Blackstone's pursuits

In which Jan’s open secret is revealed to Prim, and in which we find that the heavy has picked up our trail

After the break-in there was no way we were going back to the loft. We reckoned that there was too big a risk of Ross having it watched.

Rather than use my mobile — that’s how paranoid I was — I phoned Ali from a public call-box near Haymarket.

‘What’s going on, Oz?’ My pal was concerned. ‘What sort of bother are you and the bird in?’

‘Nae bother, Ali, nae bother at all. The flat’s such a mess just now that we couldn’t face it. We’re heading off for a holiday. You’ll keep on looking after the green one for us, will you^?’

‘Aye, of course I will. Ah don’t believe a fuckin’ word you’re telling me, but then you always were a hare-brained bugger, Blackstone. Ah like this “us” stuff, though. It’s about time you had somebody holdin ‘your joystick, permanent-like. She’s the real thing, this lassie, is she?’

‘She sure is, pal. I’m glad you approve. It’s been worrying me all weekend.’

‘Sarky bastard! Here, she hasna’ got a sister has she?’ If only you knew, my dusky China.

‘Was he there?’ Prim asked as I got back into the Nissan.

‘Ali’s like the Windmill, love; never closed. He’s a good lad, for a grocer. I’d have asked him to bring us some fresh clothes, but if anyone is watching the loft it’d give the game away.’

She nodded, surprised by my unaccustomed thoroughness. There’s nothing like a good dose of fear for sharpening the mind … and loosening the bowels. ‘Where does Jan live?’ she asked, as I pulled away from the kerb. ‘I take it Jan is your laundry lady.’

‘Who else? Her place is in Castle Terrace.’

‘It isn’t five o’clock yet. Will she be home?’

‘With a bit of luck. Jan’s a jobbing accountant. She does my tax work as well as my books. Apart from me, she’s got a nice wee client list. She does quite a bit of her work at home, so she might well be there. If she isn’t we’ll go for a walk in Princes Street Gardens.’

She laid a hand, gently on my thigh, as I drove. ‘Oz, how will Jan be about me? She was nice enough when we met, but turning up on her doorstep with one bag between us and our dirty laundry, that’s something different. I mean you and she have done some heavy breathing together in the past. Are you sure she doesn’t still hope you might wind up together. I know her Mum does … or did, anyway.’

I smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry about it. Jan and I are a sister and brother act; okay, we’ve been incestuous now and again, but that’s in the past. Anyway, her heart belongs to another.’

Her eyebrows arched, perfectly. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘You’ll find out.’

There was an empty bay across the street from Jan’s place. I put a parking ticket in my windscreen and kept my fingers crossed that my tax disc would attract no fresh attention. Just as I was about to lock up a heavy shower of rain came out of nowhere. I grabbed my anorak and Prim’s jacket from the back seat and hustled us both across the street.

Jan’s flat is on the second floor. The label beside the entryphone button read ‘Turkel/More’. Prim looked at it in surprise as I pushed the plastic stud. ‘You mean she lives with someone?’

‘That’s right. She has done for the last four years. It’s a bit turbulent from time to time, but overall they’re pretty happy.’

Jan’s voice sounded like everyone else’s on the wrong end of an entryphone: a bit like a polite Dalek. ‘Yes?’

‘Hi Jan, it’s me and one other. Can we come up?’

There was no answer, only the buzz of the release button being pressed, and a click as the door catch sprung. Jan’s stairway is a lot nicer than mine. It’s carpeted and there’s a chair and cut flowers on each landing. She was waiting for us in the doorway as we reached the second floor, dressed in a white blouse and tight fawn skirt, which showed off her long legs. Jan’s legs are her best point, and the rest of her is pretty near to competition class too. ‘Hi pal. Hi Prim.’ She nodded towards the bag. ‘Planning a long stay?’

I was going to spin her a yarn about my Bendix being knackered, but the truth slipped out when I wasn’t looking. ‘We need some help. Can we run this lot through your washing machine?’

‘Sure,’ she said, ushering us into the narrow hall. I led the way straight through to the kitchen. ‘What’s the problem? Mum said you two showed up out of the blue on Friday night.

‘Here, that reminds me. What’s the score with your Dad and my Mother? I’m beginning to wonder about them.’

‘Work it out, Janet. Pre-crumblies can get up to the naughtiness too. When’s she going to make an honest man of him? That’s what I want to know.’

She threw her hands up to her face in a comic gesture and dropped into broad Fife. ‘My Goad! Can you imagine fit they’ll say in Enster, like!’

