As Easy as Murder

Three

That’s how I came to be a den mother. That’s what Ellie christened me when, to my surprise, she called me that evening. Jonny hadn’t even arrived in St Martí when she phoned. He was still in mid-round with the superstars when I had to leave the course with Shirley and Patterson, to be back in time for Tom coming home, but he had his own wheels, supplied by his German car sponsor as part of his deal, and equipped, naturally, with a navigation system.

I’d given him my home and mobile numbers. When the phone rang I imagined it might be him, having second thoughts, or having been leaned on by the mysterious Brush. . whom I still hadn’t met. . to stay within camp, so when I heard his mother’s voice instead it set me back on my heels.

‘It’s a funny old world, Primavera, isn’t it?’ she began; no preamble.

‘You can say that again,’ I sighed, recovering. ‘Jonny tells me you haven’t been too well. How are you feeling now?’

‘Champing at the bit; that’s a good sign, I reckon. I’ll make it to his next event; I’ve told my surgeon as much.’ She paused. ‘This is very good of you, you know, taking my boy in like this. I’ve been worried sick about how he was going to look after himself, being dragged around Europe by that manager of his.’

‘The sweeper-up?’

‘Hah!’ Her laugh was brief, cut off short; my nursing background told me that it had tugged at her stitches. ‘Jonny thinks that’s how he got his nickname, but there’s another reason, a bit more obvious. They called him Brush when he was playing because he was as daft as one, they reckon. That was what Harvey was told, at any rate. He did some checking up on him when Jonny was choosing a management company. There were a few after him, you know,’ she added, with evident pride, ‘including the two biggest players of all, but Jonny did his own research and decided to go with Donnelly, because he liked the frankness of his approach, plus he liked him personally. On top of that he only takes twenty per cent, where some others can take up to fifty, when a lad’s starting out. I have to say that he’s done well by him so far. I didn’t expect him to be in any tournaments at all this summer, but Brush has filled up his dance card. The event down your way was the icing on the cake; he got in there at the last minute. There’s a huge prize fund, he says. Mind you, he has to make the cut on Friday to collect any of it.’

‘He will,’ I assured her, ‘don’t you worry.’

‘You’re confident.’

‘I’ve just watched him practice, and I spent some time with him on the course. There’s an air about him, a certainty, and it’s very impressive.’

‘Were you going to say that it reminds you of somebody?’ she asked, quietly.

‘Hell, no!’ I retorted. ‘When we were together Oz flew entirely by the seat of his pants. He never planned a bloody thing; everything had an uncertain outcome. Jonny seems to have his whole career mapped out.’

‘Both of those are true, I suppose,’ Ellie conceded. ‘But you have to admit that when my brother did set his sights on something, nothing stopped him. It was when he got hitched to that wee Glaswegian bitch that everything started to change.’

‘No,’ I countered. ‘It was when Jan died, surely.’

‘No, love.’ The term of endearment took me aback, but pleased me. ‘You kept him on the rails after that. I’ve never said this to anyone before, but the fact is I never liked him and Jan together. I don’t know why; I just didn’t. Mind you I never liked her mother either, from when she taught me at primary school. To this day, I’m only civil to Mary because it would hurt my dad if I was otherwise.’

I was astonished, not only by her intuition. . I knew, because he told me, a lot more about Jan’s relationship with, and to, Oz than she or her father did, and the background to her instincts. . but also because I’d known Ellie for all those years, yet she’d never been so frank. ‘I’m standing here gobsmacked,’ I told her. ‘Is there any woman who’s come into contact with your family that you do like?’

‘Yes, you silly cow! You! Why do you think I’m so chuffed that you’re taking my boy in hand? I’m laughing at the very thought. . or I would be if my wound would let me. Imagine, you, the wild Primavera, mothering Tom, Jonny and that simpleton dog that my dad likes so much. It’ll be like the fucking Jungle Book in your house.’

