by William Boyd
213. The Television Set. You still don’t remember what they were watching on the television, you heard only the noise of its imbecile chatter, even louder when the cheering subsided as you strode naked into the middle of the common room. Then the whistles and hoots began, screams and gasps, fingers were pointed towards your groin area. And you were shouting yourself, gripped by your rage, your burning, consuming fury, screaming for silence, for some respect, for tolerance of others’ needs and reasonable demands.
So you seized the television set from its tall plinth and effortlessly, it seemed, raised it above your head before dashing it to the ground and turning to those hundred pairs of eyes and yelling—what? The room went quiet and turned red, green, yellow, grey and red again and people were falling on you, some glancing blows were struck as you hit out, defending yourself, but soon you were on the ground, someone’s jacket wrapped around your middle, your nose full of the reek of burning dust and scorched plastic from the shattered machine, hearing one word which managed to find a way through to your multicoloured, suffering cortex—“Police,”
“Police,”
“Police.”
You did the right thing. The only thing. You were right to leave, leave the college, leave Joyce McKimmie (where are they now? Shy Joyce and little Zane?),you were right never to go back to the house at Cray, even though there was murder in your heart and you wished to see Sinbad Fingleton just one more time and visit significant harm upon him.
Mo one should be asked to live with that kind of shame and humiliation, that kind of hellish notoriety, especially not you. You were right to go south and ask your father to find you the safest and most ordinary of jobs. You were right to leave the shame and the humiliation to Milomre Blocj and to start afresh with Lorimer Black.
—The Book of Transfiguration
Chapter 19
Lorimer stood shivering on the corner of Pall Mall and St James’s, watching his breath cloud and hang almost motionless in front of him beneath the ochre glow of the streetlamps, as if it were reluctant to be dispersed and wanted to be breathed back into his warm lungs again. It had every sign of being another hard frost tonight but at least he did not have to worry about its effect on the Toyota’s bodywork. Small mercies, duly thankful. He blew into his cupped hands and stamped his feet. It was ten past six—he would wait another five minutes and then he’d—
Across the street a large car stopped and a man in a dark blue overcoat climbed out and disappeared up some steps into a building.
“Mr Black?”
Lorimer turned to confront a diminutive, portly man, smiling warmly. He seemed top-heavy, all chest and gut and gave the impression of teetering forward, on the edge of losing his balance. He had thick sandy hair combed back in a rock ‘n’ roller’s tidy quiff. He must have been in his sixties, his face worn and weather-beaten despite his apple cheeks and wobbly jowls. A green loden-coat and brown trilby he’d raised from his head in greeting sat oddly on him, as if he’d borrowed them from some other man.
“Freeze your b-b-balls off,” the little man said, jocularly, replacing his hat and extending his hand. “Dirk van Meer.”
“How do you do ?” Lorimer said, very surprised. Oddly enough, the accent sounded more Irish than South African.
“I wanted to meet you myself,” he said, “in order to underline the importance of what I’m going to say. Didn’t want an intermediary, you see.”
“Oh?”
“My associates have already spoken to your friend Mr Wiles and he’s been most co-operative.”
“As I keep saying to people: I simply don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Ah, but you’re an intelligent young fellow and soon you’ll be able to add up two and two. I wanted to talk to you before you figured out it was four.”
“Look, Wiles couldn’t tell me anything.”
“The trouble is, Mr Black, you know more than you think. Sheer bad luck.”
Sheer Achimota, Lorimer thought, for some reason. Powerful ju-ju.
“It’s terribly simple,” van Meer went on, genially. “All I require of you is your silence and your promise to remain silent.”
“You have my promise,” Lorimer said at once. “Unequivocally.” He would promise this jolly, smiling gnome anything. Somehow the complete absence of threat in his voice and manner was terrifying, spoke of awesome power.
