As Easy as Murder

Four

Normally I’d have forgotten about the incident by next morning and got on with my life, but three things made it linger. First I was angry at the sheer effrontery of the guy, trying to whizz someone’s wallet in broad daylight, and right at my front door into the bargain. Second, there was Tom’s involvement. I was proud of the way he had handled himself, but a little scared by it too, for the same reason that Patterson had offered in talking Jonny out of pursuing the plonker. Third, there was my friendship with Alex Guinart.

I knew him well, better even than Shirley, and it didn’t take me long to work out that he was more used to judging what was proper use of his time than we were. A bungled theft would not go to the top of his things to do list, no danger; nevertheless if there was a chancer on the loose and he had better luck second time around, Alex would be less than pleased if he ever learned that I’d known about him and hadn’t bothered to tell him.

And so, as soon as I’d fed my boys and sent them off to face their different days, I called him, mobile to mobile, and filled him in on what had happened. I’d got it right; he was grateful for the tip, and he promised to spread the word among his patrol colleagues, and with it, as good a print as his people could manage from the picture that I forwarded to him, even as we were speaking.

‘Who is this new man of Shirley’s?’ he asked me, when I’d done that and finished my step-by-step account of what had happened. ‘What’s his background, that he should be so considerate about my workload? Is he a cop?’

‘No, he’s a retired civil servant,’ I replied, ‘that’s all. He worked in our Foreign Office at one point in his career, so he probably knows all about unsolved crime statistics and decided he didn’t want to add to yours.’

‘That’s kind of him,’ he growled. ‘Maybe I should have a word with him and remind him he’s in another country now. Maybe I’ll take a run up to Shirley’s. After all, by rights it should be him who’s making the complaint.’ He called it denuncio; although his English is okay and improving, Alex and I normally speak in either Castellano or Catalan.

‘No, please,’ I begged him. ‘Don’t do that. I’m sure he thought he was only doing what was best. If you want to be angry with someone, make it me, not him.’

He chuckled. ‘Much good that would do me. Ah, what the hell! Thanks, Primavera, I’ll circulate it but the truth is that Mr Cowling is almost certainly right. This clown will be long gone by now, well out of my area. Hopefully he’ll think better of it next time he sees a pocket he thinks is unguarded. You tell Tom “Well done” from me; tell him I have the application forms in my drawer for him to join the Mossos when he’s old enough.’

‘If you ever take them out of there,’ I warned him, more than half serious, ‘you will be in big trouble.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m too cautious ever to recruit him. That one, he’d be in my job inside a year.’

I hung up and let him get on with his day, for I had things to do with mine. The first was to find a base for Uche, as I had promised Jonny I would. I hadn’t anticipated too much difficulty and I didn’t encounter any. In fact I was spoilt for choice. Several of the local resident families, the old-timers, in and around St Martí are multiple property owners, and if you know who to ask, you will usually find something available for medium-to long-term rent. I spent a couple of hours talking to a few people I knew and by the time I had finished I had three offers. Two of them were cottages on the outskirts of the village, while the third was right in its centre, facing our house across the square. There’s a guy who has a number of studios kitted out for holiday rent, including a couple of very nice penthouses. He was used to their being booked for a few nights at a time, so when I asked him to come up with a weekly figure on the basis of an initial three-month lease he was taken by surprise. After a while, and after some deadpan negotiation. . the Catalan poker face is only equalled by that of the Scots. . he came up with a number that didn’t seem to me to be beyond the means of the son of a Nigerian princeling.

That done, I headed for the golf course, to catch up with Jonny. When I got there, the car park was much busier than it had been twenty-four hours earlier. The place still wasn’t exactly thronged with spectators, but the public catering was up and running, and most of the golf equipment and clothing stands in the main exhibition tent were open for business. I wasn’t surprised to find Shirley there; she was studying the latest Barbour lines, while Patterson was a few yards away, test-driving a Callaway driver with a head not much smaller than mine. I look at modern golf equipment and I find myself wondering what the likes of Bobby Jones would have done with it.

I put that very question to Jonny after I’d I caught up with him and Uche on the fifth fairway, and walked a couple of holes. He was in a four-ball with a couple of youngsters they knew from the college circuit, one Spanish, the other Korean, and with an Irish kid who, Uche explained to me quietly, was ranked in the world’s top twenty, even though he was a couple of weeks younger than my nephew.

‘Who knows?’ was Jonny’s reaction to my question. ‘He’d have been on the same playing field as the rest of us. Courses have changed since his day.’

‘He’d still have been pretty hot, though,’ the Irish lad chipped in.

‘No doubt, but maybe the real question should be, how would we get on with the equipment that Jones and Hagen and Sarazen used?’

‘I won’t be lookin’ to find out at this year’s Open, that’s for sure,’ the mophead declared.

