‘Who else had just arrived at your house?’ he asked. ‘You went out there to give Tom and me the hurry-up because we were late.’
‘Patterson and Shirley.’
‘Correct. The first victim, the guy, he tried to steal Patterson’s wallet but he failed. What if this McGuigan woman wasn’t interested in Tom at all? Isn’t it just as likely that Patterson was her target?’
‘Then why did she target me with her video camera at the course?’
He frowned. ‘Good question.’ As he thought about it our starters arrived. I was adding croutons to my vichyssoise when he came up with an answer. ‘You’d been speaking to them earlier, hadn’t you?’
‘Yes.’ I had a vivid recollection. ‘And I said to them they should be at my place at seven thirty.’
‘Then that ties it. She had no reason to approach them in her journalist guise, had she?’
‘But she did,’ I exclaimed as I remembered what Shirley had said. ‘Only Patterson didn’t want to be on camera, so he avoided her. Then Shirl got rid of her by turning her loose on me.’
Jonny nodded, his thinking confirmed. ‘And that gave her an excuse to find out who you were, and in the process to lead you up the garden path by winding you up about Tom. To get to Patterson through you. Doesn’t that fit?’
I was on his wavelength. ‘She was probably trying to find out where I lived, when Alex intervened and told her to bugger off.’
‘Right, so she went to Plan B and followed you home, so she could be waiting there when Patterson and Shirley arrived.’
‘She was photographing someone, that’s for sure. If only. .’ And then I surprised him by laughing. ‘But I do! I do know who it was. After I decked her I took the memory card from her camera. I’ve still got it. When I got home, I stuck it in my purse, then forgot all about it.’ My bag was at my feet, and my purse was in it. I dug it out and found the tiny card. ‘There you are,’ I said, soundly pleased with myself.
Jonny held out a hand. ‘Let me see it.’ I gave it to him. He took a small camera from a pocket in his jerkin, removed an identical device from its slot, and replaced it with mine. He pressed a couple of buttons, then grinned. ‘Look,’ he said. He turned the camera so that I could see its tiny LCD screen and ran through its contents.
The first seven photographs were all of Patterson, but he was hidden by Shirl in four of them. Those in which he was recognisable had him in profile, none of them full face. Those had all been taken as he and Shirley approached my house, but as Jonny scrolled back I saw that she’d taken a couple at the golf course as well. They’d been shot from a distance, probably with a different lens, and he was in them all as well, in the stand at the practice ground. Patterson’s mother wouldn’t have known him in those. . but given the life he’d led maybe she wouldn’t have recognised him anywhere any more.
‘There’s your link, Auntie P,’ Jonny declared. ‘The pickpocket was sent to steal Patterson’s wallet. He failed, and he’s dead. Christine McGuigan was sent to photograph him. She failed and now she’s dead too. “Sorry, I tried my best” doesn’t cut any ice with whoever sent them. What I don’t understand is why they wanted to identify him. What’s that all about?’
‘A blast from the past,’ I murmured.
‘Eh?’
‘Mr Cowling wasn’t your run-of-the-mill public servant,’ I told him. ‘As I understand it he was the sort who might have made a few enemies in his career. He’s been rumbled by someone, that’s for sure. That’s why he got off his mark; no cover story for Shirl, no tearful farewell. He just waited until she turned her back on him, literally, and he ran for it.’
‘Bloody hell!’
‘Indeed. I had him down as a man who’d lost his bottle. I was planning to find him and give him a piece of my mind for messing up my pal’s life. But this connection that you’ve made, that changes everything.’ It occurred to me at that point that I should call Mark, to tell him not to bother tracing Major Fleur, but I decided that could wait till morning. He wouldn’t do anything until then anyway, and my vichyssoise was getting warm.
Thirteen
Alex called me early next morning, just as Tom was leaving for school and Jonny was heading down to the beach with a mat, a towel and a book, a story called The Loner that I’d just read and thought he might enjoy. He couldn’t begin his schedule-planning with Brush until America woke up, but the European Tour press officer had warned him that he might have quite a busy day dealing with media, and so he decided that he’d better grab some relaxation time while he could. We’d spent the rest of our dinner date walking through old memories, some of them mutual, others confessions of a sort. The most surprising to me was Jonny’s revelation that he’d got a girl pregnant in his second year at college, a psychology major who hadn’t been as clever as she’d thought. She’d insisted on a termination, and he hadn’t argued. He’d felt guilty ever since; another reason for his self-imposed emotional isolation.
‘Don’t,’ I told him. ‘Her choice, not yours. That’s a moral maze and you were too young to get lost in it.’
‘When you found you were pregnant with Tom,’ he ventured, ‘after you and Uncle Oz had split up, did you ever consider having an abortion?’
‘Not for one micro-second,’ I replied. ‘Oh, I made a very bad choice in keeping him secret, but I was always going to have him. You see, the difference between your girl and me. . I loved his dad.’ I looked him in the eye. ‘That’s why you’re screwed up about women, Jonny, isn’t it? It’s got fuck all to do with concentrating on your career.’
‘True. There are whispers already that I’m gay. Even on the amateur circuit, if you don’t have a girl in tow you’re looked on as odd. Among the pros. . look no further than at the Ryder Cup. A guy gets divorced and there’s paper talk that the other players’ wives will freeze him out. They shouldn’t even be there! It’s a golf match, for fuck’s sake!’
His outrage made me laugh. ‘If you make the team next year,’ I suggested, ‘and you don’t have a girlfriend, you may find that your mother doesn’t share that view.’
I was still smiling as I picked up the phone next morning. ‘Can I come up for coffee?’ my friend asked.
‘And croissants, if you play your cards right. I’ve fed my guys, but I haven’t had my own yet. But shouldn’t you be heading in the other direction, for your office?’
‘You’re forgetting,’ he chuckled, ‘I’m acting boss. I decide where I go. Anyway, this is business of a sort.’
‘You’re not wrong,’ I agreed. ‘I have something to tell you as well.’
By the time he arrived, just over half an hour later, I was showered and dressed, out of the house dress that I normally throw on when I get out of bed, and into denim cut-offs and a baggy T-shirt with a Gaudi motif, that I’d bought in Barcelona. By that time also, I’d phoned Shirley.
Her voice sounded bleary, and I guessed her eyes matched. ‘Sleepless night?’ I asked her.
‘Pretty much.’
‘I take it he hasn’t been in touch.’
‘No, not a cheep; not a phone call, not a text, nothing. He’s a son of a bitch; that’s the long and short of it.’
‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘Maybe there was a good reason for him going, one that he couldn’t tell you about.’
‘Huh,’ she snorted. ‘That doesn’t wash with me. My idea of a partnership is that you don’t keep secrets from each other.’
She was quoting me back at myself. I’d said the same to her, word for word, not long after I’d moved back to St Martí and we’d renewed our friendship. ‘Yes,’ I conceded, ‘but remember this. We know that the man worked in a culture of secrecy. It’s his way; the sort of lifetime habit that can be hard to break.’
‘Are you trying to tell me you know something?’
‘No,’ I replied, truthfully. ‘I’m not trying to tell you anything. I’m asking how you are, that’s all.’ I heard the gate creak. ‘Look, I’ll come up and see you later. Bye for now.’
Alex reached the door just as I opened it. I let him in and told him he should go to the first-floor terrace, unless he didn’t want to be seen with me that early in the morning.