should be able to catch a flight around lunchtime.'
'Good,' she murmured. 'It's not just all this crap, you know. Even without it, I'd be missing you anyway.'
As it turned out I was able to keep my promise to my wife… but not before fate had lobbed an even bigger grenade in my direction.
Twenty-Six.
The shooting schedule worked out, and with the blessing of Paul Girone, I left Shepperton in the limo at midday, heading for Heathrow and the first Glasgow shuttle of the afternoon. I called Susie from the car; the letters to the three gangsters' lawyers had gone out from Greg McPhillips' office the night before through the legal mail network, but she told me that none of them had responded.
'Okay,' I told her. 'Maybe you'll get a reaction this afternoon. If you do you can tell me when you get home tonight. I'll be there before you, assuming that British Airways doesn't mess me about.'
For once, the world's favourite airline didn't; the shuttles were running to time, and I was able to check in, grab a sandwich and a Coke, then walk straight on to the plane. The complimentary newspapers were running low at the foot of the air-bridge. All the Herald?' had been snaffled by the earlier flights, but since we were heading for Glasgow there were still a few copies of the Scotsman to be had. I picked one up as I boarded.
I had had an early start on set. I belted myself into my window seat, leaned my head back, and fell asleep almost at once. When I awoke, we were on the climb, passing through the first layers of wispy cloud, looking down on Windsor Castle. As far as I could see there were no standards flying; Her Majesty must have been at one of her other palaces that day. I thought to myself that maybe it was time for Susie and I to buy a second home. For all that we lived on a pretty large property by British standards, we had a simple lifestyle for a movie star and a millionairess.
I was contemplating the alternative charms of France and Florida when the guy in the aisle seat leaned across the empty middle berth, on which he had dumped a jacket, a palm-top computer and a thick briefcase. 'Excuse me,' he began. 'But you are Oz Blackstone, aren't you?'
I glanced at him; he was in his thirties, podgy around the face, though not grossly overweight, and from the look of the sweat marks under the arms of his blue and white striped shirt, he had run to catch the plane. He was clean-shaven, and his dark hair was controlled by some sort of gel, from which a single bead of sweat had escaped and was running down his left cheek. I'd have taken him for a salesman… of palm-top computers perhaps, for I've never met anyone who actually uses one of the fiddly wee things… only he was wearing braces. In my experience only lawyers hold up their trousers with braces these days;
I guess it's born of the extreme caution for which their profession is famous.
'A bleary-eyed and half-asleep Oz Blackstone,' I told him, 'but yes, that's me.'
He chortled. 'A hard night on the town was it?' he asked, jovially. (An incredibly rude question to be asking a complete stranger when you think of it, but it comes with the territory I inhabit these days, and I've learned to roll with it.) 'You know what it's like for us actors,' I told him. 'We have to do the round of the nightclubs to keep the children of the paparazzi in their private schools.' I caught the look of uncertainty as it came into his eye. 'Actually it was a hard morning in a film studio,' I went on, 'from which I'm escaping for the weekend to see my wife and daughter. It is actually possible to be in my business yet not be a piss artist.' I made myself smile at the guy as I finished. There's no point in snubbing people, even though it's what you'd really like to do.
'I wish it was possible in mine,' he exclaimed, full joviality restored. 'My name's Wylie Smith, by the way, middle name Henry, which causes the odd laugh among my colleagues these days.' I thought about this for a second, then remembered the news agent book shop and CD chain. I remembered also a Hearts goalie who raised a few laughs in his time as well, but they all do if they play long enough. Just ask the big guy with the ponytail.
'Which firm are you with?' I asked him.
He stared at me as if I had just told him the date of his birth, his mother's maiden name and his inside leg measurement. 'You know me?'
'I don't think so.'
'Then how do you know I'm a solicitor?'
'It's a fifty-fifty chance on these flights, and you don't look like a foot baller His crest seemed to fall very slightly. 'I am, though. I play for my firm's team. We'd a match last Sunday in fact: played the Faculty of Advocates. Lost two nil.'
'You let them win?'
'There were two judges in their side: we thought it wise. Oh yes, and to answer your question, I'm a partner in Kendall McGuire.'
'Now there's a coincidence.' I almost said it aloud. Instead; 'I thought you were based in Edinburgh.'
'We are: Edinburgh and London, that is. I've been in the London office since Wednesday morning, and now I'm going to Glasgow for a meeting with a client. After that, I'm off home.'
I decided that I wanted to browse in W H Smith for a little longer.
'You're a pretty specialist firm, aren't you?' I asked him.
'Very. Nearly all of our practice is corporate, although we do handle some very specialised private client work, people we call Hinwies.'
I knew the term but I played dumb. 'Come again?'
'H. N. W. I.,' he spelled out. 'High Net Worth Individuals.'
'Ahh,' I said, reclining my seat as the captain switched off the seat belt sign. 'It's nice to know that Susie and I have an acronym. We're a bit beyond Yuppieness.' I waited for his chortling to subside.
'You've never acted for Gantry, have you?' I asked.
He blinked, then gave me a slightly confused look; you might even have called it apprehensive. 'Ah, the Gantry Group,' he exclaimed, when he caught on. 'No we haven't. Not yet at any rate, but strange things happen in the business world, so you never know. Who are your legal advisers at the moment?'
'McPhillips and Company… and Greg's a mate, as well as being company secretary, so I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you. But you've got a pretty chunky client list anyway, don't you?'
'Oh yes. As I said, we're absolutely blue chip. We've acted for some of the biggest names in Scotland, and beyond.' He reeled off three insurance companies, a bank and two major manufacturers.
'Don't you act for Torrent as well?' I dropped it in gently to see how far the ripples would spread.
'Not as far as I know,' WHS replied.
'Then your senior partner's keeping secrets from you,' I thought, 'or you 're lying in your teeth.'
'Ah. I was told you did; I must have been misinformed.'
'We'd like to, of course,' he volunteered, 'just as we'd like to act for the Gantry Group.'
'I think those two might be mutually exclusive.'
'Oh? Why should that be?' He looked surprised.
On the other hand, I did my best to look mysterious. 'Can't say, I'm afraid.'
'Let him take that back to Duncan Kendall and see what they make of it:
'I have met Natalie Morgan, actually,' Smith volunteered. 'She's quite a spectacular lady, isn't she?'
'I've met her too. I don't like her… actually. She's not as bad as her uncle, though. Now he was a real cunt.' I don't like the 'c' word, but when I thought of the late James Torrent, it just slipped out. 'Where did you encounter Nat?' I asked the question in the hope that the solicitor's professional discretion gene might be a wee bit faulty, but he had said as much about her as he was going to, especially knowing that I wasn't a fan.
'Socially,' was all he volunteered, then he changed the subject. 'That was a rather unfortunate business for the Gantry Group at the weekend.'
'Unfortunate,' I agreed, 'but not crippling. Greg's dealing with it.'
'I'm sure he is. Still, if there's anything Kendall McGuire can do for you…'
I smiled at him as cheerfully as I could. 'Well…' I began, starting a look of anticipation in his eyes, '… if any of the Three Bears happens to figure on your Hinwie client list, you could ask them to fuck off and buy somewhere else.'
