Come to Grief (29 page)

“Do you mean to look at?”

“For a start.”

“He’s fairly tall. Light-brown hair.”

“That’s not much,” I said when she stopped.

“He’s not part of my day-to-day life.”

“Except that he burns saints,” I said.

A brief silence, then, “Your restaurant, this time.”

I smiled. Her quick mind could reel in a tarpon where her red mouth couldn’t. “Does Lord Tilepit,” I asked, “wear an obvious cloak of power? Are you aware of his power when you’re in a room with him?”

“Actually ... no.”

“Is anyone ...
Could
anyone be physically in awe of him?”

“No.” It was clear from her voice that she thought the idea laughable.

“So his leverage,” I said, “is all economic?”

“I suppose so.”

“Is there anyone that
he
is in awe of?”

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“That man,” I said, “has spent four months directing his newspaper to ... well ... ruin me. You must allow, I have an interest.”

“But you aren’t ruined. You don’t sound in the least ruined. And anyway, your ex-wife said it was impossible.”

“She said
what
was impossible?”

“To ... to ...”

“Say it.”

“To reduce you to rubble. To make you beg.”

She silenced me.

She said, “Your ex-wife’s still in love with you.”

“No, not anymore.”

“I’m an expert on ex-wives,” India said. “Wronged wives, dumped mistresses, women curdled with spite, women angling for money. Women wanting revenge, women breaking their hearts. I know the scenery. Your Jenny said she couldn’t live in your purgatory, but when I suggested you were a selfish brute she defended you like a tigress.”

Oh
God,
I thought. After nearly six years apart the same old dagger could pierce us both.

“Sid?”

“Mm.”

“Do you still love
her?”

I found a calm voice. “We can’t go back, and we don’t want to,” I said. “I regret a lot, but it’s now finally over. She has a better husband, and she’s happy.”

“I met her new man,” India said. “He’s sweet.”

“Yes.” I paused. “What about your own ex?”

“I fell for his looks. It turned out he wanted an admiration machine in an apron. End of story.”

“Is his name Cathcart?”

“No,” she said. “Patterson.”

Smiling to myself, I said, “Will you give me your phone number?”

She said, “Yes,” and did so.

“Kensington Place restaurant. Eight o‘clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

 

 

When I was alone, which was usual nowadays, since Louise McInnes and I had parted, I took off my false arm at bedtime and replaced it after a shower in the morning. I couldn’t wear it in showers, as water wrecked the works. Taking it off after a long day was often a pest, as it fitted tightly and tended to cling to my skin. Putting it on was a matter of talcum powder, getting the angle right and pushing hard.

The arm might be worth its weight in gold, as I’d told Trish Huxford, but even after three years, whatever lighthearted front I might now achieve in public, in private the management of amputation still took me a positive effort of the “get on with it” ethos. I didn’t know why I continued to feel vulnerable and sensitive. Too much pride, no doubt.

I’d charged up the two batteries in the charger overnight, so I started the new day, Saturday, with a fresh battery in the arm and a spare in my pocket.

It was by then five days since Gordon Quint had cracked my ulna, and the twinges had become less acute and less frequent. Partly it was because one naturally found the least painful way of performing any action, and partly because the ends of bone were beginning to knit. Soft tissue grew on the site of the break, and on the eighth day it would normally begin hardening, the whole healing process being complete within the next week. Only splintered, displaced ends caused serious trouble, which hadn’t occurred in this case.

When I’d been a jockey the feel of a simple fracture had been an almost twice-yearly familiarity. One tended in jump racing to fall on one’s shoulder, quite often at thirty miles an hour, and in my time I’d cracked my collarbones six times each side: only once had it been distinctly bad.

Some jockeys had stronger bones than others, but I didn’t know anyone who’d completed a top career unscathed. Anyway, by Saturday morning, Monday’s crack was no real problem.

