Armadillo (10 page)

‘If you can believe it,’ Gale was saying, sawing at the vista with the edge of his palm, ‘I’m actually going to spoil my own view. Our new development is going to block out about three-quarters of the dome of St Paul’s…’ He shrugged. ‘It is a rather super building, I must say’

‘I think Wren is the master, finally,’ Lorimer said.

‘What? Oh no, I mean our new development.’ He went on proudly to name a firm of architects he was employing of whom Lorimer had never heard.

‘You could always move office,’ Lorimer ventured.

‘Yeees. Can I get you some coffee, tea,
acqua minerale?’

‘No, thank you.’

Jonathan Gale sat down behind his desk, taking care not to crease his jacket. He was a slackly handsome man in his fifties with an even sunbed-bronzed look to him and thinning, oiled-back chestnut hair. Lorimer was relaxed, Gale was in the ninety-nine per cent, he had overcompensated. Gale was also a little too well-dressed, in Lorimer’s verdict. Savile Row suit, yes, but the cut was slightly too tightly waisted, the lapels a little wide, the rear vents a little too long. Also the vibrant cobalt blue shirt with the white collar and cuffs, the pillar-box red of the tie were distinctly lurid – all this and the unfamiliar knobbled leather (mamba? iguana? komodo dragon?) and pointed-ness of the shoes hinted at
dandysme,
the ultimate sin in Ivan Algomir’s book, the worst sort of pretension. The watch was ostentatious, heavy, gold, rising half an inch off the wrist with many dials and projecting winders. This chronometer was consulted and there ensued some speculation about the tardiness of Francis, whereupon he presently arrived, apologizing.

Francis Home was olive-skinned, wearing a dollar-green suit that only the French and Italians can get away with. He had dark, crinkly hair and a fine gold chain around his right wrist. He smelt of some faint coniferous, cedary aftershave or cologne. Cypriot? Lebanese? Spanish? Egyptian? Syrian? Greek? Like himself, Lorimer knew, there were many types of Englishmen.

Lorimer shook the hand with the gold chain. ‘Mr
Hume,’
he pronounced carefully, ‘how do you do? I’m Lorimer Black.’

‘Homey’ Home said with a slight gutteral rasp on the ‘h’. ‘The “e” is not silent.’

Lorimer apologized, repeated his name correctly, coffee was ordered and fetched and they took up their positions.

‘We are simply devastated by the fire,’ Gale said. ‘Shocked. Aren’t we, Francis?’

‘It is a most serious matter for us. The knock-on effect to our operations is… is…’

‘Disastrous.’

‘Precisely’ Home agreed. He had a very slight accent, quasi-American, Lorimer thought. ‘The claim is in,’ Home went on. ‘I assume everything is in order,’ he added, knowing full well it wasn’t.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Lorimer confirmed, sadly. ‘It turns out that the fire in the Fedora Palace was a deliberate one. Arson.’

Gale and Home looked sharply at each other, eyes beaming messages in unfeigned alarm, Lorimer thought.

He continued: ‘It was started by one of your subcon tractors, Edmund, Rintoul, to avoid paying penalty charges. Of course they deny it, categorically.’

Gale and Home’s surprise deepened. They wanted to speak, to curse, to exclaim, Lorimer guessed, but some profound level of caution silenced them. They glanced at each other again, as if waiting for a sleepy prompter: the mood in the room grew darkly serious, stakes increasing by the second.

‘Deliberately? Are you sure?’ Gale managed to say, forcing a baffled smile.

‘It happens all the time. A week or two’s delay is all they’re after, a rescinding of the penalty clause.
Force majeure,
sort of thing. The trouble with the Fedora Palace was that it all got out of hand, badly out of control. A little bit of damage to the gymnasium would have sufficed – they’d no intention of destroying five floors and the rest.’

‘This is outrageous. Who are these men? They should be in prison, for God’s sake.’

‘They deny everything.’

‘You should prosecute them,’ Home said brutally. ‘Sue. Destroy them. And their families.’

‘Ah, but it’s not our problem, Mr Home. It’s yours.’

There was a silence. Home began to look genuinely troubled, rubbing his hands together persistently to produce an irritating slippery rasp of moist flesh.

‘You’re saying that this will affect payment of the claim in some way’ Gale ventured.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ Lorimer said. ‘In a significant way’ He paused. ‘We will not be paying.’

‘It’s not a question of disagreeing with the valuation?’ Gale asked, still civil.

