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Chapter 15

There can be few greater contrasts in Scottish humanity than that between Prim’s father and my own.

Where Macintosh Blackstone is effusive, outspoken and self-willed, David Phillips is reserved, understated and compliant. Where my Dad practises the skilled but muscular science of dentistry, David is an artist. He built his furniture design and cabinet-making business into one of the most noted and successful in Scotland, then retired in his early fifties to pursue his hobby, carving and painting wooden soldiers. Thanks to Prim’s enterprising mother, this became a second career.

David frowned, appraisingly, as he eyed Prim’s engagement ring across the dinner table, then nodded. ‘Craftsmanship,’ he said. ‘Anyone can set a stone in metal, but only a craftsman can set it as well as that. Look after it, in time it’ll be an heirloom.’

‘David!’ Elanore Phillips’ bell-like voice rang down the length of the table. If there is anyone in Prim’s family who’s a match for my Dad it’s her Mum. Elanore was a social worker. . and a very caring one, her daughter assures me. . but she chose to retire at the same time as her husband, to pursue her own secret passion, writing stories for children. Between them they turned their big Gothic house in Auchterarder into a unique, private, arts centre.

Mum Phillips tends to take the lead in any family discussion. I heard Dawn groan beside me as she looked directly at Prim, and said, ‘Now, about the wedding.’

I kept my fingers crossed. I had already done the big church performance once, with Jan. Much as I love Prim, there was no way I wanted to go through that scene again, but because I love her, I would have if she’d given in to her mother.

Fortunately that hasn’t happened since Prim was around fourteen. ‘I promise you, Mum,’ she answered. ‘When it happens, you’ll be among the first to know.’

‘Oh come, come, Primavera. Dawn’s already done me out of one big day by marrying in California. You don’t have any excuse.’

A confrontation between the two strong women of the Phillips family is something to see. I’ll swear I noticed David begin to smile, then bite it off, hard. Next to him, Miles, who wasn’t used to the domestic fireworks display, took a sudden interest in his place-mat.

‘Excuse, Mother?’ said Prim, slightly lowering her voice, as she does when she’s about to level someone. ‘I don’t have to excuse myself to anyone. . other than Oz, every now and again.

‘Now listen up. You’ve had your wedding. Okay, it was thirty-five years ago, but you’ll have to make do with it. This one’s ours, and we’re calling the shots. If you behave yourself then Oz and I will let you be there, but we’ll be making all the arrangements and we’ll be doing it our way. . which will be quiet. You and Dad can pick up the tab. . I’ll give in to that tradition. . but that’ll be it.’

Most people would have had the sense to cave in and drop the subject, but Elanore is made of sterner stuff than that. She’s a romantic, too, and there are few things less shakeable than a determined romantic. She glowered along the table at her husband, but Dad Phillips, almost imperceptibly, shook his head.

And then, for God’s sake, she turned to me. ‘Oz, talk some sense into her!’ she appealed. I felt like the House of Lords.

‘I’ve done so already, Elanore. I know I’m crazy to risk a fall out with my future mother-in-law, but when Prim said “we” she meant it. She and I are agreed on this.’

She gave me a long hard look; then, to everyone’s huge relief, she smiled. ‘At least you’re well matched, the pair of you. I remember the first time Primavera brought you here. She said, “He’s crackers, but I think you’ll like him.” She was right on both counts.’

‘Give your mother a clue, at least, my dear,’ David Phillips asked, unexpectedly; I guess he judged that it was safe to speak. ‘When?’

‘That depends on Miles,’ Prim answered. ‘Once Oz is finished with his bit of Project 37, we’ll get round to doing the deed.’ She turned to her mother. ‘It’s no big deal, Mum,’ she said, giving Elanore back a piece of the ground she had just cut from under her. ‘We’re living together already; all we’re doing is formalising things.’

‘Project 37?’ I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard Prim’s father ask two questions on the trot.

‘I’m a shade paranoid about my movies,’ Miles explained. ‘I like to keep a degree of security around them; that includes giving them working titles which don’t give any clue to their content. The one we’re shooting just now happens to be my thirty-seventh. Simple as that.’

‘What’s it going to be called?’

‘We’re probably going to call it Snatch. It’s about a kidnapping. Dawn’s the female lead. She’s a Scottish heiress who’s taken from her father’s estate on Deeside and held for ransom. I play her boyfriend, who happens to be a Special Branch cop.’

‘Christ,’ I gasped. ‘Art mimics life.’

‘Eh?’

‘Sorry. Shouldn’t have said that. The fact is, you’ve met one of those.’

‘Mike?’

‘Yes, but don’t mention it when you meet him again at our wedding. Here,’ I wondered, ‘won’t that title make some punters think it’s a porno job?’

