Blackstone's Pursuits by Quintin Jardine Read Free Book Online Page A

away,’ She grinned. ‘Like you’re attracted to me. So far you’re winning: it cuts both ways. Just remember! First date? Never!’
    I took a hell of a chance. I kissed her, on the lips. ‘You know the trouble with women?’
    ‘Whssat?’
    ‘You just assume that all us guys are easy lays! I have to go out at least twice with a girl before I decide whether she’s worthy of my body!’
    She dipped her shoulder and shoved me off the bed. ‘Go!’ she demanded. ‘Finish your work, while I turn myself into a human being again.’ I did as I was told. Behind me I heard the riffling sound of the Downie being shaken up and spread over the bed. Then Prim’s feet sounded lightly on the staircase.
    I refocused myself on my reports and finished them off, neat and tidy, set out in question and answer form, with a summary attached. I fed each into the fax then slipped confirmatory copies into envelopes. Quick, experienced and thorough, that’s Oz Blackstone, Prince among Private Enquiry Agents, the man most wanted by Edinburgh’s legal community, even if much of his work does bore him out of his scone.
    I pride myself that on each day of my life I try to learn something new. ‘So what’s today’s lesson, Blackstone?’ I asked myself, out loud, as I stamped the two envelopes.
    ‘Stick to the boring stuff,’ I answered, ‘and forget the Philip Marlowe dreams. Dead people don’t look attractive close up, even if the money is good, and the work’s exciting.’
    ‘That’s good, Oz; now what’s the bonus lesson?’
    ‘That’s easy. Don’t give up believing in miracles. Most people find at least one in a lifetime.’
    I turned around, and there she was, Primavera, Springtime in Spanish, standing beside the bed, fastening a single string of pearls around her neck. The jeans and tee-shirt had gone, to be replaced by a close-fitting grey skirt and a sleeveless white blouse. Her sun-bleached hair had been teased into order, carefully but casually, and she was made up with blue eye shadow, a touch of blusher and a vivid red lipstick which sat on her perfect mouth like country wine on a summer evening. She was so beautiful that she made me breathless.
    I stood there, dumbstruck for a while, until the inevitable nonsense sprang to my tongue. ‘Springtime,’ I said, holding out a hand in invitation, ‘would you care to join me in my garden?’
    My loft opens out on to a tiny terrace, on which a few geraniums and a woebegone palm struggle for survival in the heart of my Scottish city. I threw open the double doors, and held out my hand for her as she approached across the big room, passing through a beam of light from one of the four Vellux windows set on each side of the sloping ceiling.
    If I was an aesthete I would say that sunlit May evenings are my favourite time of the year in Edinburgh. Those few days, as the year shakes off the dying grip of winter, can be sublime. They are moments not to be missed, yet all too fleeting, before the Scottish summer asserts itself in all its wet, windy drabness.
    As Prim stepped out on to my south-facing terrace, I felt suddenly full up, and it came to me that this was one of those times in my life that I’ll remember on my dying day.
    My fifth birthday, when my Mum baked a cake, I had a party, and my Dad gave me my first set of real football boots. My first day at primary school. My first Hearts-Hibs game. My first day at secondary school. Sneaking in among my sister’s crowd one night to watch a bootleg video of The Exorcist, and being chucked out for laughing at the bit where Linda Blair’s head spins all the way round. My first, and last, cigarette. My first fumbling, incompetent but affectionate shag with Jan at a party in her house while her folks were away. My Mother’s death. A weekend my Dad and I spent walking in Derbyshire, eating wholesome food and drinking a different beer every night, as part of his emergence from our bereavement.
    Seminal moments all of them; now