When The Devil Drives (23 page)

Jasmine didn’t have much of a choice at that moment, as her insurance company had reneged on their promise of a hire car, saying they were suspending this service in her case until they had ‘further investigated the validity of the claim’. This meant that that miserable dick DI Gormley had been on to them. He wouldn’t have said outright that the police believed she had torched her own car, as that might lay him open to repercussions. More likely a mixture of vagueness and innuendo, nod-and-a-wink stuff. Or Plod-is-a-wank stuff, as far as Jasmine was concerned.

The state of the van made her feel all the more self-conscious as she drove slowly down the broad tree-lined avenue that wound through the school grounds to the auspicious main building. She passed immaculately maintained playing fields, manicured verges, woodland pathways, outlying sandstone terraces with distinctive house badges identifying them as individual boarding houses, and a more modern sports hall the size of her old primary school. If she had sold her Honda Civic before it got petrol bombed she would have been doing well to raise enough to pay a week’s fees for this place, but nonetheless, she always felt quite robustly herself when she climbed out of that vehicle. Showing up in a purposely nondescript van made her look – and feel – like the hired help.

She reported to the school’s reception and was greeted by a formidably stern secretary who looked dubiously at her, as though readying herself
to escort Jasmine from the premises, until she stated that her business was with Finlay Weir and she was expected. The secretary’s manner softened a little as she instructed Jasmine to take a seat while Mr Weir was informed of her arrival, but from her overall demeanour Jasmine could vividly imagine that she’d have preferred the escorting from the premises resolution. The headmaster’s stock had probably taken a hit too, if he was entertaining the likes of Jasmine.

She sat on a wooden bench and glanced at the framed photographs on the wood-panelled walls: strapping girls and ebullient boys, thrusting, healthy and oh-so-confident as they wielded lacrosse sticks, grappled for a rugby ball, sang in the choir, played in the orchestra.

A girl walked past in a grey uniform with purple trim. Despite being garbed in pleated skirt, buttoned-up blazer and school tie, she still looked older than Jasmine. It was something in the way she carried herself; something in the way they all carried themselves.

Growing up in Edinburgh, Jasmine had known no shortage of private-school kids, but this place was something else entirely. According to the website, they did have day pupils but, being out here in the wilds of Perthshire, it was principally a boarding school: the kind of place only a certain class of family sent their offspring. The kind of place Hamish Queen and Julian Sanquhar had first met.

Finlay Weir ambled into the reception area with the unassuming grace of a man who already knows he’s going to be treated as the most important person in the room and thus doesn’t need to sell it.

‘You must be Jasmine Sharp,’ he said, a subtle gesture dismissing the secretary’s intention to stand up and mediate introductions.

Weir was tall and slim; not skinny, just thinner than Jasmine had expected, albeit those expectations had been coloured by the proliferation of photographs of rugby players on the walls. He had a full head of grey-flecked brown hair, which he appeared to have made no effort to dye, and was dressed in a dark brown suit, not altogether businesslike but not ageing-geography-teacher-with-PVC-elbow-patches either. Jasmine’s eye for detail spotted a tiny hole in his left earlobe where a stud must once have sat, but there were more explicit reminders of his more bohemian previous career at his wrists, where he wore cufflinks in the shapes of tragedy and comedy masks. She
had found out that Queen and Sanquhar were both roughly one year his senior, but he looked a few years younger than them; could maybe even pass for late forties. He was attractive in a distinguished way; not trying to maintain a look whose time had passed, but chiselled enough to suggest he must have been very handsome once upon a time.

‘Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? A cold drink?’ he asked, gesturing towards a corridor.

‘No thank you. But I wouldn’t mind some fresh air. I’ve been cooped up driving for a while. Could we stretch our legs a wee bit?’

‘Certainly. I’ll give you the tour.’

Jasmine could have murdered a cuppa right then, but it was a greater priority to keep him out of his office. There were times when it was expedient to make the subject feel relaxed and comfortable, and times when you didn’t want them enjoying the reassurance of home advantage. This was definitely the latter. If she wanted Weir to open up, she had to take him away from the trappings that reminded him he was at the centre of this little world, not least because at a moment’s notice he could summon the scary secretary and grant her transparent wish of huckling Jasmine right out the front door.

