As Easy as Murder (26 page)

‘I didn’t feel any, honestly. Like I said to Uche, I could see it in my mind; play the parachute shot, land it softer than Cormac did his, from higher, and let it take the slope as slow as possible. The only thing I didn’t plan for was getting a nick off his marker.’

He raised his glass and grinned. ‘Thank you, Mr Toibin,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m sure you’ll do it to me many a time in the future.’ He winked at me. ‘Truth is, he’s a better player than me, by a
street; I do what I can do, nothing more, every shot is the one with the best percentage chance of success. I’m good, but I know my limitations, and this week I was mentally strong enough to play within them. Cormac’s a genius; I don’t think he has any limits. He’ll be the number one player in the world for years; I never will.’

‘Jonny,’ I protested, ‘don’t sell yourself short. You’ve just beaten him.’

‘By playing what will probably turn out, when my career’s over, to have been the shot of my life.’

‘Come on, you’re twenty-two,’ I reminded him. ‘Stop sounding as if this is the pinnacle. Be excited, dream some dreams, be a kid for a bit longer.’

He shook his head. ‘No, I’ll be a realist; it doesn’t hurt as much. You should know that.’

His remark took me by surprise. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked him.

‘Nothing,’ he said, too quickly.

‘No, not nothing; go on,’ I insisted.

‘No, this is supposed to be a celebration. I don’t want to upset you.’

‘There is no chance of that. Now please, tell me what I should know.’

He sighed, deeply. ‘Okay, if you insist. My Uncle Oz was the greatest man in the world. When I was young, mid-teens, I got myself into a bad situation, way over my head. It could have ruined my life, finished it even, but he made it all go away, and then he looked after me until I understood fully that although what I’d
done was bad, it wasn’t evil, and that I should spend the rest of my life atoning for it by making the most of the second chance I’d been given.’

I couldn’t say a word, I couldn’t show any expression, for I knew what Jonny had done; close to the end, when the badness between us was over and Oz and I became lovers again, we were closer than ever before, and we kept no secrets from each other.

‘It was him that made me a pro golfer. Mum wanted me to be a lawyer like Harvey; I might have too, and with him behind me my career would have been assured. But Uncle Oz knew what I really wanted. He made me admit it, and when I did I was embarrassed. He saw that and asked why. I told him that I didn’t imagine I was anywhere near good enough. He just laughed, and said, “Son, I’m not the best actor in the fucking world either, but I know what I can do and I know what I can’t, and that’s how I play every part. You’re at least as good a golfer as I am an actor, so what’s to hold you back?” Then he went to see Mum and he talked her into believing in me. When she was onside he fixed the place at Arizona for me. And he had no sooner done that than he upped and fucking died.’ He had to pause for a few seconds; I was glad of it. ‘I had this dream, Primavera, that he’d be greenside at my first event, at my first win, the first time I made the cut in a major and so on. But he isn’t, and he never will be. So I don’t dream any more; I try to control my feelings for others. I wall myself up within my comfort zone, my safety zone, and I keep myself mentally strong enough to do what I can within it, and never ever to expose myself to hurt or disappointment again.’ He looked into my eyes, and suddenly I had the wildest feeling that through him, someone
else, a ghost, was speaking to me. ‘And that’s what you’ve done too, Primavera; you’ve built a fortress here for you and Tom. You’ll probably keep him in it for as long as you can, and you’ll never leave it yourself. Sure, you took that job in the consulate . . . Grandpa Blackstone was dead chuffed when you did, by the way . . . but how long did that last? A couple of years and you withdrew again. But I’m not blaming you, understand; I’m saying you’re right. Don’t expose yourself to the unexpected and it’s less likely to find you and bite you on the arse.’ He refilled my glass: I hadn’t realised that it was empty. ‘If I’m wrong and that’s not true, I apologise, but if it is, then good luck to you.’

I smiled at him, at least I think I did. ‘I’ve never thought of it that way,’ I whispered. ‘But I can’t argue with your analysis. I can feel sorry for you, though, since Oz’s death has affected you that badly.’

‘I don’t think it has. I reckon it’s made me stronger.’

‘And sad, and lonely.’

‘Like you . . . or at least like the part of you that isn’t a parent.’

‘A consolation which you do not have,’ I observed, ‘and won’t, if you continue to isolate yourself. Yes, I’ll always mourn, but you, you shouldn’t and I won’t let you. Come here,’ I murmured, drawing him towards me and meeting him halfway. I kissed him, full on, for quite some time, flicking his teeth apart with my tongue and probing further.

