She smiled, but a touch defensively. ‘Well! Indulge me, okay?’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘We’ll go to Ventallo on Wednesday … after we have another look for Trevor Eames. His voyage can’t be going on for ever.’
38
It was probably a blessing that Blackstone Spanish Investigations seemed to be welcomed by the market, and to be generating substantial momentum. Both Prim and I spent the best part of the next day, without taking a siesta and with barely a break for lunch, preparing responses to the enquiries which Jan had faxed through.
Prim was excited, because the investigation business was still new to her, and allowed her to use her considerable brain in an entirely different way from what she was used to in her nursing career.
I got a buzz from it too; partly because enquiries like these, and my interview in Tarragona, straightforward factual work as they were, made me feel somehow that I was back in my real world after an extended lie-in, and partly because it allowed me to concentrate on something other than our pursuit of the two Ronald Starrs, skeleton and impostor, or on my disturbing conversation with Jan of the day before.
‘Partner,’ said Prim as I sorted through all of the paper which our day had generated, ‘we are on to a good thing here. If this is what it’s like after our second speculative ad, imagine what it’s going to be like when we really get our marketing act together.’
‘Eh?’
‘You heard. Look, all we’ve done so far is stick a toe in the water, for no other reason than to keep ourselves occupied. In a very short time we’ve found out that the water’s pretty deep.’ She leaned across the terrace table. ‘If we put together a sensible marketing strategy, with more focused advertising in the right journals, and with carefully targeted mailshots, we could build up a pretty respectable business in no time.’
I stared at her. ‘Come on, love, how many hours are in the day?’
She stared right back at me. ‘Eight times the number of people you hire.’
I couldn’t think of a quick comeback to that one.
‘We needn’t just be hiring them here, either,’ she said. ‘Why shouldn’t BSI work in both directions, like the guy in the Consulate suggested, handling investigations in Britain for Spanish clients? Come to that why should it restrict itself to Britain? With a little planning we could have a business dedicated to answering questions all over Europe, and providing information to order from a database, and …’
‘… and hold on just a minute! Have you any idea what it would take to set up a business like that?’
Her stare had turned into a frown. ‘We’ve got quite a bit at our disposal.’
‘I don’t only mean cash. I mean the time it would swallow, and the implications it would have for our lives. Have you any idea what’s involved in running a business?’
‘Yes. Hard work, self-discipline, dedication, reliability, quality standards: that sort of stuff.’
‘Sure, and accountants, bankers, lawyers, health and safety inspectors, VAT men, office overheads, employee overheads, employees’ statutory rights, customers you never get to know, customers you can’t stand but can’t tell to piss off in case they rubbish you in the market place, customers who don’t pay their bills, overdrafts, ulcers: that sort of stuff.’
I shook my head. ‘I could have done all that in Edinburgh, love, but I chose to be self-employed. I like being self-employed. I feel comfortable being self-employed. I don’t want to run a business that has a hundred mouths to feed. I don’t want to feel responsible for so many people’s lives. I don’t want to be able to go round the world on the air-miles I’ve racked up on business flights during the year.’
That frown of hers had deepened. ‘Don’t you have any ambitions?’
I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it, but she didn’t like that; not one bit. I stood up and walked across to the edge of the terrace. ‘Take a look out there. That’s the Mediterranean. Those are the Pyrenees. This is a very comfortable home in a beautiful place in the sunshine. We have cash in the bank, and earning capacity. We can live here, or in Scotland, as we choose. All these advantages, all the parts of our lifestyle are wildest dream stuff for most of the guys I know. I’m thirty, and they’re all reality. I reckon I’d be greedy if I had any more. Now you’re saying they’re not enough.’
She stood up and stamped her foot in frustration. ‘Come on! You must always have a goal. Otherwise …’
‘Otherwise what? Isn’t being happy enough?’ I paused, and smiled, trying to put out the flames. ‘If you want me to have a goal, how about extending the Blackstone line? To tell you the god’s honest, that’s the only ambition I’ve got left.’
Someone must have filled my fire extinguisher with petrol when I wasn’t looking. ‘That’s all the growing you want to do for the rest of your life, is it?’ she exploded. ‘Your bloody dynasty?You can have kids and be a business success too, you know.’
‘But I’m a business success already, as far as I’m concerned. You and I, we are a business success.’
She shook her head. ‘Oz, what will you be like when you’re old?’
I looked at her, puzzled. ‘Knackered, probably. I’ll be like my dad, I hope, although he’s still a few years away from old himself. What do you want me to be like?’
She stepped up and seized me by the shirt front. ‘I want you to be fighting against being old. I want the flame of ambition always to be burning inside you.’
It dawned on me. ‘You want me to be like Davidoff, don’t you.’
For an instant, she looked defensive, then she tugged my shirt again, yanking out a few chest hairs in the process. ‘And why not? Most men his age … whatever that might be … have given up the ghost, but not him. He looks after himself. He’s fit, he’s charming, he’s funny and he’s full of life.’
‘Not all of him, according to Shirley.’
She flashed her eyes at me. ‘Whatever the truth of that, he isn’t a boring old fart. You could be one of those by the time you’re forty.’
This was getting near the bone. ‘Only if I’m bored myself, dear,’ I retorted. The flames in her eyes went out instantly, and were replaced by hurt. I grabbed her and hugged, and she pressed her face against my chest, as if to smother any more anger. ‘Sorry, Prim my love,’ I said. ‘This is a daft argument anyway. It shouldn’t be about what I want, or what you want, but about what we agree together that we want.
‘Tell you what. This weekend, we’ll draw up a business plan, and maybe when we go back for Dad’s wedding, we’ll see about taking someone on in Edinburgh, to market the business for us. Long-term decisions can wait till then.’
She was mollified, but there was still tension between us when we arrived at Shirley’s three hours later. We found that we knew all of the other guests. Ma and Pa Miller were among them, no longer in the shadow of Steve, now that he had gone back to England.
Fortunately, the whist turned out to be optional; good news for me since I hate card games of any form, and good news for Prim, since it meant that she could allow herself to be whisked into the garden by Davidoff with a clear conscience. I watched him nosing his Cava and nodding his approval as they headed for the door. When he was with Prim he always seemed a wee bit taller, his back a wee bit straighter, his shoulders a wee bit wider.
I heard his voice drift back to me. ‘Ah, these unspeakable people. Had it not been for you, I think I would have gone today.’
‘Where would you have gone to, Davidoff?’ I heard her ask. ‘Where do you live?’
I strained to hear the answer, but it was lost as Adrian Ford caught my elbow, with a cheery, ‘Hello!’
I turned towards him, leaving Prim to her fate with a smile. ‘Glad you could come,’ he said at once. ‘My sister didn’t give me a choice about tonight. She said I was co-host and that was it.’ He paused. ‘Are you a cards man, Oz … or would you prefer a game of snooker?’