he’d tried confronting me: the first time I walked away without saying a word, the second time, I popped him one.
Since then, I’d only seen Rolly in photos or occasionally on the telly (much less so in recent years), and what I’d seen hadn’t been good. He’d had a bloated, pasty look due to his hard-living lifestyle. In his case, all the royalty money we’d received over the years had not been well spent.
The Rolly Simpson in front of me that day was slim and looked fit and clear-eyed, although undeniably older than his forty-nine years. Tall, with a hawk-like nose, piercing blue eyes and blond hair (now back in a ponytail), his rugged good looks and devil-may-care attitude had been attracting women by the score for as long as I’d known him.
“Hello, Rolly,” I said neutrally. “Didn’t think to find you here.”
“Angus’s old dad wasn’t up to officially identifying the body. Since you were en route, DCI Campbell, here, asked me to deputize. I happened to be in Edinburgh, so it was no problem to pop over.” He went up and shook the cop’s hand heartily. “Top o’ the mornin’ to you, sir!”
Campbell beamed at Rolly in a way that I hadn’t yet seen from him—certainly not towards me. In fact, I had the feeling he would have regarded me as the prime suspect if I hadn’t been so firmly three thousand miles away in Canada.
Rolly turned his smile on Constable Dickson. “And how are you today, Michelle? I’ve never seen any woman look so good in a uniform.”
The constable dropped her eyes, blushing furiously.
Rolly hadn’t changed one jot over the years: same bad lines delivered with such ease they could charm the pants off any woman inside of ten minutes. Judging by her reaction, he might possibly already have accomplished it with PC Dickson, or was well on the way.
“So what do you think of poor Angus’s little museum, Michael?” Rolly asked.
I smiled, despite my mood. “It’s like seeing old friends again.”
Rolly looked at me sharply. “Does that include me?”
Noticing Campbell’s attention on us, I chose my words carefully. “Yes, Rolly, that includes you.”
He strode forward and gripped me in a bear hug, patting my back heartily. I tried to look as if this were all normal.
Rolly stepped back with his hands still on my upper arms, looking me over. “The years have been kind to you, haven’t they? You look almost the same, Michael. God, it’s great to see you!” Turning back to Campbell, he asked, “Have you finished doing your worst on my mate here? If so, I’d really like to get him alone somewhere for a long jaw about the old days.”
Campbell nodded, but added, “If Mr. Quinn doesn’t mind, I will probably wish to talk with him again, and I’d like to know if he makes any plans to return home.”
Not so much the words, but the way Campbell said them, brought me up short. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d divined some of the part I’d played in Angus’s murder. He’d managed to come close to tripping me up a few times, and I wasn’t eager to give him any more chances if I could help it.
“I will certainly be here through the funeral,” I said, then turned to Rolly. “I’m assuming there will be a funeral?”
“Angus’s father would like one—even if Angus himself would have thought the idea bloody stupid. I’m to call later today and find out what’s been decided. One of Angus’s sisters lives in Australia, you know, so it will still take her a bit of time to get here. My guess is the funeral will be the day after tomorrow at the earliest, assuming that’s all right with you folks,” he said to Campbell.
“It should be fine.”
“Great! That’s settled then. Michael, do you feel up to some grub?”
I suddenly realized that I was indeed hungry. “All right. I’ll also need to arrange for a place to stay.”
“No problem! You can stay with me at the Hilton in Glasgow. I’ll just change to a suite. It’ll be like old times.”
I didn’t want those old times—for several reasons. “No thanks, Rolly. I’d rather stay someplace nearby like Dunoon.”
He flashed a quick smirk over at Constable Dickson, and I was certain from the looks that passed between them, that he’d bedded her. “Right, I remember now: your seasickness.” He turned to the two cops. “Once we decided to cross the Channel by boat, and Michael spent the entire trip with his head in the—”
“I’m sure they don’t want to listen to old war stories. Besides, I left the car I hired back in Dunoon at the police station.”
Rolly realized from my tone that he’d overstepped the boundaries and did a deft about-face. “Right. Let’s go, then.”
As I would have expected, Rolly’s car was fast and expensive: a bright red Porsche Carrera coupe. His driving hadn’t changed, either: too fast, too careless and still way too lucky for him to think of smartening up.
He didn’t take the road back to Dunoon, though, turning instead to the left in the direction of the Isle of Bute.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I’m taking the road up the side of Loch Fyne to a little place I know. They serve great seafood, especially oysters.”
“Oysters? Good lord, Rolly! When did you start eating anything like that? You always said that plain old pub grub was good enough for the likes of you.”
“Yes, and all it got me was good and fat. Now that I’ve got back to fighting trim, I’ll stay that way, thank you very much.”
In better circumstances, I might have enjoyed the meal. The location was fabulous, even in winter. Loch Fyne Oyster Bar is right across the road from its namesake, and framing the scene across the water were the high hills of Argyll. It was a bit of an upmarket sort of place, but one where you felt the food was more important than the decor.
The meal was astounding for another reason: I watched this person, whom I thought I knew, negotiate things about which he should have known absolutely nothing. He was on first name terms with the female waitstaff (not surprising), but he also knew all about what shellfish to order and could discuss the relative merits of various vintages of champagne. In short, Rolly was the complete opposite of the roustabout Brummy lad I’d grown up with.
Two things hadn’t changed, though, his talk was still pungent with expletives—and he still drank too much.
“You know, Michael,” he said at one point, punctuating his comments with his fork, “the world will treat you like shite if you let it. Look at us. We got fucked over by the record company. Do you realize that we paid for recording all our albums out of our advance money, and then at the end of the day, they owned the bloody masters? How do they figure that’s fair?
“Confront them on that and they’ll tell you this is the way these things have always been done. Take a naïve group of lads with stars in their eyes, and while you’re shaking on the deal with one hand, you’re picking their pockets with the other.”