“Good,” van Meer said, taking his arm and turning him so that he faced up St James’s. He pointed at a building. “You know that club there? Yes, there. Go inside and ask for Sir Simon Sherriffmuir. He’ll have some interesting news for you.” He gave Lorimer a little pat on the shoulder. “I’m so glad we understand each other. Mum’s the word.” He theatrically put his finger to his lips, and backed away, adding with no trace of threat in his voice at all, “I will hold you to your unequivocal promise, Mr Black. Be assured.”
Lorimer found this remark more distressing and gut-churning than a cut-throat razor waved in his face and felt his mouth dry and his gorge contract. Van Meer gave a wheezy chortle, a wave and wandered off along Pall Mall.
The uniformed porter took Lorimer’s coat and with an elegant gesture of the arm indicated the bar.
“You’ll find Sir Simon in there, sir.”
Lorimer looked about him: early evening and the place was quiet. Through a door he caught a glimpse of a large room with armchairs set around round polished tables and large, undistinguished nineteenth-century portraits. As he moved to the bar he saw green baize noticeboards, staff walking briskly and quietly to and fro. The feel was institutional rather than clubby—as he imagined the officers’ mess of a grand regiment might be in time of peace, or the committee rooms of some venerable philanthropic society. His feeling of not belonging was acute and destabilizing.
Sir Simon was standing at the bar, Hogg beside him, darkly and greyly suited, hair oiled back. A smarter Hogg than the one he knew, more menacing somehow, and greeting him with no smile, though Sir Simon was affability itself, asking him what he would drink, recommending a special brand of Scotch—a suggestion backed up with a swift and pointed anecdote steering him to a corner table where the three of them sat down in scarred leather armchairs. Hogg lit one of his filterless cigarettes, and Sir Simon offered a small black cheroot (politely declined). Smoking material was ignited, smoke soon dominated the atmosphere, and there was some conversation about the severity of the weather and hopeless of seeking for signs of spring. Lorimer dutifully agreed with everything that was said, and waited.
“You spoke to Dirk,” Sir Simon observed, finally. “He particularly wanted to meet you.”
“I can’t think why.”
“You understood what he—what we—are asking of you?”
“Discretion?”
“Absolutely. Absolute discretion.”
Lorimer could not help but look over at Hogg, who was leaning back in his chair, thighs crossed, puffing serenely at his cigarette. Sir Simon noticed.
“George is completely au fait. There is no remaining problem, I think that’s fair comment, George, isn’t it?”
“Fair as trousers,” Hogg said.
Sir Simon smiled. “We want you back at GGH, Lorimer. But not now, in a year or so.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because you’re in disgrace,” Hogg said, impatiently. “You had to go—”
“Yes, you should never have gone to Boomslang,” Sir Simon said disapprovingly, yet with sympathy. “That put you beyond the pale, especially as far as Dirk was concerned.”
Lorimer was baffled. “Look, I was only trying—”
“Pull the other one, Black,” Hogg said with some of his old aggression. “You were digging for dirt to save your decomposing hide.”
“For some answers. And on your instructions.”
“That’s a pile of bollocks—”
“—Put it this way,” Sir Simon interrupted. “We have to be seen to have acted. In case. There were serious irregularities.”
&n
bsp; “Not mine,” Lorimer said, with some force. “I was just doing my job.”
“Every time I hear that excuse,” Hogg said, vehemently, “I reach for my guillotine.”
“We know you think you were,” Sir Simon said, more emolliently, “but that would not be apparent at all to…to others, to outsiders. That’s why it’s better to let you go.”
To become what, Lorimer wondered, cynically? The lone trader, the rogue dealer, the berserk broker? More like the lost loss adjuster. Deniability was heavy in the air along with the blue smoke from Sir Simon’s foul cheroot. There had been some serious level of knavery here, Lorimer thought, some particularly devious and particularly profitable malversation, as it was known, to make these powerful men so calmly concerned. He wondered if he would ever discover what had really been at stake in the Fedora Palace affair, what the true rewards were for the participants. He strongly doubted it.
“So—I’m the scapegoat?”
“That’s an unnecessarily crude way of putting it.”
“Or you could say I’m your insurance.”
“The analogy is inappropriate.”
