He was whistling to himself and sounded relaxed and cheerful.
Miss Crawley had no difficulty in recognising him.
7
From her window in the office, Susan saw the dark blue S-class Mercedes 450 draw up to the curb and stop. The driver, a big, light-haired boy with a solemn Slav face, held the car door open.
She picked up the intercom and said, “I think the boss has arrived.”
She heard Toby make a sound, halfway between a grunt and a gasp, like the noise driven from the body when it plunges into cold water. She opened the door of her own room in time to hear Randall Blackett announce himself to the girl in the outer office, who seemed so overcome that she could do nothing but open and shut her mouth.
Susan emerged and said, “I expect you want Mr Harmond, Mr Blackett. Can I show you the way?”
The man swung round and looked at her. It was a brief but all-inclusive inspection. He said, “You are Mr Harmond’s secretary. We spoke on the telephone yesterday. I recognise your voice.”
“Correct,” said Susan with a smile. “The room’s along here on the left. Although I expect you’ve been here before.”
Blackett did not move. He said, “No. This is my first visit. Might I know your name?”
“It’s French and rather difficult. Perronet-Condé.”
“Acute accent on the e?”
“Correct.”
“Like the prince of that name in the sixteenth century?”
“Correct.”
Blackett seemed to be tabulating these facts. Then he said, “Lead on.”
Susan walked in front of him to the door of Toby’s room, held it open, saw Toby jump to his feet and shut the door on them, then went back to her own office and sat down.
Impressive. No doubt about that. It was nothing to do with his clothes, which were regulation tycoon. It was the combination of arrogant face, soft voice and controlled, muscular movement. A brigand. Violence, cloaked under the trappings of civilisation. Or was she reading too much into the short encounter? Making the mistake of building a character on the basis of what she knew he had done? Her reading in the library had widened lately. She knew a good deal about the Blackett empire now.
The bell on her desk rang. She picked up her shorthand book and made her way sedately across the passage.
Toby was looking uncomfortable. Blackett was smiling. He said, “I was questioning Mr Harmond about the background of the really remarkable essay which accompanied his half-yearly report.”
The tiger was purring.
“The statistics, which were new to me, of Japanese production and the three-stage method they employ. He seemed doubtful about the origin of these facts. And, indeed, of much else in the essay. Do I gather that you helped him with it?”
“She didn’t help me,” said Toby, red in the face and looking like a schoolboy owning up to a breach of school rules. “She did it all herself.”
“Ah,” said Blackett.
Susan said to Toby, “You rang for me. Did you want me?”
“I wanted you,” said Blackett. “I wanted to congratulate you.”
Susan said, “Thank you.” There seemed to be nothing else. She departed, closing the door softly behind her.
“First,” said Mr Lyon, ticking off the indictments on one podgy finger at a time, “you go out of your way to be rude to one of our oldest and most valued clients.”
“Unwittingly,” said David.
“Possibly. Had it been an isolated instance, I should have taken no notice of it. Secondly, and contrary to my express instructions, you bring drink into the office.”
He waited for David to ask him how he knew, but David seemed disinclined to oblige him. He said, “On doctor’s orders.”
“Indeed. And what is this remarkable complaint that has to be attended to by regular doses of Scotch whisky?”
“Hypothermia.”
“I think you’re making it up.”
“Indeed I am not. The symptoms are very distressing.”
“Might I ask what the symptoms are?”
“A sudden unassuageable thirst.”
Mr Lyon’s face was pink already. It slowly turned to a dark red. “Just like my old schoolmaster,” said David to Gerald afterwards. “When he was making up his mind to whop you and you said to yourself, boyo, one more crack like that and it’s your head under the desk.”
“I suppose you think that’s funny,” said Mr Lyon at last. “I’m afraid I don’t. And now perhaps you’ll be good enough to explain what you were doing in the office at ten o’clock last night?”
“Some work I had to finish.”
“Very creditable. But how, exactly, did you get in?”
“Most keys fit most locks. I happened to have one by me that fitted the office door.”
“And another one that happened to fit the door of my office?”
David looked surprised. He said, “What makes you think that I—”
“It’s no good lying about it. My informant tells me that you not only had the impertinence to break into my room, but that you spent nearly an hour in here. I think I’m entitled to a serious explanation of that, not another of your silly jokes.”
“Well, now,” said David thoughtfully. “I think perhaps you are. To tell you the truth, it was what you might call a matter of insurance.”
“I imagine you’ll condescend to explain in your own good time.”
“I am doing my best,” said David with dignity. “It has not escaped me that I am not the most popular of your employees. I derived from that the further thought that the time might come when you would wish our ways to part.”
“It has come.”
“Exactly,” said David, in the tones of one who has scored a valuable debating point. “Exactly. And when that time did come, I wished to be certain that our parting would be without acrimony. In short, that you would give me a glowing testimonial, recommending me to my next employer and a modest sum of money—I had in mind no more than five hundred pounds—to soothe our mutual sorrow at my departure.”
