As Easy as Murder

Eight

I understood what Ellie had said, but it all made sense next morning, when I logged on to the main UK media websites, and found Jonny all over them. ‘Tragic movie idol’s nephew is new star on tour’, was the headline on the Telegraph report, and a fair summary of all the other coverage.

One of two British writers had noted the connection in their advance pieces about the event, but they’d all been too cautious, or cynical, to go overboard on it. However, with a score on the board, everything had changed and for a day at least, he was the big headline. There was video footage as well, on the European Tour website, from the after-round briefing in the media tent. There wasn’t much, but Jonny handled himself well, particularly when he was asked how his late uncle would have felt about his performance. ‘He’d be trying to buy the movie rights,’ he replied, with only the faintest smile.

My first instinct was that I’d like to have punched the questioner’s lights out. Jonny was his own man and what he’d achieved had nothing to do with Oz. But then I thought of those endorsements and the fact that their relationship had been a help to his far distant manager in securing them. If the sponsors, or the tour publicists, had put it into the public domain, that was probably fair enough.

I didn’t have a chance to discuss it with Jonny. Our alarms had been set for five thirty, and he had left for the course just after six, so that he could fit in a full practice session before his tee time, a more civilised nine forty. I’d decided that I wasn’t going to go that day. ‘Why not?’ he asked, when I told him as he worked his way through breakfast, a mound of scrambled eggs on toast. (Tom was still sound asleep upstairs, so I’d delayed mine.)

‘You’ll have plenty of followers as the co-leader. I can’t be there every day you’re playing. Besides,’ I added, ‘you don’t need me. You’re so focused. You didn’t look at me once yesterday and you didn’t even hear Shirley screaming when you had that eagle. If I did go, you wouldn’t even know I was there.’

‘Maybe not, but Uche would. For all he’s smooth, the guy’s more African than you’d think. He’s dead superstitious; you’re his good luck charm, so he said after the round. If he doesn’t see you he’ll worry, and he might get his yardages wrong, give me a three metal instead of a three iron. You’re a vital part of the team, Auntie P. Come on.’ He paused. ‘But hold on, I’m being selfish. I’m forgetting about Tom. He can’t have packed lunches every day.’

‘He’d be quite happy with that,’ I assured him, ‘and he would today, regardless. There’s a class trip this morning, to the ruins at Ullastret; they’re doing Iberian history.’

‘Well. .’

‘Can I bring the dog?’ I asked, mischievously. His face fell, but I didn’t let it hit the ground. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Kidding. Charlie’ll be okay. Ben Simmers will pick him up if I ask him, and keep him with his two.’ Ben’s dogs and Charlie are from the same stable; they’re family too.

I was easily persuaded in the end. Actually I’d been dead keen to go, but felt that I might be intruding. But if I was that important to the Black Prince, I could hardly refuse.

In the end, I was glad I’d let myself be persuaded. When I showed up on the first tee, the first people I saw were Patterson and Shirley. She’d found some tartan in her wardrobe and was dressed up like a bloody cheerleader. As I’d suspected, there was a proper gallery, up to a hundred people, but she was front and centre. Jonny had eyes for nothing but the fairway when he appeared, but Uche clocked her straight away. The look that he threw her suggested that if I was his good luck charm, then Shirl was a voodoo doll. Then he saw me, and brightened up.

Jonny started the way he’d finished the day before, with a steady straight drive, and once his partners, neither of whom had come close to breaking par in the first round, had played, we set off after them. ‘Out of sight, and lip zipped,’ I warned Shirley.

I’d thought that most of those who’d watched the start would have stayed in the stand, but I was wrong; they followed us around, as did a few journos, and a small contingent of photographers and radio correspondents. Television Man joined us too, at the sixth, keen to pick up on the story.

By that time Jonny was one under for his round, with two birdies and one bogey, a shot dropped after a pushed tee shot at the fourth finished close to a tree. ‘No worries,’ I heard Uche say as they left the green. ‘You were bound to lose your cherry some time, and we’re still on top of the leader board.’

That hadn’t occurred to me, but he was, as I confirmed when I saw a board behind the fifth green. The Irish kid and the other early pacemakers were all out later in the day, and so, at eight under, Jonny was on top of the pile.

It got better over the next thirteen holes; four more birdies and one more dropped shot, after contributing another ball to the collection in the lake at the formidable thirteenth, and Jonny finished with a sixty-eight, eleven under for the tournament, and two clear of the ginger ponytail, who had reached the eighth by that time.

I’d managed to get rid of Shirley at the turn by telling her that she looked like one half of Fran and Anna, and that if she didn’t want to figure in any embarrassing television clips on YouTube she’d be as well to lose the tartan or get out of sight. Since the former would have shown the world her underwear, she opted for a tactical withdrawal, using ‘an early lunch, before it gets busy’ as a tactical excuse.

I was waiting beside the last green once again as Jonny and Uche walked off. He took off his sunglasses, tipped back his logo-ed cap, lifted me up with those golfer-strong arms, gave me a great big hug and whispered, ‘Glad you came, Auntie. Uche never put a foot wrong.’

