As Easy as Murder

Ten

It didn’t happen quite as smoothly as that, though. On the way south, Alex explained, politely but firmly, that certain things had to be done by the book, to keep the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued prosecutor happy, and that it would be necessary for us to stop off at his office in Girona, for me to put everything I had told him on the record.

I was keen to get back to the action, but I didn’t argue. He had enough on his plate without me turning awkward. Back at the ‘Yard’, they went as fast as they could, but the clerical staff didn’t work Sundays and so Jorge had to transcribe the story I told to the tape, and that wasn’t his strong suit. It took him the best part of an hour before Alex was satisfied, but finally, I was able to sign it.

The final round was well under way by the time they dropped me at the course. The early starters, the also-rans who were playing for as many euro as they could pick up, were completing their week’s work, but only their families and managers were interested in them and so the stand by the eighteenth green was almost empty. Behind it, the main leader-board told me three things: the last match was playing the fifteenth hole, the closest challengers to the leaders were six shots adrift, and Jonny was eighteen under par, one shot behind the Irish kid, who had just birdied the fourteenth.

They were a fair distance from the clubhouse, and I was making my way against the flow of the crowds, so it took me a little while to reach them. Just as I did, I heard a roar; by that time my ear was attuned to gallery sounds so I knew that someone had just holed a putt for a birdie at least. I eased my way greenside, just in time to see young Irish pick his ball out of the hole, with an even wider smile than usual splitting his face in two. As he did so, his caddie handed the flag to Uche; a good sign, possibly, since it meant that Jonny had still to putt. I looked around for Tom, and saw him a few yards to my right. His face was expressionless, as he changed one of the numbers on his board, replacing the red nineteen with twenty.

The cheer had subsided as quickly as it had erupted, but I doubt that Jonny would have heard anything as he lined up the shot that faced him, five or six metres I judged, across a slope, downhill at the finish, virtually impossible to leave short yet impossible to stop once it had passed the hole. If his opponent had been allowed to place it, that’s the spot he’d have chosen. Jonny waved Uche to join him; they surveyed the line together, then the caddie backed off. By that time, I’d seen enough of Jonny in competition mode to know that when he made up his mind about a shot, he didn’t hang about. That’s how it was then: step up, line up, steady, stroke.

I was sure he’d missed it on the right, dead certain; and so was he, I reckoned, for he started to walk after it, a sure sign of golfer resignation.

The impossible never happens. Sometimes you think it has, but it’s only an optical illusion. The hole doesn’t really move sideways into the path of the ball. In reality there’s a borrow, an extra slope so slight that no one can see it, until it takes effect. That’s how it was, but it really did look as if Jonny’s Titleist had been gulped down and swallowed, rather than simply falling into the cup.

The roar exploded again. (I must record that the Irish cheered as loudly as everyone else. The most admirable thing about European golf galleries is that they appreciate the shot regardless of who plays it, of whom they may be supporting and of how they may be betting.) If anything it was louder than before, and not just because I was yelling too. I looked at Tom, and felt a surge of overwhelming love for the way that he wasn’t quite able to stay professionally neutral, but managed nonetheless to control himself far better than I did as he peered into his bag and changed Jonny’s score, not to the red nineteen I’d been expecting, but to a twenty, tying for the lead. Of course, I’d forgotten; the fifteen was a par five on the card, so his putt must have been for a three.

It might not have been as busy as the Old Course at St Andrews but I was swallowed up by the crowd nonetheless, and swept towards the next tee in what I can best describe as a human tidal flow. I didn’t fancy that, so I broke free; since the sixteenth is a par three I headed straight for the green, and found a spot behind the flag, up against the rope. It was a perfect vantage point. I had a clear view of both tee shots; the hole was dangerously close to trouble and neither player took the risk of shooting at it, leaving themselves putts that were no more than outside birdie chances.

Tom saw me as he approached the green; he gave me a discreet wave with his free hand, but otherwise kept his game face on. He looked more determined than anxious. Jonny looked at me too. He was frowning when our eyes met, and for a second or two I was worried that I’d broken his concentration, until he winked at me, flashed me his uncle’s smile, then held out his hand to Uche, for the putter that the caddie had taken from his bag.