Mr Lyon stared at him for a moment, seeming to sense a threat that had not been uttered. Then he said, “And what makes you think that I should do either of these improbable things?”
“It would be very much in your interests. An Industrial Tribunal can offer me ten times that amount for unfair dismissal.”
“Unfair? You’ve brought it on yourself three times over.”
“I’m entitled, I think, to proper warning. Two warnings at least, I understand. In writing.”
Mr Lyon said, contemptuously, “Try it on, if you like. Tribunals aren’t fools.”
“Indeed not. They have enough sense, I don’t doubt, to understand me when I say that the real reason you are getting rid of me is because I was not prepared to co-operate in some of your more doubtful practices.”
“What are you talking about?”
“As a law-abiding citizen and a taxpayer, it pained me to see the Inland Revenue being defrauded.”
Mr Lyon said, in a choked voice, “Would you kindly explain this nonsense and then get out.”
“For instance, in a letter to our mutual acquaintance, Mr Porteous, on”—David whisked a notebook out of his inner pocket—“on March twentieth last you said, ‘I see no point in going out of your way to draw the attention of the Revenue to that particular payment. If they challenge it, we shall have to deal with it.’ Was that not a little underhand? Then, in another letter, to Mrs Porteous, you said, ‘We may be asked to prove strictly that your husband was employing you as his secretary. I don’t suppose any salary passed, but you should arrange for entries in your bank accounts.’ Was that quite honest?”
The silence that followed was painful.
David said helpfully, “I have copies of these letters. And of several others in which little devices are suggested to our clients.”
“You filthy little blackmailer!” The words were forced out of Mr Lyon’s mouth. They tumbled out, chasing and tr
ipping over each other. “You filthy Welsh spy.”
“Insults are charged at fifty pounds a time,” said David, making a note in his book. “My price has now gone up to six hundred.”
“I didn’t know that”—he was going to say “scum,” but seeing David’s eye on his book he changed his mind at the last moment. “I didn’t know that people like you existed.”
“We learn a new fact every day of our lives, boyo. I am quite prepared to go ahead with this if you wish. I can give you two minutes to make up your mind.”
There was a further bursting silence. Then Mr Lyon said,
“How can I possibly recommend you to one of our clients?”
It was capitulation.
“Six hundred of the best,” David said to Gerald. “A month’s salary in lieu of notice and a glowing reference designed to secure me a post with Rayhome Tours Limited.”
“Wasn’t that the place Moule went to?”
“Was it, indeed? I seem to be following him downhill.”
“You won’t meet him there. I believe he ran into a bit of trouble and got booted out.”
“Poor Moule,” said David. “Perhaps he was one of those people who are destined to descend. Like me.”
“You? You go round asking for trouble.”
“True,” said David with a sigh. “And trouble rarely refuses the invitation. However, we must not be downhearted. I am planning a pluperfect piss-up for tonight. I shall drink mathematically. Seven different drinks at seven different pubs. I shall start at the Coat and Badge, where I may have a further opportunity for being rude to Mr Porteous. I hope you’ll come with me.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said Gerald.
8
“You seem to have made the biggest possible hit with the boss,” said Toby.
Susan said, “Oh?”
“He’s having your paper assessed by his Merchant Bankers. If it stands up, it will mean installing a lot of new machinery here and doubling or trebling the whole output.”
“That’s splendid, isn’t it?”
“Splendid, yes.”
“Then why are you looking like a wet Monday at Clacton?”
“Was I?” said Toby. He tried out a light laugh. It was not a success.
“What’s the catch?”
“The catch is that I’m losing you.”
“I should have thought that was something for you to decide. You hired me. You can fire me.”
“In theory that’s right. But you know how things are here. I’m managing director. But if I step out of line, I’ll be out on my ear tomorrow.”
Susan said, “That’s nonsense. Blackett couldn’t get rid of you just because you refused to sack your secretary.”
“It isn’t a question of sacking. You’re moving up the ladder. Into the next division. You’re to work for Martin Brandreth, at Sayborn Art Printers.”
“You’ve got this all wrong,” said Susan. “You seem to imagine that we’re back in the Middle Ages, when peasants belonged to the lord of the manor and could be shifted around his estates as the fancy took him. Wake up, Rip van Winkle. This is the twentieth century. I work for exactly who I want to work for.”
“Of course,” said Toby. “You’re a free agent. It’s me who’s the peasant.”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“You mean, if I didn’t agree to work for Mr Brandreth, Blackett would take it out of you?”
“Without thinking twice about it. I’d be sorry to go. This business was founded by my great-grandfather and built up by my grandfather and father. I’d hate to see it fall to pieces because of me. Of course, I’m just being selfish.”
“You’re not being selfish at all. You’re being rather nice.”
This was a mistake. Toby came round his desk quickly, grabbed Susan and said, “Will you marry me?”
Disengaging herself without difficulty, Susan said, “No, Toby, I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“We shouldn’t deal well together.”
“You mean you’re too good for me?”