I walked the course with the boys, doing what I could to be helpful. That wasn’t much, other than acting as a runner for Uche, when he found that he’d underestimated the number of waterbottles he’d need, since they weren’t stationed around the course as they would be when the tournament began. It took a long time, not unnaturally, since most of the competitors wanted to be out there, and particularly the newcomers, as Jonny explained, as we stood on the fourteenth tee, with one group waiting in front of us. ‘There’s a pro-am event tomorrow. I’m not in it, so this is the last chance I’ll get to play here before we go out for real on Thursday afternoon.’

‘Afternoon?’ I repeated.

He nodded. ‘Twenty past two, tenth tee. The very last group.’

‘That’s a bit tough,’ I complained. ‘You’ll be out in the hottest part of the day, and the forecast’s good for the rest of the week.’

‘I’m the new boy, Auntie P; I’m lucky to be in the field, so I’m not complaining. You’ve got to earn the good starting times out here. Don’t worry about the weather either; it’s like this in February in Arizona.’

I was still narked, though. ‘It’s not fair,’ I grumbled. ‘This is the last proper golf you’ll be able to play for two whole days!’

‘She’s got a point, boss,’ Uche added. ‘The dice are a little loaded.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘We can always go and hit balls somewhere.’

The obvious caught up with me. ‘We can play Pals,’ I declared. ‘I’m a member. I get priority there.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘Nice. It’s the oldest course in this part of Spain. They have played tournaments on it, but not for a while.’

‘But is it similar to this course?’

‘It’s got trees,’ I offered, lamely.

Uche laughed. ‘That’s all you need. You can practise missing them; that’s going to be very important on Thursday.’

‘Fuck off,’ Jonny retorted, amiably, taking me aback, yet pleasing me at the same time, because it showed that he was genuinely relaxed in my company. Yes, you could say that he was treating me like one of the boys, but I didn’t mind that. It’s usually my position of choice.

We had barely finished before I had to leave. I didn’t broach the subject of accommodation with Uche until we’d stepped off the eighteenth green and he’d finished tidying Jonny’s bag. When I did, and told him what I’d lined up; he was pleased, and easy to please still further. ‘Which would you choose?’ he asked.

‘The penthouse studio; no question. But don’t you want to know what it’ll cost?’

‘No. I’ll take it.’

‘I’ll tell the owner. You can probably move in whenever you like.’

‘Sunday evening will be perfect; thank you very much, Auntie P.’

I wasn’t sure how to take that. Uche was a very presentable young man; the realisation that he saw me as an aunt figure brought me up sharp.

So I ignored it. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to book the one next door for your parents, if they want to come and visit you.’

His slightly cautious smile suggested a couple of things, either that if his parents did come to visit they’d be booking the best suite in the best hotel in town, if not a whole floor, or, that even if they were the chummy types, their son might prefer to keep them at a greater distance.

Business concluded, I headed on up the road, and made it home just before Tom. He has his own key now, but I don’t yet feel comfortable about leaving him unminded too often, unless I’m within shouting distance. I’m much more relaxed about leaving Charlie, on guard in the garden, although he was pleased to see me, for he was running out of water. He needed exercise too, and so did Tom, having been cooped up in school all day, so they left for their usual run, along to Vaive and back, while I gave some thought to what I might lay on the table before my extended family.

I had just dug three steaks out of the fridge, and was starting to chop onions when the phone rang. ‘Bugger,’ I said as I picked it up with two fingers, trying not to smear it and leave it ponging for days.

‘Thank you,’ said Alex Guinart. ‘I’ll take that to be a term of endearment in English.’

‘Sorry, Alex,’ I replied. ‘Awkward moment. And no, in case you get the wrong idea, I’m in the kitchen, not on the toilet. What can I do for you?’

‘Nothing you haven’t already done. I thought I should call to tell you that our specialists got a decent image from your phone picture. Just for fun I persuaded a friend of mine to feed it into the national computer, to see if we got a facial match. We didn’t; not even close.’

‘Did you try databases anywhere else?’ I asked him. ‘Although Tom was dead certain that he wasn’t one of ours.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he laughed. ‘I’m an inspector in a regional police force in Spain. I’d have had to go through our HQ in Barcelona for that sort of access, and I’m not about to do that. Look, Primavera, I’ve done as much as is reasonable, and a bit more. The photograph is out there, in Mossos stations across Catalunya, with a note that it came from a report by a concerned citizen. So thank you again. If we should happen to put a name to it, I’ll let you know.’

As if, I thought as I hung up. I was still curious, though. I was flattered that Alex had gone that far, but I knew that it had been mostly PR. No, what I wondered was. . had Patterson come up with anything?

Had it not been for the half-chopped onion, I might have called to ask him, but the onion took priority, and so I went back to the kitchen instead.