered my undertaking. ‘He’s not expecting daily reports on Patterson’s movements, surely?’
I considered, quite seriously, deleting the call from the list, and acting the daft lassie (self-explanatory Scottish saying) if Alex asked me about it. Probably that’s what I would have done, if it hadn’t started to tremble again as I held it in my hand. I looked at the screen: him again. I tutted, impatiently, as I pressed the green button. ‘Yes, Inspector Guinart?’ I said. ‘Don’t you normally have Sundays off?’
‘Normally, yes,’ he conceded. ‘But normal went out the fucking window a few days ago. Where are you, Primavera?’
‘You must know where I am, surely. I’m at the golf tournament, waiting for my nephew’s big moment.’
‘Of course,’ he sighed. ‘I’d forgotten.’
He sounded so out of kilter that I began to worry about him. ‘What is it?’ I asked him.
‘Forget it,’ he replied, but without any sincerity. ‘I don’t need to involve you. Not yet anyway.’