‘No. But in our opinion it has become a criminal matter. It’s no longer a straightforward claim for fire damage. One of your own contractors has deliberately destroyed a fair proportion of the building. We can’t simply reimburse arsonists, you must understand. The whole city would be ablaze.’

‘What do the police say?’

‘I’ve no idea. These conclusions are a result of our own investigations, carried out by us on behalf of your insurer.’ Lorimer paused. I have no alternative under these circumstances but to advise them – Fortress Sure – not to honour this claim.’ He paused once more, giving a trace of a saddened smile. ‘Until these matters are satisfactorily resolved. It could take a long time.’

Gale and Home looked at each other again, Gale making an effort to keep his features composed.

‘You’ll have to pay us in the end. Good God, man, did you see our premiums?’

‘The premiums are nothing to do with our firm. We are simply loss adjusters. Our advice is that this is a criminal matter and in view of this it would be most inappropriate –’

It went on for a while in this clipped and politely hostile way, the subtext – Lorimer was sure – emerging plain and lucid for all to see. Then he was asked to leave the room for a while and was served a cup of tea by a brisk, matronly woman who made small effort to disguise the utter loathing she held him in. After twenty minutes he was summoned back – Home was no longer present.

‘Is there any way you can see that might get us out of this… this fix?’ Gale asked, more reasonably ‘Any compromise we might reach in order to avoid endless delay?’

Lorimer met his gaze unflinchingly: it was vital to avoid all sense of embarrassment, of covert shamefulness, of tacit admission of guilt.

‘It’s possible,’ Lorimer said. Our clients are normally keen to find a solution – some sort of median figure that is acceptable to both parties is usually the best way forward.’

‘You mean if I agree to take less?’

‘If you see the difficulties this sort of case presents us with and if you decide in the interests of expediency –’

‘How much?’

This was too bold, so Lorimer decided to press on, formally: ‘-you decide in the interests of expediency that the full claim should be reduced. If I go back to my client with this information, I’m sure a compromise can be reached.’

Gale looked at him coldly. ‘I see. And what sort of a figure do you think Fortress Sure will be able to live with?’

This was the moment: Lorimer could feel the pulses pumping in his wrists – 20 million? 15 million? He looked at Gale and his instincts spoke loud and clear.

‘I should think,’ he frowned as if making swift mental calculations, but he had already decided, ‘I should think you’d be safe with 10 million.’

Gale let out a throaty half-laugh, half-expletive.

‘You owe me £ 27 million and you offer me 10? Jesus Christ.’

‘Remember this is no longer normal business, Mr Gale. Your contractors started this fire deliberately. We would be entitled to walk away from this.’

Gale stood up, walked to the window and contemplated his soon-to-be-spoilt view of the ancient cathedral.

‘Would you put that in writing? The offer of 10 million?’

‘You are the one making the offer,’ Lorimer reminded him. ‘I’m sure that if it’s acceptable you will be formally notified.’

‘Well, I’ll make the offer formally, you get me an “acceptance” in writing, Mr Black, and we’ll take it from there.’ He bowed his head. ‘If 10 million seems the way of least resistance, then I will – with huge reluctance – reduce my claim on the Fedora Palace.’

At the door Gale turned to face him, blocking his exit. His tan face was flushed with blood, his anger turning him brick-coloured.

‘People like you are filth, Black, you’re scum. You’re no better than thieves, lying fucking villains. You’ll happily take our money but when it comes to paying out – ‘

‘Would you please let me leave.’

Gale continued to swear harshly at him in a low voice as Lorimer stepped back.

As soon as we have your communication we’ll be in touch, Mr Gale. Tomorrow, probably.’

As Lorimer hummed down in the lift towards the lobby, towards its lush greenness and discreet lighting, he felt his head throbbing slightly, felt his chest fill and lighten, as if packed with effervescing bubbles and – strangely, this was a first – his eyes smarted from unshed tears. But beneath his exhilaration, his buoyant sense of triumph, a keener warning note sounded. Gale had seemed angry, sure – he had just lost £ 17 million that he might reasonably have thought were coming to him – but he hadn’t been nearly angry enough, in Lorimer’s opinion, not nearly, that was the trouble. Why not? This was worrisome.

117. The First Adjust. You
flourished in ‘insurance’ in those early years. Tour father’s connections delivered a lowly but secure actuarial job, you diligently worked and were duly rewarded and routinely promoted. As part of a diversification and work-experience scheme in your first company you were sent on attachment to a firm of loss adjusters. Tour first adjust was at a shoe shop in Abingdon whose stock had been ruined as a result of a burst pipe, inundating the basement, unnoticed over a bank holiday weekend.

