As Easy as Murder (8 page)

‘Is garlic banned?’ I asked him.

He stared at me. ‘Garlic? No, of course not.’

‘Then you’re fine here,’ I promised him, checking my watch. ‘Come on; they’re probably waiting for us.’

They were. Two tables had been drawn together to accommodate the five of us. Charlie wasn’t eating, but there was a bowl of water on the ground, ready for him. There was also a bottle of cava in an ice bucket. Shirley and Patterson hadn’t been closer to Jonny than the viewing stand, so I did the honours, and we took our seats. Patterson arranged things so that my nephew and my son were on either side of him, with Shirl and me left to our own conversation and devices, but since neither of us had brought any . . . we exchanged a glance that said, ‘Ah, what the hell, he’s paying,’ and let him get away with it.

While our host began a gentle interrogation, with Tom listening in, we took the ‘little woman’ route, and talked between ourselves.

‘Seems like a nice lad, your Jonny,’ Shirley declared. ‘He scrubs up well, too.’ She had a point. He had arrived on my doorstep freshly shaved and immaculately dressed, but not with the air of someone out to make an impression, rather that of one who knows no other way. ‘What age did you say he was?’

‘Twenty-two.’

‘Going on thirty-three, I’d say.’

‘I agree; how things have changed. When I met him he was seven, going on six. Yes, a very presentable young man.’

A gleam of pure wickedness shone in my friend’s eyes. ‘Primavera,’ she whispered, ‘you’re not thinking about . . .’

I shot her flight of fancy down, well before it reached cruising height. ‘Absolutely not,’ I told her. ‘I’m in loco parentis here. If I was in any doubt of that, I had a call from his mum to remind me.’

‘In that case, you might think about putting an ad in the British Society magazine making it clear, ’cos, my dear, there will be those that says otherwise.’

‘Just like they said about me and Gerard,’ I reminded her. ‘But as before, none of them will have the stones to say it to my face.’

‘If they say it to mine, I’ll put them right.’ I knew that was a promise, and also, that our chattering class,
i.e.
most of the ex-pat population, would make their way to Shirley’s door sooner or later. My reputation, and as a mother I did care about it, was in safe hands.

‘What about that Swedish coach of his?’ she continued. ‘Do you think she’s the mother type too?’

As she finished, I saw Jonny throw the merest glance in her direction, and a smile flicker at the corner of his mouth. ‘Come on,’ I called out. ‘What does that grin mean, other than that you’ve got hearing like a . . .’

‘Yes, Lena is the mother type,’ he laughed, as Patterson and Tom stared at me. ‘She and her husband have two kids, ages two and four. Lars won the Scandinavian championship in his playing days; he’s a great big bloke who’s about as given to smiling as she is, that being not a lot.’

Unkind
, I thought.
He’d been friendly enough with me, in our brief conversation
.

‘He never let her coach him,’ Jonny continued. ‘He says she’s too scary on the practice ground. Pity, he might have done better on tour if she had.’

‘Where did you find her?’ Patterson asked him, just as the waitress arrived to take our meal orders.

‘I didn’t,’ he replied, once she had headed for the kitchen. ‘She found me. People like her are always on the lookout for young golfers to add to their stable. She took a look at my game, and liked what she saw. She told him she was sure I could make it as a pro, and Brush made the arrangements between us. That was the moment when I truly made the mental commitment to going on tour.’

Something about the chronology of that struck me as odd. ‘So that means that Brush was your manager even before you decided you were going to be a pro?’

‘Yes, but that’s not unusual. As I said, quite a lot of promising amateurs have people looking out for them.’

‘Your mum told me that quite a few people wanted to manage you, including the top agencies.’

He nodded. ‘True, but they only approached me this year, after I made the Walker Cup. Mum insisted on Harvey taking a look at them all, and I let him.’ He turned to Tom. ‘You will find out, mate, that as far as mums are concerned you will always be fifteen to them.’

‘Hey,’ I protested, ‘don’t say that. He thinks he’s fifteen already.’

‘Then don’t hold him back, Auntie P,’ he laughed. ‘No, the fact is that I’d made up my mind to go with Brush long before that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it felt right; that’s all I can say.’