As he surveyed the green, studying the slopes and borrows, I looked around the gallery. Suddenly I felt sorry for him, and a little angry too. The crowd was predominantly green; the shamrock seemed to be everywhere. The navy blue of Scotland and the thistle were conspicuous by their absence. And so, it seemed, were three other people. I looked right, left, and all around, yet saw neither hide nor hair of Shirley Gash, and since there is a lot of both, if she’d been there I would have. And Patterson Cowling would have been easy to spot too, because he’d have been stood right alongside her. I took another look around, acknowledging the possibility that Shirl might have gone in search of a comfort station, but still I couldn’t spot him. If he’d been there, even without Shirley as a marker buoy, he’d still have been obvious, since there were no other double-breasted blazers with gold buttons in sight. Not surprisingly, there were no other tailored, pale-blue, silk blend, Nehru-jacketed suits either. . not even the original.

For Kalu Wigwe was missing too. There was no question about it, for even if he’d nipped back to his plane and changed in my absence, and he’d had time to do so, I wouldn’t have missed him, for his would have been the only black African face on my side of the rope. To me, that was strangest of all. Neither Shirley nor Patterson were in the first flush of youth and eighteen holes around a golf course on foot, on a warm Spanish day, is quite a hike. If they had bailed out or had decided to sit and wait for the finish at the eighteenth green, I had no problem understanding that; indeed that was my assumption. But Kalu? The guy. . the middle-aged, fit-looking guy. . had flown for eight hours, on impulse, to ‘support the team’ as he’d put it. I guessed that he’d gone for lunch, maybe even found someone else to entertain, and had decided that the live TV feed in the dining room was a better way of supporting than being out there mingling and jostling with the crowd. After all, the guy was a princeling.

I dismissed him from my thoughts and concentrated on Jonny and on staying with him to the end, however it worked out, even though I didn’t have a Scottish flag to wave.

And so I was there, on that great day. I was there as the Irish kid’s putt just lipped out on the sixteenth, matching my nephew’s more cautious par. I was there as they negotiated the tricky seventeenth, playing short of the fairway bunkers, taking the safe line into the green and settling for four each. I was there as they came to the final hole. . although, possibly, it wasn’t, as there would be a sudden death play-off in the event of a tie.

Jonny had the honour; he drove first. His body must have been pumping adrenaline, for he carried the bunkers that were meant to catch the careless. Unfortunately, he carried the fairway as well and his ball settled down in the rough. His opponent had been in last-day combat before; he knew to take a deep breath and to hit a three metal rather than a driver, arcing the ball into the centre of the fairway, and giving himself the advantage of playing first to the green from a perfect lie. I looked at Tom; his mouth was set in a tight line and I could feel that mine was too. Jonny? He was smiling as he reached his ball, but his eyes looked like steel.

Half of Ireland seemed to hold its breath as the kid. . did I tell you his name was Cormac Toibin?. . took out an eight iron. (No, I wasn’t close enough to read the number, but I caught the finger signal his caddie sent to Telly Man.) I’d seen him hit that club a few dozen times by then; I knew how good he was with it. Nine times out of ten he’d have knocked it in close, but the tenth is usually the one where the big money is on the line. That’s how it was. His ball flew beyond the flag, took a hard bounce and disappeared into the back left bunker.

‘Come on, Jonny!’ I wanted to shout it out loud, but my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth, so I willed the thought to him.

I got as close to his ball as I could, close enough to see that it wasn’t lying too well, close enough to hear him ask Uche what he thought.

‘Strong wedge and fucking murder it,’ the caddie replied, loud enough to make Telly Man wince under the Aussie hat. He was standing just in front of me, on the other side of the rope; I guessed that his microphone was live and that the prissy director would be making the prissy commentator apologise for the language lapse.

Jonny took the advice to heart; he did indeed fucking murder it, so effectively that his ball flew clean over the flag and disappeared into the same bunker as his opponent’s.

The crowd scrambled towards the green, rushing to fill the last few seats in the stand or to get as close to the action as they could. I left them to it; instead, when I got there I found a marshal and flashed the ‘Competitor’s family’ badge that Jonny had given me at the start of the tournament and that I’d never had to use. I found a vantage point in front of the stand, beside a couple of guys I’d seen on the range and knew to be Cormac’s dad and older brother. Senior pointed to Jonny. ‘Mum?’ he asked. ‘Aunt,’ I replied.

‘Good luck,’ he murmured. ‘Your lad’s done really well, regardless.’

For a moment I wondered whether he was being patronising, but he wasn’t, just kind. ‘Yours too,’ I whispered. As I did I looked up and into the stand, in search of Shirley and Patterson, but there was no sign. Bugger them, I thought. Serves them right.

It took a referee to decide who was to play first. After some deliberation, Cormac got the nod, as Jonny would have had to stand on his ball to play. I’d picked up some stats in the course of the week. Among them was the fact that the kid was number one in sand saves on the US PGA Tour.

