Blackstone's Pursuits (17 page)

‘But he was just one among many. We’ve got a real cross-section of members. We’ve got civil servants, lawyers, a couple of hairdressers, housewives, flash young guys out to pull an actress. We’ve even got a member who’s a prostitute. She offered Rawdon a freebie one night! I doubt if he took her up on it though! Oh yes, and we’ve got one policeman. A real Mr Plod, but he’s dead keen. Surprising: you’d never guess it to look at him. McArthur, his name is.’

My eyebrows rose. ‘What! A big beefy bloke with a red face?’

‘Yes, that’s him. He comes to every play, and he’s in the bar about every second night.’

‘My God,’ I said, shaking my head in disbelief. ‘McArse the theatregoer. You never know the hidden depths of people.’

It was just after nine-thirty when we finished our third round of Pimms and decided that it was time to call it quits. Night was still a way off as we strolled up the Gleneagles driveway and out towards the road, but the sun had gone and there were patches of darkness under the trees. IfAuchterarder is famous for anything other than Gleneagles, it’s because it lays claim to the longest Main Street of any Scottish town. All of it lay between us and Semple House as we turned into it and set off three abreast, with me in the middle and Dawn on the outside.

A pint and a half of Pimms seemed to have relaxed Dawn. As we walked she asked us how we had traced her, and laughed as Prim described our encounter with Rawdon Brooks. ‘Poor old Rawdon,’ she laughed. ‘You shouldn’t be hard on him. I know he’s outrageous, he’s a bit of a junkie, and he could seduce the College of Cardinals, but he’s really nice. Gay men can be the kindest people, you know. There’s no-one better when it comes to sharing your troubles. No offence, Prim, but they’re even better than sisters.

‘You can tell them anything you like, and they won’t hold it against you, or tell a soul. So many people have cried on Rawdon’s shoulders, they must be mildewed. He helped me a lot when I was going through agonies with Willie. He did his best to help Willie too, being a friend, and making him ask himself whether he was certain about what he was doing.’

‘A real heart of gold,’ I said, and she dug me in the ribs with her elbow.

‘So tell me, you two. What d’you think I should do, then?’ she asked, lisping slightly.

‘No doubt about that,’ I said. ‘First thing tomorrow you should get your shapely arse back up to Connell or wherever the next stop is, and cuddle up to the leading man. “Tell her if she’s got a problem, Old Miles’ll sort it out.” That’s what he said. I’ll tell you, I reckon he could, too. When you’ve got as much clout as Miles Grayson, you can sort out most things.

‘Yes, Dawn. You head back to the Highlands and cuddle up to Miles.’

She looked up at me, then across at her sister. ‘Hey, Prim,’ she called. ‘Where did you find this guy? I like the way he thinks!’

We were laughing so loud we might have not heard the car, but there was something about the engine tone that broke through to me, something about the way it kept on revving when the driver should have been changing gear. I looked up, just in time to see a black shape, travelling flat-out, swerve and head towards us, at racing speed, climbing on to the pavement.

If there had been a high wall on the other side of us we’d have been dead. All of us. But, thank God, there was only a low stone thing, with a sickly privet hedge behind it. The car was almost on us as I grabbed each sister around the waist and jerked them off their feet - diving, plunging over the wall and through the hedge. In mid-air, I felt something catch the outside of my left foot, twisting it, but somehow we made it, all three of us, to the other side.

Behind us we heard a crunch, the sound of breaking glass and the scream of metal as the speeding car crashed into the wall. We lay there breathless waiting for it to stop, but it went roaring on, on down the longest Main Street in any Scottish town, and away into the gathering night.

I helped the girls to their feet and looked around. We were in a long garden. It stretched for at least a hundred yards, up to a big detached villa. We waited for lights to come on but none did. Amazingly, no lights came on in the surrounding houses either. Auchterarder’s a bit like that. Plenty of Levites, but not too many Samaritans.

Eventually, I took a chance and stuck my head out of the garden, checking to see if the black car had come back, if it was lying out there, waiting for another shot. I felt like a character in a Stephen King novel.

‘Who was it?’ said Prim behind me. ‘Did you see?’ It was remarkable that not one of us thought for a second that it might have been a drunk driver.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Och it was probably a drunk driver.’ Even through the gloom, I felt the eyes of the Phillips sisters boring into me.

