Poisoned Cherries

Chapter 32

Their departure gave me a reality jolt. Glen Oliver took Ewan away in a taxi, Miles, Dawn and Mike Reilly took one of the people-movers back to the Caledonian, and the bit players commandeered the other to go back to the Assembly Rooms.

There was I, an international movie star, left on his own in a rapidly cooling Advocates’ Close. Mind you, after the day I’d had, a pint was an appealing proposition, and Deacon Brodie’s Tavern was only a few yards away. Then, later, with any luck, I could escape to Glasgow, and the bosoms of my new family.

Only I wasn’t alone. When I stepped out of the passageway into the High Street, who was waiting round the corner but Ricky Ross. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I asked him.

‘Waiting for you,’ he told me, cheerfully. ‘I thought you might fancy coming with me on a visit I have to pay on someone.’

‘And why would I want to do that?’

‘You’re a golfer, aren’t you? I thought you guys were all groupies when it comes to meeting pros. Alison gave me a list of the boy David’s friends; right at the top is Don Kennedy, the golfer.

‘As it happens, he’s not playing on the tour event this week. He’s had a couple of sponsor’s days up at Murrayfield Golf Club, and I’ve arranged to see him there.’

I started to say that I wanted nothing to do with his games, and that I had better things to do than run around Edinburgh playing detective with some clapped out ex-copper, but then I thought about a persistent slice that had been creeping into my game.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Provided it doesn’t take too long.’

His car was parked round the corner in St Giles Street, beside the High Court, where, in a few weeks, Alison was due to take her chances with a man, or maybe a woman, in a wig and a red jacket. I found myself wondering how Rhona Waitrose would look in that outfit; she’d certainly done a lot for a simple raincoat.

There was a parking ticket on Ricky’s Alfa Romeo. He ripped it off the windscreen and threw it away. ‘These wankers will never learn,’ he muttered. ‘My number’s on a list, and they’ve all got it. Whoever wrote that’s in bother when he files it.’

He didn’t say another word of any consequence on the journey to Murrayfield. I’d been expecting him to quiz me about Alison’s unexpected appearance at his place, but he didn’t. Maybe Mandy had told him the whole story, maybe she hadn’t. I was fairly sure that Alison hadn’t.

The traffic was light so the trip across the New Town and into Ravelston Dykes didn’t take long. We pulled into the car park in front of the club-house building. I was wearing black designer jeans and a Ralph Lauren polo shirt; given the strict dress codes that operate in some of these clubs, I wondered if they’d let me in.

They might not have, but fortunately Don Kennedy was dressed in more or less the same way as I was, and also, he was waiting for us in the casual bar. . known in some golf clubs as the ‘dirty bar’.

I’d seen him maybe a hundred times on television, so I recognised him at once. He was shorter than I’d expected, but like most golfers he had shoulders that looked capable of supporting a house, and hands that were big enough to dig its foundations without a shovel. When I was in my early twenties, a bloke in St Andrews showed me what he assured me was one of Arnold Palmer’s old golf gloves. God isn’t all that tall either, while I’m not a little guy myself, but I swear I could have got both my hands in there.

Kennedy is not famous for smiling on the golf course, but he was affable enough as he greeted us. A weak sun was shining through the window, and glinting on his trademark copper curls. ‘Mr Ross,’ he began, engulfing Ricky’s hand in one of his. Then he looked at me, and frowned. ‘I know you, don’t I,’ he muttered, ‘but I can’t place you.’

‘My face gets around,’ I told him. ‘Oz Blackstone; I’m a friend of David Capperauld’s fiancee.’

‘You’re also an actor; I saw your last film. Very good, very good; no way could I do that sort of thing.’

‘I could say the same about your last tee-shot. I have this terrible bloody slice.’

Kennedy smiled. ‘Get your pro to work on your set-up,’ he said, ‘but once you start slicing, it’s usually terminal.’ He turned back to Ricky, as we joined him at his table. ‘So, Mr Ross, you said you wanted to ask me about my poor friend David? I’m happy to talk to you, but what’s the nature of this investigation?’

‘Informal,’ he replied, pausing as the barman appeared and took our drinks orders; two diet cokes; Ross was driving and I’d gone off the idea of a pint. ‘The crown is convinced of the circumstances, and it looks as if they’ll proceed on a culpable homicide charge. Assuming the judge accepts a guilty plea, the sentence will be determined by the extent to which her counsel can persuade him she was provoked.’

‘What? Are you trying to prove she was out of her mind with grief when she did it?’

‘Not quite, but something along those lines.’

‘You’ll have a problem, then. I know Alison, obviously; I knew them as a couple, although we didn’t see a lot of each other latterly, since I’m touring most of the time, and my family base is in the south. To be frank, I never thought they’d make it to the altar, although I never thought, obviously, that the relationship would end like this. I thought that they were committed to their business more than to each other, and that David in particular was in it for the money.’

The golfer leaned back in his seat. ‘They say you can pick your friends but not your relatives. I don’t believe that; I have cousins I haven’t seen since we were children, but I’m one of those guys who makes a friend for better or worse. I’ve known David Capperauld since first year at Edinburgh Academy juniors, and we’ve been chums since then. I’m not stupid, and I’m not blind; I know that he could be a cunning, ruthless little shit, and that he behaved very badly towards Alison; but he had his good side too. He was funny, he was devoted to his parents, and if you were close to him he’d always be there for you. I think part of the trouble was that he and Alison were never that close.’

I was only there as an observer, but I couldn’t stop myself from picking up on him. ‘You said he behaved badly towards her. Alison told me that he had broken off the engagement, or had told her as much, and that he wanted her to buy him out of the business at a value which was his estimate as much as anything else.’

Kennedy nodded. ‘That’s more or less the situation. The way he put it, she was trying to make him take less than market value, by threatening the stability of the company. I can see both sides of that one.’

So could I. I wondered whether Ricky and I should stop our investigation at that point, and let Alison settle for what she had.

‘Do you know anything of the relationship between David and his famous cousin?’ I asked.

‘David hated him from way back; the whole town knew that. There were two stories about it; eventually he told me the true one. He couldn’t let himself make it up with Ewan, though. It was a macho thing with him, a pride thing; every time Ewan won an award or had a hit, he got more bitter.’

‘What about the woman?’ Ricky’s question cut right across him. ‘The one he was two-timing Alison with?’

‘Again,’ Kennedy replied, ‘that’s not how he would have put it. He’d have said that the relationship had run its course and that he had moved on.’ He looked at Ross; I could read the shrewdness in his eyes. ‘This isn’t about a plea in mitigation, is it?’ he murmured, then he glanced back at me. ‘You don’t think she did it, do you?’

‘Let’s just say we’d like to be satisfied that she did,’ I told him.

‘But the police are, aren’t they?’

‘Sometimes the police are too easily satisfied.’

‘I’m with you on that one.’

‘So, David’s other woman; who is she?’

Kennedy smiled and looked out of the window. ‘Nice little girl,’ he mused. ‘David introduced us last time I was up in Edinburgh. She’s a receptionist with a big firm out on the west side. She’s a doctor’s daughter; Chinese descent. Her name’s Anna Chin.’