Poisoned Cherries (20 page)

“And who’d play Skinner?”
 
asked Capperauld, icily.
 
Clearly, he didn’t believe it at all.

“The biggest name in movies,” Miles replied, “Miles Grayson.
 
I’ll make an early script change to account for the accent, and I’ll do your part myself.”

I think Ewan was about to tell him that he couldn’t do that, when he realised that he could.
 
In the event he stopped himself at, “You ..

.”

We had one of those long silences, the kind in which you swear you can hear people’s brains whirring and clicking.
 
Miles stood there, straight-faced, with his back to the window.
 
Capperauld looked at him, then through the glass, at the Scott Monument, then at Scott Steele, who can be a bit of a monument himself at times.
 
Finally he did something that took me by surprise.
 
He turned to me and offered his hand.

“I’m sorry, Oz,” he said; the Scottish accent was back.
 
“I guess I’ve been living in London too long; sometimes I forget myself and turn into a real fucking lovey.
 
That was an insult, and I apologise; to you too, Miles.”

I looked at him to be sure he wasn’t taking the piss; when I was, I accepted his handshake.

“I got my first job by accident,” he went on, ‘as a boy, in the very early days of Take the High Road..
 
. you know, the Scottish soap.
 
A couple of years later, I landed a film part.
 
I’ve seen your first movie; you were a fucking sight better in that than I was in mine .. .
 
and I’ve still never been to drama college.”

Miles patted him on the shoulder.
 
“That’s why you don’t believe in rehearsals, mate.”
 
He flashed him a grin: the one that lights up rooms and makes him tower over everyone around him, even though he’s really shorter than most of them.
 
“Now that’s sorted, you guys get to know each other.
 
Scott, you come with me, and meet Masahi.”

“Son,” the venerable actor beamed, “I did a war movie with him in Malaysia, over twenty years ago, when you were still working on the docks in Sydney.
 
You come with me, and I’ll introduce you properly.”

They wandered off, leaving me alone with Ewan, half hoping that Rhona Waitrose would come back.
 
She didn’t, though, not then.

“How did your Toronto stint go?”
 
he asked, conversationally.

“Pretty well, I think.
 
The offers are rolling in, anyway.
 
I’m going back to Canada after this one.”

Ewan nodded.
 
“The way things are headed we’ll all be working there soon.”

“No.
 
They don’t do beaches.”

“They do everything.
 
It’s a big place.”

One of the catering staff who had taken over my kitchen passed by and offered us more champagne.
 
As she was filling our glasses, another came up with a tray full of savouries.
 
I grabbed a couple with my free hand.

“I read in the Scotsman that you’re an old acquaintance of the woman who’s been charged with doing for my late cousin,” my new friend murmured, as they moved on to the next group.

“Alison?
 
Yes.
 
We had a relationship a few years back.”

“Poor lass.”
 
He chuckled.
 
“Not on that score, I rush to say.
 
No, I meant, poor lass that she was mixed up with our David.
 
Do you think she did it?”

“She’s going to plead guilty to culpable homicide, as we call manslaughter in Scotland.
 
It’s on that understanding she’s been charged with that and not murder.”

“Mmm, “copping a plea” as the Americans say.
 
I hope the court goes easy on her, then.
 
You seem to know a bit about it.”

I nodded.
 
“I do.
 
I’ve been trying to help her; she’s afraid that her business will go down the tubes, even if she doesn’t go to jail.
 
I’ve been trying to set it up so that it doesn’t, even if she does.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, you only have to ask.”

I looked at him.
 
“You serious?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, if you’d agree to perform the opening ceremony at James Torrent’s new corporate headquarters, you’d be helping her big-time.”

“Torrent?
 
The office equipment man?”
 
He frowned, furrowing his brow, thinking something over.
 
“Yes, I’ll do that for her.”

I was slightly stunned.
 
“Will you?
 
That’s great.
 
I’m seeing her this

evening; I’ll tell her.
 
It’ll brighten what’s been a pretty traumatic

day’

“You’re seeing her?
 
In prison?”

“No, at her office; she appeared in court this morning, and the sheriff let her out on bail.”

“That’s good.
 
I hope it goes well with her.”

His concern seemed genuine.
 
“Alison told me you didn’t like your cousin.
 
She wasn’t kidding, was she?”

“No, she was not.
 
The little bastard made a pass at my wife, once, about ten years ago, at a family gathering.
 
I caught him at it and I thumped him.
 
He told his parents, my aunt and uncle, a pack of lies; he accused me of touching up his girlfriend, would you believe.
 
My uncle tackled me about it, and I told him that his son was a lying little shit, and left it at that.

“I’d forgotten about it inside a week, but not David, though; he kept the bad feeling going.
 
His father and my father have been at odds over it ever since.
 
When he and Alison started in business, I thought it was a chance to heal the breach, so I called him, and offered to support them, financially and with contacts.
 
He told me to fuck off.” He laughed and shook his head.
 
“What an idiot.”

He paused.
 
“Why did she do it, do they reckon?”

“He two-timed her, then broke off their engagement.
 
He put the screws on her over the business after that; he was trying to force her to buy his shares for more than they were worth.
 
At least, that’s what they’re saying.”

“That’s typical of the little bastard.
 
I’ve never met the girl, you know, but she didn’t deserve him.
 
No one did.”
 
He frowned again, then nodded as if another decision had been made.
 
“I’ll tell you what; when you see her, would you put a proposition to her?
 
I’d like to renew my offer of help; if the business is saveable, and if my unlamented cousin’s shares are still available, I’ll buy them at an independent valuation.
 
