Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

When he was settled at last, I asked, “Has Piers any other relations who might have asked him to sell the jewellery?”

“That was the respectable branch of the family. Have you met Hamlyn’s family yet?”

I shook my head. I had an idea it was because he was afraid I wouldn’t pass muster, and would start dropping aitches and eating my peas with a knife. Or was it only the middle classes like Griff who worried about such niceties?

“Or his friends?”

Another shake of the head.

“Are you sure he’s kosher?”

I looked him straight in the eye. “That’s what I’m hoping you’d tell me.”

He took the sort of pull on his Champagne that I can only manage on water, and then it gives me hiccups. “Tell you what, you sell those plates for me and get me some more bubbly, and I’ll see what I can do.”

I nodded. I knew of old that the plates were a pretty tatty collection, mostly more Piers’s sort of price range than mine, but for the information he might come up with I’d buy him a case of fizz myself.

In the event, I didn’t have to. I found a red anchor mark Chelsea plate at the bottom.

“Ireland!” Griff repeated, when I reported back our conversation as word for word as I could make it. “Why didn’t you tell me the little rat had gone to Ireland?”

“Because I know you don’t like me talking about him, and I thought you’d think I was upset not to be invited.”

He frowned as he worked out what I meant. That was the trouble with not finding words easy: Sometimes they shuffled themselves into clumsy lumps. “And you weren’t upset?”

“Glad not to be. I wouldn’t want to sleep with him under false pretences.”

“God knows where you got your moral principles from-not Lord Elham.”

“Mostly from you!”

I could see he was pleased. But he added, quite seriously, “On the other hand, think of the stuff you could have picked up over there. Anyway, Ireland. And Dublin in particular. Diamond merchant.”

“Not Amsterdam? Or Hatton Garden?”

“We’re not talking about real diamonds, are we, petal? Not according to my contact.” He touched his nose.

“They are fakes?”

“As true as a six-pound note. As we always suspected.”

“But that doesn’t get us any further forward with Piers. For my own satisfaction, Griff, I need to know if he’s running the show or if he’s a dupe. I may suspect… but I need to know.”

“For that, my love, unless you wish to involve the police, you may have to rely on Lord Elham.”

“Set a thief to catch a thief, you mean.”

“Not in your trade vehicle!” Lord Elham insisted.

“I’m not going to turn up advertising it’s me, am I? We’ll do what Griff and I always do if we want to go to London. We catch the train, and after that take a cab. There’s nothing more incognito than a cab, surely.”

“And you’re happy to lurk outside the establishment-in that cab, for preference-while I Do the Deed?”

I wasn’t, but I didn’t see my getting admitted into what called itself a massage parlour but sounded more like a high-class brothel, except as an employee. And I’d always drawn the line at that, even when I was at my lowest, before Griff came to my rescue.

So when the day came, and Lord Elham had had the nod and the wink he’d hoped for, I collected him in my Fiesta and drove us to Ashford International Station.

“Travel first class? Dear me, I can’t afford that!” was his reaction to my offer, but I could tell he was sacrificing himself. However, he perked up considerably when he saw even the second-class areas were comfortable and our seats even had a little table on which to place our Champagne, which I was determined to ration. To my amazement, he showed me how to tackle Sudoku, rattling through the Times’ s fiendish puzzle as if he were a child with an abacus. The journey passed surprisingly quickly.

“Now,” I prompted him, “you remember how that little tape recorder works? And you won’t have more than one bottle?”

“Shampoo at six hundred pounds a pop? You jest!”

All three faces were serious as we sat around Griff’s dining table. He’d made a huge effort, not to impress Lord Elham, but to show me how generous-spirited he was, entertaining a man he still saw as his rival under his own roof. To be honest, the delicate soup, tender guinea fowl, and exploding meringues were wasted on my father. But he too was on his best behaviour, praising as judiciously as if we didn’t know that Spicy Beef Pot Noodles were his real preference, and gossiping about the famous faces he’d seen at the brothel. I’d spotted, from the depths of my cab, a further couple he’d missed. One face we’d both seen was Piers Hamlyn’s.

At last Lord Elham extended a spatulate finger and pressed the Play button. We could hear Piers’s voice quite clearly, against the chink of glasses and the raucous voices of the rich. He was boasting about his fence, how it was like taking candy from a baby.

And then we heard Lord Elham’s voice: “Young man, it happens to be my baby from whom you are taking the confectionary. My little girl Lina. She will not be marrying you, of course. And, unless you want an exposé that would shock even your family to the roots, I suggest you listen very carefully to what I say…”

“The Falklands!”

“I do wish, my love, you wouldn’t squeak,” Lord Elham reproached me, just as if he were Griff. “Yes, the Falklands. I believe he will find his niche out there: sheep or mineral rights, whichever interests him more. Not forever. Just long enough for you to mop up all the fake gems he’s scattered about the country.” He laid a wad of notes on the table. “That should suffice. You will keep any change.” He looked at my ringless finger. “You should find enough there to purchase genuine stones for the two rings in your keeping.” He sat back, belched, and looked as his watch. “Now, I always watch Big Brother at this time. And then, my child, you can run me home.”

Hector could see that one apology wasn’t going to be enough. Either that or the old man hadn’t really believed his first apology, which was understandable because it hadn’t been genuine. But then, Hector had only been flippant because he’d thought the old man had to be joking. Because who took offence over stuff like that in this day and age? Hector’s grandmother was nearly ninety and she could probably teach this old guy some new words. Even so…

“Hey look, I really am sorry, man, I didn’t realize. I’ll be more careful.” He didn’t get a response so he looked across at him.

“Just keep your eyes on the road.”

Hector faced forward and made a show of looking out at the night-time streets.

Sidney, the old man, had the feeling he and the young punk wouldn’t become friends. It wasn’t just the cursing and the profanity, it was an air the punk had about him, like no standard was too low. And he just didn’t shut up, either – he just never ran out of things to say.

Of course, Mr Costello had asked Sidney to take him under his wing, felt he just needed a little guidance, that he’d come on with the right role model, so here they were, driving out to Nolan’s house to sort out a little company business. And because Mr Costello had asked him to take the punk along, he was taking the punk along, that’s the guy he was.

He could tell the punk was thinking about something now, that he was itching to speak yet again.

Hector had kept turning the word over in his mind, the word that had upset the old man. Having said that, the old man was such a stickler, he probably got upset if someone pronounced “oregano” in the wrong way. But the word that had actually upset him also upset a lot of people, and the more he thought about it, that hardly seemed fair, because it was a good word.