“I don’t mean anything of the sort. It’s a question of genes and hormones and miscibility.”
“I thought it was simpler than that,” said Toby gloomily. “I thought two people just had to love each other.”
“That’s the icing on the cake. Now sit down and be sensible. We’ve got to think this thing out. Do you really mean that if I refused the job he’s offering me he’d take it out of you?”
“Certainly.”
“He must be mad.”
“Not mad. Just touchy. There was a chap called Phil Edmunds in one of his other third-line companies. He pulled Blackett’s leg in public about wearing a Guards’ tie, which he certainly wasn’t entitled to, because as far as I know he was in the ack-ack. He blasted Phil out of his job and took a lot of trouble to see he didn’t get another one.”
“What a filthy thing to do.”
“Mind you, that’s one side of him. If he likes you, and believes in you, he backs you all the way. And he can be very easy to get along with.”
Susan said, “Oh.” It seemed to be one of her favourite remarks. Sometimes it was cold, sometimes noncommittal. On this occasion there seemed to be a hint of interest in it.
“Why don’t you give it a run? Martin’s all right, in his own way. And Sayborn Art Printers is a much bigger show than this.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Susan.
She was still thinking at eleven o’clock that night. If she was not thinking about Toby and Martin Brandreth and Blackett she must have been thinking about something, because she had been sitting for half an hour, in an armchair, in front of a blank television screen.
When the telephone on the low table beside the chair rang, she hesitated. Then she picked up the receiver.
David said, “It’s me.”
Susan said, “Oh!” Ten degrees below zero.
“I’ve got something important to say to you.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Certainly I’m drunk. If you’d had eight pints of beer and eight whiskies in eight different pubs you’d be drunk too.”
“I’d be unconscious,” said Susan resignedly. “But if you really have got something to say, say it. I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”
“Look,” said David. He spoke with the gravity of a statesman delivering an ultimatum. “You think that I’m just a good for nothing stupid clapped out boozed up Welsh wolf. Chase any tart with big boobs and dyed hair who’ll give me a ride for ten quid a bang. You’re a million light years out of date. All right. Some years ago I might have been. But that’s all finished.”
“And was that all you wanted to say?”
“All I wanted to say. All finished.”
“Go to bed,” said Susan and replaced the receiver. Then she stretched out her hand again, this time to switch off the tape recorder.
9
Rayhome Tours operated from a building near the British Museum. The ground floor was an art bookshop. A narrow staircase, with its own entrance door, on the left of the shop led up to the second and third storeys, which were all Rayhome.
“It’s not much to look at,” said Paula, the well-built blonde who presided over Reception. “But then, we don’t see a lot of our customers. Most of our business is done by post. It’s you who deals with the customers, Mr Morgan.”
“David.”
“David, then.”
David looked at the plaque on the desk which said, “Miss Welham.” He said, “And I’m sure you’ve got another name, too.”
“Suppose I have.”
“I shall have to know it, shan’t I.”
“Why?”
“How do you think I can take you out for a drink this evening if I don’t know your first name? Have a port and lemon, Miss Welham. It doesn’t sound right.”
“Do you always ask a girl out for a drink the first day you meet her?”
“Only the beau
tiful ones.”
“Go on with you.”
A telephone buzzer sounded beside the reception desk. Paula said, “Yes, Mr Cheverton. He’s here. I’ll send him along.” And to David, “It’s the second door on the left.”
David seemed in no hurry. He said, “There are two Mr Chevertons. Which one was that?”
“That’s Bob. He’s the younger brother. They’re neither of them all that young, really.”
“The years pass,” said David. “Our hair gets thinner, our teeth fewer, our breath shorter.”
“You’ll be short of a job if you don’t hurry.”
Both Mr Chevertons were in the large front office. As Paula had said, they were past their first youth, but still impressive figures—thick-set, muscular, with the confidence which comes from running a successful business in a highly competitive market.
Bob Cheverton said, “Sit down. This is my brother Ronald.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said David politely.
The older Cheverton smiled bleakly, but said nothing.
“We’ll explain the job to you. If you don’t like the sound of it, it’s not too late to back out.”
“Tell me the worst, then.”
“You’ll find it easy enough. Once you get the hang of it. We run regular twelve-day tours. Leave on Thursday morning, back first thing Monday. You get Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off. Three days every fortnight. Then you start again. France and Italy alternately. We used to do Germany, but the exchange rate killed it. Do you speak French?”
“Enough to order a drink.”
“Let’s hear you do it,” said Ronald Cheverton.
“Donnez-moi, s’il vous plait, un whisky avec un peu de glace et un Gordon’s avec Martini.”
“Now you’re in Italy.”
“Perfavoure, un po’di vino.”
Bob Cheverton said. “O.K. You should get past. We’ve got our own coaches. Two of them. Custom-built for the job. A third one for emergencies or extra tours. Collings, he’s our regular driver—can do any talking at the garage. He’s been doing the job for years and is very reliable. So listen to what he says.”
The End Game Page 5