by Reginal Hill
"Lawyer called Naysmith. Came in last night, got attacked at home."
"Wait here. I'll check."
It didn't take long.
"He's on the top floor. Room to himself, and there's a cop sitting outside. No visitors but family and close friends with a chitty. Woman tried to get in earlier, refused to give her name and got bounced. Word is he's a bit concussed still, he got a lot of bruising and cuts about the head, but no real problem. His wife's in there with him now. And she came along with that lawyer friend of yours from Bullpat Square. She's in the waiting room up there."
She spoke a touch coldly of Butcher. OK, her heart was in the right place, but she seemed to encourage Joe to persist in this crazy PI business. Also there was no need for Joe to go on about her as if the sun shone out of her affidavits! His face was lighting up now.
"Butcher? That's right, she said she was a great mate of Mrs. Naysmith's. I'll get up there and have a word with her. No one guarding the visitors' room door is there?"
"No, Joe. You got free access there. Anything else I can help you with?"
"Maybe. What exactly is dyslexia?"
She looked as surprised at hearing the question as he felt at hearing himself ask it.
"Dyslexia? It's a sort of word blindness, you know, finding it difficult to recognize written words. It covers a whole range of things from just confusing some letters that look alike, such as p's and q's, to having huge difficulty in learning how to read and write. Why do you want to know?"
"No idea," he replied honestly. "Just came into my head."
"Plenty of space," she grinned. "Now get out of here and don't let Sister see you."
She stood aside as he moved towards the door. He paused as he passed her.
"It really is good to see you," he said.
"I was only away for a week," she said.
"Yeah, well, it seemed longer."
She regarded him, smiling and shaking her head at the same time.
"How come the old lines sound so new when you say them, Joe?" she said. "And if you're so glad to see me, shouldn't you shake my hand or something?"
Joe might be slow but he could take a hint when it was less than a foot away and smelt delicious.
He drew her towards him and for too short a moment forgot dead lawyers and threatened runners and gas-filled rooms in the warm moist depths of her lips.
She pushed him away saying, "OK, so you missed me, I believe you. But we'll have to continue this out of working hours, Joe. If continuing it's what you had in mind?"
"Oh yes. Please."
"Then drop by sometime. I'll be at home tonight if that suits. Don't be late or you'll miss Desmond, and you know how he really likes to have you visit."
Always the little sting in the tail, he thought as he climbed the stairs to the next floor. A lot of marriages might be made in Mirabelle's apartment, but Beryl had made it clear from the start she didn't dance to anyone's tune but her own.
In other words, if we get something going, it'll be down to us, not to the Luton Matchmaker. And by us, I mean you, me and Des.
O K by me, thought Joe as he ran lightly up the stairs, his muscles energized by the electricity of that kiss.
"Oh God," said Butcher, looking up from an ancient copy of Reader's Digest. "I thought at least I'd be safe from you here. Or are you just moonlighting as a porter?"
"Came to visit Mr. Naysmith," said Joe. "Heard you were here so thought I'd say hi."
"Hi," said Butcher. "Joe, I thought we agreed, there's nothing but hassle in this business for you, so you were going to stay clear."
That was till I got hired," said Joe smugly.
"Hired? So that's why you're really here. Visiting your client in the psycho wing!"
Joe said, "Ha ha. My client, Mr. Pollinger, is very well, thank you."
"Darby Pollinger's hired you to look into who's killing his partners?" said Butcher on a rising note of incredulity that might have offended a less modest man.
"That's the strength of it."
"He just rang you and said he wanted to hire you? Joe, it's a joke, one of your dickhead chums at the Glit winding you up."
"No, he didn't ring," said Joe. "We bumped into each other at Penthouse, and I've got cash money to prove it."
"At Penthouse? What was he doing at Penthouse?"
"I tell you what he was doing there," said Joe, suddenly remembering he had a grievance against Butcher. "He was visiting one of his firm's clients, a little fact you forgot to mention when you sent me on that wild-goose chase to consult with Potter. What kind of advice did you think I was going to get when it was one of their own biggest clients I wanted to mess with?"