Obviously, I won’t be actively involved, but I’ll let her keep the Capperauld name above the door.”

He looked at me.
 
“Do you think she’d consider that?”

I whistled.
 
“I think she’ll jump at it, Ewan; it’ll be great news for her.”
 
I couldn’t help thinking that it would be great news for Susie as well.
 
I looked him in the eye.
 
A quarter of an hour before I’d been ready to deck him; now he’d turned out to be not such a bad guy after all.

“I’ll tell her tonight.
 
Assuming she agrees, I’ll arrange for you to meet.”

“You do that.
 
Why don’t you make it here, at eight tomorrow morning?”

“That early?”

“Of course.”
 
He chuckled.
 
“It wouldn’t do for us to be late for Miles’s bloody rehearsals.”

Twenty-Nine.

Alison’s office was one stair up, in an undistinguished terrace on the south side of York Place, but I guessed that with its city centre location, it was costing her a packet in rent.

The nameplates on the street entrance and outside her glass-panelled door must have been pricey items too.
 
I suggested as much when she let me in.
 
“Yes,” she said, mournfully.
 
“I suppose I’ll have to change them now.”

“Not necessarily,” I replied.
 
“How did it go in court?”

She shuddered.
 
“It was scary.
 
They led me up into the dock, I said “yes” when the clerk asked me if I was who I was, and again, when the sheriff asked me if I understood the charge.
 
Otherwise, that was it;

Mr.
 
Badenoch made a short speech about my unblemished character, then he asked for bail.
 
The fiscal didn’t oppose and that was it; I’m back again in six weeks, when I’ll be asked to plead.
 
I’ve had to surrender my passport, but there were no other conditions.
 
I don’t have to sleep with Ricky,” she snorted, ‘or anything like that.”

“I don’t recall that being a condition the last time,” I reminded her.

“The way I heard it, that was all your idea.”

“Well, it was a bad one,” she sniffed.
 
“Even if it did prick his conscience into trying to help me.”

“That prick has no conscience.”

“You can talk.
 
Anyway, I suppose he’s not that bad.”
 
She poured me a mug of coffee from her filter, added milk, without asking, and handed it to me.
 
“He was here half an hour ago,” she said, smoothing out her long straight skirt.
 
She looked not half bad, in that and a sleeveless blouse.

“He told me what he’d found out about the key at David’s flat, and about the fingerprints he lifted from it.
 
It was real private eye stuff.
 
Did you use to do that, Oz, when you were in that business?”

“You know damn well I was never in that business; I just worked for lawyers, that’s all.”

“Sure.
 
I believed that, too, until Ricky told me different.
 
He said that you were mixed up in a murder, after you and I split up, and that for a while he thought you might have had a hand in it.”

“I think he still half believes that, but he’s wrong.”

“You’re mixed up in one now.”

“No.
 
You are; he is; I’m not.
 
I’m not involved.
 
What else did he tell you?”

“Nothing.
 
He asked for a list of David’s friends, that was all.”

“Was it much of a list?”

She gave a short, brittle laugh, and shook her head.
 
“Not really.
 
I gave him three, no, four names to be going on with, but the only really close friend among them was Don Kennedy.”
 
She looked at me as if she expected me to know him.
 
I looked back at her, blankly.

“Which Don Kennedy?”

“You know; the golfer.”

“Oh, that Don Kennedy.”
 
I’d heard of him, right enough.
 
He’d won quite a few events in Europe, and one in the States.
 
He was a Ryder Cup player, but he wasn’t exactly a household name ... at least not in any household I’d ever had.
 
The thought of households took me back to Susie, and our conversation that morning.

By coincidence, Alison arrived in the same vicinity at the same time.
 
“What did you mean earlier,” she asked, ‘when you said I wouldn’t necessarily have to change the nameplates?”

“I meant,” I told her, ‘that you have the most unlikely fairy godfather you could ever have imagined..
 
. except that I wouldn’t really say he’s a fairy, just a bit arch from time to time.”

I told her all about my encounter with Ewan Capperauld, in detail, piece by piece.
 
When I got to where he agreed without a murmur to open James Torrent’s building, she gasped with surprise, shouted “Yes!”
 
and jumped up and down.
 
When I got to the end, and his offer to buy his cousin’s stake in the business, and put his own name behind it, she looked at me in total amazement for a few seconds then threw herself at me and kissed me.
 
She’d never done it like that in the old days.
 
This was a real tongue-tickling-tonsils job.
 
She didn’t stop there either; there wasn’t an interesting piece of her that wasn’t pressed and writhing against me.

Eventually I peeled her off..
 
. not too soon though, for I was enjoying it, a fact of which she must have been aware.
 
“You are the most surprising, wonderful man,” she whispered.
 
“Make love to me.”

I held her away from me.
 
“Come on, now,” I told her.
 
“If you want to tuck someone to celebrate, fuck Ewan.
 
It’s only right; he’s the guy making the offer.”

She smiled at me; very definitely Alison Mark Two.
 
“Yes, but he’s not here.”
 
She began to unbutton her blouse.
 
Something made me stop her;

Susie’s face in my mind’s eye ... or maybe it was a subconscious image of her and Ricky Ross.

“Thanks again, but no thanks.”

“You really are serious about this woman in Glasgow, aren’t you?”

I was, and it was worrying me.
 
“No, I just want you to be fresh for your meeting with Ewan tomorrow morning; eight o’clock at my place.”

She was still incredulous.
 
“He wants to meet me?”