I kissed him on the cheek and whispered back, ‘Good for him. Now put me down; we’re on telly.’

We were too; as I found out a few minutes later, his mother was watching the Sky coverage, along with a few million others. They included a couple of journalists at the scene. As Jonny and his caddie headed for the recorder’s tent, one of them sidled. . no other word could describe it; she approached me like a snake, side on. . up to me.

She looked to be around thirty, blonde, dressed in loud golfer gear, red trousers and a yellow Ashworth shirt, and with make-up that was incongruously heavy, given where we were. She had a microphone in her hand, and she was smiling, but not with her eyes. They gave a different message; to me it read, ‘Watch out.’

‘Excuse me,’ she began, in the sort of honey-soaked voice that answers the phone sometimes when you’ve called someone who wants to make you feel at home before they screw as much money out of you as they can.

I stared at her, and as I did I was aware of someone moving in on my right, a guy with a telly camera on his shoulder. ‘Yes?’ I replied.

‘I’m Christy Mann,’ she said, ‘from Spotlight Television.’ Her accent was Irish, I noticed.

I frowned. ‘What the hell is Spotlight Television?’

‘It’s an independent station,’ she volunteered. ‘It broadcasts on the internet, and it supplies news footage to other stations.’ Then she moved in a little closer, held the mike higher and got straight to the point. ‘Can you tell me how delighted you are that Jonathan’s leading his first event?’

I’ve heard questions asked in that form by broadcast journalists for as long as I’ve been shaving my armpits, and it’s always struck me as lazy, or stupid, or both. My frown became a glare. ‘How many degrees of delight are there?’ I asked.

She giggled, then moved to Plan B; put words in the interviewee’s mouth. ‘Yes, you’re over the moon. It’s only natural that you would be, as Jonathan’s Significant Other.’

‘His what?’ I bellowed. ‘I’m his insignificant auntie, you idiot!’ As I shouted, I caught a glimpse behind her of a tartan-clad figure, rocking on her heels with her hands over her mouth and her eyes full of tears. ‘Have you been talking to that clown over there?’ I challenged.

The reporter went all tight-lipped and serious on me. ‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss my sources, Miss. .’

‘Mrs,’ I snarled, oblivious by then to the camera and its red light. ‘Mrs Blackstone.’

She might have appeared to be a good imitation of an idiot, but she’d read her press coverage and she knew her two times table. A little light switched itself on in her deadpan eyes. ‘Mrs Blackstone. . and you’re Jonathan’s aunt. So that means you’re Oz Blackstone’s widow.’

I was where I didn’t want to be. ‘No it bloody doesn’t,’ I snapped. ‘Oz and I divorced years ago.’

‘But still,’ she schmoozed on, ‘you’ll have a unique insight into Jonathan, and his motivation. They say he’s the next big thing on tour. Do you know where he’s living this week? With you?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘But surely it is; he’s a public figure.’

I went from annoyed to angry. ‘He’s a twenty-two-year-old kid starting out in a very competitive business. Look, if you’re so interested in him, why are you wasting your time talking to me? Why aren’t you in the media tent with the rest of the press, talking to the man himself?’

For the first time, she backed off a little. ‘We’re not accredited for the tent,’ she confessed. ‘That’s not what we do.’

‘No,’ I barked at her, not caring about the live camera, ‘you hang around places like this looking for gossip. Which golfer’s shagging which tennis player, stuff like that.’

She ignored my jibe. ‘Is he living with you, Mrs Blackstone?’ she continued. ‘Or are you touring with him? Are you part of his entourage?’

‘He doesn’t have an entourage, woman, he has a caddie and a coach!’

‘Where do you live, Mrs Blackstone? In Britain?’

‘No.’

‘In the US?’

‘No.’ I took a step to my right, ready to brush past her. I looked over her shoulder, but Shirley had made herself scarce, gone into hiding probably. I’d have set off in search of the silly cow, but the guy with the camera had stepped in front of me.

‘So you live in Spain,’ Christy Mann exclaimed, as if she’d exhausted all global alternatives. ‘In that case we’d love an exclusive with you and Jonathan at home. The Blackstone saga goes on; it’ll appeal to all of Oz’s fans. They miss him so much; his memorial website has over a million hits a year, you know. And now that you and his nephew are together. . The world needs to know that, Mrs Blackstone. It’ll all be done in the best possible taste, I promise.’

I looked her in the eye. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘if your brains were gunpowder and someone lit the fuse, the explosion wouldn’t ruffle your hair. First, I repeat, Jonny and I are not together in the way you imply. Christ, I’m twice his age.’

She jumped in. ‘That’s no barrier these days.’

‘It is for me. Okay? Now, second, if you harass me, or my nephew, or my son in any way, I’ll have you arrested. If you don’t believe I could do that, just try me.’

Her expression changed. Her eyes narrowed. I thought I’d put a stop to her, but I was wrong. All she was doing was thinking, a process that took a little time. ‘Your son?’ she murmured. ‘You have a son? Would that be that Oz’s child, Mrs Blackstone?’