"Is that right? Joe, I'm sorry, I really didn't know. And I don't think I mentioned the name of the firm when I rang Peter
"I mentioned it soon as I saw him," said Joe. "And he didn't say, Sorry man, I can't help you, I've got a conflict of interest here. No, all he did
It occurred to Joe for the second time that it was a bit naff getting het up about the professional standards of a dead man, who'd also once been a good mate of Butcher's.
"Sorry," he said.
"What for?"
"You know, day mortuary, that stuff."
"De mortui, nisi bonum, you mean? Frankly, I don't think Pete Potter would give a damn. But I'm surprised that, soon as you mentioned Penthouse, he didn't say enough, no more, this thing may not be."
"Well, I suppose he had a lot on his mind," said Joe generously.
"Like being just about to get murdered?" said Butcher.
"Like being in the middle of finding out someone had been ripping off the client accounts," said Joe.
"So that's what this is all about?" said Butcher, smiling. Thanks, Joe."
"Shoot! I never said that. Butcher, you tricked me into saying that!"
"Saying what you never said?" she laughed. "Joe, you're too complex for me. But don't worry yourself too much about client confidentiality. From what I've picked up from Lucy Naysmith, I'd pretty well worked it out for myself."
"Why? What's she say?"
"Come on, Joe. I'm not about to act as your snout, particularly not where my friends are concerned."
"Must be a good friend to get you here reading about your wonderful glands while there's people getting downtrodden out there."
"Yes, well ... Joe, what precisely are you getting at?"
"Nothing. Just find it odd that you went on so much about me keeping my nose out and now here I find yours buried deep."
"I see. So what's your conclusion, Sherlock?"
Joe took a deep breath and said, "Well, maybe you're more involved here than I thought. You said you and Potter had once been ... close."
"Close sounds like it's in inverted commas, Joe. Better spell it out."
"Well, you know, cherry-picking close
"You mean like, he was my first lover when we were students together?"
Her mouth trembled and for a second he thought he'd hit the mark. Then she began to shake with laughter.
"Oh Joe," she gurgled, "I thought I made it clear way back that I'd support you as a PI just so long as you promised never to engage your powers of ratiocination! I'm very sorry Pete got killed, but I'm not carrying some adolescent torch for him, believe me!"
"Yeah. OK. Sorry," said Joe. To tell the truth he was rather relieved to be wrong. To see Butcher romantically distressed would have been like seeing light through a pint of Guinness.
"But you do have a point," she went on, recovering her seriousness. "Not many people whose hands I'd hold on a hospital visit when I've got work to do. But Lucy's special. She hates hospitals in general, this one in particular. She was in the maternity ward here a while back, had a hell of a time, lost the baby, can't have any more. It takes a real effort of will for her to drive past the place, let alone step inside. So when she asked, I couldn't say no. But also I do admit I've got a professional interest. If some nut's going around offing lawyers, I'd like to be sure I was
n't on his list."
Joe recognized the attempt to depreciate her unselfish kindness but was happy to go along with it.
"Looks like you're pretty safe if you don't belong to Pollinger's firm," he said.
"It's a consolation," she said. "Also it narrows the suspect field considerably."
"Only if it's got something to do with this client-account thing," said Joe. "No guarantee of that."
"Now you would say that, wouldn't you?" she said maliciously. "Because that would mean the most likely candidates must be the remaining two partners, one of whom is skiing in the Alps, while the other is your client. Hiring someone to investigate his own crime is just the kind of sharp move I'd expect Darby Pollinger to make. I hope you got all your money up front Joe. You prove Darby did it, I don't expect he's going to be keen on paying your bills from Luton Jail."
The fact that she grinned as she said it didn't make it an any less uncomfortable proposition. Joe had already got there himself and had been wondering how he could ask his own employer if he actually had an alibi for the two murders and the attack on Naysmith. The other thing to discover was whether the police had yet made contact with Victor Montaigne.
He said, "When we were looking at that photo of the partners, you said that Montaigne was known as Blackbeard the Pirate. Is that just because of the way he looks?"
