Jay Yuille was waiting for me at Glasgow Airport, with the engine running as usual in the hope that the police and the security people wouldn't give him a hard time. I tossed my bag on to the back seat, then climbed into the front beside him. I don't like acting the toff at the best of times, and I wanted to see his reaction close up when he saw the Scotsman report.
He didn't bat an eyelid; he scanned the story then handed me the paper.
"What's this, Jay?" I asked him as he pulled away, waving to a copper who was peering through the glass at me in the front passenger seat.
Automatically, I waved at the guy too. As I did so I saw Wylie H Smith rushing off towards the taxi rank: remembering the way he'd been sweating on the shuttle, I hoped he didn't sit too close to his client… for both their sakes.
I turned back to my minder. "Looks like a domestic tragedy to me, boss," he replied, quietly.
'for sure, but…"
"But nothing, Oz: I've seen cases like these before. People get involved in something, thinking they're on to an easy mark and that they're smart enough to control the situation, take their profit and bugger off. But they're not that smart, and all of a sudden they find out that they're not in control. When that happens, the consequences can sometimes be terminal."
"But this isn't any old case, is it?"
"It is as far as you're concerned."
"Come on, Jay, let's stop pissing about. I sent you after these people and we both know that."
I saw his nostrils flare slightly. "No, sir. This is how it was. You perceived a threat to your security, you did not want to go to the police, so you asked me," he leaned on the word, 'to look into it. You did not send me anywhere. That's the way it was."
"Not exactly."
"Yes, Oz, exactly. You'll recall also that we agreed no questions would be asked about my methods?"
I nodded. "Yes, I remember that."
"Well don't fucking ask any then," he said, quietly.
"You mean I have to live with this, and that's it."
"Yup, live with it. That's more than the Neiportes are doing. Tell me something; do you really give a shit that they're dead?"
I felt my mouth twist. (Being me, I probably filed the gesture away subconsciously for use on a future movie. The truth is that art imitates life, not the other way around.) "No," I admitted. "Not one tiny turd."
"The truth is that your only worry is that it might come back to you."
"I suppose."
"Then stop worrying. It won't."
"You certain of that?"
"Dead certain, you might say." He glanced across at me as we headed west along the motorway. "But that's not really your only worry, is it? You're scared you might have replaced one threat with another; the Neiportes with me."
Scared wasn't quite the word, but I murmured, "Maybe."
"Then don't be. I came to you recommended, didn't I?"
"Yes, highly."
"Well you remember that. The report you got on me included the word "loyalty", and it wasn't used lightly. I work for you, Oz, and you pay me well. I'm a specialist, and I set my own parameters. When you ask me to do something I'll do it, and I promise you I will never use it to gain any sort of leverage over you. If you want to give me a bonus down the line, that's up to you, but I will never ask you for one." He took his right hand off the wheel and reached across. "Fair enough?" he said.
I took it and shook it. "Fair enough."
"Good. So no more questions."
We could hardly talk about rugby after that, so the rest of the journey back to the estate was spent in silence. When Jay dropped me at the house, it was empty. Susie was still at work, Ethel and Janet were away on a Daybreak Nursery outing, and the contract cleaners weren't due until the following Monday. The only sound I could hear was that of a mower in the distance. I guessed that Willie was quickening up the greens on the golf course.
I dumped my bag, which held the few clothes I'd brought back with me, mostly for the wash, and changed into a pair of swim shorts. I did a hard half-hour on my gym equipment, enough to work me out, but nowhere near enough to change my body shape, then swam for a bit to cool off.
All the time I was thinking, at first about the Neiportes and how the police investigation would go, but gradually I found myself turning back to the week's first crisis, and Susie's three rogue house-buyers.
If they'd had a couple of people bumped off and dumped on a pig farm, they wouldn't be bothering about it afterwards, I reckoned.
I was still in the pool when the phone rang. There was a hands-free unit near at hand, so I heaved myself out and picked it up just before the automatic answer cut in. "Yes?" I said, breathing only a bit harder than normal.
"Oz, is that you?" It was my Dad, and he sounded agitated. It didn't take a quantum physicist to know why.
"It's me."
"Have you seen the papers?"
"Yes, of course, it's tragic, isn't it. Those poor people… and from Pittenweem too, that's assuming they are who they think they are."
"Oz…" Mac the Dentist said heavily, but I talked right over the top of him.
"Look Dad, I know you're upset, with the thing happening on your doorstep, but I really don't have time to talk to you just now." I hung up on him.
We all have paranoid tendencies, but they're multiplied many times over when we have things to hide. At that moment all I could think about was Princess Diana, Prince Charles and their various bugged telephone conversations, which surfaced so embarrassingly in the tabloids. I could tell that my Dad was on his mobile, out in the garden, I imagined, and I'd been using a phone that worked on a radio signal.
The last thing I wanted was a detailed conversation being intercepted by some radio ham in Auchtermuchty and sold to the press.
I dried off, went through the house to the office conservatory, and called his surgery number on a more secure line… I'm reasonably certain I'm not on the MI5 surveillance list, and I know he isn't.
"I'm free now," I said, breezily, when he answered. I checked my watch; it was five minutes short of four. "Fancy a few holes at Elie?
If I leave now I can get there for quarter to six."