Wearing Purple (Oz Blackstone Mystery) Page 4

  ‘No. We’ve known each other since we were kids, but we never did live together. The fact is, until fairly shortly before we decided to get hitched, I was living with someone else, and so was Jan. But our paths crossed again, and we realised that what we wanted most of all was each other. I don’t feel very proud of leaving Prim—’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Prim. It’s short for Primavera.’

  ‘She Spanish?’

  ‘Christ no, she’s from Perthshire. Her mother liked the sound of the word, that’s all. As I said, I don’t feel proud of leaving her, but the fact is, she’d fallen in love with someone else too.’

  ‘She with him now?’

  I smiled, in spite of myself, at the impossibility of that. ‘No. He’s dead.’

  ‘Yet you still left her?’

  ‘Yes. She realised how I felt about Jan; and how she really felt about me, I suppose.’ Suddenly I felt awkward. ‘It’s all worked out for the best. I’m married and Prim’s off in search of her next adventure. She’s a magnet for them, believe me.’

  I tried to fix a business-like look on my face. ‘So, Everett; you’ve shown me GWA and you’ve told me all about it. Now, what’s your problem?’

  The big man had been looking idly out of the window. Now he spun round and fixed me with a sudden stare. ‘Like I said yesterday, someone’s out to screw me.’ He paused, as a bizarre picture flashed momentarily in my mind.

  ‘Our business is very profitable, but it also involves high risk. We guarantee to provide quality programming to our satellite customers. Two shows a week, Saturdays and Mondays, shot and screened as live, plus two one-hour edited segments for later screening. Everything is staged before live audiences in stadia around Europe. Also, like I told you, we do regular shows which are sold to satellite and cable subscribers on a pay-per-view basis.

  ‘When I say “as live” that means that we shoot the events in one piece, then transmit them the same way. Everything goes down in a single take. There’s little or no margin for error built in there, especially on BattleGround, the Saturday show. That goes out on network just over an hour after we finish shooting it. It runs for two hours; the Monday Night Rumble - that’s what we call it - lasts for one. We tape matches for that on the Sunday, the day after BattleGround, in the same venue.

  ‘Around four weeks ago, we were two thirds of the way through the taping of BattleGround in Dortmund, Germany, when the technicians discovered that they had been running for half an hour with empty video cassettes.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I whistled. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘We stopped the taping, kept the audience there, and put the whole thing out live. We got away with it, by the skin of our teeth. I raised hell with our production contractors. They were full of apologies; they assumed that they’d been given duds by the tape supplier.

  ‘I accepted their guarantee that there would be no repeats, and got on with business. Then, a week ago, in Nottingham, this happened.’ There was a television set with an integrated video player in a corner of his office. He reached across, switched it on and pressed the play button.

  A wrestling match sprang into life on the screen. ‘This is a tag-team fight - that’s two wrestlers on each side, one in the ring at any time - involving our hard-core guys, the Rattlers, and Chris and Dave, the Manson Brothers, who are really cousins. Watch it.’

  I did as I was told. The Rattlers, big guys in jeans and workshirts, seemed to be taking a real pasting from the non-brothers. As I watched, the Rattler in the ring was slammed across the ring into the padded corner turn-buckles, caught by the combatant Manson as he rebounded off and slammed to the canvas with a crash which seemed to shake the ring.

  The referee began the count, until he was distracted by a small man in a grotesque jacket, who jumped up on to the ring apron. I had seen him before, in that Boxing Day match with Daze. The ref stopped counting and went across to the ‘manager’ with a show of remonstration. The winning Manson, who had ‘Dave’ emblazoned across his trunks, stood up from his flattened prey, and as he did, the other Rattler stepped through the ropes, a metal folding chair in his hands.

  The wrestler swung his weapon at full force, slamming the seat into the back of the Manson Brother’s head. There was no commentary on the tape, but there was sound. And what a sound. The bang rang out from the set, bringing a gasp from the crowd.

  I was a novice at this game, but even I could tell that something was wrong. There was nothing theatrical about the way Dave Manson went down. He dropped to his knees first, then pitched forward, slowly, on to his face. As I watched, the referee turned and waved to the ringside timekeeper, who rang the bell.