Butcher didn't answer because she was looking over his shoulder at the door which had opened silently. Joe turned to find himself facing a tall slender woman. Her pale drawn face, lack of make-up and short brown hair which looked like it had been cut with a meat-axe couldn't hide the fact that she was very beautiful. Indeed, if anything, these apparent drawbacks actually emphasized her beauty, like a movie star still managing to be box-office radiant despite being beaten, bashed and buffeted by everything six exciting reels could throw at her. Perhaps this was what made her look faintly familiar, thought Joe, who dearly loved a good exciting thriller with a happy ending.
She said, "Who the hell are you? One of those crap merchants from the press?"
Butcher said quickly, "Lucy, this is Joe Sixsmith, the investigator."
"Oh. The one who was on the phone when Felix got attacked?" Her tone became marginally less aggressive. "I gather you went rushing round to try and help. Thanks for that. Sorry about the cock-up. It was just hearing you asking questions about Victor ... why are you asking questions, by the way?"
She was regarding him suspiciously once more. This was not a lady to mess with, thought Joe. Being a mate of Butcher's should have forewarned him of that.
He said, "Mr. Pollinger has retained me to look into the case, Mrs. Naysmith."
Honesty was usually the best policy, particularly as anything else required careful thought.
"Which case is that?"
"Well, the case of Mr. Potter's and Ms Iles's murders and the attack on your husband."
That sounds like three cases to me, unless you know different."
She was right, of course. While for them not to be connected seemed to require too long a stretch of coincidence, he of all people should know just how elastic coincidence could be.
Butcher said, "How's Felix, Lucy?"
"Oh, pretty well. Still a bit concussed and not able to remember much after answering the phone. But the damage to his head is mainly superficial, they say, though when I saw him bandaged like a mummy, I thought he must have lost an ear at least."
She managed a wan smile. Her teeth were perfect.
Joe said, "Any chance of me having a few words with your husband, Mrs. Naysmith?"
He thought, short of a chitty from Willie Woodbine, Lucy Naysmith's approval seemed the likeliest route to passage past the guardian cop.
"Why?"
"Just to ask a few questions," he said, trying to sound laconically purposeful.
She said, uncertainly, "I don't know... Felix is still sedated. What he needs is lots of rest. And I can't see how you can get anywhere the police aren't going to get a long way ahead of you. Incidentally, you were asking questions about Victor Montaigne when I came in. Why was that?"
"Because if this is one case, not three, then the other two partners could be in ... danger."
He'd been going to say involved, and he might as well have spared himself the effort at diplomacy because she said, "You mean you think Victor could have had something to do with this?"
She didn't sound as if the idea was either novel or out of court.
He said, "I don't know him, Mrs. Naysmith. That's why I was asking questions. What do you think? Is he the kind of guy who could have got mixed up in this sort of thing?"
This sort of thing being murder and embezzlement. Condition of service for lawyers, Big Merv would say.
She was considering it seriously. Or perhaps she'd already considered it seriously and was now considering whether she wanted to share her conclusions.
"What would you say, Cherry?" she compromised.
Cherry was Butcher. At what point she'd decided that Cheryl wasn't a name that did much for a crusading lawyer's crusade-cred Joe didn't know. But he did know that his accidental discovery via another old acquaintance of what the C stood for gave him one of his very few vantage points in their relationship.
"Yeah, how about it, Cherry?" he said.
She gave him a promissory glare and said, "I don't know him all that well but he does have a reputation of being a top dirty-tricks man."
"Eh?"
"He practises law to the outer limits of legality," said Butcher.
"In the firm Felix says that they never decide a case is lost until Victor says it's lost," said Lucy Naysmith. "He likes to claim he's descended from Michel de Montaigne."
"Who?"
The essayist. Over his desk he's pinned the quotation, No man should lie unless he's sure he's got the memory to keep it up. It sounds better in French."
It sounded pretty good sense to Joe in English.
"And he's got the memory, I take it?" he said.
"That's right. Phenomenal. In law he can remember things the rest of us don't even know we've forgotten."
"I was forgetting. You're a sort of lawyer too, right, Mrs. Naysmith?" said Joe.