There’s this thing called Wikipedia. It’s a self-building global internet encyclopaedia, and anyone with a little computer savvy can post an entry there. These days, you’re nobody if you’re not on it. I don’t know who began Oz’s bio page, but whoever did it researched his life very thoroughly. It lists his birthplace, his parents, the schools and university he attended, his career, step by step, and his three marriages. What you won’t find there is any reference to his children. Susie and I monitor the content, and any attempt to post material about the kids, we delete. As far as we’re concerned, they’re off limits to any media.

We’ve found, over the years, that the legitimate press, even the red-tops, respect that, but Ms Christy Mann, her crude approach, and her intrusive camera didn’t strike me as legitimate in any respect. I’ll leave you to imagine what I wanted to do with her microphone, but I realised that however much we might both have enjoyed that, it wouldn’t be very sensible. So I swept the red mist aside, took a deep breath and lowered my voice. ‘Do you have a boss?’ I asked her.

‘That’s irrelevant,’ she said. ‘Will you answer my question?’

‘Not until you answer mine.’

‘If you insist,’ she sighed. ‘Spotlight is owned by a company registered in London, and that’s part of an international media group, American owned. Why do you need to know that?’

‘I don’t like to waste my time,’ I replied. ‘Now I’ll tell you what you want to know. Yes, I have a son, Oz’s son. But if you come within a country kilometre of him, I will use all the power and influence I have to have you crushed. If I have to do that, I’ll go straight to source. And if you think that’s a wild threat for a single Spanish parent to be making, you go and look me up on Wikipedia, sunshine. Primavera Phillips Blackstone; key that in and click the search button.’

She stared at me, and her painted smile turned incredulous. ‘The camera’s still running, Mrs Blackstone. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’

I nodded. ‘Yes. Now watch what I’m going to do.’ I turned to the cameraman. I’d sized him up; he was a freelance, local. No way did this paparazzo chick travel with a regular TV crew. Her low-budget company hired them by the hour, wherever she and her like went. ‘How much is she paying you for this gig?’ I asked him in Catalan.

He switched off and lowered his weapon, a model that had been around for a while. ‘Five hundred euro,’ he answered, in the same language.

‘In cash?’

‘With her? Absolutely.’

‘In that case, I’ll buy your cassette for seven.’

He grinned. ‘Deal.’

I always carry a reasonable float in old-fashioned money. Not secure, perhaps, but you never know when your car’s going to break down, or when you’re going to be in an accident and wind up somewhere where cash is king. That day I had just under a thousand on me. I took my wallet from my bag, stripped out fourteen fifties, and handed them to him. He ejected the cartridge and handed it over, thanked me, then turned and walked away.

‘You can’t do that!’ Christy Mann screamed.

‘We just did, honey,’ I told her. ‘Now fuck off.’

‘Give me that tape back,’ she insisted, ‘or I’ll get the police.’

‘Go ahead.’ I pointed along the pathway, towards the clubhouse. ‘There’s a cop.’

She followed the direction of my finger, towards the dark-haired man in uniform who was heading in our direction. ‘Officer,’ she wailed, ‘this woman’s stolen my tape.’

‘And if I go after my friend Jaume,’ Alex Guinart said as he reached us, ‘who was your cameraman, will he tell me the same story? He works for us on occasion.’ He looked at me. ‘Has this woman been giving you trouble, Primavera?’

‘None that I couldn’t handle.’

‘That’s as well.’ He frowned at the reporter. ‘Papers, please,’ he snapped.

‘Papers? What papers?’

‘Your press pass for this event. We’ll start with that.’

‘I don’t have one,’ she replied, still truculent. ‘I’m general press.’

‘Then you shouldn’t be here. This is a closed event.’ He held out a hand. ‘Your passport, please.’

She frowned, sizing him up, then decided that further argument would not be a good idea. She delved into the vast shoulder bag that she was carrying and handed over a plum-coloured booklet. Alex opened it at the photographic page, studied the image, then looked at her.

‘Christine McGuigan,’ he murmured. ‘Irish citizen, age twenty-seven.’

‘She told me her name was Christy Mann,’ I volunteered.

‘That’s my professional name.’

‘Or I could class it as deception,’ Alex growled. He returned her passport. ‘Where are you living? Don’t even think of lying to me.’

‘In the Novotel at the airport,’ she murmured, grudgingly.

‘Then here’s what you do. You go back there and you find some other way of going about your business. You do not come back here and you do not accost this lady again, or the families of any other golfers. You do, and I’ll throw you in jail. Please leave, now.’

She did as she was told, albeit after throwing me one last malevolent glare, far removed from her earlier sugary approach.

‘Thanks for that, Alex,’ I said, as soon as she was out of earshot. ‘Now would you like to tell me how you happened to be there, right on cue?’

He grinned. ‘Shirley told me you were having trouble,’ he explained.

‘Shirley’s the one who’s in real fucking trouble,’ I retorted. ‘I reckon she set that cow on me. But that’s not what I meant. What are you doing here, now, at this event? You’re criminal investigation.’