Into my overnight bag I packed the battery charger, washing things, pajamas, spare shirt, business suit and shoes. I wore both pieces of the tracksuit, white shirt, no tie and the dark sneakers. In my belt I carried money and a credit card, and in my pocket a bunch of six keys on a single ring, which bore also a miniature flashlight. Three of the keys were variously for my car and the entry doors of my flat. The other three, looking mis leadingly simple, would between them open any ordinary lock, regardless of the wishes of the owners.

My old teacher had had me practice until I was quick at it. He’d shown me also how to open the simple combination locks on suitcases; the method used by airport thieves.

I checked out of the hotel and found the way back to Frodsham, parking by the curb within sight of Topline Foods’ wire-mesh gates.

As before, the gates were wide open and, as before, no one going in and out was challenged by the gatekeeper. No one, in fact, seemed to have urgent business in either direction and there were far fewer cars in the central area than on the day before. It wasn’t until nearly eleven o‘clock that the promised film crews arrived in force.

When getting on for twenty assorted vans and private cars had come to a ragged halt all over the place, disgorging film cameras (Intramind Imaging), a television camera (local station) and dozens of people looking purposeful with heavy equipment and chest-hugged clipboards, I got out of my car and put on the ill-fitting brown overalls, complete with identity badge. Into the trunk I locked my bag and also the mobile phone, first taking the SIM card out of it and stowing it in my belt. “Get into the habit of removing the SIM card,” my supplier had advised. “Then if someone steals your phone, too bad, they won’t be able to use it.”

“Great,” I’d said.

I started the car, drove unhesitatingly through the gates, steered a course around the assorted vans and stopped just beyond them, nearest to the unloading bays. Saturday or not, a few other brown overall hands were busy on the rollers and the shelf escalator, and I simply walked straight in past them, saying “Morning” as if I belonged.

They didn’t answer, didn’t look up, took me for granted.

Inside, I walked up the stairs I’d come down with Willy Parrott and, when I reached the right level, ambled along the gallery until I came to his office.

The sliding glass door was closed and locked and there was no one inside.

The paddles were silent in the vats. None of the day before’s hum and activity remained, and almost none of the smells. Instead, there were cameras being positioned below, with Owen Yorkshire himself directing the director, his authoritative voice telling the experts their job.

He was too busy to look up. I went on along the gallery, coming to the fire door up the flight of metal stairs. The fire doors were locked at night, Willy had said By day, they were open. Thankful, I reached in the end the plush carpet of the offices.

There was a bunch of three media people in there, measuring angles and moving potted plants. Office work, I gathered, was due for immortality on Monday. Cursing internally at their presence, I walked on towards the elevator, passing the open door of Customer Relations. No Marsha Rowse.

To the right of the elevator there was a door announcing Office Manager, A. Dove, fastened with businesslike locks.

Looking back, I saw the measuring group taking their damned time. I needed them out of there and they infuriatingly dawdled.

I didn’t like to hover. I returned to the elevator and, to fill in time, opened a nearby door which proved to enclose fire stairs, as I’d hoped.

Down a floor, and through the fire door there, I found an expanse of open space, unfurnished and undecorated, the same in area as the office suite above. Up two stories, above the offices, there was similar quiet, undivided, clean-swept space. Owen Yorkshire had already built for expansion, I gathered.

Cautiously, I went on upward to the fifth floor, lair of the boss.

Trusting that he was still down among the vats, I opened the fire door enough to put my head through.

More camera people moved around. Veritable banks of potted plants blazed red and gold. To the left, open, opulently gleaming double doors led into an entertaining and boardroom area impressive enough for a major industry of self-importance. On the right, more double doors led to Yorkshire’s own new office; not, from what I could see, a place of paperwork. Polished wood gleamed. Plants galore. A tray of bottles and glasses.

I retreated down the unvarnished nitty-gritty fire stairs until I was back on the working-office floor, standing there indecisively, wondering if the measurers still barred my purpose.