‘You know what they’re like. They have to have someone to talk about.’ I emptied the bag into the washing machine, loaded Ariel into the sachet thingy, and dialled up a quick wash-dry programme.

Jan gave each of us a beer from the fridge, then pointed us towards the living room, while she went into the bathroom. ‘Lock the door this time!’ I called after her.

I watched Prim as she looked around Jan’s sitting room. You couldn’t imagine a bigger contrast to Linda Kane’s severe salon. Everything about it fits everything else, and everything in it was chosen for pleasure not appearance. There’s a small sofa and two recliner armchairs, all in soft grey fabric, and set around a low coffee table. The floor’s varnished but mostly covered by a huge Indian carpet. Over the fireplace, there’s an original oil of a beach scene, and a few very tasty watercolours are hung around the walls. The inlaid sideboard was handmade by a guy in Musselburgh. I’ll never forget Jan telling me how much it had cost.

‘This is lovely,’ said Prim. ‘It’s saying something to me, but I’m not sure what it is.’

‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ I said. She took hold of my shirt front, and would have had more out of me, if Jan hadn’t come in just then.

She looked at us thoughtfully, for a few seconds. ‘Yes, Mum was right. About you two, I mean. She phoned me to tell me that Oz had met his match at last. She approves. So, by the way, do I,’ she added, in a very matter-of-fact tone. ‘Not least because, hopefully, it’ll let Mother get me sorted out in her head.’ Before Prim could follow up the begged question she changed the subject.

‘Right, fugitives. What’s the story?’

I know three people in the world who could have handled the truth about our predicament. Happily Jan’s one of them. So I pulled Prim on to the sofa beside me and we told her; just like we’d told my Dad, only this time there was an important fact to add which two days earlier had been simply a hunch, plus the part about our narrow escape in Auchterarder.

When we had finished, Jan spread herself in her recliner, her skirt riding away up over her thighs, and looked at us. ‘Astounded’, just about covered her expression. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on me. ‘You know, Oz, I was starting to think that you were turning into a young fogey. A BYF; know what I mean … Boring Young Fart. Now here you are, trippin’ over corpses, boakin’ on traffic wardens, accessory after God knows how many facts, and on the run from a renegade copper.

‘Sunshine, you don’t just turn over a new leaf. You turn over the whole fuckin’ tree!’

She stood up, smoothing down her skirt. ‘So what can I do to help?’

‘You’re doing it. We’ve decided to head south as fast as we can, with the clothes we’ve got in that bag. As soon as they’re dry, we’ll be off.’

‘How are you for cash?’

‘No problem there. I’ve got my chargecard, and my PIN number’ll work in Europe. Coffee and a sandwich would go down well though.’

She shook her head. ‘I can do better than that. I was making a stir fry tonight; I can stretch it to do four. Come on.’ She led us back through to the kitchen and busied herself washing and slicing vegetables. Jan’s as good a cook as her Mum, but from a different era. Where Auntie Mary works miracles with baking tins and saucepans, Jan tends to use a Wok.

We did our best to help. Prim skinned and boned the monkfish, while I tackled the tough job, cooking the rice. I was watching it intently, and so I didn’t see the figure when first she appeared in the doorway.

‘Hello Oz. I thought that was your limo outside.’

Anoushka Turkel and I had a difficult relationship until Prim came along. Where Jan’s Mum probably saw me as a figure of hope, I’m sure that to Anoushka, I was something of a threat. The old boyfriend, the ever open door when things erupted between them as sometimes they have done, or when Jan’s bisexuality caught up with her and she needed a man.

There’s nothing bi- about Anoushka. She’s a lesbian, and not in the least uncertain, or self-conscious about it. She’s a very serious person — a smile from Anoushka’s like a rainstorm in the Sahara — but she’s kind and she loves Jan to bits. And Jan loves her too. Early on, when first they met, she and I discussed how she felt.

How could I forget! We were in bed together at the time.

As a lover, Jan was one of those people who put everything into it, without ever really getting there herself. I never made the Earth move for her as memorably as she did for me. It was the same that night, only this time I sensed that Jan wasn’t putting quite as much into it as usual. So I asked her what was wrong and, being Jan, she told me: how she’d met this corporate lawyer in the office where she was working at the time, and how they’d gone for a few drinks, and how one thing had led to another, and how she’d had the first real, full-blown, screaming orgasm of her life.