"I am, or rather I was, a legal secretary," said the woman rather shortly.
"Who needs to know more about the law than any solicitor," said Butcher supportively. "But all this begs the question:
Could Victor be ruthless enough to kill, always assuming he's clever enough to be in different places at the same time?"
She thinks he probably could, thought Joe. Otherwise she wouldn't be taking the question seriously.
"I don't know," said Lucy Naysmith wretchedly. "And it makes me feel dirty standing here talking about the possibility. He's a friend for God's sake!"
"Most criminals are someone's friend," said Butcher. Joe looked at her approvingly. It was nice having someone around to say the things you thought but didn't quite dare say.
"Anyway," said Lucy Naysmith, suddenly brisk and matter-of-fact, 'it's rather beside the point until the police establish whether or not Victor actually is in France."
"Or Felix remembers who attacked him," said Butcher.
"Yes, that too," said the lawyer's wife.
Joe felt a gentle tingle in his ear. As a small boy subject to the tyrannies of larger lads like Hooter Hardiman, he had developed a defensive sensitivity to linguistic nuance and could differentiate at a hundred yards between the 'come here!" which meant 'so's we can thump you!" and the 'come here!" which simply meant 'come here'. It seemed to him now that there was something a bit too throwaway about Mrs. Naysmith's 'that too'. As if maybe she didn't expect her husband to remember? But, shoot! the guy only had a concussion, not major cerebral trauma. Or as if maybe he's remembered already and told her he had reasons of his own for keeping quiet? Or maybe the poor woman was just in a real panic to get out of the hospital.
She certainly didn't look too well, but he forced his sympathy down and said, "I'd really apprecia
te a few words with your husband, Mrs. Naysmith."
She stared at him for a moment then said, "OK, I'll see ... but I'm pretty certain ..." then turned and went out.
Butcher said angrily, "For Christ's sake, Sixsmith, can't you see that all the poor woman wants is to get out of this place?"
"Yeah, sorry," said Joe.
He stepped outside just in time to see Lucy Naysmith turning a corner in the corridor. He followed her and peered cautiously round. About six feet away and fortunately with his back towards him was a tubby figure he recognized even from behind. It belonged to PC Dean Forton, whose view of Pis in general and Joe in particular was that they were a waste of space. Any vague thought he'd had of getting in without the woman's say-so vanished.
He returned to the waiting room where he and Butcher sat in silence for two or three minutes till Lucy returned.
"Sorry, no, he's asleep," she said. "Now, please, can I get out of here before I collapse and the bastards try to keep me in as well!"
She took Butcher's arm and the two women left.
Joe picked up the Reader's Digest. Hospitals didn't bother him. In fact, he felt safer in here than almost anywhere out there. And this looked like quite an interesting article on The Most Charismatic Person I Ever Met'. But he knew it was an illusory safety. Sooner or later PC Forton or the mountainous security man would winkle him out.
With a sigh, he hurried after the women.
Seventeen.
It was the second last night of the year and as if in rehearsal for tomorrow's Hogmanay Hoolie, the Glit had started jumping early.
By half seven most of the tables were taken, the air was heavy with smoke, and the rising tide of chatter was close to drowning even Gary top-decibel ling "Another Rock'N'Roll Christmas' from the juke box.
For Joe, however, half seven wasn't early but late. He had no firm commitment to be at Beryl's flat by any particular time, but she'd mentioned putting Desmond to bed and Joe would hate her to think he'd deliberately hung back till he was sure the youngster was safely tucked away. What was keeping him here was his appointment with Dildo Doberley. Six o'clock, they'd arranged. Where the shoot was the guy? Anyone else, and Joe would have been long gone, but his job was hard enough without messing up his main contact in the local constabulary. OK, Willie Woodbine had the rank and authority to dish out the real gems, but he only cast his pearls on the waters when he felt a bit clueless and reckoned Joe might return them after many days. (Or something like that. Despite the combined efforts of Aunt Mirabelle and Rev. Pot, Joe was a pretty mediocre Bible scholar.) Dildo, on the other hand, might be a mere hewer of wood but at least he tried to carve out what Joe needed to know.