In keeping with his stated intention, he gave her the tour, walking first all the way around the main building and then out towards the playing fields. He talked about the history of the school, famous alumni, the construction dates of various buildings, and informed her that he had boarded here himself in his schooldays. He had an easy manner but it felt professionally courteous rather than genuinely warm. Jasmine detected a certain intensity about him, a steel behind the smile, and decided she wouldn’t want to get sent to this headmaster’s office if she was in trouble.

Not that she imagined discipline was a big problem at Logie-Almond. It was hard to imagine some of the scenes she’d witnessed at Canonmills High being replicated here.

As if to emphasise the point, they had to give way at one point to a man with two rifles slung over each shoulder, accompanying a troupe of a dozen boys in cadet greens.

Jasmine’s face must have shown surprise, and quite possibly alarm.

‘They’re off for some shooting practice,’ Weir explained. ‘We have a rifle range, on the fringes of the woods.’

‘With live ammunition?’ she asked, trying not to sound horrified.

‘Oh no,’ Weir said. ‘Those were only third years.’

What he left unsaid negated any reassurance his actual words might have offered.

It really was another world.

‘I believe you’d like to ask me some questions about the rather ill-starred Glass Shoe Company,’ Weir said as they resumed their walk along a neatly defined gravel path.

‘Yes,’ Jasmine answered, relieved that the foreplay was over. ‘Though I was given the strong impression you might be disinclined to answer them.’

‘Oh yes? By whom?’

‘Julian Sanquhar, for one. And Hamish Queen, though less explicitly. I broached the subject with Hamish first, and by the time I spoke to Julian he informed me that Hamish had been phoning everyone involved with Glass Shoe to warn them that I was sniffing around. Julian seemed certain that nobody would be in a hurry to revisit that part of their past. Thus I confess I was surprised when you called back.’

‘It seems I didn’t get the memo,’ he stated, a wryness to his tone that was born more of bitterness than humour. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised. I don’t know if Hamish Queen would even remember my name.’

‘He claimed he couldn’t,’ Jasmine told him, watching for a response. His eyebrows rose sardonically before she added: ‘He in fact claimed he couldn’t remember the names of anybody in the original Glass Shoe Company except Tessa Garrion, whom I had just asked about, and Adam Nolan, of whom I could ask nothing. Among those whose names he had apparently forgotten were Julian Sanquhar, Murray Maxwell, Russell Darius and yourself.’

Weir gave a small sigh and glanced away towards the woods, Jasmine detecting a slight shake of the head. Regret and something else that lingered just as long.

‘In my case it might be true; or at least halfway plausible. He certainly worked very hard on forgetting me after the company broke up.’

‘Hamish suggested that the cast shied away from each other because of a kind of shared professional embarrassment. People not wanting to be reminded of their failure while it was still raw, that sort of thing.’

‘Hmmm,’ Weir replied, but Jasmine couldn’t tell whether it was in agreement or dispute. She suspected there was a bit of both, but she knew this much: he wasn’t going to leave it hanging. Weir wasn’t reluctant to revisit this part of his past, he was champing at the bit.

‘I think it suited Hamish to forget certain things,’ he added, unprompted. ‘I was with Dundee Rep for a year, which was where Hamish saw me. I was Christian in
Cyrano de Bergerac
. It got me a lot of very good notices and some very tempting offers, including a place in the Lyceum Company in Edinburgh. I turned them down because Hamish sold me on his idea for Glass Shoe. I was rather torn – who wouldn’t want a job at the Lyceum? – but Hamish pushed all the right buttons, including a clever mixture of flattery and guilt.’

‘He told you his planned project just wouldn’t work without you?’ Jasmine guessed.

‘Bang on the money. So I signed up, walked out on Dundee Rep, said a very polite thanks but no thanks to the Lyceum and headed for the Highlands.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Jasmine, letting him know he could skip this part. For now.