“What about Torquil?” Lorimer persisted. “He was the one that fouled up in the first place.”
“Torquil is Sir Simon’s godson,” Hogg said, as if that would put an end to all further conversation.
“It’s for the best if Torquil is back at Fortress Sure where I can keep an eye on him,” Sir Simon said, raising a finger to summon the bar steward for another round of drinks. “I’m sorry it has to be you, Lorimer, but it’s better this way, long term.” Drinks were replenished and Sir Simon raised his glass, examining the smoky amber of his whisky against the shaded glow of a nearby lamp.
Better for who, Lorimer thought. For whom ?
Sir Simon smelt then sipped his drink—he was clearly in mellow mood.
“Mud doesn’t stick in our world,” he said, reflectively, almost with a tone of pleasant surprise. “That’s one of the great advantages about this place. Come back in a year—you’ll find everyone has short memories.”
Mud doesn’t stick? Suddenly he was mud-plastered. He was being sacked and with it only the compensation of a vague promise to sweeten the pill.
“There is one thing I would ask in return for my…discretion,” he said, sensing Hogg coiling up angrily.
“You’re in no position to ask for—”
“—Just a phone call.” Lorimer scribbled down the details from the scrap of paper in his pocket on to a paper napkin. “I’d like Mr Hogg to call this person, Mrs Mary Vernon, or leave a message, and confirm I had nothing to do with the Dupree adjust.”
“Make any sense to you, George ?” Sir Simon looked to Hogg for confirmation.
Hogg took the napkin from Lorimer. “As easy as counting chickens,” he said, standing up, hitching his trousers over his belly and striding off.
Sir Simon Sherriffmuir smiled at Lorimer. “You know, I can practically hear your brain working, dear boy. It’s not an advantage. Cultivate a certain languor. A certain ennui. A sharp brain like yours, rudely exposed—it worries people in our world. Keep your light under a gigantic pile of bushels, that’s my advice, and you’ll go much further.”
“It’s all very well for you to say.”
“Of course it is. Stop thinking, Lorimer, don’t worry about the big picture, trying to figure out how it all fits. That was what was bothering George. That was why he was becoming so…irate. Now he understands, now he’s an even richer man. And he’s happy. My advice to you is to go away, take a holiday. Go skiing. Go to Australia, people tell me it’s a wonderful place. Have fun. Then come back in a year and give us a call.” He stood slowly up, the meeting was over. Lorimer allowed himself briefly to admire the exact waisting of Sir Simon’s jacket, its cut audaciously longer than standard.
“All will be well, Lorimer, all will be-well.”
He took Sir Simon’s spread-fingered hand, feeling the latent power in his grip, its firmness, its generous pressure, its sure confidence. It was all lies, of course, but beautiful, deluxe lies, the work of a master craftsman.
“See you next year, Lorimer. Expect great things.”
In the hall he met Hogg coming back. They side-stepped each other.
“I left a message,” Hogg said. “Everything’s covered.”
“Many thanks.”
Hogg scratched his cheek. “Well, here we are, Lorimer.”
“Here we are, Mr Hogg.”
“What do you want, Lorimer, what’re you after?”
“Nothing. I’ve got what I want.”
“Why are you looking at me like that, then?”
“Like what?”
“I want to ask you something: did you tell anyone that I was pursuing an amorous liaison with Felicia Pickersgill?”
“No. Are you?”
“I’ll have your tripes for garters, Lorimer, if you’re lying to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Why did you do it?”
“What?”
“Dig, dig, dig. When the cranes fly south, Lorimer, the farmer rests on his spade.”
“You sound like my grandmother.”
“There’s something feminine about your looks, anyone ever told you that? You’re a handsome young man, Lorimer.”
“Et in arcadia ego.”
“You could go far. In any profession.”
“I’ve got a chance to start a fish farm.”
“The farming offish, now there’s a fascinating metier.”
“Trout and salmon.”
“Halibut and the sea bream.”
“Cod and sole.”
“The John Dory. A wonderful fish.”
“If I start it up I’ll invite you down. It’s in Guildford.”