‘How did you find him?’

‘I didn’t. He found me, like Lena did. He approached me last summer, when I was on vacation, working as a bag monkey . . . they paid us peanuts, hence the name . . . at a private club in East Lothian and practising there in my time off as an added perk.’

‘He found you?’ Patterson repeated. ‘How? Did he approach your parents? Or did the college put him in touch with you? Data protection laws in the US are patchy at best, but I’d have thought that a university would have to respect its students’ privacy.’

‘Mine did,’ my nephew agreed. ‘I have no idea how Brush found me, but I know it wouldn’t have been through Arizona State. It’s a very protective place. As for Mum and Harvey, no, he didn’t contact them at all. But why should he? For all I indulge them, I’m over twenty-one, Mr Cowling. I’m my own man.’

‘Sure, sure. Forget it,’ Patterson said. ‘I’m making too much out
of it. Trust me, I know how easy it is to find people.’ He paused, then added, ‘Unless they don’t want to be found, in which case it can become very difficult. Even then nothing’s foolproof. I know of someone who thought he was completely anonymous, only to discover . . .’ He stopped, smiling, his eyes suddenly a little distant. He didn’t throw the faintest glance in my direction, but he didn’t have to; message transmitted, message received. ‘Still,’ he continued, abruptly, ‘for this man to walk up to you at a fairly obscure golf club, one among hundreds that must employ young people like you in the summer . . .’

‘No,’ said Jonny, firmly, ‘that’s not how it happened. He contacted me by email.’ He saw my eyebrows rise, and nodded. ‘That’s how he did it, Auntie P. I checked my box one day and found a message from “
[email protected]
”. It said that he’d been following my college golf and that he’d be interested in knowing my future plans. I wrote back and told him that I didn’t have any, none that were firm at any rate, but like most young amateurs at competitive level I was interested in finding out exactly how good I was. He replied and said that he was an ex-pro who’d never really made it on any tour but who did know the business, and who was putting together a stable of young players, “out of the clutches of the global golfer production lines”. That’s how Brush describes the big agencies. I asked him what made him a better bet than them, given that their record of success hasn’t been too shabby over the last half a century. He said “I care”; simple as that. He also attached two draft management contracts. One was the standard deal offered to new pros by the GRA, the biggest company in the world, and the other was his. He guaranteed me a level of financial support
through sponsorship as soon as I joined the professional tour, and he guaranteed that all my affairs would be handled by him, rather than by some salaried employee with a couple of dozen people like me, maybe more, in his group, every one of them expendable. I asked him for a list of his clients. He said he didn’t have any, that he was just starting out, but that his promise to me was that he would never have any more than six. I reminded him at that point that I didn’t even know for sure whether I would turn pro, and if I did, whether I could cut it on tour. His reply was that he wasn’t making his approach without having seen me play, and having faith in me, and that part of his job would be to help me make that first decision. Finally he proposed that we work together on a gentlemen’s agreement, not just until I turned pro, but until I made my first cut in a tour event. Lena’s fee, Uche’s wages; Brush has covered those, for now at any rate. Almost all of the sponsor money we’ve had so far is still in the bank . . . not that there’s all that much, just initial retainers. Only my travel and living expenses since I left college a couple of weeks ago have come out of that; Brush hasn’t even taken his commission. As of now, there is no contract; but I have one with me, and if I’m still in the tournament after Friday, I will sign it.’

Patterson peered at him. ‘So it’s all on a handshake . . . but he still has your money.’

‘The money’s in a bank account in my name; I have to authorise every transfer.’

‘Bloody hell, Jonny,’ I laughed. ‘You must have a hell of a powerful handshake. What does this guy look like? How bright is his halo?’

He smiled once more, but a little awkwardly. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s the thing. And this is what you probably will find weird. I’ve never actually met him, not face to face. Everything’s been done by email or by phone.’

‘No,’ I replied, ‘that is not weird. That transcends simple weirdness and moves into surrealism. You’re saying that you’ve put your career, your potentially high-earning career, into the hands of someone, and you don’t even know what he looks like?’