The shot that faced him was over a couple of metres of fringe then on to a slope down to the flag. I couldn’t see how he could stop it anywhere near the hole, but he did, angel-feathering the ball in a shimmer of sand and leaving it about a foot short for a dead certain nailed-down four. He walked up and marked it with a golden coin.

Standing behind the bunker, Uche reached into the bag, took out a club and held it out for Jonny. He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Not the sand iron. Lob wedge.’

‘You could leave it in the bunker,’ the caddie protested.

‘But I won’t. I see the shot.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Gimme.’

I looked at Tom as he stepped up to the ball. He was gripping the pole of his board with both hands and his knuckles were white. I might have kept on looking at him, but I found the strength to overcome my nerves and turned back to my other boy.

As always he didn’t waste any time. His backswing was long and steep and he drove into the sand so hard that I sensed disaster. . which tells you how much I know.

The ball flew high, much higher than Cormac’s had, but remarkably seemed to land even more softly, at the very start of the slope. For a second or two, I thought that backspin would keep it there, leaving him the mother of all difficult putts to stay alive in the tournament, but then it moved very slightly, and started to roll very gently, picking up pace, but not too much. I was sure it was going to miss on the left; indeed it might have, had it not, as countless high-definition TV close-up replays showed later, clipped the edge of Cormac’s marker and changed course, very slightly but enough to leave it perched on the edge of the hole, until gravity gave it one last shove and it fell in. The winner and Catalan Masters champion, Jonathan Sinclair, Scotland.

There followed one of those moments beloved of moviemakers, when time seemed to stand still and all the players in the drama were frozen as if encased in plastic. . until it was broken by the sound of a board hitting the ground and of its bearer, as he jumped high, punching the air and yelling, ‘Yes!!!!’

Everyone went crazy after that, including, to their eternal credit, the Irish, who love a miracle above all else. In the mayhem that followed, Jonny and Uche embraced, then he and Cormac shook hands formally and hugged a little less so. I couldn’t hear the kid, but I’m a good lip-reader, so I could follow when he said, ‘Welcome to the European Tour, Jonathan. Are you really that good, or was that shot just plain crazy?’

I couldn’t see the reply properly, for the two older Toibins seized my hands and offered congratulations that were both genuine and generous; also my eyes were starting to tear up, as I saw my nephew turning towards me.

If you’re a regular watcher of golf on television, especially the American style, you’ll know that it is de rigueur for the nearest and dearest of the combatants to be greenside as the drama concludes. Great for the winner’s family, tough shit on the loser when it’s a razor-edge finish. I’d always found that staged emotion more than a little sick-making; until then, for, without a thought for the prying cameras, without caring that I was making a tit of myself live on air, I rushed on to the green and jumped into Jonny’s arms.

‘You did it, you did it, you did it,’ I murmured, as I cried on his shoulder.

‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘I owe you the finest dinner in town.’

Uche left us alone for a little while, before reminding Jonny. . after I’d hugged him too. . that the job wasn’t done until his score was recorded. ‘God, yes,’ I said. ‘Get that done, properly. . then I can study the menu.’

As they walked towards the recorder’s caravan, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I didn’t even look at caller ID; I didn’t have to. ‘Yes, Ellie,’ I said, as I answered, ‘you didn’t dream it.’

‘The wee beauty,’ she exclaimed, in the snuffly voice of someone who doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry and winds up doing both. ‘I thought you were going to eat him there, woman,’ she added. ‘You should have seen yourself. But I don’t blame you. Christ knows what I’d have been like. Who’d have thought it, eh? My wee boy, champion. Believe it or not, I had a phone call from his father last night; he was too busy to go to Girona, of course, but he asked me to pass on his good wishes. Hey,’ she chuckled, ‘maybe the roles will be reversed now, and Jonny can send him a cheque for his birthday. Make sure you tell him to call me once he’s collected his cup. . and his winnings, of course.’

‘I won’t have to tell him, you daft bat. Have you heard from Mac yet?’

‘No,’ she replied, ‘the old eedjit’s sailing back to Singapore, cut off from all communication. I’m going to ask the shipping line if they can get a message to him. If only that wife of his hadn’t insisted on dragging him off on a cruise. He’ll be shitting rattlesnakes when he finds out what he’s missed.’

She left me with that vision in mind. It might have stayed there for a while, if it hadn’t been for Lena Mankell. She bore down on me from the crowd that was gathering in front of the television backdrop, the one with the sponsors’ logos, where the interview and presentation would take place. Her fists were clenched above her head. . and she was almost smiling.