‘Did you get the number?’ asked Dawn.

‘Do us a favour. I was too busy saving your life.’ I shuddered and tried to replay the scene in my mind’s eye. Again, I saw the car screaming towards us. I tried to freeze the picture. Suddenly, unexpectedly fragments of detail came back. ‘A Mondeo, I think. Navy or black. “N” registered.’ I tried to push everything else from my mind. ‘The last two registration letters could have been “BL”. But I couldn’t swear to it.’

‘“BL”?’ said Dawn. ‘Then it could have been hired.’

‘How do you work that out?’ asked Prim.

‘The film unit have hired minibuses. And Miles has a big stretched Ford thing. They all have “BL” registrations. But what does that tell us?’

‘It could tell us that whoever did that didn’t want to be putting their own car in for repair. Or it could tell us that it was a visiting Yank, driving, pissed, away from Gleneagles.’

We stood there for another five minutes, waiting, listening, watching every passing car, before we braved the road again. My jarred foot pained me with every step I took. We had been walking, or in my case limping, for less than a minute, when a taxi drove by, I hailed it and it stopped. The driver was a guy in his late twenties. He knew Prim and Dawn from school.

As we drove towards Semple House, I squeezed Dawn’s hand. ‘Hey. Remember what I was saying about cuddling up to Miles.’ She nodded. ‘I don’t think you should wait till morning. I think you should go tonight.’

‘Why? You don’t think that was meant for me, do you?’

‘No, of course not. I can’t think why it should be meant for any of us. But whoever that was, it wasn’t an autograph hunter. The best place for you is back with the crew.

‘Tell your Mum and Dad you have to be back early. Then get on your way. Tonight.’

In which Mother offers black pudding, and we take a decision.

I don’t know how long she’d been knocking. The sound started as part of a dream, a nice dream of domesticity, in which Prim and I were, I think, in the process of living happily ever after. I tried to dismiss it, but it was persistent, forcing its way from the back of my mind right up to the front.

Eventually it carried me back to the world of the wide-awake. I propped myself up on an elbow, taking care not to disturb the dozing blonde bundle lying beside me, on top of the quilt. One of Africa’s gifts to Primavera is the ability, when she feels secure, to sleep through virtually anything.

‘Morning,’ I called drowsily to the door.

‘Wakey, wakey Oz.’ Mum Phillips sounded bright and breezy. ‘Breakfast in twenty minutes. D’you like black pudding?’ I squeezed my eyes tight to clear them, and looked at my watch on the bedside table. It was ten past eight.

‘Thanks,’ I called. ‘See you there. And, yes, I love black pudding!’

‘Good.’ There was a pause. ‘By the way, you haven’t seen my daughter, have you?’

‘I’ll look under the bed.’

Beside me, Prim was beginning to stir, uncoiling, like a cat, sighing, murmuring, stretching. Eventually she shook her head and looked up at me, puzzled at first, then remembering. She pulled herself up and leaned against the heavy walnut headboard, flinching slightly from the coolness of the wood on her back, even through her nightshirt.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked her. ‘Have I got that job?’

She smiled, rubbing her eyes. ‘I don’t think that this is quite the place for the audition!

‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I couldn’t sleep for thinking about what happened last night. So I came in here, thinking you’d be in the same state. You were out like a light.’

‘No imagination,’ I said. ‘That’s my trouble.’

Her right breast hung a few inches away from me. Automatically, as if I had done it a hundred times before, I rubbed my forehead against it, and flicked my tongue across the protuberance of her nipple, through the cotton of her shirt. She shivered, then slid, supply, down the covers once again to lie beside me. I could feel her warm breath on my face as we kissed. Her nightdress, which was no more than a long tee-shirt, had ridden up around her waist. I laid my hand on her naked hip and pulled her closer to me as I kissed her again. Her tongue sought out mine, and her fingers wound through my hair. Suddenly she rolled over on top of me, moving her body against me. I could feel the heat of her through the covers, and her eyes burned into mine.

I smiled, ‘What’s it to be?’ I said. ‘Me, or your Mum’s black pudding?’

She laughed. ‘You lose,’ she said, biting the end of my nose, gently. ‘For now.’ She pushed herself back and sat upright, straddling me. I gasped, and her eyes widened, as her weight bore down on my most critical region. ‘It’s nice to know I can command your attention when I want to,’ she murmured.

