‘After Jo poured it, did you drink it straightaway, or did you let it lie on the bar?’ I felt as if I was back at my old job, interviewing witnesses for lawyer clients.
‘No, it lay there for a bit. I know, because. . That’s right, one of the pool players, the younger one, came in to pay JoJo for his drinks. He got out his wallet and all his cards and stuff fell on the floor. I helped him pick them up.’
‘Aye, and while you were doing that, he slipped something into your drink.’
‘You think so?’ Susie exclaimed.
‘I’m bloody certain. Either he or the other guy did. Given the amount you’d had to drink, a simple sleeping powder would have done you in.’
‘Well, it couldn’t have been the older bloke. He was just coming through from the back room when the other fellow dropped his stuff. I remember seeing his feet when I was picking it up.’
‘This first guy. What did he look like?’
‘Let me think; tall, but then most men look tall to me, clean-shaven, wore glasses, dark hair, around thirty maybe.’
‘Nationality?’
‘I don’t know. JoJo spoke Spanish to him, but he never said a word; not even thanks to me, just a wee nod when I handed him his stuff. Then he put a note on the bar and left without waiting for his change, as if he was in a hurry.’
‘I guess he was.’ Maybe because he didn’t want me to see him.
‘Wait a minute, Oz. If this guy spiked my drink, then broke in and tried to do me, and it was all planned and everything, how did he know we’d be at JoJo’s in the first place?’
‘Who says he did? He might just have seen his chance and taken it. But no; I think he must have spotted us together earlier on and followed us there. I think his real aim was to get rid of me, not you.’
‘How?’
‘By having me huckled off by the police for doing you in, or at least for trying to.’
The breath she took was so deep I heard it clearly down the phone.
‘Oz. Get out of there now, please. You’re starting to worry me. Go and patch it up with Prim in Barcelona; come to me, even, if that’s what you want, but do something. ’
‘You think I’m cracking up?’ I laughed.
‘No, of course not, but you have had a hell of a time. I don’t like the thought of you being there on your own.’
‘It’s the way I want it, and don’t worry about me. Now, how are you?’
‘I’m all right. I phoned Prim and she tore me to ribbons, but when we were finished, I sort of had the impression that she would go back home in a couple of days, once you’ve had time to stew in it.’
‘That’s okay by me. I don’t want her here right now. Not till I get this sorted out.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘Yes, no. What the fuck.’
‘Och, Oz honey, I’m sorry. I wish I’d stayed in Glasgow.’
‘Do you really?’
‘No. But now I’ve traded one care for another, and I don’t know what’s worse. Last week, I was worried about myself and tripping over my lack of self-esteem. You cured that, and no mistake, but there’s been a trade. Now I’m worried about you. Take care of yourself, pretty boy. You’ve got too much going for you to chuck it all away. G’night now.’
‘You too.’
Sometimes it’s a hard life just being yourself, you know. After Susie’s call, I sat there on the beach wall, still looking out to sea. Offshore, the lights from the small anchovy boats shone like fireflies as they bobbed on the surface of the untroubled Mediterranean.
Lucky bloody Mediterranean. My troubles were pressing down on me like the world on the shoulders of Atlas and, without knowing it, my weekend lover had just added another. I didn’t know if I wanted Susie worrying about me, because that meant caring too and no way did I want that; I might feel obliged to care back, or to be really honest, and admit that I did already.
The ludicrous thing about the whole situation was that she was dead right about one thing she had said. Not many guys on the planet had more going for them than me right at that moment. Millionaire, movie actor, plenty of places still to go and the ruthlessness to make sure that I got to each and every one of them.
So why the hell was I getting myself involved in a dangerous situation into which I had stumbled by accident, and away from which I could walk without fear of retribution?
‘So why am I, Jan?’ I asked, out loud, my breath cloudy in the sharpness of the evening.
‘Good question, Oz,’ she answered. ‘And you don’t have an answer to it, my daft darlin’ do you?’
‘Not a good one, other than. . It’s a bit like sleeping with Susie; if I hadn’t, I know I’d have spent my life wondering, and probably regretting it.’
‘But what if it has consequences that could follow you, looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. . just like sleeping with Susie?’
‘What consequences could that have?’
‘Time will tell. But what if. .?’
‘They can join the queue of Oz’s secrets. The man in Geneva, Davidoff’s tomb, Mike Dylan’s death, the real Noosh Turkel story; it’s getting crowded back there. I’d ask you to say hello to them, love, but I know they’ll all be somewhere else.’
‘Thank you for that, darlin’.’
‘Do you think I’m going to wind up where you are, then?’
‘Count on it. You’ll always be where I am. I’ll always be where you are.’
‘But how can that be if I’m the heartless bastard that Susie showed me I am?’
‘You’re not. You’re angry and hurt about what happened to me. You tried to hide from it by making Prim a substitute for me, just like she tried to make you a substitute for Ramon, and for another man in Perthshire, before she ever met you, before she went to Africa. Someone she never told you about. . the reason she went to Africa, in fact.
‘But you can only cure that sort of hurt one way: it’s beyond all other forms of repair. I know, because I feel it too.’
‘So what am I?’
‘You’re what you’ve been made into. When you were a boy you were artless and innocent, like Jonny. Then you became a self-indulgent young man, fulfilling your own desires, first and foremost. Then you found yourself again, and me.’
‘How could you love someone like that?’
‘Because I was someone like that. That’s what Susie doesn’t know. Artless like you as a child, then just as self-indulgent as a young adult. Until I rediscovered you, and myself. Then it was all cut short.’
‘So what do I do?’ I asked her, aloud again.
‘You know what to do. Just don’t hurt anyone. . unless they deserve it.’
‘And what if it’s dangerous?’
‘Then you might be with me sooner rather than later.’ I’ll swear I could hear her laugh, but it was bitter, unlike any I’d ever heard from her in life. ‘What do you want me to say? “Live long and prosper, darlin’”?
‘Just look out for Jonathan, that’s all. Colin’s like his mum, but look out for Jonny …’
And then the spell was broken and she was gone, into the night. I blinked and sat bolt upright on the wall, wakened from my dream. Yes, dream for sure, except. .
I had to do it, there and then. I called the Husa Princesa in Barcelona. When they dialled her room, Prim answered on the fourth ring.
‘Oz, what is it?’ she murmured, huskily, as if she had been asleep. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I have no idea, love. I just want you to promise me something, that’s all. Next time I see you, I want you to tell me about the man in Perthshire, before you went to work in Africa.’
There was a long silence, so long that I began to wonder whether she had hung up on me.