"You've never been a real person, Blackstone," he countered, affably.
"Since I met you, you've been my worst fucking nightmare."
I glowered at him, then looked over his shoulder. The door was open and Janet had come bouncing into the room. "Oops, sorry," he murmured.
"Thanks," I said. "I'd appreciate it if she didn't pick up the one word she hasn't learned yet." As Morrow picked up his laptop, I scooped my daughter up in my arms and walked our visitors to the door.
"Have you got a date for Mathew's Tale yet?" asked Ricky, as we walked down the steps in front of the house.
"Three weeks or so, I think. I'm expecting the producer to go firm any day now. Why?"
"Because we're doing the security."
I wasn't surprised to learn that. He seemed to pick up most of the freelance minding work in Edinburgh. "See you around then," I told him as he unlocked his Jag with a remote.
"Goodbye Sergeant," I called out as Morrow settled into the front passenger seat. "Sorry I couldn't help you."
Actually I wasn't sorry at all. Imagine the can of worms I'd have opened if I'd told him that the paint-chucker was Andrea Neiporte.
Six.
I had plenty to think about as I stuffed some whole meal pitta breads with pastrami and coleslaw. What to do about Mrs. Neiporte? I thought about confiding in Ricky and asking him to sort the problem for me, but came down against that very quickly. There was still a lot of the copper in him, and I reckoned that he'd be more than likely to go down the official route. That was something I still did not want, for my Dad's sake.
Instead, I decided to tell Jay about it, or at least tell him as much as he needed to know, namely that my Dad had a nutty patient who had tried to put the black on him, and that my attempt to deal with it apparently hadn't worked. It was only right that I do that; after all, his job was to protect my family, so if I knew of a threat, he had to know too. I intended to brief him, give him the photograph… which I'd kept… and leave it to him. I had no idea how he'd go about dealing with the problem, but he was very much my man.
Whatever he did, I was sure it would be effective, and it would be discreet. When I'd interviewed him for the job, I'd noticed that there were sections of his CV… like most of the army bits… that were only described in broad terms. I didn't ask him about them, because I didn't want to make him have to lie to me. So I called a guy I know called Mark Kravitz who's involved in pretty dark and sensitive areas, and asked him instead. After Mark's report back, I had no qualms about hiring him. "Disincentivising' is a bit of a buzz word these days, after that Spooks series on telly. It seemed that he had been pretty good at it.
When the pitt as were ready… Ethel was responsible for feeding Janet, and herself… I called him in his cottage and told him to come up. Jay had a nice set-up and he knew it; the gatehouse, a Freelander to run around in, and a salary that was better than he'd have been on with any security firm. Of course he didn't just sit on his arse all day, waiting for the bad guys to turn up. He had installed geophones … movement sensors… around the perimeter of the estate, and he was careful to make sure that they were always working. Property maintenance was in his job' description too, but mostly on a management basis. He might do the odd small job himself, but mostly he'd hire trades-people, and he supervised old Willie, the full-time gardener we'd inherited when we'd bought the place.
I was waiting for him in the kitchen as he let himself in through the back door. I'd fetched a couple of isotonic drinks from the fridge, and was taking the top off one when the phone rang.
"Oz." It was Susie, and from the way she said my name I knew that something was up. Normally there's a laugh in her voice when she speaks to me, or to wee Janet. When it isn't there, it usually means that one of us is in trouble.
My third… and final… wife knows me better than anyone else in the world, probably better than even Jan did, for all that we grew up together, and certainly better than Primavera… she and I barely knew each other as real people at all, or at least until it was too late.
Susie's never seen me as I thought I was, or at least as I wanted people to see me. Even when we were just friends, she's always been able to see inside, to the bare bones, and to read bits of my mind that even I didn't really know were there. And I suppose it's always been true the other way round as well. As well as being different types, we're opposites as personalities, you see. Susie's always had this tough front… no surprises; it came from growing up as Jack Gantry's daughter… yet I've always been able to see the vulnerable wee girl inside. Me? For years I made such an effort to be user-friendly, I even fooled myself for a while, but as I've said, not her. She loves me, though, in spite of it, even if she was afraid to say so for a while. And I love her. One of the Sunday colour supplements described us as "Scotland's golden couple'. Can you imagine that?
"Sorry," I replied.
"What do you mean?" Susie snapped, not sounding at all golden.
"Whatever I've done, I didn't mean it."
"Och, don't be daft." Her tone changed, but the laugh was still missing; what I heard was that vulnerable wee girl.
"Come and get me, Oz," she said. "As fast as you can."
"What's up?"
"I'll tell you later. Just get to the office."
"Will I bring Jay?"
"No, leave him with Janet. Just you."
"Susie, is this about last night? About that paint thing?"
"No. Nothing to do with it. Now get the finger out."
I hung up the kitchen phone and looked at Jay. "Sorry mate," I told him. "I've just had an order I can't refuse. Meantime…" I handed him the photo I had printed out from my computer. "Last night's paint-chucker."
"You know her?"
"Yeah. I'll tell you later. For now, the only thing that matters is that she doesn't get anywhere near Susie or Janet. Understood?"
I wasn't quite sure what I'd just told him to do, but he nodded anyway.
"Police?" he asked.
"Under no circumstances."
I grabbed my pitta and my Gatorade and headed for the three-car garage that had probably once been a several-horse stable. The advertising says that the BMW 7 series is a new way to drive, but my attitude's just the same. I just point it and go like shit. There isn't usually a lot of traffic out our way, and there's never any traffic on the Erskine Bridge, so I was across the Clyde in no time at all, bombing along the M8, past the airport and towards Susie's South Side office, with one eye out for day-glo motors with blue lights on top.
Happily there were none to hold me back; I took the M77 turn-off, headed west, and pulled up at the office in Thornliebank in what must have been a record time from the house. For all that, Susie had an impatient look on her face as she stood at the door, fidgeting from one foot to the other.
I'll swear that as she slid her trim little body, with its bump, in beside me, she was about to ask me what had kept me, but I forestalled her by telling her to take a deep breath, calm down and explain to me why she'd made me do the David Coulthard bit. I mean, shit, I'm a valuable property these days, to be tearing around like that.
"We have to go to Joe's," she replied.
"Joe Donn's?"
"Yes. Come on, get moving." There was a strange, slightly desperate tone in her voice.
I set the car in motion… you don't put these things in gear, you programme them… and headed off. "Tell me, love," I said, gently.
The engine's so quiet you can almost whisper over it.
"He didn't turn up for the board meeting," she said. "I couldn't start without him, so I called him to ask where the hell he was, but I only got the answering machine. I tried his mobile, but that was switched off. After that I called his golf club, thinking that he'd got the dates mixed up and was playing a medal or something. But the secretary said that he hadn't been there since Saturday."