Then, while I still could, I broke off, smoothed his hair and stroked his cheek, and said to him, ‘That is how you should be celebrating tonight, with a hot and loving girlfriend, not by sharing a sombre conversation with a woman twice your age. If I thought
it would have any long-term benefit for either of us, I’d happily take you home right now and fuck your brains out, but even though I’m sure it would be a fine, energetic shag, and for you probably educational, I’d feel monstrously guilty afterwards and so would most of you. The part that didn’t, the part that isn’t connected to your brain, would want to do it again, and since that couldn’t be, pretty soon you’d move out. I wouldn’t want that to happen because Tom and I really do like having you around, so I won’t put it at risk, especially . . . and this is why you and I are not the same . . . since there has only ever been one person I’ve wanted to sleep with, and it ain’t you, Jonny boy.’

He looked at the tabletop for a few seconds; when his eyes came up to meet mine once more, they were twinkling. ‘Know any women, then?’ he laughed.

‘Only their mothers and even their grandmothers, I fear. Uche’s a better source than me, I’m sure.’

‘Jesus,’ he snorted. ‘Auntie Primavera . . . I’m going back to calling you that ’cos it’s safer . . . I would not go near a girl he recommended. Quality control is not Uche’s strong point; he can line up my putts, but nothing else.’

‘What about Kalu? Maybe he could help. He seems like a smoooooth individual.’

‘I wouldn’t know. I’d never met the man before today, and Uche hardly ever talks about him.’

‘What happened to his wife, Uche’s mother?’

‘Again, I don’t know. The only time I ever asked him about her, he said, “She’s not around any more.” I didn’t press further.’

‘Poor boy,’ I said. ‘Here, now that you’re a full tour member
and don’t need those sponsor invitations, maybe Brush could pass them on to him.’

‘That’s not quite how it works. I had a track record as an amateur, Uche doesn’t. The fact is, Auntie P, he’s got no chance of making the Tour. He’s a decent golfer, but that’s all. He didn’t get to Arizona on a scholarship; he paid his own way, or his father did. He said he was a track athlete, a sprinter, when we were freshmen, but he had a knee injury that stopped him competing, so he’d switched to golf. But he didn’t get near the college team. I’m helping him as much as I can, and Lena’s given him all the swing advice she has, but it isn’t working. He’ll never make it, and he knows it. He hasn’t even entered the first stage of Q school.’

‘So he’s just a spoiled rich kid, eh. Did he graduate?’

‘He did enough, that was all. He missed enough classes to get any other guy cut, but he always seemed to get away with it, and he squeezed through in the end. Mostly he studied the football cheerleaders, or any skanky tart that looked in his direction; that’s his specialist subject, not business administration.’

‘So what’s he going to do with his life? Caddie for you permanently?’

‘Brush isn’t too keen on that idea. Neither is Clive Tate; he collared me this afternoon and told me that I need to replace him with someone who actually knows the courses I’ll be playing on from now on. I won’t rush into anything, though. In fact I’m hoping that his dad and he are having a heart-to-heart about career options over dinner tonight. Kalu has all sorts of businesses: oil, manufacturing, import-export. He’s bound to want Uche to get involved at some point.’

The arrival of the waiter to take our orders slipped a natural break into our conversation. When he’d gone, I changed the subject. ‘Going back to what you said before, there’s one thing I must put you right about. It’s impossible to hide from the unexpected. Even here my arse has been well bitten, I can tell you. Huh,’ I snorted. ‘Never more so than today, as you were having your finest hour.’

‘How?’ He paused. ‘Ah, Shirley’s man doing a runner.’

‘That’s the least of it. Remember last Wednesday, when I was called away from Pals by my policeman friend Alex?’

‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘He came and showed Tom a drawing later; it was the man who tried to pick Patterson’s pocket. Nasty. Have they identified him? Is that’s what’s bitten you?’

‘No, but fast forward to the scene you walked in on the next day: me dealing with Christine McGuigan, that sneaky woman I caught trying to take pictures of Tom. She was found dead this morning. Alex asked me to look at her as well.’

‘Bloody hell! Why did he do that?’

‘Because she was killed in much the same way as him, her face blown away with a shotgun.’

He stared at me. ‘My God,’ he exclaimed. ‘What do the police think?’

‘The assumption is that they were killed by the same person, but that’s as far as it goes.’

‘What? Even with . . . Auntie P, there’s an obvious connection.’

‘Sure, me! Happily I was able to alibi myself for the times of both killings.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ he countered. ‘Think back, did you actually catch the woman taking pictures of Tom?’

I did as he asked. ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Not exactly. But she didn’t deny it, and anyway, what else could she have been doing? What are you getting at, Jonny?’

‘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.