‘Starring role, man, starring role. It’s a great show tonight, as well.’
‘I’ll look forward to it, then. Must rush now. Goodnight, Jan.’
We watched him as he headed for the door, dragging Poppy behind him, the girl teetering on her unfeasibly high heels.
‘That settles it,’ said my wife, emphatically. ‘You are getting out of this thing as fast as you can. With that idiot shooting his mouth off all over Glasgow, your actor cover’s going to be blown in no time.
‘Get this sorted, Oz. A lady in my condition doesn’t need to be worrying about her man.’
Chapter 21
I had a brainwave on Monday morning, before I left to meet Everett. I don’t have them very often, but when I do they can be real crackers.
On the stroke of nine, I called Greg McPhillips at his office. I should have known better; he was a partner in the firm after all. However he had arrived when I called back fifteen minutes later.
‘You’re an early bird,’ he said, as he took my call. His voice sounded hoarse and strained.
‘Not especially. What’s up with the throat? Got an infection?’
‘No,’ he croaked. ‘It was effin’ noisy in King Tut’s. I had to shout at the bird all night to make myself heard.’
‘It should have worn off by now.’
‘Aye, but I was at the Garage last night as well.’
‘Poppy likes the bands, eh.’
‘This wasn’t Poppy, it was Hayley.’ A busy boy, is our Greg.
‘I did have a chance to watch you on telly, though,’ he went on. ‘Big Everett didn’t half level that bloke at the end, after he gubbed him with the guitar. For a minute I thought it was for real.’
‘Daze can be very convincing.’
‘I liked your performance too. Am I on a percentage of this?’
I laughed; I knew Greg well enough to realise that he was half serious. ‘I’ll buy you a big drink; I promise.’
‘Champagne would be nice.’
‘Christ Greg, but you’re a natural born solicitor, aren’t you. Champagne it is.’
‘Krug?’
‘Moet.’
‘Deal.’
I paused to let him stop chortling. ‘Speaking of performances, ’ I said, eventually, ‘after you left the Chip on Saturday night, a bloke came over to our table. He introduced himself as the Assistant Secretary of the Law Society of Scotland, and he told us that he had recognised you.’
There was a grunt from the other end of the line.
‘He asked me as a friend, to have a very friendly word with you on his behalf, to say that if Mr Everett bloody Davis, whose name you shouted all over the restaurant, happened to be a client of yours, then you have a duty of confidentiality towards him, which was surely breached by telling the entire dining population of Byres Road that he has a problem in his office involving dishonesty.
‘He said I should tell you that if anyone made a complaint to the Law Society about behaviour of that sort, it would be liable to come down on you like a ton of bricks. He gave me a list of the things it could do to you, but I expect you know them all. He didn’t mention thumbscrews specifically, but the hint was there.’
I let my words sink in for a few seconds. ‘To tell you the truth, Greg, I wasn’t too happy myself. Glasgow’s a great big village, and word spreads.’
‘All right, all right, all right.’ The last ‘all right’ was distorted beyond recognition into a strange, wheezing squeak. ‘Thanks for the tip, Oz. I was a bit pissed, as you’d have realised. I just hope the guy doesn’t phone my old man.’
‘I asked him not to, and he said that he wouldn’t this time, if I passed the word on.’
‘Maybe I should phone him.’
Here, Blackstone, a voice whispered in my head. You really should have been an actor. ‘No,’ I said, emphatically. ‘The best thing you can do is keep your mouth tight shut about the whole business from now on.’
‘Aye, maybe so,’ Greg agreed, painfully.
‘How did you land that job anyway?’ he asked.
‘I was in the right place at the right time, that’s all. It’s great fun. We’re off to Barcelona this weekend.’
‘Lucky bastard! And how about the pilfering? Have you sorted that out yet?’
‘We’re on to someone. This very morning, in fact. Keep that to yourself, mind.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he croaked. ‘I will.’
Chapter 22
‘I try to run this company on a tight budget,’ said Everett, almost mournfully, as we sat in his office looking at a pile of mobile phone bills. We were virtually alone in the headquarters unit. Monday was a day of rest for most of the crew.
‘If there was an alternative to these goddamned expensive things, I would take it. They just eat up money, especially when the guys use them around Europe.’
‘Do they all have company phones?’ I asked him.
‘Diane and I share a hand phone, and I have one wired into my car,’ he replied. ‘Jerry has one that fits into an adaptor in the BattleBus. Barbara has one because she travels a lot, I gave one to Darius, because his father is sick in Germany and likes to be able to talk to him, and to Liam, because he found out that Darius had one. Then there’s Sonny’s.
‘Those are just the company phones of course. Quite a few of the roster have their own. I’ve seen Sally Crockett using one, for example.’ He paused. ‘Say, what’s with her? She’s a happy kid normally, but yesterday I thought she was going to burst into song.’
‘Sounds to me like there’s a man involved,’ I said. What I didn’t say was that when the cast had gathered at the SECC twenty-four hours earlier to shoot the action for the Monday night programme, I had seen Sally and Jerry arriving together in the BattleBus. They looked as if they had enjoyed their first date.
Everett frowned. ‘As long as he doesn’t take her mind off the job. I’ve never seen a woman worker who gets as big a pop from the crowd as she does.’
‘I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of that happening. I’ve been talking to Sally; she’s one hundred per cent committed to the GWA.’
I pointed to the pile of papers on the desk. ‘What have we got here?’
‘These are the itemised mobile accounts for the last six months. I pulled everyone’s account; Sonny Leonard’s bills are in here somewhere. His number’s 0735 951775.’
I picked up the invoices and began to go through them; they were all in the name of the company and differentiated only by the line number. I sorted through them and separated them out into seven lots, six bills to each, and handed one to Everett. ‘These are Sonny Leonard’s.’
We each pulled up chairs and sat on the visitor side of the CEO’s glass-topped table. I felt as if I was Gulliver, in that place he went to after Lilliput. Everett gave me back three of the invoices. ‘You go through these; I’ll look at the rest. Let’s see what we get.’
I took out a pen and looked at the first invoice. In the course of the month Leonard had made around fifty calls. Most were to the GWA number, from different locations around Europe according to the dial codes shown.
‘Where’s CWI based?’ I asked.
‘Philadelphia, PA, City of Brotherly Love. The city code is 215.’
There was one call to the US shown on the first bill, to number 00 1 314 732 6578. ‘Everett,’ I said. ‘Can you remember where Leonard comes from?’
‘Yeah. He’s from St Louis, Missouri. I believe his mom still lives there.’ I reached across, picked up the telephone directory which was lying on the glass table, and flicked my way to the international codes section. The city code for St Louis Missouri, showed as 314.
I looked at the second bill, which was five months old. Again, most of the calls were to the GWA headquarters, and to other Glasgow numbers. Again, there was one call to the St Louis number. ‘It looks like he calls his folks, once a month, on the company phone.’
‘Can’t object to that,’ the big man drawled. ‘I call mine once a week.’