Gavin Lyall - Blame The Dead

'Blackmailed about what?'

He shrugged, and his voice seemed lighter and more confident now. 'He never told us. Something personal, he said. Not business.'

'What about notes and so on?'

'No notes. All done by telephone.'

'You didn't have much to go on.'

'You're bloody right, there. Didn't bloody get anywhere, either.'

Then our first course arrived, and I found I'd been right about being close to the fish market. Those prawns actually tasted of something besides the sauce. Can you imagine that?

So for a time, I just ate.

When I'd finished, I asked Maggie, 'What was he being blackmailed about?'

She stiffened. So she knew. That was the important step.

I said, 'Well?'

Draper was leaning on one elbow and looking at her curiously.

I said it again.

She put on the voice she would have used for getting rid of beggars and life-insurance salesmen. 'You really don't think I'm going to discuss Mr Fenwick's private life with a… a merebodyguard, do you?'

I pulled the pin out of my temper, counted to three, and let it blow. 'Just tell me what in hell gives you the exclusive rights to the late Martin Fenwick, underwriter, will you? He had a wife, a son, he had partners and friends – as well as a silly little secretary with a schoolgirl crush on the boss. And maybe some ofthem want to know why he got his guts blown in even if you don't care a damn!'

I was projecting fine, just fine. Maybe La Scala in Milan had heard better, but never the Grill at the Norge. Several groups at nearby tables were giving me snowbound looks, and the wine waiter was teetering on his toes, praying I'd stop before he had to stop me.

Even Draper was looking a bit shook, making shushing movements with his hands. 'Here, cool it off, chummie-'

I snapped at him.'And you, unless you want your tits kicked through your trapezium!'

And probably that about covered the situation. The trouble with all those years of interrogation procedures is that by now I can't tell how honest my anger really is. But for the moment, it seemed good enough.

Maggie had a definite flush now, and tears sparkling in her eyes. She finished her gin at a gulp. 'All right, all right. It was… I was… having an affair with him.' And she glanced at me quickly, then back to her plate.

Draper was looking at her speculatively, probably wondering whathis chances were. About one in infinity squared, I'd say.

I said, 'All right, so now we know. It happens all the time.' Though it doesn't, you know, not as much as everybody seems to think. In most firms, the one person youdon't start ring-a-dinging is your own secretary. It changes an important business relationship into something else, and the board room doesn't like it. It's a good way to find yourself promoted manager of the North Greenland branch.

Which makes it a better blackmailing point than you might otherwise think, of course.

'And that leaves us,' I said, 'with the question of what he was being blackmailedfor. What they wanted from him.'

I knew it was a bloody stupid remark the moment I'd finished it. She stared at me, tears spilling from suddenly widened eyes. 'Well, you ought to know. You've got it.'

Fast, now. 'What did he tell you?'

'Just that it was evidence about a claim.'

'Well – could you identify it again?' Oh, a crafty one, that.

But: 'No -1 never saw it. It was sent to his home, I think. His flat.'

Yet without leaving any traces around the flat, like covering letters. Unless the party of the other part had nicked them before I'd got there.

'Did he tell you what claim? – what ship?'

'No, I never knew that.' Not true, darling. I can tell.

'You didn't have to write any letters about it?'

'No.'

'He didn't talk in bed much, did he, your Fenwick?'

Her eyes filled with fresh tears, and Draper looked at me and said, 'You know, you're a bit of a right sod.'

At the time, I almost agreed with him.

The old waiter wheeled up a trolley with the next course, giving me a couple of suspicious looks free and with the compliments of the management. He'd long ago formed a private view about Draper, but after my concerto for unaccompanied bad temper he was getting a second opinion on me, too.

Still, whatever he felt hadn't transferred itself to the lobster. It was just firm and white, with little golden trickles of melted butter, as simple as a million dollars. Usually when I feel up to affording lobster I overdo it and ask for itàla everything on the menu and curried cheese besides. Under all that, what I get for lobster is left over from last summer's staff tennis dance.

I must have looked the way I was feeling, because Draper asked, 'D'you usually eat lobster in these pads? '

'Only when there's an expense account in the month.' I looked back to Maggie, nibbling her filleted sole. 'I forgot to ask – how did Fenwick get this… evidence? Who did you say sent it?'

'I didn't…' but she was trying to remember what shehad said, and Draper was glaring sideways at her. 'From Norway, anyway. Bergen, I think.'

'You mean Steen?'

'I… er…' and both Draper and I knew she meant Steen. Suddenly she realised this. 'Well, youknow, don't you? Isn't he the man you came to see? What did he tell you?'

'Him? – nothing. Somebody shot him just before I got there.'

Her surprise was real. The piece of fish on her fork went slowly on into her mouth and got chewed up and swallowed and her eyes were looking at me but they were listening to something over the hills and gone.

I looked back at Draper. He put his knife and fork gently back together on the plate and asked, slow and careful, 'Dead? – why?'

'Basically because of a couple of twenty-two bullets. After that I'm guessing. I guess it was because of something he was going to tell me, but that could be just pure conceit.'

Draper picked up the worn cigar from the ashtray and took out a lighter and – finally – tried to light it. It took time, since it was mostly Havana Saliva by now, but he wasn't in any hurry. Finally he said, 'You've told the police and done all the unsporting things like that, eh, Major?'

'Oh, yes. I imagine it's in the evening paper and on the radio and so on. You could ask the waiter.' Was I really going to scrape the inside of the lobster's tail completely clean? No – let it rest in peace. 'What I was thinking was – I think I've got a date with the blokes that did it, later on this evening. Could be the same ones that killed Fenwick, as well. I just wondered if you'd like to come along and help out? '

Ireached Willie soon after ten, and I didn't waste any of his money on idle chat. 'Steen was murdered before I reached him.'

'Good God! How did it-'

'Never mind. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow – if the police let me leave.'

'I say – you haven't got yourself-'

'No, I haven't. Just routine. Now: have you found out anything about him?'

'Oh, yes. Well, something. He's a sort of Lloyd's sub-agent, done quite a lot of survey work on claims for us when the usual chap there isn't available."

'Specifically for your syndicate? '

'It doesn't work quite that way… but I did a list of the ships he surveyed where we were involved. Over the last three years that was the Gefjon, Bergen Wayfarer, Skadi, Runic Queen, Idun. Those five.'

'Is any one of them special? I've found out that Steen sent Fenwick some sort of evidence about a shipping claim – that's the book-thing he was supposed to be taking to France.'

The line hummed and crackled to itself for a time. Then Willie said slowly, 'Well, each one's special in its own way. Insurance deals with the exceptional – that's what it's all about, what?'

'I suppose so.' I wanted to tell him about Maggie Mackwood and Draper, and about my appointment for later on – but if I were Inspector (First Class) Vik I'd have a copper with a tape-recorder down in the switchboard keeping an ear on James Card.