‘Darling,’ I said, ‘right now you’re commanding a hell of a lot more than my attention!’

Gymnastically, she raised herself up again and swung her legs around to sit on the edge of the bed. When she turned and looked at me again, the tease was gone from her eyes.

‘Who, Oz?’ she pondered. I had fallen asleep asking myself the same question.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘Unless...’ she said.

‘What?’

‘No, forget it.’

‘Come on!’ I grunted. I hate it when someone sets me up and then says, ‘No, forget it.’

‘Well,
why
would anybody want to kill us?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Well, why
would
anyone? Not because of what we know. The only person who knows that we know about the money is Ray Archer, and right now we’re his only chance of getting it back. And not because of what we’ve got This gets complicated, but whoever is after the fiver doesn’t necessarily know that we know what it’s for. And they wouldn’t want to kill us, would they, at least until they’d got it?’

‘So?’

‘So could the driver have been after Dawn?’

‘Aw, come on. Who’d want to kill Dawn?’ as I said it a thought nagged at my brain.

I looked sideways at Prim and shuddered. ‘Ugh! Stop. You’re doing my head in. The main thing is we’re all alive, and Dawn’s safely off to her movie. Now, if you’re still turning down the best offer you’ve had all day, concentrate on breakfast, and on getting your brain into gear. We’ve got some decisions to make.’

The tease was back in her eyes. I pushed myself upright and drew her backwards, pulling her down until her head rested on the pillow. Her nightshirt was drawn up higher this time, and the lower swell of her breasts was in view. She looked up at me: all at once, her right hand was under the covers, feeling, seeking, finding. The smile faded to be replaced by something else. I bent over her and kissed her navel, then flicked my tongue into its cavity, then out, then in then out, then ...

‘Ahhh!’ she gasped, holding my head with her free hand, rotating her hips beneath me. I slid the nightshirt up, feeling her lift her arms and raise her head and shoulders to assist me. ‘Oz!’ She hissed, with an edge of hesitancy in her voice, but with overpowering urgency, and without a shred of teasing. The nightshirt stretched taut as it cleared her shoulder, but in a moment her arm was free. I eased myself upright and began to pull back the barrier of linen and blankets which kept us apart. All the while she held on to me, stroking, kneading, until I thought I would burst.

The knock on the door was as vigorous as before. ‘Oz! Five minutes.’

‘Bugger!’ said Primavera and I, in unison.

Prim shook her head in despair. ‘Make it fifteen,’ she called out to the door. ‘Oz has to shave.’ She let me go, then sat up and thrust her arm back into her nightshirt.

‘Told you this was no place for an audition,’ she said, smiling. ‘We found out one thing, though.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked. I felt myself subside, experiencing also the onset of a condition known and dreaded by all men in such a situation.

‘You can command my attention as well!’

Semple House has basins in every bedroom. As soon as I felt confident that my boxers had resumed a normal shape, I vaulted out of bed and turned on the hot tap. The water reached near-boiling point, almost instantly.

She sat on the bed, watching me as I lathered my chin. ‘Before we got distracted, you were talking about decisions,’ she said. ‘What sort d’you mean?’

‘The sort we’ve been avoiding until now. Like, where are we going next? Should we tell Archer we’ve got the fiver? Should we tell the police everything?’

I drew my razor down my cheek, cutting a clean, shiny swathe through the foam.

‘What d’you think?’

I could see her in the mirror, holding her chin as she pondered over my questions. ‘I don’t know. I do know what common sense says. Until now, we’ve put everything to one side to find Dawn. Now we’ve done that, and we know that she’s safe, and didn’t have anything to do with Willie Kane’s murder, then as good honest citizens we should say “Sod the reward, sod Archer and his sordid cover-up”, and tell the whole story to Mike Dylan.

‘And yet ...’ Her reflection swung her legs off the bed and stood up, stretching her arms high above her head, clasping her hands together and pulling them backwards, thrusting out her breasts and tensing the muscles of her groin. ‘I don’t know, I’ve got a bad feeling about something.’ As I scraped the last of the lather from my top lip, I saw her cross the room. She stood behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. ‘What d’you think?’