  Everett reached over once more and stopped the tape. ‘We have special chairs for that sort of action, made of very thin metal sheeting, but looking just like the normal folding seats we use at ringside. That wasn’t one of them. That was the real McCoy: Dave wound up in hospital.

  ‘Someone switched the goddamn chair, Oz. In the middle of the fight, Sven, the Rattler, didn’t notice the difference in weight.’

  ‘Did you lose the recording?’ I asked.

  ‘No, we got away with it. We got the paramedics down there with a gurney, and took Dave outta there. That happens, every so often, as part of the choreography, so the crowd swallowed it. We didn’t have to stop the taping.’

  He shook his head and scowled. ‘No, we didn’t lose the show, but I lost one half of my biggest drawing tag team. Dave has a fractured skull, so he’ll be out for months. On top of that, his shrewd little wife is looking for compensation. We have a form of insurance against accidental injury, but in these circumstances, it may not pay out.’

  ‘But surely, since it was an accident—’

  Daze, not Everett, looked at me. ‘That was no accident, man. I questioned the roadies who set up the ring and put all the props in position. And believe me,’ he repeated grimly, ‘I sure did question them. Those guys were sweating bullets, but they swore on their mothers’ lives that a trick chair was left there.

  ‘For sure, Oz, someone switched them over. I guess it was the same person who switched the real tape cassettes in for duds in Germany.’

  ‘But couldn’t they both have been accidents?’ I protested. ‘Couldn’t the first thing have been a supplier’s mistake? Couldn’t someone have picked up the spoof chair before the show and sat on it, then put another one back by mistake? Couldn’t the whole thing just be coincidence?’

  ‘If a kid sat on one of those chairs it would bend. A full grown adult would go right through it. That was not an accident, I tell you; any more than the thing with the tapes was. Someone is out to wreck my organisation, and me.

  ‘I believe in the existence of extra-terrestrial beings, I believe in life after death, I believe in God and I believe in myself. But I do not believe in this sort of coincidence, no way sir; not when there’s money involved.

  ‘Look man, my contracts with the satellite companies have huge penalty clauses if I fail to deliver fresh product every week as promised. It happens once, it costs me one million dollars. Two million for a second breach. Three million for a third. Any further failures it’s another three million, plus my customers give me one month’s notice of termination, although I still have to supply during that period, subject to the same penalty rate.

  ‘It would never come to that, though. I could take a million-dollar hit. I could take a two-million-dollar hit on top of that, just. But one more, and I’d be done. The GWA would be bust. Someone’s trying to bring that about, and I’m damn sure I know who it is.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Tony Reilly. I reckon he’s taking me seriously now. He’s worked out my strategy and he’s out to take care of the Global Wrestling Alliance before it takes care of CWI, and him. Somewhere in my organisation he has a mole, put here to start kicking in those penalty payments.’

  I stared at him. ‘Isn’t that a bit extreme? Would the guy really go to those lengths?’

  He .
. . Everett, this time . . . looked at me again, without a flicker of a smile. ‘Oh yeah. I reckon Mr Reilly would go to any lengths to break me.’

  ‘But yesterday you said he made you an offer once to go and work for him.’

  A shadow passed across the huge face. ‘Sure he did; because he wanted to control me. There was money to be made out of Daze, and he was determined that no one but him was going to make it.’

  ‘But why?’

  Everett glanced at the wall. ‘Reasons, man. Reasons.’ And then he looked back at me in a way that precluded further questioning. ‘It’s him behind my troubles. I know it.

  ‘I want you to help me find out who my enemy is; who Tony’s man is, in my camp.’

  ‘But how? You can’t expect me just to walk in and start questioning people . . . especially not the sort of people you have here.’

  ‘Of course not. I want you to be around when it matters, keeping your eyes open. To pull it off, you need to be a member of the team. But like I said earlier, I’ve thought of a cover story.’ A huge grin spread slowly across his face.

  The penny dropped. ‘You mean you really want me to . . .’

  Chapter 4

  I’ll never forget the way Jan’s eyes widened. ‘He’s asked you to be what . . . ?’

