me, I'm a lawyer', and that I'd fall off my chair laughing. But he didn't. 'On my children's lives,' he said quietly, 'I know nothing of what went on involving your company, of any of that carry on in New Bearsden, or of any of the detail of the proposed offer by Torrent for Gantry. The Casamayor Trust isn't involved, though, I can tell you that. If you're right, it's happening further up the chain.'
I glared across the small table. 'If you mention that chain once more I'll wrap it round your neck and hang you with it. I don't have time to mess about. I want to know who the guy in the flat is, and unless you and Duncan want to have the heaviest book in the Law Society library thrown at you, you will fucking well tell me.'
'I can't, Oz,' he replied. His smile surprised me, until he continued.
'My specific instruction from the beneficiary is that I must not tell you who he is. Instead, now that you've come asking about him, I am instructed to take you to meet him.'
I threw my napkin on the table and stood up. Seeing me, the waiter rushed over. 'Is everything all right, Mr. Blackstone?' he asked.
'The food is perfect,' I told him. 'As good as you'll find in Edinburgh. But I'm afraid that my colleague has just remembered that we're late for an important business meeting in Glasgow. Would you give him the bill, please.'
Thirty-Nine.
With Wylie Henry Smith in the passenger seat, the tiny cockpit of the Lotus seemed distinctly overcrowded. It didn't protest, though, as it whistled us back to Glasgow. Wylie did, though, at one point, as the speedometer neared a hundred. One's arse is quite near the roadway in a vehicle of that type, and if one is not used to it, I suppose it can be a bit scary.
I remembered that I'd said I'd keep Ricky in touch, but I decided to break that promise, in the meantime. Anyway, I guessed that he'd be fully up to date about thirty seconds after I showed up at our destination.
My old apartment, subsequently the property of the Gantry Group, and more recently that of the Glentruish Trust, sits on a hilltop above Sauchiehall Street, not far from Charing Cross. The building was once a big church and my chunk of it was away up at the top of its tower.
You will not find a better bolt hole in all Glasgow.
As we slipped off the motorway, my companion started to give me directions, until I reminded him that there was no need. As we reached the building, I turned straight in off the street, looking for the two parking spaces that had been mine. Finding them both empty, I parked in the one I'd always used in the past.
It took Smith even longer to extricate himself from the Lotus than it had taken him to climb into it, but just as I thought I'd have to help him, he made it. After a degree of straightening out, and a few awkward smiles, he set off towards the main entrance. I looked over my shoulder and across the street. A woman, sat behind the wheel of a parked Rover, tried to avoid my glance, but I waved to her anyway.
The solicitor took no time at all to work out which door buzzer to press; clearly he had visited his 'beneficiary' before. I tried to catch the voice that crackled from the speaker, but it was too distorted for the owner's mother to have recognised it.
The door swung open and I followed my escort inside. The tower isn't easily found by the casual visitor, but Wylie and I didn't have that problem, and we strode along, silently and purposefully, although I could sense a tension building within him.
When we reached the apartment the front door was ajar, held against its automatic closer by a heavy glass weight. I kicked it aside as we entered, and suddenly the hall was almost dark.
I knew where he would be, but I still motioned Wylie to lead the way along the corridor, until he stopped at the heavy wooden door. He rapped on it; as he turned the handle and began to open it, I looked into his eyes.
In that instant, I'll swear that I knew. It had been unthinkable, totally unimaginable, but when I saw the expression on his face I remembered how he had reacted at the very start of our conversation on the plane. I hadn't appreciated what it was at the time, but his eyes had registered the same look of pure fright that I saw again in that doorway.
I stepped past him and through it.
The room had changed a lot since I had been in it last. All the time I had owned or known it, it had been used at least in part as an office; now it was purely a comfort zone. The floor had been sanded and revarnished until it shone. A huge Bang and Olufsen television stood in one corner and a hi-fi unit by the same maker was on a stand against a side wall, with something by Vivaldi playing quietly through its tall speakers. It was much more spacious, since it was almost minimally furnished, where before it had been almost cluttered. The sofa was white leather, with a matching armchair and a swivel chair. Its back was towards me, as it looked out over the city, through the slanted Venetian blinds.
Slowly, it began to turn.
'Hello Jack,' I said.
'Ha, ha, ha,' the former Lord Provost of Glasgow cackled, a soft laugh that was virtually without humour. 'Well done, son, well done,' he said, pushing himself up to greet me. He knew better than to offer to shake my hand. 'When did you work it out?'
'About a couple of weeks after I should have. About thirty seconds ago, in fact. But what I still don't get is what you're doing here, when you're supposed to be pacing up and down a few yards of carpet in a top-security mental hospital. You're bloody crackers, remember, guilty but insane, so what the everlasting fuck are you doing here?'
'I'd be careful what you say, Mr. Blackstone.' Two men stepped through the door from the kitchen. Actually one of them looked more like a trolley-bus than a man, but I knew the speaker well enough, having seen his photo often enough in the Scotsman, and other business pages.
'Duncan!' exclaimed W H Smith behind me. 'What are you doing here?'
'Setting you up, pal,' I told him. 'You may not have known what's been going on, but you're going to find out now.'
I glanced at the converted public transport on legs. 'What's this?' I asked Jack Gantry.
'He's my attendant. Call him my nurse, if you like.'
I knew what he was, all right. The guy was about six eight, wearing a white tunic and black slacks. If Florence Nightingale had looked like him, the opposition in the Crimea would have headed for the hills. His hair was sleeked back, and there was a Hispanic look about him. The most remarkable thing about him was his complexion; it was spotless, without a single blemish or mark. I was reminded of the old saying that you shouldn't worry about the thug with the broken nose and the face full of scars half as much as you should worry about the bloke who put them there. That very man stood before me.
'His name's Manolito, by the way,' Jack added. 'Little Manuel; some joke, eh.'
He didn't make me laugh. I looked at Duncan Kendall. 'Who's going to explain this?' I asked.
'Oh I will,' said the Lord Provost. 'Our three companions will step back into the kitchen, please. I just wanted you to see that they were there, Oz. Especially Manolito.' He smiled at me, and I looked into his eyes. The first time I ever met the man, in his gold chain and all his glory in Glasgow City Chambers, that's what struck me about him: those eyes of his and, when you stripped all the rest away, how stone cold they were. He seemed slimmer than in those days, older certainly, but that had stayed with him.
Facially he was much changed, though. He was bald on top now, but he had compensated by growing a reddish beard. His hair, still dark although he was in his early sixties, was combed back, like Manolito's, probably by Manolito, and he wore a pair of designer specs, with blue lenses in light rectangular frames.
My mobile rang as the 'nurse' and the two lawyers left the room; it seemed unnatural in this surreal atmosphere, and for a split second I was startled. When I had gathered myself enough to press the green button, I assumed that Ricky would be on the other end, maybe wondering if he should send in the SAS. But I was wrong.
'Oz?' said Greg McPhillips. 'Can you speak?'
'I can listen,' I replied.
'Then listen to this. Torrent PLC's advisers issued a statement to the Stock Exchange and the business press
