Moore half-smiled. 'CLAN REAVER. Yes, he's certainly the Gleeds' enforcer, isn't he. Their tame thug. Even at eighty-something years old.'
'He's that old?'
'And a veteran of the last war.'
'Really? God, no wonder we won.'
'That's where this came from.' Moore mimed a scar on his cheek. 'He got it during the Siege of Prague. Bayonet in the face. Carried on fighting anyway.'
'And you say you're not into the Families.'
Moore blushed. 'I have a retentive memory. Anyway, don't mock. We wouldn't have this case it all if it wasn't for me and my ... interest.'
'Actually, true,' said Milner, nodding. 'Full credit to you, Romeo.'
Moore accepted the compliment magnanimously.
'And with that in mind,' Milner said, 'perhaps we should get cracking. Time, after all, as Mr Carver indicated, is of the essence.'
Both men opened drawers in their desks. Milner took out a ringbound pad of unruled paper and a pen, while Moore produced a green felt bag tied with a drawstring. The bag contained dozens of square plastic tiles, each with a capital letter on it, taken from a well-known boardgame. He poured them onto the desktop, spread them out and began flipping the ones that were face-down face-up.
This was perhaps the most significant dissimilarity between the two men: the technique by which each generated anagrams. Milner preferred what he called 'the old-fashioned method', the crossword solver's tried-and-trusted trick of writing the letters out in a jumble. Moore, on the other hand, found it easier and more convenient to use Scrabble tiles. All you had to do was keep swapping them around and swapping them around in various combinations. No wasting paper. No having to jot the letters down all over again if one jumble failed to yield a result. Milner thought Moore's technique noisy and untraditional. Moore thought Milner's crude and labour-intensive. Each had long since given up trying to persuade the other of the rightness of his system.
And here was where the art began. Here was where Milner and Moore showed that there was more to being an Anagrammatic Detective than simply the ability to muck around with letters.
Because it wasn't just about making new words from old. Instinct was involved. A certain name or phrase could be rearranged into dozens of possible permutations. Knowing which was the correct permutation, which of all of them was the one you were looking for - that took a special talent. It was almost preternatural. Neither Milner nor Moore could easily explain it. Certain results just felt right. You saw them and you knew. Couldn't be put any more precisely than that. A tingle in the belly. A prickling at the back of the neck. The answer leapt out at you. You knew.
The sheer enormity of the case - a Family member, kidnapped - seemed to fall away as they set to work. Quickly it became a matter of words. The words were what counted. The words would reveal the truth. Milner scribbled, pondered, tore off a sheet, scribbled again. Moore lined up tiles, frowned, slid them around with his fingertips, lined them up afresh. An hour passed. Each man looked at names. People's names, the names of places. Every relevant reference he could think of. At one point Moore went scurrying off to retrieve Friday's newspaper from the waste-paper basket. He leafed through it, located the article he was looking for, and returned to the Scrabble tiles with renewed vigour. Milner, meanwhile, consulted a local London telephone directory and noted down with keenness what he found there.
They broke for coffee at eleven o'clock and briefly compared notes. To their surprise, they discovered they were at odds with their conclusions. Moore was becoming convinced that the kidnapping was an inside job, while Milner was of the view that some outside agency must be responsible. They seldom, if ever, disagreed over a case, and so they were perturbed. Each decided to follow up the other's line of approach to see if it had merit. Pen scratched. Tiles click-clacked. Another hour passed, and still neither man could descry how the other could possibly be correct.
'Look,' said Moore, 'it's obvious. Provender and his cousin Arthur - they don't get on. I've read about it. Arthur's this upstart from the wrong side of the bed. He's never made any secret of the fact that he thinks he'd be a better heir than Provender. Big chip on his shoulder about that.'
'Big enough for him to kidnap his own cousin?'
'Why ever not? And for God's sake, his name screams it out. REGALED HURT. REAL RED THUG. RED LAUGHTER. HATRED GRUEL. 'E GLARED RUTH.'
'Bit of a reach, that last one.'
'I know, but still. For me, Arthur Gleed's your man. His name is a guilty party's name ten times over.'