  ‘Ring announcer. We’d call it Master of Ceremonies. The guy who calls out the names of the contestants, then the result.’

  Even as a wee girl my wife was always very cool and resourceful, never getting rattled or flustered, always thinking before speaking, always weighing her words. In all the years since we were kids, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve seen her really incredulous. Looking at her across the bar table, I knew I was going to have to start using the other hand from that point on.

  ‘Is he serious?’ she gasped, almost choking as she fought to hold back her laughter.

  ‘Totally. There’s a vacancy for the job, and he couldn’t think of a better cover for me.’

  ‘But how does he know if you’ll be any good at it?’

  I put on my best hurt look. ‘Don’t you have any faith in me?’

  ‘Unlimited faith, darlin’,’ she drawled. ‘Faith beyond expression. You are bloody good at your job, you are very resourceful in a crisis, you are kind, you are thoughtful and you’re great in bed. Now, I repeat: how does he know if you’ll be any good at Mastering Ceremonies?’

  I swapped my smug expression for the hurt look again. ‘I am good at it. Bloody brilliant, in fact. He gave me a try-out. In the video studio first, then up in the ring, with all the wrestlers watching me.

  ‘Here, I’ll give you a demo. Sit back and prepare to be impressed.’ I made to stand, but she grabbed my arm and held me firmly in my seat.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ she whispered. ‘Not in front of all these suits.’ She glanced around the bar, which was full of men and women in dark business clothes. ‘And you’re really going to do it?’ she asked.

  ‘Five hundred quid a day, plus expenses. And if I catch Everett’s mole, there’s a success bonus of ten grand.’ I flashed her a cheeky smile, across the table. ‘You’re my business manager. You tell me whether I’m doing it or not.’

  ‘As your business manager, I have to ask you whether you’re prepared to jeopardise your continuing, year-round business for the sake of a few thousand quid. You’re in the process of rebuilding a client list that you put into cold storage when you pissed off to Spain to eat lotuses with Prim. Granted, they’ve been loyal to you, but if you disappear again, forget it.’

  I shook my head. ‘That’s not going to happen. Everett shoots his shows on Saturdays and Sundays. Allow Friday afternoon for travelling sometimes: apart from that Mondays to Friday mornings are clear for my routine business.’

  She looked at me, reassured but still questioning. ‘Where are these events?’ she asked.

  ‘All over the place. We’re in Newcastle on Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. The weekend following we tape both shows here in Glasgow, in the SECC, then after that we go to Barcelona.’

  ‘Oh yes? And what happens to the dear little woman while you’re off ring announcing and detecting?’

  ‘The dear little woman comes with me . . . on expenses. That’s part of the deal. I know we were supposed to be going up to Fife on Saturday, but I’ve sorted that too. I’ve got tickets for Dad and the boys for the Newcastle Arena event. You’ll come with me, won’t you?’

  At last, she grinned. ‘As long as I can go to the Metro Centre, it’s a deal. For this weekend at least. A couple of my clients have audits coming up soon, and that means extra work for me. We’ll play the other events by ear. Anyway, ace detective, you’ll probably crack the case inside a couple of days.

  ‘Have you told the boys yet?’

  ‘No. I’ll phone them later on tonight.’

  ‘Your dad’s going to love you for messing up any plans he might have had for the weekend.’

  ‘Ahh, he’s a big kid at heart.’

  She glanced up at the clock, which showed quarter to six. ‘We having another?’

  ‘Why not?’ I stood up, and eased my way through the throng and up to the bar.

  It’s a funny thing about city pubs; some of them have really odd names. Few come weirder than Babbity Bowser’s, in Glasgow’s Merchant City. I suppose that in every town with a courtroom there are pubs to which lawyers and journalists gravitate, to trade in the vital currency of information. In Edinburgh, it’s places like the Bank Hotel and O’Neill’s, but in the Second City of the Empire . . . Glaswegians always did like to make big claims for themselves . . . Babbity’s reigns supreme.