‘Why shouldn’t I be here? I’m a golfer, even if I am shit at the game. This is a chance to see the top guys play, so why shouldn’t I be here in my off-duty hours?’

‘Because you’re in uniform, Alex.’

‘I’m grabbing a couple of hours off. I’m based in Girona; you know that. It wouldn’t be practical for me to go home and change.’

I laughed. ‘Hey, this is me you’re talking to, remember, Primavera. She who knows that all you CI people keep a change of gear in the office in case you have to go plain clothes unexpectedly on an investigation. But you and Gomez have a murder investigation on your hands, a hot one. You don’t have a couple of hours to spare. So, what are you doing here?’

‘Nothing you need worry about,’ he murmured.

‘You’re getting lamer by the minute. Has there been a robbery here? Is one of the players under threat?’

He shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that.’

‘Then. .’ No incident, and the dead man in the woods had to be at the head of his workload. ‘Patterson Cowling,’ I exclaimed. ‘Are you here because of him?’

‘Jesus, Primavera, let it go. I’ve just done you a favour with that television woman. You know as well as I do that I was bullshitting her. I couldn’t have arrested her, not just for being pushy.’

‘So? That’s us square for the favour I did you in the woods. You’re here because of Patterson, aren’t you?’

He shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

I pressed on. ‘Is he a suspect after all?’

‘No. Why should he be? I wanted a look at the man, that’s all. I like to know who’s who; to be able to put a face to every name. It’s a cop thing. I know we were probably at the wine fair at the same time, but I have no recollection of seeing him there.’

‘You’ve seen him now?’

‘Yes.’ He grinned. ‘Unless Shirley has a different man with her today.’

‘So you just happened to bump into them, accidentally like?’

‘Actually Shirley bumped into me. I wasn’t going to interrupt their day, but she saw me and called across to tell me you’d been waylaid by a pushy television reporter.’

‘I see.’ I paused, to let him think he was off the hook; but he wasn’t. ‘That only leaves one other question. How did you know they were here? I don’t recall telling you anything about them coming to support Jonny.’

‘I suppose I just assumed,’ he said.

I laughed out loud. ‘Cops don’t travel twenty kilometres and join a crowd of a few thousand people, on assumptions. You knew he was here, Alex, because you’re having him followed. Go on, admit it.’

He put his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me. He was smiling, but serious at the same time. ‘Primavera, my dear friend, you must let me do my job without questioning me over every detail. Okay, I’m keeping Mr Cowling under observation, because he is a person of interest to me, or rather to us.’

‘And Hector Gomez knows about it?’

‘Of course he does. He’s my boss.’

‘But didn’t you say he was warned off by his boss?’

‘Yes,’ He nodded. ‘And he didn’t take kindly to it. No investigator likes to be told that someone’s off limits.’

‘So you and he are ignoring your director general,’ I murmured. ‘Isn’t that a bad career move, chum?’

‘No, we’re not ignoring him as such. We’ve been specifically ordered not to bring Mr Cowling in for interview, so we haven’t done that. We were told to lay off him, and we have done, but I don’t interpret that as forbidding us from keeping him under observation. That’s all we’re doing.’

‘But why? He’s just a retired bloke who didn’t have his pocket picked.’

‘By a man who wound up dead,’ he reminded me. ‘Look, your description of him is probably spot on. As far as we know, he’s a newcomer to our town, and he doesn’t know anyone here outside of Shirley’s circle of friends. As far as we know,’ he repeated. ‘I’m prepared to take it as read that he couldn’t have killed the man himself; Shirley would have noticed his absence and if she made a connection she wouldn’t keep it from us. I trust her that much. All I want to do is be aware of the outside possibility that Mr Cowling might have an acquaintance locally that we don’t know about, that’s all, someone from a former life who’s watching his back. That’s why we’re keeping an eye on him, just in case he makes contact with somebody we don’t know about. Now, you’re not going to tell him that, are you?’

‘Of course not,’ I snorted. ‘Did Shirley introduce you?’

‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘she did, and I must say he seemed just as pleasant as you described him.’

‘Fine. Let me tell you, now: from your casual presence here, Patterson will have assumed everything you’ve just told me. So if this comes back and bites your arse, don’t assume that I’ve said anything to anyone. Not that it will,’ I added. ‘If by some miracle your outside possibility is on the mark, your big flat feet have just squashed any chance of any contact being made.’ I looked him in the eye. ‘I trust the guy, and I don’t believe he has any involvement in that man’s death. .’ I interrupted myself. ‘You haven’t identified him, I take it?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘No, I didn’t think so. But listen, Alex, I’m serious, you have to assume that Patterson, if he chose, could run rings round you and Hector, so your surveillance is a waste of time, unless you bring in plain clothes people that he couldn’t possibly know. So, how about laying off, and letting me keep an eye on him, as far as I’m able? If I’m wrong and he isn’t as benevolent as he seems, then Shirley needs to be protected, but I’m probably better placed to do it than you in these circumstances.’

He frowned. ‘I can’t involve you in police work, Primavera.’

