Wearing Purple

Chapter 20

The Ubiquitous Chip is a sort of Glaswegian oasis. We’d heard about it not long after we came to the city, and we’d gone there once, for lunch in mid-week when we were feeling flush, but dinner on a Saturday evening was a new experience for us.

The place has a courtyard style, although it’s watertight. Just as well; it had started to rain just as Jan picked me up from the SECC, and as we sat there we could still hear it battering off the roof. It’s a bit showbiz too. This may be simply because it’s very close to the headquarters of BBC Scotland, but a couple of months as a citizen of Glasgow had given me the distinct impression that the whole place is culture-chic crazy.The Burrell reception had underlined that; not long before we left, Susie, Mike, Jan and I were photographed by a girl who said she was from Hello magazine. My wife and I had been astonished, but the Lady Provost had assured us that it was an everyday occurrence in Gantry-land.

From our small corner table, I glanced around the lower dining area and was almost relieved to see that — apart from a woman who presented a heavyweight television news programme — I didn’t recognise anyone.

‘Penny for ’em,’ drawled Jan as she dissected her thick venison steak. From our youngest days, I had always been impressed by the way she ate; carefully, sensually, regarding her food as a pleasure to be savoured.

‘A miserable bloody penny!’ I retorted. ‘My thoughts do not come cheap, I’ll have you know.’ There was nothing sensual about me as I stripped the top layer off my skate wing: I was just pacing myself, so that we finished at more or less the same time. I learned to do that when I was a kid. Ellie and I played this very serious game, where the winner was the one who had the last mouthful.

‘Okay, fifty pence.’

‘Throw in index-linked increases for future transactions and you’re on. I was just thinking that Glasgow’s a real goldfish bowl. Through here it’s as if everyone’s looking at you all the time, whereas in Edinburgh, everyone averts their eyes.’

She nodded, stopping her fork halfway to her mouth. ‘You and I adapted right away then. We live in a bloody goldfish bowl. Fortunately it’s too high up for anyone to look in on us.’ The fork moved on, then stopped again. ‘I know what you mean though. You’re no one in this city if you’re not famous.’

We ate in silence for a while. The meal was expensive enough to deserve our complete attention. ‘That was excellent,’ said Jan, when she was finished. ‘I’m glad you gave Jerry our table at the other place.’

‘Yeah, although that’s very good as well. It’s quieter though, and maybe better suited for the purpose of — how will I put it? — sexual negotiation.’ I glanced around. ‘Everyone in here knows exactly where they’re going afterwards. ’

‘So that’s what Jerry’s doing, is it,’ my wife whispered, with a smile.

‘Christ no. It’ll be Sally who does the negotiating. The big guy’s so terrified I’m not sure that they’ll sign the treaty, though.’

‘What’s he scared of?’

‘Her. The Behemoth is in love.’

Jan’s smile disappeared. ‘I hope she lets him down easy. Jerry’s such a nice guy; he was so good with Colin last week.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I got the impression that she was quite keen too.’ I took a sip of the Rawson’s Reserve. ‘I don’t know what Jerry’s small talk will be like though. I just hope he doesn’t say anything he shouldn’t.’

‘About Tommy what’s-his-name, you mean?’

I shook my head. ‘No. The whole crew knew that Rockette hit Daze with a real guitar as soon as they saw the way it broke. They saw the way the guy went down too. Jeez, you should have seen it. I bumped into him just as I was leaving the hall: he’s got a lump as big as a golf ball on his forehead.

‘No. I meant that I hope Jerry doesn’t say anything about the sabotage, or about me.’

‘Why not? Is Sally a suspect?’

‘I don’t see it. She’s relatively new to the game. I don’t see the man Reilly recruiting her. But I got involved in this thing on the basis that only the immediate circle, by which I meant Everett and Diane — who still doesn’t know about me, by the way — were in on the operation. Suppose word got around that I was a plant; Christ, I might become a target myself!’

Jan stared at me. ‘I hadn’t thought of that one. I agree, let’s hope they don’t get down to pillow talk.’

She fell silent as the waiter arrived to hand us the sweet menu, and to clear away the empty dishes. ‘How much longer are you going on with this, Oz?’ she asked me, as he left.

‘I’ll give it another couple of weeks,’ I told her. ‘I’ve been doing some constructive thinking about this, at last, and I’ve come up with an angle we can investigate positively. If Tony Reilly of CWI has recruited a saboteur, it’s likely to be a Yank. Apart from Everett, Diane and Jerry, there are six other Americans on the payroll.

‘Of those, two were back in the States on holiday when the barrier was fixed. Barbara, the marketing girl, was in Europe doing advance work for future events. Dave Manson is a victim, and his cousin Chris was involved by accident in his injury, so he’s ruled out. That leaves Sonny Leonard, the foreman roadie. Everett thinks that he’s okay, but he’d say that about every member of the team, except Liam, if you put it to him. So he’s agreed that we concentrate on him.

‘Leonard has one of the company’s mobile phones, which he uses all the time. On Monday, that being his day off, I’m going to GWA to look with Everett at the itemised bills for that number. We’ll see if that throws up anything.’

‘If it doesn’t, are you still going to Barcelona?’

I smiled at her. ‘I have to. I’m the star ring announcer, remember.’

As I spoke, Jan looked up and over my shoulder. I followed her gaze and found a stocky, balding young man looking down at me. He was wearing a crumpled suit, a sure sign that it was a designer job and very, very expensive. ‘How goes it, Marlowe?’ Greg McPhillips, my lawyer pal, asked. ‘You’ve got Glasgow well sorted, haven’t you.’

Greg and I were friends at university. Afterwards, as I went briefly and disastrously into the police force, before finding my niche as a Private Enquiry Agent, he joined Glasgow’s leading firm of general solicitors and became a partner at the age of twenty-eight: not surprising since the firm was called McPhillips, and had been founded thirty years earlier by his old man.

‘We’re finding our way around. Pull up a chair and have a drink with us.’

He glanced over his shoulder at the blonde behind him. He had a string of them, every one as designer as his suit. ‘Sorry Oz, we can’t. Poppy’s talked me into going to see a band at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut. We’re struggling for time as it is.

‘No, I just came over to congratulate you on being such an insinuating bastard.’

Jan had met Greg before. She didn’t like him: something to do with his attitude to women. ‘Pardon?’ she said, in a tone which indicated that a shot in the mouth could follow shortly.

He smiled his way out of trouble. ‘No offence Jan,’ he boomed, in his big hearty voice. ‘I just meant that I gave your husband a recommendation to Everett bloody Davis as the very man to sort out his petty cash fiddler, and the next thing I see he’s talked himself into a job as GWA’s ring announcer.

‘I’m taping tonight’s show. I take it that you’re on again.’

‘Starring role, man, starring role. It’s a great show tonight, as well.’

‘I’ll look forward to it, then. Must rush now. Goodnight, Jan.’

We watched him as he headed for the door, dragging Poppy behind him, the girl teetering on her unfeasibly high heels.

‘That settles it,’ said my wife, emphatically. ‘You are getting out of this thing as fast as you can. With that idiot shooting his mouth off all over Glasgow, your actor cover’s going to be blown in no time.

‘Get this sorted, Oz. A lady in my condition doesn’t need to be worrying about her man.’