‘Jonny? Why do you ask that?’
‘Ach, he’s torn, Oz. He wants to be like Harvey, and to impress him, but he wants to impress you even more. He wants to be like you too.’
‘Then send him to drama school, not law school. But better still, get him working on the golf so that in a couple of years he’ll be a candidate for a scholarship at an American university. He can study law there, then see what direction he wants to take.’
‘Golf?’
‘What are you going to do, Ellie? Tell the man what he’s going to do with his life? He won’t take that, and if you push it, you’ll wind up hurting you both.’
‘He’s a boy still, Oz,’ she protested weakly, with the voice of someone who had strained it shouting at the rising tide, ordering it not to come in any further.
I took a sip of my Rolling Rock and looked at her over the neck of the bottle. ‘You’re talking like a mother, Ellie. He’s a man. Legally he can walk out the door tomorrow, get his own place, start a career, start a family. Sure, he’s still got some growing up left, but those are his rights now, at his age. You want to help him, then advise him: set out all the options for him, even fucking dentistry, whatever Dad says, and let him make his own choice. Once he’s done that, respect it, but while he’s making his mind up, impress on him that his final choice shouldn’t be what he thinks Harvey or I might like him to do, but what he wants, in his heart.’
‘Jesus,’ she whispered. ‘Where did you acquire wisdom?’
‘Through long nights spent talking to Jan’s ghost.’
She stared at me. ‘Funny, that. Me too.’ Of course, Jan was her sister as well; I wished I could tell her, but I know I never can.
‘Will you be all right, Oz?’ she asked suddenly.
It was my turn to stare. ‘Hey, that sounds like what the bell-boy’s supposed to have said to George Best when he brought him and the latest Miss World room service. “Where did it all go wrong, Georgie?” I thought I was doing all right, thank you very much.’
‘Aye, you are, and you wear it well, too; you’re gracious. But there’s something eating at you.’
‘No,’ I protested ‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re fine and yet you’re not. Are you and Susie okay?’
‘Susie and I are perfect. I just. . I wish I could spend all my time with her and the kids, but the life I’m in doesn’t allow for that. I wish I could be there now, but Fate says, “No way.” I’ve spent the last couple of weeks on a familiarisation course of Edinburgh’s two hospitals, and chasing around Singapore and Malaysia after an ungrateful fucking cow. I’m not blaming Harvey for that, by the way. If I was in trouble he’d be the first guy I’d go to for help, and I’d get it. But when I’m away I feel unsettled, I feel vulnerable, I feel. . I can’t explain.’
‘Try.’
‘Okay, in Singapore I met this girl, Marie. She’s an actress and she helped me out with something. I liked her, we had a drink, and we had lunch together on Tuesday.’
‘And you. .’
‘No.’
‘Let me finish. You wanted to but you didn’t.’
‘Ellie, I can’t even admit to myself that I wanted to.’
‘But you did, you were attracted to the woman sexually, and maybe it was there for you. You’re a man, for God’s sake, and your profession exposes you to some of the most beautiful women in the world, and occasionally exposes them to you, from what I’ve seen of your movies. You shouldn’t be ashamed that you wanted to have her. You should be proud that you didn’t.’
She got up from her garden recliner, went into the kitchen, and came back with two more Rolling Rocks. ‘Go home, Oz. Let the police find the first Mrs January.’
‘The police? I was a policeman and I couldn’t find my arse with both hands. Mike Dylan was a policeman, and he got shot. Ricky Ross was a policeman and he got slung out for screwing the wife of a murder victim, a prime suspect in a case he was investigating. Maddy January’s in trouble because her talent for candid camera photography led her to take a picture of the top man in organised crime in South East Asia. He’s been there for years, and their police are so good that they don’t know his name or what he looks like. Ellie, if I had your confidence I’d do what you say, but I don’t. I’m the best chance this woman’s got of staying alive, even if she doesn’t know it. If I give up on her and she dies, as she will, Susie will never forgive me, Harvey will never forgive me, and I’ll never forgive myself. But you know what frightens me the most?’
‘What?’
‘Jan will never forgive me.’
‘Oz,’ our Ellen whispered, ‘Jan’s gone.’
I found that I was crying softly. ‘You may choose to believe that,’ I told her, ‘but I never will.’
37
I didn’t sleep that night: I knew that if I dropped off I’d dream of Jan, and that if I did, waking up would hurt, maybe more than I could handle at that time.
So instead I read a book, Lethal Intent, the latest Skinner novel, which Ellie had left for me in the guest room. Eventually the pages swam before my eyes, so I laid it down to be resumed later (I’d buy my own copy next chance I had: as an actor I have this secret belief that sharing books and DVDs is morally wrong) and picked up a notepad and pen from the bedside table.
I began to make notes, and to look for unanswered questions flowing from what had happened in Singapore. When I thought about it, there were only two. Had Sammy Goss’s meeting with us in the Crazy Elephant been sheer, blind coincidence? Since I only believe in coincidence when it doesn’t matter a damn, that led on to the second question. How the hell had he known that we’d be there?
I thought about that for a while, but I got nowhere near an answer.
After that I just thought, ready to make random notes about oddities as they occurred, but none did. . until around four thirty in the morning. I found myself looking at a mind picture, looking for something, and being unable to find it. I switched on my mobile, found the entry for Benny Luker, and hit the call key.
‘Yes,’ he shouted in my ear, over background music that sounded as if it was live.
‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Where the hell are you?’
‘The Iridium Jazz Club, on Broadway; Mose Allison’s on. The set’s just winding up. Hold on and I’ll find somewhere quieter if that’s possible in here.’
I waited until the music stopped and the background buzz was cut off.
‘Okay, I’m in the gents’. What’s up? Has she been found?’
‘No, but she was in Vietnam on Tuesday. She called her brother from there, and she’s seriously pissed off at me, for some reason. He’s caused some local difficulty, but that’s been dealt with and he’ll be going away for a spell.’
‘Do you know where she headed from there?’
‘No, but Ricky and I have someone working on it, Ollie Coffey, Special Branch.’
‘I remember him.’
‘Yes, well, try and remember this. When we were in Tony Lee’s flat, in his office, we saw a docking station for a palmtop computer, a PDA.’
‘Yes, Hewlett Packard manufacture.’
‘Did you see the unit itself anywhere?’
As he thought about it, or as I thought he thought about it, I heard a toilet flush. ‘Sorry. I took a piss while I’m here. The answer is no, I definitely did not.’
‘No, me neither. So, possibilities: maybe Tony had it and Sammy took it after he’d killed him.’
‘Maybe, or maybe it was in his car, or in his office.’
‘Or maybe Madeleine took it with her. They had a scanner, okay, mostly she used film for photography, but there was an empty folder called “Maddy’s pics” on the computer. What can you store on a PDA?’
‘Quite a lot: they take standard SD cards. I see where you’re going. You think she might have taken some bargaining power along with her.’
‘My, my, we do work well as a team. I’ll keep you informed if Coffey comes up with anything.’
‘Coffey might get his arse kicked, getting involved with this.’
‘Knowingly or not, Maddy incited an attack on Scotland’s newest judge. He can dress that up as possible terrorism.’