“I’m afraid I won’t set foot in Surrey. Sussex, though, now there’s a decent county.”
“Well, I’d better be going, Mr Hogg.”
Hogg’s face froze, his nostrils flared and then, after a moment, he stretched out his hand. Lorimer shook it—Hogg had a grip of iron and Lorimer felt his knuckles grind.
“Send me a Christmas card. I’ll send you one. It’ll be our signal.”
“Definitely, Mr Hogg.”
Hogg turned, and then immediately turned back.
“Change is in the nature of things, Lorimer.”
“The disturbance of anticipation, Mr Hogg.”
“Good lad.”
“Cheerio, then.”
“I’ll keep your seat warm,” Hogg said thoughtfully, then, “and don’t play silly buggers, OK?”
He strode off with his burly bosun’s swagger, a steward pausing politely to let him pass. In the bar Lorimer saw Hogg sit grandly down and accept one of Sir Simon’s cheroots.
Waiting for him at the bottom of the club steps was Kenneth Rintoul. Kenneth Rintoul in his thin black leather greatcoat and a woollen cap standing at the blurry fan of light cast by the great lamps flanking the door.
“Mr Black.”
Lorimer raised his hands protectively and, he hoped, threaten as if they betokened a youth spent in ju-jitsu clubs.
“Watch it, Rintoul. I have friends in there.”
“I know. A Mr Hogg told me to meet you here.”
Lorimer glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see Hogg and Sherriffmuir peering out of the window, noses flattened on the pane—or else some covert paparazzo recording this encounter as evidence. Evidence their insurance.
Lorimer began to walk quickly down the slope towards St James’s Palace, Rintoul kept pace with him, easily.
“I want to apologize, Mr Black. I want to thank you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“The law suit’s been dropped. Hogg says this is all thanks to you.”
“Don’t mention it.” Lorimer was deep in urgent thought.
“And I want to apologize, personally, for my earlier, ah, remarks and actions. The phone calls, etcetera. I was out of order.”
“No problem.”
> “I can’t tell you what this means to me.” Rintoul had grabbed Lorimer’s right hand and was shaking it vigorously. Lorimer gently retrieved it, convinced this gratitude was now captured on film. “What it means to me and Deano.”
“Could I ask you a couple of questions?”
“Ask away, Mr Black.”
“Simply as a matter of curiosity, tie up some loose ends,” Lorimer said. “Have there been any instances of, of car vandalism near your office?”
“Funny you should mention it,” Rintoul said. “You know the big wholesale carpet warehouse underneath the office. The owner had his Merc well trashed the other night. Write-off. It’s happening all over, Mr Black. Kids, junkies, eco-warriors. They blame the motor car for all their problems.”
“But it was you who set my car on fire.”
“I have to admit it was Deano—he was a desperate man, hard to restrain.”
“One other thing: did you write BASTA on my car bonnet in letters of sand? BASTA.”
“BASTA…Wasn’t me, I swear. What’s the logic in writing in sand? If you know what I mean?”
“Fair point.”
Destined to remain one of life’s mysteries, then, Lorimer thought. Well, not everything could be explained in life, of course. Hogg would echo that—with his urge to disturb all anticipations. Rintoul bade him a warm goodbye and strolled off up Pall Mall, just like Dirk van Meer before him, his stride jaunty, his head held back. Lorimer saw him pause and then the flare of a match silhouetted his woollen cap. All was well in Kenneth Rintoul’s world.
Lorimer walked past Clarence House, heading for the wide boulevard of the Mall, intending to hail a taxi, but then deciding to walk home and think things through, stroll the city streets and try to figure out, despite Sir Simon’s good counsel, just exactly what was going on and why his life was being steadily torn apart. He turned right under the leafless plane trees, his feet crunching on the gravel, and headed towards the broad, solid, floodlit facade of the palace. A flag was flying—so, they were home tonight, good, he liked to know that, when they came and went, he liked them to be there in their big, solid palace, fellow citizens—after a fashion—the thought was obscurely comforting.