Don’t be naive enough to believe that by paying this money you’ll get the photographs back. We’ll retain them in order to protect our interests, and ourselves. Arrangements will be made so that, should anything happen to Prim or me in the future, they will automatically go global.
Mrs Blackstone, you may not want to go along with this for your husband’s sake, but for that of your children we recommend that you do.
I looked at the address strip again. Yup, he’d sent it to Susie too.
I took a deep breath and opened the attachments; they took a while to download, but they were what I had expected, and feared. Under the influence of the drug, I looked as if I was on Planet Ecstasy, putting on the performance of a lifetime. You couldn’t see Prim’s face, of course: the pixels had been scrambled. Mine, however, was all too clear, and not just my face. The tabloids would go mental. . but not nearly as crazy as Susie.
I closed the images and deleted them, then went back to the message and sent a reply.
Okay. Sit tight.
When that was done, I sent Susie a mail; no text, just an attachment. Then I turned back to my friends. Liam had his impish look about him, but Everett was stone-faced: he could see his movie, his investment, and much of his business reputation heading up in smoke.
‘Give me a minute,’ I asked them. ‘I have to speak to my wife.’
I left them there, went into my bedroom and phoned Susie. I reckoned it was about four in the morning, even she would be asleep. Let her be anywhere, I thought, except sitting staring at her computer.
My small prayer was answered. She was awake, but she’d been in the toilet. ‘What is it?’ she asked, abruptly. ‘Wouldn’t your dad call me this time?’
‘Love,’ I told her. ‘After “Will you marry me?”, this is the second most important thing I’ll ever ask you. Do you love me, with all your heart, as I love you?’
I waited, until finally she said, very quietly, ‘Yes, you silly bugger, of course I do.’
‘Then I want to ask you to do something for both of us. When you open your e-mail you’ll find another message from Wallinger. I want you to delete it, unread; all of it. You’ll also find one from me; it’s an audio file. I want you to play it. Will you do that, love, please?’ I was aware that I sounded desperate, but I didn’t care.
‘If you say so, of course I will.’ I heard a great sigh explode out of me; no doubt she heard it too. ‘Just tell me what’s up.’
‘I’m the new Loch Lomondside village idiot,’ I replied, ‘and we’re being blackmailed.’
‘Who’s blackmailing us?’
‘Primavera, and her partner in crime.’
‘You mean all that was a lie?’
‘Yup, designed to sucker me in and knock me down. She took me, every step of the way.’
‘Then move over, idiot, because I bought it too. Have you caught them?’
‘One down, one to go: I still have to find the guy, though, and I’m not sure how to go about it.’
‘Don’t let her go, Oz,’ Susie warned me. ‘I want to see that cow again.’
‘Then get over here. I know you don’t like to, but leave the kids with Ethel and come out here.’
‘Bet on it,’ she said. ‘I’m on my way.’
Chapter 29
I was grinning when I rejoined Liam and Everett, but by that time nothing was going to surprise them. ‘I need a doctor up here,’ I announced. ‘I want blood and urine samples taken before all of that drug leaves my system.’
The giant nodded. ‘Sound idea. I’ll make that happen.’
‘Then I want the rest of the contents of that bottle analysed, and fingerprints taken from it, and the two glasses; their contents should be tested as well. I want to prove that her in there handled it as well as me and, if possible, I want to prove that she added the dope after she’d poured her own.’
‘Sounds to me that you want the cops,’ Liam suggested.
‘That’s the last thing any of us want, until it’s absolutely necessary. But I need to be ready if it comes to that. I need sworn affidavits taken from us all. If this does blow up on me and those photographs hit the press, I want to be able to fight back as hard as I can. Maybe it won’t get that far. Prim doesn’t scare easily, but if she sees herself winding up in jail, that might make her back off.’
‘Oz, you’re not going to throw her in the slammer.’
‘Liam, my son, for five million quid. .’
He grinned. ‘Okay, I take your point.’
Everett picked up the nearest phone and started giving orders. Within half an hour, the house physician had taken samples of my blood and piss. Half an hour after that detectives acting for the GWA’s lawyers had taken formal statements from the three of us, and had taken a computer disk with Prim’s confession on it.
‘Hey,’ said Liam, just as they left. ‘Shouldn’t the doc have taken a sample from her as well?’
‘He’d have got it all over his shoes if he’d tried. Anyway, she’s been tied up in that wardrobe for so long she’s probably given one by now.’
I was on my way to release her when the phone rang. It was Susie: she’d listened to the audio file, and she was firing off fifty rounds a second. ‘She drugged you! The bitch drugged you! Get the police, Oz.’
‘We don’t need the limelight, if it can be avoided.’
‘How much do they want?’
I told her.
‘Five mi. .’ She gasped. ‘Five fucking million! Get the police, Oz, no arguments!’
‘I will, if I have to. But, Susie, you’re forgetting something. There’s a kid involved.’
‘Come on, she invented the kid.’
‘No, Tom exists.’
‘What makes you so certain?’
‘Because he was on that plane to Minneapolis; we checked, remember. I’ve had Mark re-interview the private investigator she said she hired, and verify the passenger list.’
‘Maybe he was someone else’s: the man she’s working with, he could have a child.’
‘Susie, Prim’s had a child.’
‘How do you know for sure?’
I told her as discreetly as I could: ‘The same way I can look at you and know you have.’ She understood.
‘If you’re not going to call the police, how will you handle it?’
‘I’ve got two days to find the guy and get those images off him. Either I scare Prim enough to call him and tell him to quit, or I have to locate him.’
‘Shouldn’t we pay them, to be on the safe side?’
‘No chance in hell. She thinks she knows me so well; maybe she does, up to a point, but she’s wrong about that.’
‘To protect the kids, then?’
‘From what? Janet’s not four yet and Jonathan’s a baby. Ultimately it’s their fortune I’d be giving her. She can dream on.’
‘But how will you find the man, if she doesn’t help you?’
‘There’s one lead I can follow, one link I might be able to run down. Let me get on with it; it’s getting late here.’
‘And early here. Go on, then. Love you; see you soon.’
I hung up, went to Prim’s room and released her. She swore at me, then headed straight for the bathroom. When she returned, I took her through to the living area, where the guys were still waiting.
‘Hello again,’ said Everett, ponderously. She glared at him as if he was a five foot bellboy, rather than a seven foot plus ebony giant.
‘Here’s the deal,’ I began, as she sat. ‘Tell me who and where he is, and we’ll all be nice to you.’
‘Five million,’ she retorted.
‘Not a chance.’
‘Fuck off, then.’
‘Do you know how long you could get in this state for feeding me that drug? Everett’s lawyer says thirty years to life.’