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Chapter 40

‘It all fits now, Mike.’ We were at a corner table in one of my favourite restaurants, one of Glasgow’s oldest and finest Asian eateries, not far from the university. Liam and I had caught the ten-fifteen shuttle from Heathrow, allowing me time to make a few calls and to arrange to meet my policeman pal for lunch.

‘Ronnie and Vic were shown a snatched photo of Liam and me. This guy has been keeping very careful tabs on me and my friends, then setting them up. The jigsaw’s complete: the London incident wasn’t an odd piece; it fits exactly.

‘It’s just as well that the Neames brothers take a cautious approach to their business. If they had jemmied Liam’s door open and he’d woken up in time, they might have left in body bags — but if not, he might.’

I paused. ‘Christ, Mike, but I had some job calming him down last night. I had to tell him what’s been happening, but it took me a while to convince him that I wasn’t crazy. He wouldn’t have it at first; reckoned that it was someone out of his past, not mine. He had two theories, either that he had knocked off the wrong man’s woman at some point — before he met Erin, Liam would have shagged anything that moved — or that something from his youth in Belfast might have come back to haunt him.’

‘Did he say what?’

‘No. And I didn’t ask him. Eventually he accepted what I was telling him, that the attack was linked to me rather than him.’

‘Wait a minute, though.’ Dylan paused to munch on a pakora. ‘If someone had broken into your man’s bedroom and caved his head in, why should that have been linked to you?’

‘Because a couple of years ago Liam and I had a very public falling out, in Newcastle. It was my first weekend with the GWA. He came on way too strong to Jan, I got the red mist and banjoed him.’

Dylan stared at me. ‘You thumped Matthews?’ he gasped.

‘Like I said, I didn’t think about it at the time. Fortunately Everett was there, and he stepped in. We’re all fine with each other now, but it was the talk of the town at the time.’

‘Sure, but that was two years ago.’

‘Which tells me that my evil-wisher knows a hell of a lot about me; maybe he’s been watching me for all that time. And what about the baseball bat?’ I added.

‘What about it?’

‘They were told to leave it there.’

‘So?’

‘So the police could put me in the frame for the job, eventually. If Liam had been done, they’d have been bound to search the hotel for a weapon. No way could they have proved I’d smuggled it out of the hotel in the middle of the night, especially if I hadn’t. But if they’d found it in Liam’s room. .

‘Later on, in the context of a string of charges against the mad serial killer Blackstone, the very fact that the bat and I were in the same hotel might have been enough.’

‘Not for the Crown Prosecution Service, surely.’

‘Oh no? Given my history with Liam? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we submit that Mr Blackstone, with a long memory for an old insult, had opportunity, access, and oh look, there’s the weapon. You tell me they wouldn’t have run with that.’

‘Maybe,’ Mike conceded. ‘They’d have given you some trouble over it, that’s for sure.’ He spooned some Lamb Madras on to his boiled rice. ‘So what’s the next move, maestro?’ he asked.

‘That’s the trouble, I don’t have one. This guy’s paralysed my life, man — or he’s trying to. I could make myself safe, I suppose, by hiring a bodyguard and hiding in my flat, but if I do that I might as well be in Perth nick.

‘There’s only one positive thing I can do: get back out there and try to smoke the bastard out. I’m off to Cardiff tonight with the GWA: I spoke to Everett before I came here and put him in the picture. I offered to pull out of the show, but you know the Big Man. He told me that chances are I’m imagining the whole thing, but that even if I’m not, there’s no way he’ll back off from any maternal fornicator. So it’s business as usual, but he’s going to treble security at the arena and in the hotel, just in case.

‘Then on Monday, I’m due in London to complete my stint on Miles’ movie. I called him as well, although Prim had already been in touch with Dawn. They have on-site security too, so there should be no risk there.’

Dylan nodded. ‘There’s not much else you can do. I’ll make sure that your folks, Ellen, Prim and her parents are all under police observation. How’s Mr Phillips, by the way?’

‘SuperDave? He’s recovering well. His brain was pretty fried by the atropine, but they don’t reckon there’ll be any lasting damage; they’re letting him home this afternoon. Prim’s staying up there for the weekend.’

‘Best place for her. When she gets back to Glasgow, tell her to travel everywhere by taxi. That car park of yours is vulnerable, as we all know too well.

‘Mind you, Oz,’ he continued, ‘my guess is that the man may have played himself out. If he’s watching you as closely as you think, he’ll know that you spent Tuesday with the police and that you were released. He’ll know as well that you’ve been to London with Matthews, and even if he didn’t follow you there, he’ll have guessed why.

‘So chances are, he’ll have worked out by now that you’ve rumbled his strategy.’

I liked his reasoning. ‘That’s good news, then.’

‘For your nearest and dearest, maybe; for you maybe not. This guy’s been prepared to kill or maim your relatives and friends just to make you suffer. He may not be inclined to walk away, simply because he can’t do that easily any more. He may decide instead to finish it all with a direct attack on you.

‘So I would watch it, Oz. I’d be very careful. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to hire that bodyguard.’

Having cheered me up for a second, he’d dropped me right back in it. I waited until he was chewing on his next mouthful of our shared Madras, before I said, ‘Don’t you think I should hire a food taster as well?’