'Wasn't he at the ball when Provender was taken?'
'Yes, he was. I checked the invitee-acceptance list in the paper. But that doesn't mean he couldn't have masterminded the whole thing. Perfect alibi. He was there all along, in plain sight, partying away, while henchmen carried out the dirty deed. And look. Here's the clincher. He's an actor, right, and he's appearing in a play. There's a preview tonight and the premiere's tomorrow night. Guess where it's on at?'
Milner shrugged.
'The Shortborn Theatre.'
'OK. SHORTBORN THEATRE. Let me think.'
'I'll save you the trouble. BROTHER SON THREAT. Arthur is the son of Prosper Gleed's black-sheep brother Acquire. It all hangs together.'
'Tenuously,' said Milner. 'I don't buy it. I don't buy the whole "inside" angle at all. I've gone through the Gleeds, all of Provender's immediate kin, and they've all come up innocent. I've not got a "hit" off any of them. Like his dad. PROSPER GLEED. GREED PROPELS. Now, no question, greed and Family go together. You can't have one without the other.'
'And you're always likely to get GREED if there's GLEED involved.'
'Quite. Practically an open goal. But greed, if you're Family, is hardly a motive to commit crime. It's more a way of life with them. Then there's Provender's mother. CYNTHIA GLEED. THE NICE G LADY. I even threw her maiden name into the mix. CYNTHIA LAMAS GLEED. Know what I got? CHEATING MALE'S LADY. Straightforward enough. Nothing sinister there. Her husband's famed for his extramarital affairs. Even I know about that. And THE LADY'S ANGELIC MA, that was my other one. Again, that would seem to sum her up, wouldn't it? And exonerate her.'
Moore conceded the point, reluctantly.
'As for the oldest member of the Family,' Milner went on, 'GREAT GLEED got me AGED GELTER. He's certainly aged, I think you'd agree. And "gelter"? Gelt is what a Family's all about. But as before, hardly a motive. I mean, if Provender's been kidnapped in order to be held to ransom, it can't be an inside job. The Gleeds are filthy rich. They don't need to make money, and more to the point why would they try and hold themselves to ransom?'
'Carver said there hadn't been a ransom note yet.'
'Yet.'
'But if Arthur's the culprit, maybe ransom isn't what he's after. Maybe it's recognition, or to get rid of his rival.'
'You think this might be murder?'
'If it isn't already, it could become. Provender could just, you know, disappear. For ever.'
Milner looked doubtful. 'Somewhat extreme.'
'We're talking about Families. Nothing's too extreme where they're concerned. With Provender out of the picture, Arthur stands to become the next head of the Family. Admittedly he'll have a hard task ahead of him. The chain of descendancy will have been broken. The Gleeds'll plummet in the Family ratings. But he'll be head all the same. And if the only thing that stands between him and that is Provender... Well, in his shoes, wouldn't you be tempted?'
'To kill my own cousin?'
'Arrange to have him killed. Keeping your own hands as clean as possible.'
'I don't know. I'd like to think not.' Milner tapped his ring-bound pad. 'I still think you're barking up the wrong tree, though. I'm getting a definite reading from Provender himself. His name --'
'His name,' Moore interjected, 'doesn't ring any of my bells. Look at it. PROVEN GREED-LED. You yourself said it. Greed and Family - virtually synonymous. And even with his middle name, Oregano, thrown into the mix...'
'Hold on, his
middle name is Oregano?'
'It's something of a tradition with the Gleeds. They had their origins in the spice trade.'
'I know that, but Oregano?'
Moore shrugged. 'Provender itself isn't exactly normal, is it? Anyway, as I was saying, you throw Oregano into the mix...'
'For added flavour.'
'Thank you. And you get GREEN ROAD DEVELOPER, with the letters G, O and N left over. Which sprang out at me, but I have so say, what the hell does it mean? I can't think of a context in which it would apply.'
'And those left-over letters.'
'Yes. Messy.'
'Well, Romeo, to get back to what I was saying - his name by itself isn't terribly productive, as you have just shown, but splice it together with his predicament...'
'As in?'
'As in PROVENDER GLEED STOLEN.'