‘Bollocks you can’t!’ I laughed derisively. ‘You have done in the past when it suited your book. You did on Wednesday, as a matter of fact, when you hoiked me off the golf course. You let me look down this blind alley for you, and you can get on with the priority job of finding out whose body it is that you’ve got in your cooler.’

‘I shouldn’t.’

‘But you will.’

‘I’ll ask Hector.’

‘No, you’ll tell Hector. If I do this, you’ll be square with your director general, for no way will he ever find out.’

He gave in. ‘Okay,’ he conceded, ‘but keep in touch. And if something unexpected does happen, don’t expose yourself.’

‘I’m not given to exposing myself, sir. . not in public at any rate.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Sure.’ I rose up on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. ‘See you later, officer.’ I left him and headed for the car park. I’d just reached my jeep when I spotted something buxom in tartan standing beside hers, a few rows away. I bore down on her.

‘You!’ I boomed as I approached. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing, setting that twat on me?’

She held her hands up, as if she was warding me off. Beside her, Patterson exploded with laughter; I’d never seen him more animated. ‘It was the tartan!’ she protested. ‘She spotted it and started to ask me about Jonathan. I told her you were the one she should talk to, that’s all.’

‘You should have stopped her,’ I scolded Patterson.

‘I’d made myself scarce,’ he admitted. ‘I run a mile from TV cameras, and you don’t need to ask why.’ I nodded. ‘Go on, Shirley,’ he chortled, ‘tell her all of it.’

His ‘Significant Other’ turned a fetching shade of pink. ‘I said he was your toy boy,’ she confessed. ‘But I was kidding, honest!’

‘Jesus! And how exactly was she to know you were?’

‘You sorted her out, though. So no damage done.’

I told her how I’d sorted her, digging the cassette from my bag and waving it in her face. ‘Seven hundred euro that cost me!’

‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll buy it off you.’

‘Sure. And then you’d probably ask Tom how to put it on YouTube. No, I’ll keep it. If she’s daft enough to give me any more trouble it’s evidence, of a sort.’

I can never stay mad at Shirley for long. In fact, she’s usually a calming influence when I do get steamed up about something. Friends like her are to be cherished, not scolded. That’s why I’d offered to keep an eye on Patterson for Alex; to keep the cops out of her hair, more than his. That, and also. . I don’t know for sure this far after the event, but I reckon I still had a small nagging doubt about him myself. That’s probably why, on the spur of the moment, I invited Shirl and him to eat with the boys and me at Casa Blackstone that evening. He wasn’t an enemy, but still, I felt that it would be no bad thing to follow the advice of General Sun Tzu (or Don Corleone, depending on which version of the phrase’s origin that you believe) and keep him as close as I could.

Having done that I decided that I’d better tell Jonny of the arrangements, so I went back to the press area, and waylaid him as he left after finishing his round of interviews. By that time he was no longer the tournament leader. The Irish kid was six under par for his round in progress, two in front of Jonny, and the former US Open champion had moved up the board into second place. He wasn’t worried, he assured me. ‘I didn’t expect to lead at minus eleven, not with a field of this quality.’ He said that Uche was waiting for him on the range, but promised to be back home in time for dinner. ‘I might even make room for a swim,’ he added. ‘Maybe Tom can show me the best place.’

I looked at him, at his serious Oz-like face, its expression older than his years, and found myself understanding why the Mann/McGuigan person had swallowed Shirley’s line so eagerly. If I had been in the market for a toy boy, I could have done a lot worse. I focused on being maternal.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked him.

‘Solid,’ he replied, firmly. ‘I played a good round today, but that’s it. Tomorrow’s another challenge, and the course will be set up to be even harder. If I can shoot another sixty-eight, I’ll be well placed.’

I left him to join his caddie on the practice ground, and headed back to the car park. When I got there my day took another downward turn. I hadn’t noticed before, but the trusty old jeep seemed to be slightly off balance. I took a closer look and saw that my rear left-side tyre was flat. My reaction was multilingual and probably best not repeated.

I’m a member of the RACC, and my insurance covers me for roadside assistance, but there was no knowing how long help would take to arrive, so I decided to sort the mess out myself. Changing a wheel on a big heavy off-roader isn’t particularly easy even on a flat, made-up road. When you have to do it in a field, it’s all the more challenging. It took me a while to fit the jack and raise the vehicle up, and then even longer to undo the security bolts, but I was up to the job. My spare was unused, but fortunately I’d checked the pressures of all five wheels only a week before. I took the load off the jack, replaced it in its slot and was packing away the flat, when something caught my eye. The puncture wasn’t hidden away inside the tread, as they usually are. It was in the side wall, a rip about an inch and a half long.

‘Jesus,’ I whispered, looking around, quickly, to see if anyone was watching me, but if there was, they were well out of sight. The guide books don’t tell you this, but there are many car scams in our part of the world. Okay, most of them are targeted at rental vehicles or those with foreign plates, but not exclusively, and many involve putting a blade through a tyre. I was pretty certain that’s what had been done to mine.