I heard the gate bell ring, and Tom yell, ‘I’ll get it.’

‘I’d better go,’ I told her. ‘I think that could be Baloo the Bear arriving, and I haven’t told Mowgli about him.’

My son beat me to the door, comfortably, although he’d been beaten himself by Charlie, who’d stopped barking as soon as it was opened, confining himself to his usual jumping up and down in the presence of a stranger.

‘You’ll be Tom, then,’ Jonny was saying, just as I arrived.

‘That’s right,’ I told him, unnecessarily. ‘Tom, this is Jonathan Sinclair, the cousin you’ve never met. He’s coming to stay with us for a while.’

‘Jonny,’ Tom exclaimed. ‘The golfer? Grandpa’s told me a lot about you.’

Our new boy grinned. ‘He’s told me a fair bit about you too, chum.’ He held out his hand and they shook. I knew there and then that they’d be blood brothers; Jonny had treated him like an equal and that’s all my lad ever requires of any adult.

I showed him to what was to be his base, above the living room, with a view over the square and a bathroom that he’d share with Tom. The case he’d brought with him was vast; I took that as a sign that it was more than a trial visit. He noticed me looking at it as he dumped it beside the bed. ‘That’s only half of it,’ he told me. ‘My clothing company sponsor bombards me with stuff. Give me your size, and Tom’s, and I’ll get you some. Golf shoes too; and trainers.’ He smiled and I felt that shiver again, the one that had sent me spinning earlier, the first time I saw him.

It must have showed on my face. ‘Auntie P, is this going to be difficult for you?’ he asked. ‘I mean. . Hell, I don’t know how to say it. If I’m a reminder of. . anybody: I’d understand if you changed your mind about this.’

‘Jonny, suppose you were, you wouldn’t be nearly as big a reminder as the guy who opened the door for you. And why should I be bothered? Don’t you like to be reminded of your uncle? I know that you and he were very close.’

‘There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t think about him. I carry his picture in my bag for luck; he’s done pretty well for me so far. He’s always looked out for me, and he’s still doing it, in my head at least.’

I smiled at him. ‘Just don’t let him read your putts,’ I said. ‘That was always the weakest part of his game. Come on; I’ll show you the rest of the house, and the pool.’

‘You’ve got a pool?’

‘Yes, it’s out the back. It’s big; stretches all the way to Italy and beyond.’

His eyes shone when he saw the Mediterranean from my terrace. ‘Windsurfers!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s my other sport. If I buy a board can you store it for me?’

‘Sure, right beside Tom’s, in the garage. It’s vast; there’s room for your car too.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t think there’d be much opportunity for windsurfing in Arizona. I lived in Las Vegas for a while and there wasn’t a hell of a lot there.’

‘There is in Fife. I have a feeling it’ll be a lot warmer here, though.’

‘You can use mine for now, if you want,’ Tom volunteered, from his bedroom doorway. ‘It’s big enough for you.’ I’d taken some persuasion to allow him to graduate to a larger board, but Ben Simmers, his unofficial coach, had assured me that he was good enough and strong enough to handle it. In fact, his real passion, and Ben reckoned his real talent, was free surfing, but the big waves in the Bay of Roses come too infrequently for him to concentrate on that alone.

‘Maybe tomorrow,’ I said, ‘if Jonny has time. Tonight we have a date, all of us. Patterson and Shirley. .’ I told my nephew who they were, reminding him that he’d met Shirl when he was a kid, ‘. . have invited us to supper in La Terrassa d’Empúries. It’s their thank you to me for driving them down today, plus Patterson’s a golfer and he’s dead keen to meet you, Jonny. . if that’s okay with you.’

He nodded. ‘Sure, that’s very kind of them. Do you know the place?’ he asked, not quite casually enough.

‘We live right on top of it. Why? Don’t tell me you’re a fussy eater?’

