Gavin Lyall - Blame The Dead

'If you like. Now – d'you want to hear how I've been getting on?'

'I'd like to know why you were attacked like that.'

'They were after whatever Bertie Bear was supposed to be. They found the new copy in my flat, and I babbled about him when they hit me with the truth-drug technique, and they didn't want to know. So we know he was a blind, and there's something that size and shape around.'

'Not in Daddy's flat?'

'No. Somebody searched there before me, mind-' his eyes opened wide; '-but I got jumpedafter that, so if it was the same mob they didn't find it at the flat, either. And it can't be at Lloyd's or Mockby would have nicked it. He knows what it is, by the way.'

He thought about this. 'It might be in this house, then.'

'Yes. Can you go through his stuff here?'

He looked doubtful, but nodded slowly and fumbled at his inside pocket. 'I don't know if I should have done this, but – it's a letter my mother threw away.'

I suppose the code of the greater public schools doesn't encourage snooping through parents' wastebaskets, so I un-crumpled it – it had been screwed into a ball – and said quickly, 'Oh, yes, you were right,' long before I'd found out he certainly•was right.

It was on the office notepaper of Jonas Steen, Marine Surveyor (it actually said that in English), of Bergen, Norway. Handwritten, in the mature but slightly inaccurate style of a man who usually gets his thoughts typed out for him.

And it said:

Dear Madam,

May I express my great sorrow at the terrible death of your husband, whom I also knew? It must be a very great shock.

I would not trouble you more at this dreadful time but there was a certain book I think he was carrying to France when he died. If it was not taken by Mr Card who was with him, do you please know where it is?

Yours with great sorrow,

Jonas Steen

I read it twice, then said, 'A book. Just "a book". He's playing it pretty canny. Isn't he? Not much help to your mother in finding it. You don't happen to know if she wrote back?" He made a rueful face. 'I can't very well ask her.'

'No, I see that. Well, at least I can talk to this bloke Steen.'

'I'm not sure you really ought to go on, sir. I didn't know it would get as rough as… well, as beating you up.'

'Didn't know myself. But I can't stop as long as anybody thinks I've got this book.'

'You could say it was just a colouring book.'

'Yes? And you think they'd believe me?'

'I see, sir. I suppose they couldn'trisk believing you.'

'Anyway, as long as they think I've got it they'll keep coming to me – and they won't be looking too hard in other places. It's made Mockby commit himself. And the party of the third part.'

'Do you think it could have been Mr Mockby who sent those gangsters to beat you up?'

'Very much doubt it. It's more the style of the Arras boys.'

He went pale, blinked, and turned away quickly.

I said, 'So I'll ring this bloke Steen and – well, we'll see. One other thing: would you consider bringing Willie Winslow in on this? Tell him you've hired me and so on?'

He fiddled at the train layout, switched a couple of points, joined a couple of carriages. 'If you like, sir. Why, though?'

'We might need somebody to put pressure on Mockby. Winslow's one of the syndicate, and he seems a sympathetic enough bloke, so…'

He still hadn't turned around and wasn't going to until he'd found a way of wiping his eyes without me noticing. 'All right, sir. Will you talk to him or shall I?'

'Better be you. Get him to take you for a ride in that ruddy great Panzerkampfwagen of his. But ask him if he'd ring me.'

He managed to get his sleeve into his eyes fairly unobtrusively, then wandered on and twiddled the model Spitfire. 'Did you find out anything at the flat?'

Had I? Had I honestly found out anything except a lot of figures that barely added up even into guesses?

'Not really. Just a general picture of your father's pattern of life… I hadn't known your mother was American until today. Do you know her side of the family well?'

Tve met some of them. They're rather rich, I think. Mummy goes over to see them every year but… but I don't think Daddy got on with them very well. I don't think he wanted me to go. I haven't been since I was… nine, I think.'

Mummy flies over every year, does she? Which would mop up half her investment income for the year in itself – unless somebody over there sent her a ticket. And if they're rather rich, why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they send her more than airline tickets? Like late Turners for the wall of the house. Like the house itself. And money to run it.

How would a man like Fenwick have taken that?

I said, 'Here – you'd better have the key of the flat back. The solicitors'll want it sooner or later.'

He turned and took it, looking no more than a little red-eyed.

As gently as I could, I said, 'I've seen soldiers cry in action. The best ones, too. I'll keep in touch.'

Downstairs, the party had dwindled to a handful who were sitting down by now and looking as if they'd move when the liquor ran out. Mrs Fenwick caught us at the bottom of the stairs and looked at David with a slightly reproachful smile.

'You've been monopolising Mr Card, dear. Now run along and see if anybody wants a drink.'

David said dutifully, 'Yes, Mummy,' and pushed off. Around her, he seemed to drop a couple of years. But maybe most children do around most mothers.

Mrs F sat firmly but elegantly on a long bench sofa and patted the space beside her. 'Do you want to tell me what happened that day?'

And that was as much choice as I got about speaking to her or not. So I told her – most of it, anyway. I left out Bertie Band some of the colourful bits when Fenwick died, but she got the rest pretty straight.

She sipped her gin and tonic and listened carefully, nodding occasionally. When I'd finished she just said, 'I'm sure you did everything you could.'

It was nice to hear, but a bit unexpected. 'He obviously wasn't expecting anything like that,' I said defensively.

'I'm sure he wasn't,' and she smiled reassuringly. It was a nice, easy, little-girl smile, and she looked as if she could laugh out loud without spoiling anything. Most women look either as if they're acting or trying to call the fire brigade.

I asked, 'Have you any idea of who could be involved?'

'I'm afraid not.' A rather sad smile this time. 'He didn't talk about his work much. If it was anything to do with the syndicate, Willie might know. Mr Mockby certainly would.'

'Yes, and what he'd tell me you could write on a pin-head and leave room for all those angels, too.'

'You don't like Mr Mockby?' She looked almost mischievous.

'Only on first and second impressions.'

She nodded. 'I sometimes wish he hadn't joined the syndicate. Of course, he did bring in a lot of money…'

That was as good a cue as I was ever likely to get. I ahetned and asked, as politely as I could, 'Are you… going to have any problems that way?'

For a moment her face went blank again, like when she'd first found out who I was. But then she smiled again. 'Oh, I think I'll manage. David's schooling will be covered by insurance… I may leave this house; it seems a bit of a waste to keep on such a big place… and Martin's deposit in Lloyd's will come back to me, of course.'

'Of course.' Then I realised what she'd said. 'Come "back", was that?'

The smile got a little wistful. 'Oh, yes. It was always mine to start with. You have to be born with money these days, and Martin wasn't.'

I picked my words like a man pulling thorns out of a lion's paw. 'You helped start Mr Fenwick up in Lloyd's, then?'

'He was already a broker there when we married, but he wanted to become an underwriter and they have to have capital, you see. So of course he had to have mine.'