  It isn’t all that big, and it certainly isn’t flashy, but like all pubs it’s made by the people it attracts. On this Tuesday night it was buzzing for sure. A big drugs-related trial, which had been running in the High Court for almost three weeks, had just ended with the conviction of all six accused. True to form in Scotland, the judge had sentenced the barons to a total of one hundred and seventeen years in jail.

  Half of the Faculty of Advocates seemed to be in the place. The prosecution team from the Crown Office were sitting at a small table in the far corner of the bar, not even trying to keep the triumph from their faces. The various defence counsel and solicitors, and since there had been six defendants in the dock, that was quite a crowd, were gathered together fairly close to them. Only the youngest among them looked in the slightest upset by their defeat. The older ones had been there before, and knew the score. From the chat which had drifted over to our seats beside the door, I gathered that the consensus was that the judge had been ultra-careful in his charge to the jury, and that the only slim chance of success in an appeal was against the severity of his sentencing.

  Finally, having been hailed on the way by a couple of advocates whom I knew, I made it to the bar and ordered a pint of lager for me and a gin and tonic for Jan. I paid for them, and was still wincing when the hand fell on my shoulder.

  ‘Well, well, well. Fancy running into you again, Oz. And in Glasgow too. What are you getting away with these days?’

  The last time I had seen Detective Inspector Michael Dylan, his crest had been more than a little fallen. Time had obviously healed that wound; from the beam on his face he was back to being the bumptious big arsehole I had come to know in Edinburgh. He wasn’t perfect at the act though. In spite of all he did and said, I couldn’t help liking him, just a bit.

  ‘Hello, Mike,’ I said, glancing in the process at his suit. Hugo Boss, I guessed. Dylan was the sort of guy who would leave the designer’s label on the sleeve if he thought no one would laugh. ‘I see you’ve been to Slater’s again.’

  Give him his due: he grinned. ‘Not this time. I’ve been giving evidence in the drugs trial. Star witness to the Edinburgh side of it. That was my swan song in the capital. I’ll be through in Glasgow for a while, on secondment to the Serious Crimes Squad.’

  That’s bad news for us property-owners in the West, I thought.
‘That’s bad news for serious criminals in the West,’ I said.

  ‘So what brings you here, Ozzie?’ Dylan went on. ‘Last I heard you had fucked off to Spain and set up a business with that wee blonde bird of yours.’ He grinned. ‘Too hot for you, was it? Or was she?’

  I shook my head. ‘It was okay while it lasted. I found out that I missed someone, though. We’re married now, and living through here, up behind Charing Cross.’ I held up my two drinks, and nodded towards the doorway, where Jan was gazing at me, frowning slightly as if trying to remember Dylan’s face. ‘Look, I’ve got to get these back to the table.’

  His eyes followed mine. ‘That’s the wife, son?’ Dylan was in his early thirties, two or three years older than me. ‘I can see why you hurried back; she’s bloody gorgeous.

  ‘Here, I see you’ve got a couple of spare seats. We’ll join you.’

  With a pint and a gin and tonic in my hands, I could barely say that we were just leaving.

  ‘Who’s he?’ Jan whispered as I sat down opposite her. ‘I know the face from somewhere.’

  ‘Mike Dylan, a copper from Edinburgh. He used to be Ricky Ross’s sidekick. He drinks in Whighams.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I remember seeing him there: talking to you, in fact. He looks a bit full of himself.’

  ‘He’s okay, really. Try to be nice to him. He’s coming over.’ I had been wondering about Dylan’s ‘we’. I had my answer at once as he emerged from the throng at the bar, carrying two pints of dark beer and followed by a short girl, in an even shorter skirt and with frizzy red hair.

  ‘This is my girlfriend, Susie Gantry,’ he said as he laid the pints on the table.

  I reached out a handshake. ‘Pleased to meet you, Susie. I’m Oz Blackstone, and this is my wife Jan.

  ‘Gantry, eh,’ I went on, idly. ‘Same name as the Lord Provost.’

  ‘He’s my father,’ said Susie, a touch apologetically, it seemed to me.

  Christ, I thought to myself. Typical bloody Dylan. He’s hardly in town five minutes and he’s shagging the Lord Provost’s daughter.