He shook his head. ‘Not me. I’m a Fifer, remember. But,’ he added, ‘I’m also a professional sportsman, and these days even golfers have drug testing.’

‘Is it so strict that you’re worried about going to a local pizza place?’

‘No, I don’t suppose it is. We’re given a list of banned substances, but you hear these horror stories about athletes being banned for buying a brand of cough mixture where the formula’s different in different countries, so. .’

‘. . you can’t be too careful,’ Tom concluded.

‘Exactly, cuz. The testing’s supposed to be random, but I’m the new boy this week, so I’m more than half expecting to be asked to pee in a bottle at some point.’

‘That’s bloody ludicrous,’ I protested. ‘This is golf we’re talking about, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Quite a few players agree with you, but everyone has to accept that it’s part of the age we live in. We play every week around the world for millions of dollars, euro or whatever, and most of that money comes from or is underwritten by sponsors. We have to show them that we have nothing to hide.’

‘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 “brush119@aol.com”. 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.

‘What are you going to do?’ Shirley asked.

‘I’m going to call my pal Alex Guinart, and report the son of a bitch to the police.’ He is one, a detective, based in Girona.

‘And what are you going to tell him? To look out for a running man, and that’s it? ’Cos I never saw him.’

‘No, more than that; for a start he was. . white,’ I added, lamely, realising that I could offer little more than her by way of a description.

‘He was wearing Lacoste pirate pants, and a Def Leppard T-shirt,’ Jonny volunteered. ‘Dark hair, skinny. Tom was able to get a good grip of his wrist, so it couldn’t have been that thick. I think he’d a Mont Blanc wristwatch on the other. . they’re one of my sponsors, so I recognised it. And New Balance trainers. . they aren’t, but I had a pair in Arizona, so I know the logo.’

‘He has blue eyes,’ said Tom, firmly, ‘a gold tooth, a scar on his chin,’ he touched his own to demonstrate. ‘He needs a shave and his hair’s grey as well as dark. And he’s not British,’ he added, as a postscript, ‘or Spanish, or French, or German … and he’s too short to be Dutch.’

Patterson frowned at him, curiosity engaged. ‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s a game we play, Tom and me,’ I explained. ‘We reckon that seven times out of ten we can tell a punter’s nationality just by looking at them, and at their body language, before we ever hear them speak. Apart from their clothing, and that’s a big give-away, especially among the youngsters, we can tell the Dutch by their height, the Germans by their build, the French by their frowns. . very serious people; always worried about something. We know the Spanish because they seem most at home here. . and they’re most likely to be smokers. Our lot, they’re easiest of all. They might as well have “British” tattooed on their foreheads.’

‘You’re British yourself,’ he pointed out, ‘you and Tom. That must give you an advantage.’

‘No,’ I contradicted. ‘Tom’s lived hardly any of his life in Britain, yet he’s better at the game than I am. I didn’t get any sort of look at the guy, but if he says he isn’t a Brit, then trust him; he isn’t. Not that I’d expect it,’ I added. ‘That job that I had for a couple of years: I was based in the consulate general in Barcelona. I was in and out of there, but I still heard things. For example, I know that up to twenty people a week need passport replacements because theirs have been stolen. For example, I know that it’s quite common for British youngsters to get themselves lifted by the Mossos d’Esquadra for drunkenness, brawling, and other loutish behaviour, but hardly ever for petty theft. And I have absolutely never heard of a British pickpocket, in his thirties, wearing designer gear and a thousand quid watch; not anywhere, and most certainly not here.’

I had a question in mind, begging for an answer. The restaurant was busy, and there were more than a dozen people seated against the fence. Most of them were as casual with their property as Shirl’s new other half had been, yet none of them was panicking or screaming about a loss. Patterson was modestly dressed, in what looked like a Marks amp; Spencer shirt, and showed no obvious sign of wealth, yet the thief had gone straight to him, past a woman in a dress that was definitely not chain store, with dangly ruby and diamond earings, and a handbag slung so carelessly over the back of her seat that it was begging to be emptied. Why? Why him? Because the guy was stupid, I decided, a man suddenly down on his luck, choosing a victim at random.