I don’t think I handled it too well — well, I mean, what bloke would? — until she told me that the corporate lawyer was a woman. Somehow — and I’ve never figured out how or why — that made it tolerable in a way. With macho rivalries out of the way, I understood what she was saying, and I did my best to help her. I didn’t exactly encourage her to set up home with Anoushka, but I said that if she loved her, it was okay with me. When Auntie Mary found out, and it all blew up at home, I stood up for her, and that helped her. Anoushka’s never been to Anstruther, but at least after a sticky spell, things are all right between Jan and her Mum.

Of course, the fact that I wasn’t in love with Jan helped me be the Boy Scout through it all. Yet I can’t deny that on the odd occasion during the year when my doorbell rang late of an evening, and she was there, wearing a look that told me she had a change of knickers and tights in her handbag, well, it didn’t half pump up the male ego. Anoushka must have suspected that we had the odd encounter, but, whether out of fear or consideration I don’t know, she never raised the subject.

Now she stood there in the kitchen doorway, giving me her odd sizing-up look once again, trying to gauge the significance of Oz Blackstone in her kitchen, helping her girlfriend prepare supper. And then Prim, seeing my gaze, stepped out from behind the door.

A bad analogy, I know, but I took the bull by the horns. I stepped forward and kissed her on her high Slavic cheekbone. ‘Hi, Noosh,’ I said, as warmly as I could. Then I took my new lady’s hand and drew her to me. ‘This is Primavera. We’re in lurv. Prim, this is Anoushka, Jan’s partner.’

Noosh looked at us, stood there together, in total surprise. And then she smiled. It was raining in the Sahara again. ‘Well goot for you,’ she said, in her funny accent, with its hint of her Eastern European origins. I reckon that was the most sincere thing she’s ever said to me.

‘Jan never said about you,’ she added, as if to explain her surprise. ‘So what brought you to see us. Your good news?’

‘That and a knackered washing machine,’ said Prim.

‘Ah! But you stay to supper?’ We both nodded. ‘Good. Excuse me, I must change. Back in a minute, Jan darling.’ She patted her grey suit, which matched the streaks in her hair, and walked through to their bedroom.

‘Oz,’ she called through. ‘I hope you have that car MOT-d.’

‘Yeah. I’m still waiting for my tax disc, but it’s okay. Why d’you ask?’

She stepped back into the kitchen, wearing a light dress. “Cause when I got home there was a policeman in uniform giving it a funny look. I don’t think that he was looking at the tax disk, more the number. You don’t report it stolen to claim the insurance, no?’

I didn’t say a word. Instead I strode back through to the living room and peered out into Castle Terrace from behind the curtain. The line of parked cars had thinned out as the office building next door had emptied, and there were only three to be seen on the far side of the street, mine and two others, a battered old Mini and a Citroen with French plates. There was no sign of a policeman.

Jan and Prim looked at me anxiously as I came back into the kitchen. I answered them with a quick smile and a shake of the head. ‘Whatever it was, he’s buggered off.’

‘That’s good,’ said Jan, ‘because your rice must be nearly ready!’

We ate in the small back room which Noosh and Jan use as a dining room. The stir fry was one of Jan’s best ever, full of chunky monkfish, mushrooms, yellow peppers and lemon grass, but it was wasted on me. I kept thinking about that copper, and his unhealthy interest in my car. I excused myself as soon as I had finished, and went back through to the living room, back to my stance behind the curtains.

The battered Mini was gone, but the Citroen was still there. Beyond it, there was a third car, a black Vauxhall Cavalier, with a mobile telephone antenna sticking out of its roof. There was a man in the driver’s seat, a big man. It was still raining quite hard, and from that distance I couldn’t quite make out his face, but I was in no doubt who it was.

I went back through to the dining room, where the girls were having coffee. ‘Jan, have you still got that telescope?’ I gave Jan a spyglass one Christmas, basically because I’d run out of ideas.

She looked puzzled for a second, than caught on. ‘Yes. Come on.’

She led me through to the bedroom. The telescope was on her bedside table. In normal circumstances I’d have taken longer to wonder what they used it for, but my mind was on other things. Prim and Noosh were waiting for us in the living room. I motioned them to stay back from the window and slid in behind the curtain, taking care not to disturb it. Carefully I focused the telescope on the Cavalier. Just as I did so, the man in the driver’s seat leaned forward, and I had a clear view of his face.

I swore softly.

‘What is it?’ asked Prim.

‘It’s Ricky Ross. That copper must have called in my number.’