I checked the other wheels to make sure they were undamaged, then called Alex on my mobile, so that he could report it to tournament security. I was just about to climb in behind the wheel, when I noticed something else. The jeep has an aerial on its roof, a short stubby black thing that’s removable, should it be put through a car wash. It was missing; a little added annoyance.

I was pretty sour all the way up the road, and when I dropped the wheel off at the Universal garage, for them to replace the tyre, but I’d managed to put it behind me by the time Tom came home from school. I was ready to bring him up to speed on Jonny’s progress, but I didn’t need to. He’d made his cousin promise to send him a text once he’d finished his round. By the same medium they’d also arranged to meet up at six, on the beach below our house, for a swim and possibly some windsurfing, although Jonny was doubtful about the latter, given that even a minor injury wasn’t something he could risk. All that was fine by me, since I’d invited Shirley and Patterson for seven thirty, and I didn’t need anyone under my feet when I was getting ready.

Great in theory, and almost in practice. By the time they arrived, a very acceptable five minutes past the appointed hour, I had put together a Catalan salad (dead easy; cold meats and various sausages), made a chicken curry, which was simmering quietly, with the rice under way in my Japanese steamer, and I’d chopped a couple of pineapples into cubes, mixed up with raspberries and blueberries. I’d also had a burst of femininity, which involved showering, a full hair and make-up job and a very sexy low-cut red dress that I hadn’t worn for a while, and which I’d decided needed an airing. I knew that La Gash would come in all her finery, and for once I was prepared to rival her.

All that was lacking, to make my preparations complete, were my son and my nephew. Jonny had arrived just before six, as I was cooking, and had headed out at once, in swim gear. I’d assumed, rashly as it transpired, that they’d come back while I was in my bedroom, but when I called them, all was silence. ‘Buggers,’ I muttered. I sorted my guests out drinks, then headed out to fetch them.

I could have gone out through the garage, but that would have involved three flights of stairs, so I left by the front door, and walked round in front of the church. The evening was warm and there were a few diners in the cafes, but the Friday rush hadn’t really begun, so I passed no one as I headed for the slope that leads down to the beach.

I saw the boys as soon as I reached the start of the descent. The church bells had just rung three times to signal the three-quarter hour. I suspected that Tom had interpreted it correctly as a signal that they were in the shit, for they were starting to head homewards; he was carrying his sail and Jonny had the board slung on his shoulder. I stopped, and was waving to them to get a move on, when I heard a noise, on my right.

There’s a little open area there in front of an old stone garage. It doesn’t belong to anyone that I know of, and it offers an excellent view of the beach. Someone was in there leaning back into the corner by the garage, in the way that people do when they’re foolish enough to think they can make themselves invisible. This one couldn’t; her red jeans and yellow shirt were way too loud for that. I turned off the path and walked towards her, out of sight of the square, out of sight of anyone close by, and as I did she tried to stuff the object she had been holding into her enormous bag: it was a camera, with a long telephoto lens.

‘How the hell did you get here?’ I snapped.

‘It’s not a crime,’ she retorted.

‘How did you find out where I live?’ I demanded.

‘I’m a reporter,’ she sneered, defiantly. ‘I have skills.’

I took a guess at what they were. ‘You followed me, you cow, didn’t you? You watched me in the car park and you followed me up the road.’ A further possibility occurred. ‘Did you knife my tyre?’ Her face flushed, her eyes shifted and I knew I was on the mark. ‘And now,’ I continued, ‘you’re here and. .’ The camera; her vantage point; the beach. ‘You’ve been photographing my son!’

‘And what if I have?’ she challenged. ‘He’s Oz Blackstone’s son too; there’s money in these pictures, and you won’t be buying them.’

‘That’s true,’ I said, quietly.

I’d never punched a woman before. In fact I’d never punched anyone, apart from Oz a couple of times, when I was really angry with him. Until then nearly all my punching had been done in the gym and had been aimed at bags. I’d picked up the skill, though. I hit Christine McGuigan with a right-hander that her namesake Barry would have been proud to call his own. It caught her on the temple and knocked her on her red-trousered backside. I snatched up her bag, and pulled out the camera. It was a Nikon, like mine, and so I was able to find and extract the memory card in a couple of seconds. (As an added bonus, and proof of my theory if I’d needed it, I also found my missing aerial in there.)

‘I’ll call the. .’ she began, as she scrambled to her feet, but I didn’t let her finish.

‘No, honey, you won’t,’ I hissed. I went back in time. A version of Primavera that I’d thought I’d left way behind me showed all her claws. ‘This is what you’ll do. You’ll get back into whatever brought you here and you’ll fuck off. You’ll put as many miles as you can between yourself and my boy.’ I glared at her and saw her fear as clearly as I could see the lump rising on her head and the mark left by my heavy dress ring. ‘If I ever find you anywhere near him again, I’ll kill you. I’m not being figurative here, you understand; if I see you as a threat to his happy existence. .’

‘Auntie Primavera.’ My nephew’s calm voice came from behind me. ‘Is everything all right?’

I looked over my shoulder; he was alone. ‘It is now,’ I told him. I nodded towards McGuigan. ‘Jonny, if you ever see this woman again, anywhere near any of us, I want you to tell me. She thought she could make a couple of quid by selling pictures of Tom to the press. I’ve just been telling her that she can’t.’