'And?'
Milner sucked on the cap of his pen. 'And you get confirmation that this was an outside job. You even get where he's being held and a clue to the identity of the person holding him.'
'Elucidate, please.'
'You don't believe me.'
'I'm a little sceptical.'
'Then let me propose this, Romeo. As we each appear to have our own theory about the case, why don't we pursue our leads separately?'
'What?'
'I know. A radical departure for us but, as things stand, a sensible one. Clearly we're not going to see eye-to-eye over this, so let's make it a competition. Not unlike our morning crossword.'
'Winner takes the dosh? Is that what you're saying?'
'Christ no. I'd never be that mercenary.'
'Glad to hear it.'
'No, just a gentlemanly challenge between friends. Your investigative skills against mine. We'll split this' - he pointed to the money - 'so neither of us will be out of pocket. By the way - cash. We're not telling the accountant. Agreed?'
'Agreed.'
'Good. So we split it, we go our separate ways, we work independently. It is a major case, after all.'
'It's not just major, Merlin. It's the biggest case we've ever had. It's the one that'll make us.'
'All the more reason, then, that we divide our forces. We can cover twice as much ground that way and double our chances of finding Provender. What d'you say?'
Moore couldn't fault his partner's logic. 'And whichever of us cracks the case, we both share the fee? Equally?'
'Of course. Like I said, this isn't about the money. It's about intellectual satisfaction.'
'And bragging rights.'
'They might come into it.'
Moore sat back in his chair. Milner, on the other side of the room, mirrored the action.
'All right,' Moore said. 'You're on.'
Milner grinned. He would not have thrown down the gauntlet if he hadn't been so confident that he was on the right track and his colleague on completely the wrong one. By the same token, Moore would not have picked the gauntlet up if he hadn't thought his take on the case was correct and Milner's hopelessly misguided.
The main thing was, personal rivalry aside, they were going to crack the case. Both of them were confident that, one way or another, the Anagrammatic Detective Agency was going to win the day.
They were forgetting that in such SELF-ASSURANCE lay the potential for A CARELESS SNAFU.
26
Massimiliano Borgia de'Medici, dapper little gent, comfortable with the weight of history and precedent that resided in his slender frame, a Family man to the marrow, called the Congress to order.
'Signori, signore.' His voice, though slight, was clear and carried far thanks to the Congress Chamber's impressive acoustics - the domed ceiling and the suspended disc-shaped baffles that bounced sound around. 'Gentlemen, ladies. I bid you all good afternoon and pray your attention.'
Gradually conversation dwindled around the concentric hoop-shaped tables, silence spreading from innermost to outermost, from premier Family to lowest-ranked. The hundred-or-so Family representatives at the edge of the room, in the proverbial cheap seats, were the last to go quiet. They seldom did as they were told straight away. They liked to remind everyone else they were there.
'Thank you,' said Borgia de'Medici. 'You will see that we have a number of absentees. The missing Family heads have all tendered formal regrets. They have prior commitments. However, we exceed the three-quarters quorum, so business may be conducted.'
He took care to keep his sentences short and leave gaps between them, for the benefit of the translators who accompanied several of the Family heads. A kind of massed whisper attended his statements, a Babel echo, as the translators did their job, leaning forward and murmuring in their employers' ears. Those Family heads who were conversant in English, the great majority, were allowed to bring along a companion in place of a translator, as moral support. By the rules of Congress, the companions were forbidden from speaking while the Congress was in session.
Fortune, who habitually fulfilled this function for his brother, found the no-speaking constraint almost unendurable. To compensate, he had devised a simple system of coughs and throat-clearings by which he could let Prosper know if he agreed or disagreed with the line Prosper was taking, and how vehemently. In extreme instances, when the system failed, he had been known to kick his brother in the leg, which usually achieved the desired effect.
He hoped that, today, no such drastic measures would be called for. He feared they would, though.
'An Extraordinary Congress is not lightly invoked,' said Borgia de'Medici. 'To ask the heads of Families to drop everything and come running is no mean thing. I say so not to undermine the reason for this meeting but to underline it. We are here to give audience to an accusation of the utmost gravity. We must devote our fullest attention to it and discuss it as honestly and frankly as we can. I have no need to remind you that anything said in the Chamber goes no further than the Chamber. You may speak your minds freely.'
