Poisoned Cherries by Quintin Jardine Read Free Book Online Page A

will stay that way.   I love wee Janet with all my heart; she turns my insides to mush.   And how could I love her without loving her mother as well?”
    She pressed her forehead against my chest and I held her to me.   “Shut up, Blackstone,” she murmured.   “Don’t complicate things.”
    “How am I doing that?”
    She looked up.   “I’m afraid of you, man, don’t you understand that? I’m afraid that you’ll be another Dylan; he was a scheming, ambitious bastard, and so are you .. . well, ambitious, at least.   Mike didn’t have the wit or the balls to achieve his ambitions, but you do.   I’m afraid that if I commit myself to you, those ambitions .. . not to mention your heretofore extremely promiscuous dick..   . will lead you away from me, and I’ll get hurt again, only worse.”
    “You’re wrong about me there,” I protested.   “I’ve never had a properly thought-out ambition in my life.   Everything that’s happened to me has been by accident, until I’ve got where I am.   I like doing what I’m doing now; I don’t plan to do anything else, until I go out of fashion.   By then, I’ll have enough dough to enjoy a nice long retirement. Shit, I have now.
    “And as far as my..   . sorry..   . our pal down there’s concerned, he’s had a right few opportunities over the last few months, in Canada and in California, and he hasn’t risen to a single one.”
    She was smiling again; I was happy about that.   “Are you telling me that from the time you went to the States at the end of January, until last Wednesday night, you were celibate?”
    “I’m afraid so.”
    “That beggars belief.   Why?”
    “I wasn’t sure, until right now.   Remember what you said the other night, about me being able to walk back through your door any time I like?   Remember I said that might not cut both ways?   Well it does.   I don’t want anyone but you.”
    One of those long silences sprang up between us, like a barrier, until Susie knocked it down.
    “Is that so?   Well, do you remember when I said I didn’t care if you did or not?   That wasn’t exactly true either.   I care all right. You’re not going to make me say I love you, but I care.”
    She pushed me away and held me at arms’ length.   “That doesn’t mean I trust you, mind.   When the baby and I go back to Glasgow, you’ll be a boy-about-town again.   It’ll be just like it was when you were here before.   You’re on probation, Oz.   I want to make damn sure you don’t revert to type, before I start believing any promises.”   Her eyes narrowed.   “You will be honest with me, yes?”
    Mine widened.   “Totally.”   I meant it.
    “I’ll believe that much, then.   We tell each other everything.   When you’re working here we spend as many weekends as we can together.   Agreed?”
    “Agreed.”
    “What happens when this picture’s finished?”
    “I’m going to Vancouver.   You and Janet coming?”
    “We’ll see about that... if we get that far.”
    Eleven.
    I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure what we’d agreed when Susie took the baby back to Glasgow the following night, to be ready for the arrival of the nanny next day.
    I knew that whatever it was I liked the idea, and I felt more at peace than I had done since Jan had died.   I knew also that I’d better get my head around Miles’s new movie, since there wasn’t that much time left.
    Obviously, I’d skimmed through the script before I’d taken the part.   The story was fast-moving and exciting, with a slam-bang climax, set in some familiar locations in and around Edinburgh, and I decided to read the book to get myself under the skin of my character.   The hero was a senior police detective called Bob Skinner, a real hard bastard; I was playing his sidekick, a guy around my own age by the name of Andy Martin.
    The first thing I read about Martin pulled me up short; the author described him as muscular... I could manage that