I couldn’t help it; I hesitated. I think I probably frowned as well. Doesn’t matter how often it happens, I reckon I will always be just a wee bit embarrassed when someone asks for my autograph. She misunderstood me; Anna’s Chin seemed to fall and her dimple almost vanished. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began.
‘Don’t be,’ I reassured her. ‘I’m flattered, honest. I’m just a dentist’s son from Anstruther.’
Her smile returned, even brighter this time. ‘Not any more,’ she said, firmly. ‘You’re a film star now. . and I’m still just a doctor’s daughter from Barnton.’
I shot a quick glance at her left hand as I took the autograph book from her; no ring. ‘Stop it, Blackstone!’ I told myself, and signed the blank page she offered me. I flicked through some of the other pages; it’s always good to know whose company you’re in. In the few pages back from mine, I recognised the careful signature of Scotland’s First Minister, the flamboyant scrawl of my friend Scott Steele, the names of two members of Texas, augmented by a tiny cartoon guitar, a well-known Edinburgh novelist with a noughts and crosses trademark, a football manager who had printed his name below his signature to make sure that everyone knew who he was, and a couple of others which were just plain indecipherable. Of these the least decipherable was one that looked just like the picture on the screen of a heart monitor. I wondered whether, over time, the signature would get flatter and flatter, until one day, it was a straight line.
‘Where did you pick all these up?’ I asked her, as I handed back her book, and helped myself to a couple of cherries.
‘I got all of them here,’ she told me. ‘Mr Torrent has been running a series of cocktail parties for celebrities. You won’t tell him though, will you? He might think I was abusing my position.’
‘I couldn’t imagine you abusing anything.’ I almost added, ‘. . except me’; old habits and all that, but I stopped myself.
Anna picked up her phone and pushed a button on her console. ‘Mr Blackstone,’ she said, her accent still impeccable, without a hint of an oriental ‘r’. . even though she was from Barnton. She nodded into the handset, replaced it then turned and pointed to two glass-walled lifts behind her desk. ‘Please take the one on the left,’ she told me. ‘It goes directly to the top floor.’
I jerked my thumb in the direction of the guy in the uniform. ‘Does he get to open the door for me?’
She gave a quick tinkling laugh. ‘No, it’s automatic,’ she answered, quitetly, as if we were sharing a secret. I liked that; I gave her a wave through the glass as the lift started to go up.
It went fast; I counted off the floors as I rose. I assumed that it would stop at the fourth, but to my surprise it kept going.
James Torrent’s office suite was on the roof of the building; out of sight from the car park, surrounding the glass panel of the atrium. Like the capsule that had brought me up, it appeared to be built almost entirely of glass, although part of it was smoked to the point of blackness. The back wall of the reception area was not. Through it, I could see the tops of the two Forth Bridges, and the hills of West Fife beyond.
A woman approached me, hand outstretched. ‘Mr Blackstone.’ I felt as if she was telling me who I was, not welcoming me. The Galaxy chocolate voice, and more imperious in the flesh; somehow I knew that this woman was not going to ask for my autograph.
She looked me up and down as we shook hands, so I gave her the same treatment. She was tanned and tall, with legs that seemed to be reaching for her armpits; I touch six feet and I was barely looking down on her. Her dress matched her voice; it was a warm brown colour, in a clinging fabric that could have been cashmere. It fitted from her throat to just below the knee, and she looked as if she might have been poured into it. There were no visible lines; if she was wearing anything under it, then it was even sleeker than the dress. What she definitely was not wearing was a label, like Anna Chin’s or like the one she had given me. I glanced beyond her to an empty desk; there was a triangular metal bar on it, bearing the name ‘Natalie Morgan’.
‘Natalie Morgan,’ she said. ‘I’m Mr Torrent’s chief of staff.’
‘That makes him sound like a general,’ I murmured. She wasn’t smiling, so I didn’t either. A while back, a woman like her could have eaten me for breakfast; I think I must be less digestible now.
‘He is,’ she replied, soft and low. ‘You’re a few minutes early, but he’ll see you. Follow me, please.’ She turned on her heel and led me along a passageway. The roof of the atrium was on my right; on the other side was another panelled wall. It was double-skinned, with a Venetian blind between the panels, but the slats were open and I could see through into a long room that looked eastwards, towards Edinburgh and the castle. If I’d looked, I could have seen my apartment from there. I guessed that was where Torrent held his celebrity parties.
At the end of the passage there was a black glass wall, which stretched the full width of the suite. A door was cut into it, but you wouldn’t have seen it, but for its round gun-metal handle. Natalie Morgan opened it and moved aside, for me to step into the sanctum. As I passed her, I caught a strong fragrance that I recognised from Hollywood. That place floats on Giorgio of Beverley Hills.
I stepped into the office, and looked around. For a while, I thought that it was empty. The door opened more or less into the middle of the room; on my right there was an oval meeting table, and beyond that a wall which looked as if it could have been made of ebony, but also of the blackest glass. Another door was set in it. To my left there was a big kidney-shaped desk with a plasmatronic computer screen and three telephones. Two leather armchairs faced it, and behind it there was a third, which turned slowly towards me as I looked at it.
James Torrent pushed himself to his feet and moved round the desk to greet me, a great podgy hand outstretched. He wore what might have been described as a smile on someone else, but which looked on him like something halfway between a leer and a grimace.
The man looked to be in his early fifties, and he was massive. He was no taller than me, but tremendously solid; not so much fat, but more like a small mountain on legs. He had sleek black hair, which swept back from a receding forehead. His facial features were as gross as the rest of him; thick rubbery lips, piggy eyes and ears and a great bulbous nose. His complexion was so swarthy that I knew at once that my earlier guess had been right.
‘Oz,’ he said, in a gravelly voice, devoid of accent. ‘So glad to meet you.’
‘Likewise,’ I lied, with the same mock politeness. ‘Spanish?’ I asked.
‘My father was; he left during the Civil War. I was born and educated here. How did you guess?’
‘From the way your staff pronounced your name; I’ve encountered it before.’
‘You’ve travelled in Spain?’
‘I lived there for a while.’
‘More than me, then; I won’t go back there. Franco shot my grandfather.’ He pointed me at one of the two visitor chairs. ‘Sit down,’ he said, returning to his swivel chair. ‘You’ll have coffee?’
‘No, thanks. I’ve had my dose for today.’
‘Yes, we tend to drink too much of it, I always think. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? I have heard of you, of course; quite the coming man in the film industry, so they say.’
‘It’s more than I’d say, in that case. I’m getting along though. But that’s not the only string to my bow.’
Torrent raised his heavy black eyebrows. ‘No?’
‘No. I have a couple of business interests; non-executive directorships. I’m on the board of the Gantry Group; you’ll have heard of us, I’m sure.’ I looked him in the eyes as I said it. Not a single lash batted, never mind an eyelid; he didn’t give as much as a twitch.
‘Of course,’ he rumbled. ‘You and Susie have a personal connection, don’t you?’