Borgia de'Medici turned toward Prosper, who was three seats away from him on the central table.
'Signor Gleed,' he said. 'It is you who have summoned us here. Permit me to ask you to air your grievance.'
'Of course.' Prosper took a sip of water from the glass in front of him and stood up. Fortune, in the chair just behind him, reached forward to the table and grabbed his own glass, which contained a clear liquid which was not water. He took a sip and softly smacked his lips. Who said you had to be Russian to enjoy neat vodka?
Prosper ran his gaze around the central table till it came to rest on Stanislaw Kuczinski. For the space of several seconds he simply looked at his rival Family head, and Kuczinski simply looked back, red eyes fixed unwaveringly on Prosper's. Kuczinski was dressed in nothing but black, which set off the pallor of his skin and hair to extraordinary effect. Were it not for his eyes, and his rose-blush lips, he would have been devoid of all colour. He could have stepped straight out of a monochrome movie.
His companion, his twin sister Stanislawa, was similarly two-tone. Her outfit consisted of a black worsted two-piece with a sable tippet around her shoulders and, on her head, a black velvet Robin Hood cap topped with a raven's feather. Stanislawa shared with her brother the same sharp cheekbones, the same pointed chin, the same soft economy of gesture which in her was feline, in him effete. She also, if the rumours were to be believed, shared his bed. With the Kuczinskis, it wasn't just albinism that ran in the Family. There was a tradition of incest which earlier generations of Kuczinski had definitely indulged in - there was documentary proof - and which Stanislaw and Stanislawa at least appeared to be perpetuating, if the gloved hand with which Stanislawa was stroking her brother's neck right now was anything to go by.
Of course, it could merely have been for show. This was a Family, after all, which wished the world to believe they were vampires. They drank human blood (two glass goblets of the stuff sat before them now). They shunned sunlight. If they were prepared to go to those lengths to maintain a reputation, then incest, or even the feigning of incest, was nothin
g.
It was Prosper who broke the eye contact between him and Stanislaw Kuczinski. He would have gladly carried on staring, but his distaste for Kuczinski, for the man's very appearance, was too great. It threatened to overwhelm him and make him incoherent with loathing. When he looked at Kuczinski he thought of all the times the Kuczinski Family had outsmarted the Gleeds - snatched away some juicy business proposition from under their noses, bankrupted a corporation they knew the Gleeds were eyeing up, triggered a stock-market plunge that always somehow left the Gleeds out of pocket, generally indulged in sharp practices with no other goal than to inconvenience their age-old enemies. Prosper invariably struck back, but he rarely seemed to give as good as he got. Stanislaw Kuczinski had a far better business brain than he did. That, although Prosper hated to admit it, was another reason he despised him.
'My fellow Family heads,' Prosper said, and now it was his turn to be dogged by the susurrant translator echo. 'I stand before you today, not as a Family head myself, nor as a Gleed, but simply as a father. A worried father. A frightened father.'
So far so good, thought Fortune. Appealing to a common bond. There were more than a few fathers in the room.
'My son Provender has been...'
Prosper faltered. Theatrically, in Fortune's view - but whatever got the point across.
'My son has been kidnapped.'
Shock rippled out across the Chamber. The consternation was loudest around the outermost table, from where cries of outrage and sympathy resounded up to the sonic baffles.
'Please, please, everyone,' said Massimiliano Borgia de'Medici. 'Please, silenzio! Let Signor Gleed continue.'
Prosper waited for the ruckus to die down, meanwhile gauging Stanislaw Kuczinski's reaction to his announcement. The white face did not perceptibly alter. The eyes perhaps widened a little, but that was all.
Which implied nothing. In the event that Kuczinski was innocent, he wouldn't know that he was about to be accused of the kidnapping. If he was guilty, he would register no surprise at what Prosper had just said. Either way, he was going to maintain that impassive expression. Why, before a quorum of assembled Family heads, was he going to show that he cared what had happened to his enemy's son?
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