I heard voices, growing louder and stopping on the other side of the door. I was prepared to go into a busy-employee routine, but it appeared they preferred the elevator to the stairs. The lifting machinery whirred on the other side of the stairwell, the voices moved into the elevator and diminished to zero. I couldn’t tell whether they’d gone up or down, and I was concerned only that they’d
all
gone and not left one behind.

There was no point in waiting. I opened the fire door, stepped onto the carpet and right towards Mrs. Dove’s domain.

I had the whole office floor to myself.

Great.

Mrs. Dove’s door was locked twice: an old-looking mortise and a new knob with a keyhole in the center. These were locks I liked. There could be no nasty surprises like bolts or chains or wedges on the inside: also the emphatic statement of two locks probably meant that there were things of worth to guard.

The mortise lock took a whole minute, with the ghost of my old master breathing disapprovingly down my neck. The modem lock took twenty seconds of delicate probing. One had to “feel” one’s way through. False fingers for that, as for much else, were useless.

Once inside Mrs. Dove’s office, I spent time relocking the door so that anyone outside trying it for security would find it as it should be. If anyone came in with keys, I would have warning enough to hide.

Mrs. Dove’s cote was large and comfortable, with a wide desk, several of the Scandinavian-design armchairs and grainy blow-up black and white photographs of racing horses around the walls. Along one side there were the routine office machines—fax, copier, and large print-out calculator, and, on the desk, a computer, shrouded for the weekend in a fitted cover. There were multiple filing cabinets and a tall white-painted and—as I discovered—locked cupboard.

Mrs. Dove had a window with louvered blinds and a . distant view of the Mersey. Mrs. Dove’s office was managing director stuff.

I had only a vague idea of what I was looking for. The audited accounts I’d seen in Companies House seemed not to match the actual state of affairs at Frodsham. The audit did, of course, refer to a year gone by, to the first with Owen Yorkshire in charge, but the fragile bottom-line profit, as shown, would not suggest or justify expensive publicity campaigns or televised receptions for the notables of Liverpool.

The old French adage “look for the lady” was a century out of date, my old teacher had said. In modem times it should be “look for the money,” and shortly before he died, he had amended that to “follow the paper.” Shady or doubtful transactions, he said, always left a paper trail. Even in the age of computers, he’d insisted that paper showed the way; and over and over again I’d proved him right.

The paper in Mrs. Dove’s office was all tidied away in the many filing cabinets, which were locked.

Most filing cabinets, like these, locked all drawers simultaneously with a notched vertical rod out of sight within the right-hand front comer, operated by a single key at the top. Turning the key raised the rod, allowing all the drawers to open. I wasn’t bad at opening filing cabinets.

The trouble was that Topline Foods had little to hide, or at least not at first sight. Pounds of paper referred to orders and invoices for incoming supplies; pounds more to sales, pounds more to the expenses of running an industry, from insurance to wages, to electricity to general maintenance.

The filing cabinets took too long and were a waste of time. What they offered was the entirely respectable basis of next year’s audit.

I locked them all again and, after investigating the desk drawers themselves, which held only stationery, took the cover off the computer and switched it on, pressing the buttons for List Files, and Enter. Scrolls of file names appeared and I tried one at random: “Aintree.”

Onto the screen came details of the lunch given the day before the Grand National, the guest list, the menu, a summary of the speeches and a list of the coverage given to the occasion in the press.

Nothing I could find seemed any more secret. I switched it off, replaced the cover and turned my lock pickers to the tall white cupboard.

The feeling of time running out, however irrational, shortened my breath and made me hurry. I always envied the supersleuths in films who put their hands on the right papers in the first ten seconds and, this time, I didn’t know if the right paper even existed.

It turned out to be primarily not a paper but a second computer.

Inside the white cupboard, inside a drop-down desk arrangement in there, I came across a second keyboard and a second screen. I switched the computer on and nothing happened, which wasn’t astounding as I found an electric lead lying alongside, disconnected. I plugged it into the computer and tried again, and with a grumble or two the machine became ready for business.