Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

Shortly after Grantham, Banks had an idea. He made a call on his mobile to an old colleague on the Met, someone who might be able to help. After that, he had a bit more success putting the matter out of his mind and listening to Blues from Laurel Canyon .

King’s Cross was the usual melee. Banks headed straight for the taxi rank and joined the queue. Within a few minutes he was on his way to Sir Laurence West’s office in the City. The journey was slow, like most road journeys in London, and the mild weather seemed to have brought more people out onto the streets. Couriers on bicycles weaved in and out of the traffic with total disregard for safety – theirs or anybody else’s – and pedestrians wandered across the streets no matter where, or what color, the traffic lights were. Many were wearing only their suits or Windcheaters and jeans.

There aren’t many skyscrapers in the City, but Sir Laurence’s offices were on the twelfth floor of one of them and offered a splendid view south over the river to Southwark, or would have done had the day not been so overcast.

When Banks finally made it past the security, receptionists, secretaries, office managers and personal assistants, he was beginning to wish he’d sent someone else instead. He didn’t cope well with bureaucracy and soon found himself losing patience. When he was finally ushered into the inner sanctum he was ready to give Sir Laurence a hard time.

The office was about as big as the entire upper floor of Western Area Headquarters, and most of it was uncluttered open space. Thick carpets with intricate eastern designs covered most of the floor area, the rest being shiny hardwood, and a big teak desk sat at the center, a sleek laptop computer the only object on its surface. In one corner a black leather-upholstered three-piece suite was arranged around a low, glass-topped table, a cocktail cabinet nearby. There was a faint whiff of old cigar smoke in the air.

The man himself was tall and portly, bald-headed and bushy-eyebrowed, with more than a passing resemblance to Robert Morley, probably in his early seventies, but well preserved. He was wearing a slate gray suit, white shirt and striped tie, no doubt representing some old school, exclusive club or regiment. He came forward with a genial smile on his face and shook hands, gesturing for Banks to sit in one of the armchairs.

“Drink?” he offered.

“No, thank you,” said Banks.

“Hope you don’t mind if I do.”

“Not at all.”

West poured himself some amber fluid from a cut-glass decanter and added a splash of soda. Banks got a whiff of brandy.

“I know it’s a bit early,” said West, “but I always make it a point to have a drink before lunch. Just the one, you understand. It helps sharpen the appetite.”

Banks, who might have time to grab a burger at the nearest McDonald’s, if he was lucky, nodded. “I’ll have a Coke, if you’ve got any,” he said.

“Of course.” West opened what looked like a filing cabinet. It was a small fridge. He took out a can of Coke, poured it into a crystal tumbler and handed it to Banks, who thanked him and took a sip.

“Now, what can I do for you?” said West, sitting opposite Banks. He didn’t have to explain that he was a busy man; it was evident from his body language. “The young man on the telephone didn’t tell me very much. I do hope those wretched British Waterways people haven’t been bothering you. They’ve been on at me for years, but I’m afraid I’ve rather ignored them.”

Anyone else’s boats would probably have been towed away long ago, Banks reflected. Wealth and power do have their privileges. Slowly, he explained about the fires and the deaths.

“Oh, dear,” said West. “I hope you won’t be holding me legally responsible for their condition?”

“That’s not my department,” said Banks. “All I’m interested in is who set the fire, and why.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t help. You say there were squatters living on the boats? Perhaps they started the fire?”

“That’s highly unlikely, given that two of them died.”

“I wish I could help.”

“How did you come to be the owner of the boats?”

West swirled his drink in his glass. “They were my father’s,” he said. “I suppose I inherited them.”

“But you had no interest in his business?”

“No. He lived to be ninety-six years old, Mr. Banks. He died just two years ago, though he had been uncommunicative for some time. I know he was in the haulage business, but believe it or not, I didn’t even know about those two boats until the Waterways people got in touch with me, after his death. I know I should have delegated, put someone on it, had something done, but I had more important things on my mind at the time. I didn’t imagine they’d be doing any harm just sitting there.”

“There was no reason you wanted to keep them?”

“Good Lord, no.”

“Or sell them?”

“I suppose I might have got around to that eventually.”

“Were they insured?”

“I imagine so. My father was a thorough man before his illness.”

“But you don’t know for how much?”

“I have no idea. I suppose the executor of his estate would know.”

“Do you know of anybody who might have had a reason to set fire to them?”

“No. Surely you’re not suggesting some sort of insurance fraud?”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” said Banks. It was a patently absurd idea, anyway. West probably made a few billion a year, and the insurance on the boats wasn’t likely to amount to more than twenty or thirty thousand. Still, stranger things had happened. The rich don’t get richer by missing opportunities to make even more money. Or West might simply have got someone to torch them to get them off his hands.

“It’s funny,” said West, “but now you bring it up, I actually did receive an offer to buy one of the boats a few months ago. My secretary brought it to my attention, but I’m afraid I didn’t take the offer very seriously.”

“I thought you didn’t need the money.”

West laughed. “My dear man, that’s no reason to let oneself be taken for a fool.”

“How long ago was it?” Banks asked.

“Oh, not long. October, perhaps.”

“Do you think you could find the letter?”

West called in his secretary, a buxom woman in a no-nonsense pinstriped skirt and matching jacket, who disappeared for a few moments and returned with a buff folder.

“How did the letter come to you?” Banks asked the secretary before she scurried off.

“It was forwarded through British Waterways,” she said. She looked at Sir Laurence for guidance. He nodded, and she passed the folder to Banks. It contained just one sheet of paper, a letter dated the sixth of October. It was brief and to the point.

Someone wanted to buy the southernmost narrow boat – Tom’s boat – moored on the dead-end branch off the Eastvale Canal, near Molesby. He was willing to pay ten thousand pounds – such a low sum, he explained, because the boat needed a lot of work – and that someone was Thomas McMahon himself.

Mark could smell and hear the sea as he made his way down the hill to the sands from Scarborough bus station just after eleven o’clock on Tuesday morning. After a breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms and grilled tomatoes, he had paid his bill in Helmsley and wandered toward the bus stops in the square. There he had caught the half-past-nine bus and stared out of the window at the bleak, misty moorland landscape to the north, until the bus headed down from the moors near Pickering.

His plan, inasmuch as he had one, was to find a job as soon as possible. The money he had stolen from Clive would enable him to get a roof over his head and food in his belly for a while, at least. But he would need something more dependable in the long term. If there was going to be a long term.