He took a few steps forward and stood beside me. He was still wet from the sea, and his muscles were hard and glistening in the last of the evening sun. He stared at the woman, unblinking. ‘I’m sure she gets the message, Auntie,’ he murmured. Then he took me by the elbow. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You have guests waiting, don’t you?’

I allowed myself to be led away, concentrating on calming myself down and becoming the nice Primavera once again, not the other woman. I’d frightened McGuigan, sure, but I’d frightened myself as well.

‘Where’s Tom?’ I asked him, as we reached the house, although I could guess the answer.

‘He’s gone in through the garage to stow his board and sail,’ he replied, pausing at the gate.

‘He sent me up here to take the flak.’ He laughed. ‘He’s a really good surfer, Auntie P.’

‘So they tell me. You didn’t try it, did you?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Too big a risk. He’d have embarrassed me anyway. He’s in a different league from me. Are they all beach boys around here?’

‘Pretty much.’

He smiled. His back was to the sun as it went down behind the roof of the building behind him, and I had to shade my eyes to look at him. What I saw was a depth I hadn’t appreciated before; I knew that there was more to Jonathan Sinclair than he allowed to show. At some time or another he’d been places that had left a mark on him, made him older than his years, and possibly a little wiser too.

‘This is a great thing you’re doing for him, you know,’ he murmured.

‘What thing?’ I asked.

‘Choosing to bring Tom up here, in this place. You’re well off; you could live anywhere you wanted in the world, in any city: London, Edinburgh, Paris, New York. .’

‘I’m not sure the Americans would let me into the last of those, given my previous.’

‘Don’t kid me; you could fix it. I mean it, the world’s your. .’

‘Mussel?’ I suggested. ‘There aren’t any oysters around here.’

‘Any shellfish you like,’ he chuckled. ‘But this is the one you’ve chosen, and it’s fantastic for Tom. I thought I was lucky being brought up in St Andrews, but this, this is way beyond that. But. . what’s it doing for you?’

‘Everything. It’s my home; it’s where I belong.’

‘Because of Tom, yes; but one day soon, before you know it, it’ll be time for him to go. . and you’ll want him to. I had that discussion with my mum and grandpa, four years ago. I’d have gone to Stirling University, happily, but the Arizona offer was there and they insisted that I take up the place. It’ll be much the same with him, and then you won’t be able to ignore the truth.’

‘And what’s that?’ I whispered.

‘That the part of you that isn’t a mother, she’s lonely.’

Suddenly, he seemed even more mature. ‘Jonny, you’re not making a play for me, are you?’

‘God no!’ he gasped. Then he added, ‘No, I didn’t mean it that way! I’m not saying you’re not attractive. . you are, very. . and age doesn’t mean nearly so much these days, but you’re my auntie and he was my uncle and I couldn’t ever look at you without seeing him. God,’ he gulped, ‘let’s get inside. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that. I don’t know what made me.’

‘I don’t know either,’ I mused, ‘but maybe it needed saying. A hell of a conversation to be having at your front gate with a half-naked young man, though. One night, next week, maybe, we’ll have dinner, you and I, just the two of us, and carry it on.’

We went inside. I apologised once again to Shirl and Patterson for the hiatus, but they weren’t bothered. In my absence they’d worked their way through most of a bottle of albarino. I killed the rest and opened another while we waited for Tom and Jonny to join us. As if he was following his cousin’s lead, my nephew had thrown on a T-shirt and jeans, shedding the golfer gear for once, but that didn’t get him out of a replay of his afternoon press briefing as my guests quizzed him about his round. I didn’t let it go on for long. After a couple of minutes, I cried, ‘Enough, you two. Jonny’s had a hard couple of days, and he’s got even tougher to come, so give him a break from the shop talk, please.’

Dinner, when I finally got round to serving it, with Tom’s help, was pleasant. We talked about nothing more serious than the weather; the March snowstorm that had almost obliterated Catalunya the year before, and the searing summer that had followed. We relaunched the global warming debate (Tom was in favour, if it meant bigger waves on the beach) until Jonny ended it by saying that it was as real as the millennium bug. ‘I went to college in Arizona, remember. It couldn’t get any warmer there.’

As I looked at Patterson, eventually I remembered my undertaking to Alex, which had prompted my invitation, and I realised how preposterous the whole notion was, that he could have had something to do with the death of the stiff in the woods. Okay, his career had been in intelligence, but so what? I resolved to pay no more attention to the fantasies of the Mossos d’Esquadra. Their time would be better served freeing me from the attentions of the likes of Christine McGuigan, but with a hot murder inquiry under way, they’d hardly be doing that. As Alex had admitted, his dismissal of her that afternoon had been mostly bullshit, and, as it had turned out, pretty ineffective. Which was a nuisance. I’d thrown a scare into her outside, no question. But what if it wore off? I knew next to nothing about the woman, other than that she wasn’t much good at martial arts, but did know how to blade a tyre. ‘Bugger,’ I whispered, as I realised I could have searched her bag further, for the knife; whispered to myself, I thought, but Patterson overheard me, and I realised that he’d been watching me a lot more closely than I’d been fixed on him, for all my earlier intentions.