‘Oh, I know what he looks like, Auntie P,’ he assured me. ‘His photo’s on his email heading and on his letterhead. He looks like a pleasant forty-something bloke.’

‘As do conmen around the world, I’m sure. Where’s he based?’

‘Chicago. His mail goes to a post office box address in East Ontario Street.’

‘Phone?’

‘He has a mobile: US number.’

‘Does he have a website?’

‘No, he says he doesn’t want one; he wants to choose his own clients, not have them approach him. But he’s going to set one up for me, to give me a presence for potential sponsors.’

‘Have you pressed him for a meeting?’

‘I’ve suggested it, sure, more than once, but he says that he prefers to be reclusive and that anyway, he gets hay fever any time he goes near a golf course, which is where I should be spending all my time. Lena and Uche are my people on the ground, he says, and when we need to meet, we will.’

‘Has Uche met him?’

‘No.’

‘Doesn’t that concern him?’

‘Why should it?’ he countered, easily. ‘He’s my mate, I picked him, and I gave him a job that’s going to help him get on tour.’

‘How about Lena?’

‘I’ve got no idea. I’ve never asked her. She works with me, not him.’

‘What does your mum say about this? She told me Harvey checked him out, and came up with a different explanation for his nickname.’

‘Hah!’ he laughed. ‘Yes, when I asked him about that he said it probably did fit him when he was younger, but that was a while ago. Harvey’s fine about him; if he hadn’t been I’d have told him to back off, but it didn’t come to that. Grandpa would pester the man to death if I let him near him. And as for Mum, if Harvey’s happy, so is she.’

I frowned. ‘That’s fine. But after a lifetime of odd relationships, I’m not so sure I am.’ His smile didn’t waver, but it occurred to me that I had overstepped the mark. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Forget that; it’s got bugger all to do with me. We only met up again today for the first time in donkey’s. What I think doesn’t matter; I’m just your long-lost auntie.’

‘No. You’re a lot more than that already. I’m sure that Brush and I will have to meet some time soon. When we do, I’ll make sure you’re—’

‘Hey!’ He was interrupted by a shout from Tom. I looked at him to see him twisting in his seat, holding someone’s wrist: male, white, with blue veins showing clearly. The hand to which it was attached was in the inside pocket of Patterson’s jacket, which he
had draped over the back of his seat. The rest of its owner was outside the fence that marked the boundary of the terrace restaurant.

The man reacted, instantly. He tore himself free from Tom’s grasp, but my son had the presence of mind, and the youthful strength, to lock on to Patterson’s wallet and rip it from the would-be thief’s grip. Jonny was out of his chair in a second, brushing Shirley aside as he vaulted over the fence. He would have set off in pursuit, had it not been for Patterson’s shout of ‘No!’ laced with an imperious authority that seemed totally alien to such a mild-mannered man . . . if you believed that’s what he really was, of course.

Jonny stopped in his tracks, and turned, staring at him like a chastened schoolboy.

‘It’s not worth it,’ he said, in a tone that was almost apologetic. All the people at the surrounding tables were staring at us, but he calmed them with palms-down gestures, until gradually their interest subsided. (Only Charlie was unaffected. Some bloody guard dog: he slept through the whole drama.) ‘He didn’t get anything,’ he continued, looking at my nephew, ‘and you never know with these guys. Thank you, Jonny, but if you’d caught him and he’d been carrying a knife . . .’ He shook his head. ‘No, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’ He smiled at Tom, who was holding out his wallet, like an offering. ‘Well done, young man,’ he murmured, as he accepted it, and slipped it into his trouser pocket. ‘It’s not like me to be so careless. It just goes to show; you should never take your surroundings for granted.’

‘But here you can,’ I protested. ‘This is St Martí, not bloody
Barcelona. We don’t have pickpockets and petty thieves here.’ I was furious, partly because I’m very proud of my home village, but mostly, I’m sure, because my son had been involved in a situation way beyond his years. Later, after I’d gone to bed, I shed a few tears of pride over the way he’d handled it, but at that moment, all that registered was anger. ‘I’m not having this,’ I declared, digging out my mobile.