I looked at him. I don’t think I was smiling at the time. ‘Some pal you are. So the meetings with Trevor at the golf club, they were all prearranged?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the other people at the auction?’
‘All hired hands. The whole thing worked a treat. Mind you, Starr went further than I intended. Our deal was that he would fold at two hundred and fifty US, but Starr and his phoney Swiss took a chance and carried on up to four hundred.’
I shook my head. ‘But why? What did you have against Scott?’
Foy shrugged. ‘Gav thinks he’s a real player. I just wanted to show him he was still small-time, that’s all.’
‘And what was in it for you?’ asked Prim.
‘Twenty per cent … which I never got.’
I smiled at him. ‘Appropriate in the circumstances. What happened?’
‘I haven’t seen Starr since that night in Peretellada. We had agreed that the three of us would meet up there again, a fortnight after the pay-off, to divvy up. Trevor and I showed, but there was no sign of the other fella. Only a message that dinner was on him, and that he hoped we’d enjoy it.’
‘Have you tried to find him?’
Foy grinned, ruefully. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start. I did employ some local talent to ask around, but they came up empty. Like you said, I suppose it serves me right.’
Prim and I nodded, simultaneously, and stood up to leave. Outside, the short, heavy storm was over. Foy called after us as we walked down the drive. ‘You won’t tell Gav, right?’
Prim looked over her shoulder. ‘You haven’t given us a single reason why we shouldn’t. What do you think we’ll do?’
We left him, staring after us, with a king-size worry that hadn’t been there half an hour earlier.
35
Next day we took a stroll round the marina in L’Escala. It was quieter than in July and August, many of the boats having been taken out already for the winter. But there were still hundreds moored in the big basin, and so looking for a single boat was like searching for one anchovy among the shoal.
It didn’t help either that La Sirena turned out to be the most popular name for a small boat in all Catalunya. We must have found a dozen of them before we happened on what we guessed must be Trevor Eames’ boat, moored sharp end in against the quay furthest from the shore.
It was an eighteen-foot sail-boat, with a single mast and a classic wheel, behind the steps leading down to its cabin. La Sirena Two was emblazoned on either side of the bow, and a pair of small pram dinghies were lashed, not to the cabin roof as Gary had said, but to the sides.
Everything else was lashed down too. We tried the cabin door, but it was locked, and the windows were curtained. It was pretty obvious that Trevor was still at sea.
On the way back to St Marti, Prim had an idea. ‘We really should check out the place at Peretellada, shouldn’t we. Just in case the phoney Starr was daft enough to have booked the dinner using his real name.’
‘Fat chance, but yes, you’re right.’
‘Then why don’t I,’ she said, ‘take Davidoff along there with me tomorrow, to ask some questions?’
I looked at her, right eyebrow cocked. ‘Oh yes! After some more courtship.’
She grinned. ‘And why not. A lady likes to be wooed. You still don’t quite realise that, do you?’
All of a sudden, I was miles away, thinking of Jan and my impulse buy in Laing’s. All of a sudden, I was torn in two.
Prim dug me in the ribs. ‘Hey.’
‘Sorry. Of course I do. I’m just not very good at it, that’s all.’
‘Well, it’s time you put in some practice.’
My conscience must have pricked me, for as soon as we reached St Marti, I dropped Prim off and without warning, headed back the way we had come. She was on the terrace when I returned, looking tense. ‘What’s up?’ she said. ‘Why the huff?’
‘No huff,’ I said, and handed her a small brown box. She opened it. Inside, on a white satin cushion, were the gold dolphin earrings which she had admired, pointedly, in a designer jeweller’s window in L’Escala a few evenings before. From behind my back, I produced a single red rose.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ve been a bugger lately.’
Holding the rose in one hand and the earrings in the other, she rose up on tiptoe and kissed me.
‘You may not be in the Davidoff class as a romantic,’ she whispered, ‘but I suppose you do your best.’
Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.
36
As good as her word, my partner headed off for Peretellada just after noon next day, to pick up Davidoff from Shirley’s en route. The rest of our Sunday had been slightly strange, with Prim preening herself in her new earrings and me feeling increasingly tense and guilty.
Fortunately, she had her period, for if she had been expecting me to make love to her, I think I would have been struggling to do her justice. That evening, we dined on pizza at Casa Minana. Miguel wasn’t there, but his father told me that he had gone for a drink with his wife’s nephew in L’Escala.
Left on my own next morning, I was writing up reports on the two projects which Shirley had helped us research, when the phone rang. I picked it up and heard the fax tone. It connected and five pages were excreted. Four of them were new business enquiries from our second ad the previous Friday, and the fifth was an explanatory note from Jan.
Less than a minute after the transmission had stopped, the phone rang again. This time, there was a voice on the line. Jan’s.
‘Hi there. Did all that stuff come through okay?’
‘Yeah, clear as a bell.’
‘So how are you?’
‘I’ve been better.’
There was a silence. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, eventually. ‘I was home at the weekend, and Mac collared me. He said he’d given you a sort of a bollocking … his words. It made me realise that it was really me who deserved it, and that I’ve been an unthinking bitch. I should have told you about Noosh and me as soon as it happened, and asked your permission to use the loft. I’m sorry.
‘What I shouldn’t have done was sleep with you. Prim’s a great lass, Oz, and the two of you are perfectly happy. You don’t need, and Prim doesn’t deserve, me messing your life about.’
She paused again, then went on in a cold, flat, matter-of-fact voice I’d never heard before. ‘You probably can’t talk now. The only other thing I want to say is, forget that night ever happened, and forget all that stuff I came out with next day. You’re with Prim, and it’s for the right reason … you love her. I’ll see you at the wedding … both of you.’
I sat there, my heart pounding, and a cold feeling gripping me. I had never heard her like this before, not even in the tense times in our twenties, when we were drifting apart. ‘I can talk okay,’ I said. ‘Is that how you want it to be, Jan?’ A vision of her, naked in the light of morning, appeared in my mind.
‘Yes. That’s how I want it to be. See you four weeks on Friday.’The words snapped out, then the line went dead.
There was nothing to do after that but go for a beer, even though it was still only lunchtime. I dragged myself down to the square, in something close to a daze. Half an hour before, I had thought I was as confused as I could get. I had been wrong.
I was gazing into my empty glass, my mind still bouncing between Edinburgh and St Marti, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘Hey Oz, you alone today?’
I looked up, brought back to my surroundings. ‘Oh, hi, Miguel. Yes, Prim’s away. So was I, just then.’
‘If you like, I leave you alone.’
‘No, no. Please join me.’ I looked around. All the other tables were empty. ‘You don’t seem to have anything else to do.’