Gavin Lyall - Blame The Dead

The 'bus' was a long black-and-silver streak of pre-war Mercedes, all bonnet and exhaust pipes and huge headlights and twin horns and a sort of miniature engine-driver's cab stuck on the back as an afterthought. It was as old as I was, but lasting a hell of a sight better. I've never seen a car in more beautiful nick.

'Not really the thing for these occasions,' he said, vaguely apologetic, 'but it's the only black job I've got right now.'

I clambered in and he twiddled a few knobs and the engine went off like a peal of thunder, first time, just as you knew it would. We prowled gently round two sides of the green, then blasted off up a short hill. But he never got a chance to get really moving: we were part of a long queue of expensive transportation winding up to the top, turning right, then in through a pillared gateway.

The Manor turned out to be a square Victorian pile, built long after real manorial times. But solid under its Gothic trimmings, with well-kept sloping lawns and rosebeds and low garden walls. He parked on the gravel driveway – the forecourt was jammed already-and we walked round and up half a dozen wide stone steps and in.

The serious drinkers were already scraping the bottoms of their first glasses and the chatter was beginning to warm up. I caught Harry Henderson carting a tray around and latched on to a Scotch, then stood on the fringe of the crowd and looked around. We were in a tall, rather shapeless hallway, with a log fire burning in a grate at one side and a wide staircase on the other. A couple of pictures on the walls looked genuine, if a little pale, and were well lit. The furniture was thin on the ground, but good antique stuff. It hadn't been the same taste that had furnished the St John's Wood flat. And it hadn't been the income declared on those tax returns that had furnished here, either. What had Oscar implied about this house?

Behind me, a man's voice said, 'She makes a damn pretty widow, anyway.'

Another said, 'Don't suppose she'll make one for long.'

'Hardly. Wouldn't mind a nibble meself, if it comes to that.'

'Not quite the thing to say when you're standing here drinking poor old Martin's gin.'

'Hers, old boy, hers.'

The voices faded into the general babble and I drifted on through to a big, light corner room. It was sparsely furnished -even the concert grand didn't crowd you in that room – but all good stuff. I stared at a picture on the wall and decided it must be late Turner. And nobody got later than Turner.

David came up with a tray of drinks and I reloaded.

'Can I have a talk with you, sir? '

'Sure. I'll hang around until you're clear."

He pushed off; I collected a couple of classy canapés off a housekeeper-shaped woman and went on wandering gently. So far, I hadn't seen Mockby, and since he was difficult to miss I assumed he'd headed back to London to weed his money patch.

Then I came on a collision course with Willie, wandering lonely as an upper-class cloud with a fixed half-smile on his face.

He looked at me. 'I say – you've had an accident.'

It was only the third time we'd met that day. I tell you, you could bleed to death in this country until somebody decides he knows you well enough to call an ambulance.

'Nothing too bad.' I reckoned he'd had enough horror stories for one day. 'Tell me – was Fenwick a good underwriter?'

'Oh, marvellous, old boy – quite the best. We're clear up the creek and grounded on a falling tide without him. He actually knew something about shipping, you see. Most of them don't know a bosun from a binnacle.'

'The underwriters? How the hell do they insure them, then?'

'Oh, experience, statistics, averages, you know. I mean, you don't have to know anything about life to write life insurance, do you, old boy?' He grinned in his mild way; you couldn't quite imagine Willie giving a real rollicking grin. Might frighten the horses; even the tanks. 'But Martin was really interested, particularly in the Norwegian companies. Made us a leader, far as Norway went.'

'Leader?'

'Yes. You know what I mean? Well, it means the syndicates that traditionally set the rates with the brokers, they're the leaders – what? Another underwriter sees a broker hawking around a slip for a Norwegian ship and he looks to see if Fen-wick's taken a line on it and if they have, well, he knows the premium's right – you know? Other syndicates are leaders in tankers or oil rigs or towing risks… but most just follow the lead of the leaders, what?'

I nodded. 'You sound as if you know something about shipping yourself,'

'The family used to be in it, old boy. But we got taken over in the fifties, so I just have to play with it at one remove instead of going for nice long cruises in the owner's cabin, what?'

He smiled and I smiled back. The politely vacant expression might be genuine, but I had a feeling there was something behind it. A man who knew himself, perhaps.

'How did the syndicate do, then?'

'I say, you're asking rather a lot of questions, aren't you, old boy?' But he was still perfectly pleasant with it.

'Guilt feeling, maybe. Wanting to know something about Fenwick, after what happened…' I dangled the bait.

'Oh, mustn't be hard on yourself, old boy. Sure you did everything…' He let his voice drift away.

'It just bothers me.'

'Well, it's no secret we were doing all right. At least Martin kept us afloat in the bad years – and some syndicates broke up then, you know – and we were just about to get going again… and well, you know?'

'How did Fenwick himself manage in the bad years -without profits?'

His eyes went cool and distant, but a fragment of smile remained. 'Just haven't the foggiest notion, old boy. Know I had to sell a few hunters, though. Do you hunt?'

It was a bloody silly question, but it made it politely clear he wanted a quick change of topic.

'Only fleas on cats."

'I… don't think I got that?'

'Fleas on cats. Great sport when I was in Cyprus. Get a light-coloured, short-haired cat – white or ginger's the best. And a pair of eyebrow tweezers, and track them through the undergrowth and – click!'

'Sounds rather sporting. But by rights there should be an element of risk in a blood sport.'

I shrugged. 'You could always try it on an unfriendly cat.'

He put on his vague smile and his eyes focused somewhere else. 'Just so, just so,' he murmured, then sort of faded away.

The party had thinned out a bit, but the remainder were settling in for the duration. David wandered past me, made a conspiratorial face, and led the way upstairs. He had a big room – well, I suppose there weren't any small rooms in that house, except for the servants' – nicely cluttered with the fallout of childhood. A worn old teddy-bear sat on the deep window-sill, a fancy electric train set was collecting dust in one corner, a battered control-line model Spitfire hung on the wall. And books; he had books the way Cyprus cats have fleas.

I picked up a fat volume from beside the bed: Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August. 'Have you read this?'

'Only once so far, sir. Do you know it? '

'Marvellous book. I think she treads a bit gentle on the original Schließen Plan, though.'

He concentrated. 'I thought it only went wrong because… von Kluck came down east of Paris instead of west – and exposed his flank.'

'Maybe. But nobody seems to have asked what would have happened if he'd followed the Plan and gone west. He'd've been out of touch with the Second Army – or stretched pretty thin – and he'd still have been marching for a month and moving farther than anybody else. Either way, he'd got a damned tired Army. And that was the Plan's fault.'

'I suppose so.' He smiled. 'Can I quote you in my essay, sir? -as an ex-Major of Intelligence?'