Anoushka stood there looking bewildered. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Jan said to her.

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

‘Good question. Is the washing machine finished drying out gear yet?’

‘Should be.’

‘Okay,’ said Prim. ‘I’ll pack the bag.’

Jan stood in the centre of the room, mulling something over. At last she nodded, decisively. Then she kicked off her shoes, and ran back through to the bedroom, beckoning me to follow. By the time I got there she had stepped out of her skirt and was unbuttoning her blouse. ‘What is this,’ I said. ‘One last time for luck?’ I was comforted by the knowledge that even in times of crisis, the daft side of me could still come to the surface.

She shot me a quick, ‘You should be so lucky!’ and began to step into a pair of jeans which had been lying across the dressing-table stool. ‘Get me your anorak,’ she ordered. I began to see what she had in mind. I did as I was told and fetched the horrible, hooded green garment from the hall. She fastened her jeans and pulled on a sweatshirt, then tried the anorak for size. As I’ve said, she’s a tall girl, so it wasn’t a bad fit. She pulled on a pair of old trainers, looked at herself in a full-length mirror and nodded her satisfaction, then turned and pushed me out of the room, back into the kitchen. There, Prim was packing the final items into our bag, folding them as best she could. Noosh stood with her back to the sink, still looking bewildered.

‘Right,’ said Jan. ‘This is your best chance. I’ll wear this gear. I’ll run out, jump into Oz’s car and drive it away. I’ll tie the hood tight, and with any luck, the guy out there will think it’s Oz and follow.

‘Oz, my Fiesta’s parked in the back yard. Once you see him move off, the pair of you get downstairs and get as far away from here as you can. The car’s not long after a service, so it should get you to Switzerland all right.’

All of a sudden I was emotionally full up. I’d never felt closer to the girl; never in all of our lives had I realised how strong was the bond between us. ‘Hold on a minute, Jan. This is a dangerous guy. He’ll catch up with you.’

‘But he won’t stop me, not even if he lies down in the road. If I have to I’ll just drive to the nearest police station and run in screaming that there’s a man following me. Now no more arguments, unless you’ve got a better idea.’

I hadn’t, and I didn’t know what to ay, so I just kissed her. For a moment I thought Prim might be mad, but she kissed her too. Just to be on the safe side, I kissed Noosh as well. Prim drew the line at that.

Jan and I exchanged car keys, and we all went back through to the living room. We stood there in a circle, smiling nervously at each other. I tied the cords of the anorak hood tight under Jan’s chin, pulling it down to cover her face. We shared a last long look that neither Noosh nor Prim could see, a look that said a hundred things, from ‘Thanks’ to ’Remember that time in the dunes in the East Bay at Elie, when there was no-one else around …’ Probably, it was as well that neither Noosh nor Prim could see our eyes.

And then Jan was gone. The front door closed and she was off down the stairs. I went back to my spy-hole and looked down into the street. Every Tuesday at Meadowbank, Ali tells me I run like a girl, so she was a pretty good imitation. I didn’t realise she could move that fast … well, she’s never run away from me. She was across the street in a flash. Unlocking the door, she jumped into the car. Just then I panicked, thinking she’d flood the carburettor, but Jan knows the old Nissan pretty well, and it started first time.

As soon as I heard the engine’s cough, I looked back at the Cavalier. Ross was sitting bolt upright in his seat, fiddling with his key. I heard his ignition snarl, but soon it fired up. Jan had barely swung the Nissan away from the kerb and round into Johnstone Terrace, before he was after her. ‘Clever girl,’ I said. ‘She’ll lead him where there are no traffic lights.

‘Right, let’s do what she says, and make ourselves scarce. Thanks, Noosh, see you soon … we hope.’

I grabbed the bag with one hand and Prim with the other, and together we legged it down the stairs, past the front door and down to the basement level. Jan’s red Fiesta Sport was next to the exit. It burst throatily into life at the first turn of the key. With barely a backward look we were off, out into Castle Terrace then away down to the Grassmarket, in the opposite direction to that in which Jan had headed.

Ali was waiting in the shop with our passports. Prim stayed in the car as I rushed in. ‘Thanks mate,’ I said. ‘Do one thing more for me, will you. Get my diary and check my faxes and messages. Then call Jimmy and ask him to handle my work till I get back, same as usual.’

My chum nodded his turban. ‘Fair enough. That still leaves one problem, though.’

‘Eh?

‘It means we’ll be one short at the fitba’ tomorrow night!’