Poisoned Cherries

Chapter 9

I’d left the Edinburgh accommodation problem to Greg McPhillips. Life is ironic; he used to give me work, now he was getting so much from me that he’d almost become my personal assistant.

He called me on Thursday morning with a proposition. ‘I know this chartered surveyor in Edinburgh,’ he began. Everybody knows a chartered fucking surveyor in Edinburgh, there are so many of them, and especially in the city centre pubs, but Greg’s a boy for long preambles so I let him stroll on.

The tale took a couple of twists before it settled down with a property developer who lived mostly off-shore but retained a duplex apartment on top of a building which he had refurbished in the Old Town, and which he was prepared to rent, fully furnished, of course, to the right clients, for the right amount of money.

Greg hadn’t seen it himself, but his pal had assured him that the place was worth a look, so I drove back to the capital that afternoon, in Susie’s M3 once again, but giving it its head all the way this time. . subject to normal speed limits of course, officer.

The surveyor, a serious-looking, bespectacled guy named Luke Edgar, met me on the pavement at the Mound, about halfway between the Bank of Scotland head office and the temporary home of the Scottish Parliament. At first, I had no idea where we were going, but when he walked ten yards to an anonymous wooden front door I knew right away.

The building is probably the oldest surviving tenement in Edinburgh, and certainly the tallest. It wasn’t the CN Tower, as I looked up at it, but it went pretty high by Old Town standards. I knew the story; it had been bought and tastefully refurbished by the developer, a well known Edinburgh guy with a celebrated Midas touch, and a reputation as the best spotter of opportunities in the business.

He had made a good job of the Mound, that’s for sure. The apartment towered over Princes Street, and looked panoramically across the city, west, north and east. I knew I was going to take it as soon as I walked through the door, although I made a show of haggling with earnest Edgar.

There was a big reception room downstairs; I hit on that right away. We could use it for cast meetings, read-throughs and even rehearsals. I took a look at the kitchen; everything was state of the art. There were two bedrooms off the living area and two more upstairs; a couple more than I needed, but there would be plenty of room for a makeshift nursery if I could persuade Susie to bring the baby through to see her dad at weekends. To cap it all off, there was a superb Bang and Olufsen sound system, with speakers wired into every room in the place.

It didn’t take long to do the deal. Greg’s pal won the haggling hands down; he didn’t budge on his price and I caved in quick. . what the hell, Miles was picking up the tab anyway. We shook hands on a three-month lease, with an option to extend on a month-by-month basis if shooting overran, and arranged that I would sign next day and move in whenever I liked.

I was pretty chuffed as I drove back through to Glasgow. I knew that Susie would like the apartment, and I was pretty confident that we’d wind up playing house at weekends, for a while at least.

Life, I thought, was indeed a bowl of bloody cherries, and great big red ones, at that.