I set the thought aside, and opened my phone. I was calling up the contact list, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me, Primavera,’ a man murmured, in Spanish. I turned; Cisco, the owner of the restaurant, and a good friend, was crouching beside me. He was agitated, even more so than usual. ‘I saw what happened,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t want that sort of thing in my place. I’ve never known it before, not in St Martí.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I replied, in English, for the benefit of Patterson and Jonny. . although during the day I had begun to realise that he understood quite a bit of Spanish. ‘Anyway, there’s no harm done. The guy didn’t get anything and he’s been scared off. He must feel a real idiot being caught by a ten-year-old. I’ll report him to the Mossos; he’ll probably be nicked the very next time he tries it.’

‘I have something that might help them,’ said Cisco, switching languages. ‘A man at the table behind yours, he was taking pictures with his phone, and he has one of the guy, with Tom holding on to him.’ He beamed at my son. ‘Hey, amigo, well done. If I ever need a bouncer I give you a job.’ Then he turned back to me. ‘He says you can have it.’

I looked round and caught the eye of the diner in question. I recognised him at once; he was an ex-pat from L’Escala, called Stan something, at a table with his pretty blonde wife. He looked pleased with himself. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Can you message it to my phone?’

‘Sure, love,’ he replied. ‘It’ll cost you a beer, mind.’

‘Cheap at half the price.’ I gave him my number, he fiddled with his phone and a few seconds later, the image downloaded on to mine.

It was pretty sharp. I couldn’t make out the gold tooth or the scar that Tom had described, but it showed the thwarted robber full on, well enough for a Spanish court to nail him when the time came. ‘Brilliant,’ I told the donor. ‘Cisco, one beer on Señor Cowling’s tab, please, and whatever Wendy’s drinking.’

‘Can I see it?’ Patterson asked.

I passed my phone across to him, touching the dial to keep the image displayed. He peered at it, then took a closer look, focusing hard. As he did so, I could see his thumbs move. It was discreetly done, but I realised what he was up to: he was copying Stan’s picture to his own mobile.

He handed mine back. I pulled up my directory once more, and was about to push the button on a call to Alex, when his eyes met mine. He shook his head, slowly. ‘No,’ he murmured, so quietly that I almost had to lip-read.

‘Why not?’ I asked. Our first courses were arriving, so the exchange wasn’t picked up by the other three.

‘It’s not worth the trouble. This man’s disappeared into the crowd already. He’ll be out of town by now, well on the way to wherever he came from.’

‘But the police can circulate his photo,’ I protested.

‘They’re not going to do that, not for a robbery that never even took place. I’ll grant you it’s a good picture, but it is what it is, an image taken on a mobile from a few yards away. However good a friend this Alex is to you, he’s not going to thank you for wasting his time, for that is all you’d be doing, I promise you.’

‘I’ll print it out,’ I threatened. ‘Cisco will post it in his window, and so will the other restaurants.’

He smiled. ‘Wanted: five hundred euro, dead or alive? Would they really want to make this lovely place look like the Wild West?’

He had a point. ‘Maybe not,’ I conceded. ‘Okay, have it your way. Let’s call it a lucky escape and forget about it. It’s your shout anyway, you were the intended victim.’

I put my mobile back in my pocket and turned my attention to what lay on the table before me. Yes, I thought, let Patterson have his way. After very little thought I was quite happy to do that, for I had a feeling that he could track down the scarred, greying, gold-toothed, thirty-something non-Brit with the Mont Blanc watch a hell of a lot quicker than the Mossos d’Esquadra ever could. And, given his surreptitious copy of Stan’s picture, I had the even more distinct feeling that he might.