Jonny broke the moment. ‘If you’ll all excuse me,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll turn in. For all that I’m in the second last group tomorrow, I’ll need to be on the course early. Uche will be up at sparrow fart checking on the pin positions, and I need to support him.’

That was it for Tom too; I’d noticed his eyelids beginning to droop. While he was too old for ‘Time for bed, young man’, there were still times when the suggestion had to be made, but that night wasn’t one of them. He’d been putting on a show on his board for his cousin and it had tired him out. Or maybe he suspected I’d tell him to clear the table, and decided to forestall me.

That left the three seniors alone, for coffee and liqueurs on the terrace. Shirley was past her best by then, so Patterson had slowed up. He was seated between the two of us; on his left, Shirl was slumped back in her chair, with a goblet of amaretto in her cupped hands. When she began to snore lightly, he reached out, took it from her, with touching gentleness, and placed it on the table in front of them. She didn’t stir; when someone can separate her from her drink, you know that she’s asleep.

‘You’re a nice man, you know,’ I told him. I was on amaretto too, but I had tonic and ice in mine, in a tall glass: my version of a highball.

‘I like to think so,’ he said.

‘Have you always been?’

‘Personally, I hope so. My daughters seem to think so.’

‘Professionally?’

‘You shouldn’t ask me that.’

‘I just did, though.’

He leaned back and closed his eyes. For a moment I thought he was taking refuge in sleep, like Shirley. But he wasn’t; instead he was weighing up his answer. ‘Without going into operational details,’ he began, when he was ready, ‘there were situations in which my service was required not to be very nice. But I was never part of those so I remained humane. Humanity is essential to a worthy society. Needless cruelty is inexcusable.’

‘But what if captive terrorists won’t tell the state what it wants to know?’

‘That’s their human right.’

‘Even if people’s lives depended on them talking?’

He sighed. ‘At that point, people like us have to leave the room.’

‘Is that a roundabout way of telling me that when cruelty is necessary, the state needs brutes?’

‘I suppose it is. And you, Primavera,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you always been nice?’

‘No I have not,’ I admitted, ‘and I’ll bet you knew that already.’

‘I’ve given up on judging people. From what I’ve been told about you, I know you’ve been inside for foolishness more than malice, but I know also that you’re an exemplary mother, and that the Foreign Office trusted you enough to give you a job quite recently, thanks in part to your connection with the former Home Secretary, which not a soul understands. Incidentally, it’ll be kept open for you, should you wish to reconsider your resignation.’

‘Are you sure you’ve retired?’ I laughed.

‘Oh yes, I have, I assure you. But the strings are still there, the access to information, for me to pull if I need to.’

‘Could you pull them for me?’ I asked him quietly.

‘That wouldn’t be proper, Primavera.’

‘Neither was pulling them to run a complete background check on me.’

He smiled. ‘Retaliation. You did it first, remember.’

‘True,’ I conceded, ‘but in any event, I wasn’t asking you to observe propriety. I was asking you to do me a favour.’

‘Depends what it is. Shoot.’

I told him about my story, from my problem in the car park, leading into my second encounter with Christine McGuigan, and about the way I’d dealt with her.

‘Did anyone see this altercation?’ he asked, hardly giving me time to finish.

‘Jonny arrived right at the end of it. He backed me up, naturally.’

‘Just as well. If you’re right about her sabotaging your tyre, anyone who carries a knife as a matter of routine isn’t to be trifled with.’

‘Maybe I’m not either.’

He frowned. ‘Primavera,’ he said, ‘I’m sure that the mortuaries of the world are full of people who thought that way.’

‘Which is why I’d like to know a bit more about this woman. This afternoon she said she works for something called Spotlight Television, yet this evening I catch her taking telephoto shots of Tom on the beach. I mean what the hell is she?’

‘She’s probably what she says she is, a journalist. The world’s moved on, Primavera. Fings ain’t wot they used to be, as the old song goes. We’ve moved on from hot-metal presses and inky fingers. Nowadays, would-be reporters who can’t sell their stuff to radio or television can set up their own blog sites then post whatever smears and libels and paparazzi pictures they choose, or they can shoot video and upload footage to abominations like YouTube. Nowadays, every wannabe, can be.’

‘I’d still like to know for sure, though. Maybe I’ve scared her off, but maybe I haven’t. What if she carries on stalking Tom?’

‘What was the name on the passport she showed your friend?’

‘Christine McGuigan, and it was an Irish passport. But she told me her name was Christy Mann.’

‘And she said she worked for. .?’

‘Spotlight Television.’

‘Okay,’ he murmured, as Shirley stirred beside him. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, but for the first time that night I doubted his sincerity. Instinct told me that I was asking him to wade into waters that he’d rather stayed untroubled.

‘Do ’bout what?’ his partner mumbled.

‘About getting you home, my dear. Primavera has a busy weekend ahead of her.’