Dawn spluttered, and Miles grinned. ‘So what? It’s all bums on seats, Oz. . or asses, as we say in the States. I wanted a one-word title, and since someone else used Ransom a few years back, and Dawn and I were in Stevenson’s Kidnapped three or four years back, this was the best we could come up with.’

‘What part will Oz play?’ asked Elanore. ‘A lunatic?’

‘No. He plays Dawn’s brother. My character spends most of the story trying to find her, but the whole thing’s seen from Oz’s point of view. We’ve written in some simple scenes to give his character some depth.

‘Towards the end I work out that Dawn’s being held on an abandoned oil platform in the North Sea, and I try to rescue her myself. Having Oz as narrator leaves open the possibility that I might not survive.’

‘Where’s the twist at the end? I’ve noticed that there always is in your work.’ I glanced at David. I’ve always known that there’s a shrewd mind under that reserved crust of his. He set me wondering too. I’d read the script: there was no big surprise ending, only a shoot-out, then happy ever after.

Miles laughed out loud. ‘Nice one, Dad. Maybe it isn’t written yet,’ he replied, intriguingly. ‘We’ve done all the outside shots on the rig we’re using, to ensure consistent weather. The scenes on Deeside and Aberdeen will all be done on location too, in a mansion and in offices we’ve rented for the purpose. But the stuff at the end, and all the undercover scenes on the rig, will be shot on a mock-up in a major studio just south of London.’

‘So,’ said Elanore, ‘to return to the original question. When will these two be clear to get married?’

Her official son-in-law glanced at me in a way which set me wondering. ‘That’ll depend on some late changes we might make, but maybe mid-October; early November, for sure.’

I raised a mock eyebrow. ‘Should I be talking to my agent about this?’

Miles laughed. ‘Maybe you should, mate. Maybe you should.’

It had been niggling at me that I might have been a shade blase about Project 37, that I wasn’t as nervous as I should have been in the circumstances. At that moment, my excitement switch was thrown, and my old friend the hamster began to do its familiar laps of my stomach.

My cellphone was switched on too. I had forgotten, so I started in my seat when it rang. ‘Sorry,’ I said to the rest of the table as I stood and stepped through to the living room to take the call.

‘Where are you, Oz?’ said Mike Dylan. ‘I thought you’d be back from your GWA travels by now.’

‘I am. We’re up in Auchterarder, with Prim’s folks. Miles, Dawn and I are going up to Deeside in the morning to start work on this movie. Where are you right now? Spying on Commies?’

‘There’s none of them left. They’re all called Social Democrats now. No, I’m at home with Susie.’

‘How’s she doing?’

‘She’s okay. She was shocked for a couple of days after the bang, but she’s back to normal now.’

‘What about you? Still mourning for that jacket?’

‘Claimed that on my insurance, son. I’ve been too busy looking for that bastard Donn to think of anything else.’

‘So it wasn’t work-related?’

‘Nah, definitely not. My boss is still keeping the investigation in-house though, and he’s letting me handle it.’

‘So how are you getting on?’

‘That’s just it. I’m not. The fucker seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. I’ve been checking around the city nightclubs, and I’ve found a couple where he’s known. I’ve been leaning on known drug-dealers, since we think he was involved in that racket with Susie’s wayward cousin. Some of them admitted having heard of him: I even picked up a whisper that he might have been the trigger man in a heroin execution in Paisley three years ago.

‘But nowhere, Oz, have I picked up the faintest sniff of him. If anyone knows where he is now, they’re too scared to say. Even as I speak, my nose is right up against a brick wall, and our SAS guy is still on the payroll, on a twenty-four hour basis, now, just to be on the safe side. I wondered. . and it hurts my pride to say this. . whether you’ve got any ideas?’

I’m sure he must have been almost able to hear my smile on the other end of the line. But I left it at that: this was too serious for triumph. I thought about his question for a few seconds. ‘Only one,’ I told him, eventually. ‘Given the link that you pointed out between our visit to his mother and the explosion, can you put a tap on her phone? The boy’s bound to phone his Mammy sooner or later. Maybe you should bug Uncle Joe too, and all the people who know Stephen.’

Dylan whistled. ‘Jeez, Oz,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. Wiretaps are supposed to be for exceptional circumstances. If we ask for too many, eyebrows are raised.’

I could not help but laugh. ‘What happened to Dylan the Decisive, the bloke we saw last Monday? Some guy’s trying to kill your girlfriend, Michael. Isn’t that exceptional? I suppose you could always take Mrs Donn down to headquarters and give her the rubber hose treatment, but I can’t help feeling that a phone-tap would be more discreet. Don’t bother with the rest if you’re worried; concentrate on her.’

As he might have sensed my smile, so I saw him frown. ‘I suppose, since we don’t have anything else. . I’ll ask my boss.’

‘You do that. Keep me in touch too. I’ve got an interest in this after all; the bugger melted a big chunk of my car park.’