Free Deadly Business by Quintin Jardine

and down; when you catch them at it, almost invariably they look away and pretend that they hadn’t been. When they’re bold and persist, you frost them until they desist … unless, of course, you don’t want them to desist, but I hadn’t come across one of them in many a year.
    He didn’t look a bit like the Aerosmith front man, apart maybe in the size of his chin, and yes, he had high cheekbones too, accentuated by the glasses he wore, round like John Lennon’s but bigger and with blue-tinted lenses. He was a lot younger too, probably around my age, but from Tom’s perspective, within the human species that fits comfortably into the box labelled ‘old’ … for everyone other than me. His close-cropped hair was fairish with only a few streaks of grey, and he wasn’t skeletal like Mr Tyler, not in the slightest. In fact he looked as if he might have been something of an athlete once, and still kept in shape.
    I turned away from him as casually as I’d glanced in his direction, and back to my young companions.
    ‘Do you know him?’ Janet asked, switching into French.
    ‘No,’ I replied, in the same tongue, ‘not at all.’ And yet, even as I spoke I realised that there was something there, the merest hint of a possibility that, in fact, I did. But if that was the case, I couldn’t place him and I wasn’t about to spend any time trying. Thousands of people pass through our village, year after year, and come back, so it was entirely possible that I’d seen him before. Instead I devoted myself to the coffee, and the white wine, which was actually rather better than decent.
    The fireworks were still blazing away as my watch passed midnight, although they were more sporadic than they had been, and sounds of music had started to drift up from the beach. Tom and Janet were fidgeting in their seats, having finished their coffee, and I’d paid the bill, but I was not about to rush my wine. Not being a wholly irresponsible mother and guardian, I did check them for signs of tiredness, but they looked more awake than I felt. The stress of earlier in the evening had left its mark on me, and I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to get better any time soon. There were going to be ructions when the Monaco youngsters learned what their mother had been and gone and done, and while I wouldn’t be there to see them, I expected to hear about them very soon, as Janet and I had taken to exchanging emails on a regular basis.
    ‘Come on, then,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and hear how Bob Marley’s torch-bearers sound. But first, I will make a pit stop. I suggest that you two do the same.’ In recent years, the agency that manages all the beaches in Catalunya has installed a few portaloos for the summer months, but they’re not places I choose to visit when there’s another option.
    They took my advice, then we headed off. I glanced to my left as we did so and saw that the guy who’d been appraising me earlier had gone before us. I felt a strange pang of disappointment, as if I’d wanted him to give me a wink, so I could blow him out, but it seemed that I hadn’t come up to scratch.
God, Primavera
, I sighed inwardly,
when Steven fucking Tyler doesn’t fancy you, it has to be all downhill after that
.
    I cheered up, though, when we met Ben and Tunè at the top of the hill, heading in the same direction as us. ‘Mum’s babysitting,’ he explained at once, adding, ‘and dog-sitting. Cher and Mustard hate the noise.’ He ruffled Tom’s hair, and slung an arm round Janet’s shoulders. ‘Hey, you two, all grown up and heading for a night on the beach.’
    ‘Not all night,’ I told him, quickly.
    Tunè grinned at me mischievously. ‘They can stay with us, Primavera, if you want to go home early.’ She was only pulling my chain, but it felt like another kick in the morale.
    ‘What’s early for you is late for us,’ I countered.
    ‘I know, really,’ she said, ‘but for us it’s a change to have a whole night to