‘By the time the dust had settled over the rubble of Glass Shoe, everyone was already cast and rehearsing for their autumn seasons and I had missed the boat. I was out of work for a long time, just the odd bit part here and there. Meanwhile Hamish got busy with a new venture and a little way down the line he’s got a musical in the West End. I was getting desperate and I reckoned he owed me, so I approached him for a part. Nothing big: a place in the chorus, anything, just something to deal me back into the game.’

He gave a rueful smile, devoid of humour.

‘No can do. I
just wasn’t right for it
.’

Weir stopped for a moment where two paths met, briefly undecided which route to continue their walk. He opted for the right, taking them around the playing fields.

‘I hasten to add that I’m not bitter. Hamish set me on the road to here, put me out of my misery. If he hadn’t, maybe I wouldn’t have this.’

He gestured expansively at the school and its impressive grounds, the sprawling domain of which he was ruler.

But he sounded bitter, and saying he wasn’t just drew attention to the fact. Jasmine knew what it was to be working towards a future in the theatre then to have to rebuild your life around a different career altogether. Yes, Weir had done well for himself, and yes she might do well with Sharp Investigations; she was already earning more than she would had her more modest dreams come true and she’d landed a part with a rep. But even those modest dreams would always seem more desirable than compromised reality, and Weir had enjoyed a true taste of living his dreams before they were taken away.

He might even believe himself that he wasn’t bitter. He probably wouldn’t rant about it after a few too many, probably didn’t get maudlin and bore the missus with his ‘coulda been a contender’ speech. Nor would he ever have gone to the press with anything compromising towards Hamish Queen or the others, as that simply wouldn’t be becoming for a man in his profession, nor conducive to career preferment. But in Jasmine, finally he had a chance to discreetly share some information that could make life just a little less comfortable for Hamish Queen. That was why he’d phoned back, and so soon. He had been bottling this up for years and she was the first person to come along offering a corkscrew.

‘Still, at the time it must have stung,’ she suggested, giving the handle a twist.

Weir shrugged, not denying it, but saying: what can you do?

‘That’s Hamish. I’ve heard the same story over and over from other people. Once you cease to be useful to him he discards you.’

‘I think it runs in the family,’ Jasmine replied, thinking of Charlotte and deciding to tempt Weir with an intimacy.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I know his daughter. She’s got her own company now.’

‘Fire Curtain,’ said Weir, showing he still kept an interest in Scottish theatre.

‘Yes. It’s been said Charlotte has a discerning eye for recognising talents but only in so far as envisioning how they would augment her own.’

‘How do you know her?’

‘We were at the SATD together.’

‘You trained as an actress?’

‘For a while. I had to drop out because my mum died. She was an actress too. Theatre runs in my family.’

Jasmine knew there was no need to share this, but she couldn’t stop herself. It was his age and his theatre background. She’d be embarrassed to admit it, but she had said it on the off chance that Weir had known her mum, just throwing out a line and hoping to get something back. Ever since Dot Prowis said she’d seen her perform it had opened up a whole unexplored area of her mum’s life. Her heart had soared to hear Mum described, and she wanted to feel that way again, to unearth those hidden archives. Mum had friends who worked in theatre, but Jasmine had often heard as much as they were prepared to say. Plenty of others must have worked with her though, or at least seen her act, so surely it wasn’t folly to hope that one day she’d mention the name to somebody and it would bear fruit. Any memory would be cherished, a photograph would be like the Holy Grail.

The name evidently meant nothing to Weir, but then he was already out of theatre and into teaching by the time her mum was on stage.

‘I’m convinced it was more than professional embarrassment that led to Hamish and the other members of Glass Shoe shunning each other,’ Jasmine said. They were skirting the playing fields, passing the all-weather surface with its high fence and approaching the rugby pitch. ‘What happened up there at Kildrachan House that would have him lying to me about forgetting people’s names, then phoning those same people to warn them I was asking questions? Julian Sanquhar all but suggested I’d be putting myself in harm’s way by
digging this stuff up. He made it sound like you’d all been raising hell, and I don’t mean that purely as a figure of speech.’

Weir let out a laugh, and for the first time she saw genuine amusement in his face.