How did you know the owner was lying? How did you know that the grief and handwringing was sham? Hogg said later it was pure instinct. All great loss adjusters, Hogg said, can spot a liar at once because they understand, at a fundamental level, the need to lie. They may be liars themselves – and if they are they are excellent liars – but it is not necessary. What is necessary is this understanding of the philosophy of a lie, the compulsive urge to conceal the truth, its complex grammar, its secret structures.

And you knew this man was lying about his soaked and sodden stock, and you knew his wife was lying too as she tried gamely to hold back the tears while they contemplated, alongside you, the destruction of their family business. Mr Maurice, that was the name.

You looked at the papier maché litter of hundreds of drenched shoe boxes, the shining puddles on the floor, smelt the stench of wet leather in your nose and something made you turn to Mr Maurice and say, ‘How do I know you just didn’t turn your hose on the rest of the stock that weekend, Mr Maurice? It seems tremendous damage for one burst pipe.
’

It is the quality of the rage that gives them away. The rage is always there, it always erupts, and Mr Maurice’s rage was impressive, but something about the pitch and tone of an indifferent liar’s rage rings false, troubles the inner ear, like the whine of a mosquito in a darkened bedroom, unmistakable, unerringly disturbing.

So you told Mr Maurice that you were going to advise his insurers to refuse to honour his claim on the grounds of fraud. Shortly after, Mr Maurice was prepared to accept a cash payment of £2,000 as compensation. You saved the insurance company £14,000, you earned your first bonus, it was inevitable that you became a loss adjuster and your continuing, remarkable success in your chosen field brought you, eventually, to the attention of George Gerald Hogg.

The Book of Transfiguration

‘Well, well, well,’ Hogg said sonorously, and lit a cigarette with his usual little flourish. ‘Well, well, well. Ten million.’ Hogg raised his pint of lager. ‘Cheers, son, well done.’

Lorimer toasted himself with his half of Guinness. He had calculated as thoroughly as he could on the way over and, as far as he could tell, on the basis of a £ 17 million adjust, the bonus due to him was £ 134,000, give or take a few hundred. A standard 0.5 per cent up to one million and then a complex scale of exponentially diminishing fractions of one per cent as the amount grew. He wondered what the company’s commission would be – Hogg’s commission. Well into seven figures, he guessed. This was a big one: only Dymphna dealt routinely in sums like these with her botched dam projects, unbuilt power stations and disappearing jumbo jets. This was a straight and simple ‘save’ for Fortress Sure. No risk had been laid off. A good day at the office for all concerned, so why wasn’t Hogg happier?

‘Any trouble?’ Hogg asked. ‘Missiles? Screamers?’

‘No. Just the usual insults and oaths.’

‘Sticks and stones, chummy. Still, I take my hat off to you, Lorimer,’ Hogg said. ‘I don’t think even I’d have dared pitch it quite that low myself. So – the question looms large – why did he go for it?’

Lorimer shrugged. ‘I don’t know’ he said. ‘I couldn’t really figure it out. Cash-flow problems? Doubt it. A little of something better than all of nothing? Perhaps. They seem a pretty secure organization.’

‘They are,’ Hogg said, reflectively. Tunny that. I thought there would have been more of an explosion. A few writs, threats, telephone calls…’

T must say I was a bit surprised too,’ Lorimer admitted.

Hogg looked at Lorimer, shrewdly. ‘You cut along to the Fort. See Dowling in Finance, be the bearer of good news.’

‘Me?’ Lorimer said, puzzled. This was normally Hogg’s prized and privileged role.

‘You deserve the credit, son. Drink up. I’ll get another round in.’

Dowling was genuinely pleased, however. A genial, plump man with a big belly and a capric stink of lunchtime cigars about him, he shook Lorimer’s hand warmly and talked a lot about appalling oversights, damage-limitation and the valued saving to the firm. Then he excused himself and left the room, returning in two minutes with Sir Simon Sherriffmuir himself. Up close, Sherriffmuir’s face was fleshier and more seamed than had appeared the night of Torquil’s farewell party But Lorimer could not fault his clothes: a black pinstripe just shy of ostentation, butter yellow shirt and a big-knotted, pale-pink, self-coloured tie. Everything bespoke, Lorimer knew instantly, even the tie. He wore no watch, Lorimer noticed and wondered if there was a fob somewhere. Interesting: he was not up on the protocols of fobs – perhaps he should affect one? – he would have to check with Ivan.