Lars followed her, with a toddler in the crook of his left arm and an older child holding his right hand. He’d played on Thursday and Friday, on an invitation. He had missed the cut by eight shots; it did seem that the best of his career was well behind him, but equally he didn’t seem too worried about it. It made me wonder what a swing coach earns, if he was happy to follow his wife around and able to afford to. There are many ways for pros in decline to make money, but as far as I could see he wasn’t bothered.

‘I knew he would win,’ Lena exclaimed.

‘Even when he was in the sand,’ I challenged, ‘and Cormac was stone dead next to the hole?’

‘Jonny was number one in sand saves,’ Lars informed me, ‘and he played the eighteenth better than Toibin all week. Even if he had not holed out, there would have been a play-off, on that hole, as often as it took, and he would have won.’

It hadn’t come to that so I could afford to be sceptical. ‘Golf isn’t all about statistics,’ I argued.

‘It creates them,’ Lars countered, sombrely, in his accented English. He seemed more solemn in his wife’s presence. I wondered if they were all serious people in their household, kids included. ‘And they all add up,’ he continued. ‘There was a player last year who was best in Europe, if you look at the greens hit in regulation. But then if you looked at the money he earned, he is not in the top one hundred. Link those together and you didn’t even need to look at the putting stats to know he was damn near enough worst putter on the tour.’

‘But Jonny doesn’t have any stats. This was his first tournament.’

Lena took me surprise by laughing; a light, pleasant tinkling sound. ‘And so he has stats. From his very first round, he has stats; everything is measured in golf. In this tournament he is number three in greens in regulation and number one in putting. Those are the two that matter; the others not so much. For example, driving distance doesn’t tell you whether the players hit driver off the tee, only how far the ball went.’ She nodded backwards at her husband. ‘Lars, here, he hits three metal off the tee mostly, because he’s lousy with driver. It still goes two eighty-seven yards, but stats say he’s weak.’

Her master class might have taken in every club in the bag, had not Tom arrived, looking flushed and triumphant. ‘Were you fired?’ I asked him. ‘You went crazy when Jonny won.’

He beamed at me. ‘So did you. So did the referee; that made it all right. But Uche’s going to be fined, one of the Tour guys says.’

‘What for?’

‘Swearing on TV. It’s not allowed.’

‘But he didn’t know he was on air,’ I protested.

‘That doesn’t matter; he’s supposed to assume that he can be heard.’ He shrugged. ‘But it’s all right. Jonny said it’s the best advice he’s given him all week so he’s going to pay it.’

That seemed fair to me; and to Uche, it seemed, for he was well happy as he came out of the recording area, although he looked exhausted. His ‘boss’ followed him, and was ushered towards the presentation area by a man in a green jacket.

The enormous trophy, and the enormous cardboard cheque (purely symbolic, I learned later; the money hits the bank through electronic channels) were presented by a distinguished man whom I recognised as the President of the Catalan government. His office didn’t earn him a speaking part though, for Telly Man in the Aussie hat moved straight in on Jonny and began an interview. He asked him about his last shot. ‘Most guys would have played it the way Cormac did,’ he said.

Jonny nodded. ‘I know, and so would I if I’d seen it that way. But I didn’t. As it turned out, I caught it just right, spot on, and I got the other fifty per cent, luck.’

A few more questions followed, but I could tell that they weren’t the ones he wanted to answer. Finally, just as Aussie hat was ready to hand back to the commentary box, he leaned forward and said, ‘Before I go I’d like to thank everyone who’s helped me this week; Uche, Lena, Brush, my Auntie Primavera, and my cousin Tom, who knows more about surfing than I do about golf. But most of all I’d like to thank three people. For various reasons, none of them could be here this week, but they’re the people who gave me the confidence to come out here and play and they’re all the bedrock of my support team: my mum, my Grandpa Mac, and my Uncle Oz.’

At the mention of the last name, Tom squeezed my hand. Me? I had to smile through the tears, for I saw that my nephew was a natural. He knows what a headline is and he’d just given them one.

Green blazer wanted to take him straight to the press tent as I approached. ‘Have you. .’ I began.

He grinned, and nodded. ‘I called her as soon as my card was registered.’

‘What about your father?’ I ventured.

For an instant his eyes went hard. ‘I just thanked him,’ he murmured. ‘He was the closest thing to a dad I ever had.’

‘And Brush?’ I asked, moving on quickly. ‘What about him?’

‘He called me just before I came outside. We’ll speak again tomorrow, to organise my schedule. I’ve got a tour card now, so everything changes. I’ll be home in a couple of hours. We’ll talk about it over dinner.’

Yes, I thought as he left, I’d like to talk a lot more about the reclusive Mr Donnelly. We would have too, if something hadn’t happened that knocked him right off my ‘things to do’ list.