Blame The Dead

He puffed smoke at the high ceiling and stared after it. 'I have a double problem here.' He looked down at me again. 'I'm talking about the boy, of course. In the first place, ummm, his father doesn't seem to have been quite such an innocent bystander – or am I wrong?'

I shrugged as delicately as I could. 'He knew more than he told me. He damn sure didn't know he was going to get shot at, just like that. But obviously he was involved in something."

He nodded, jerking little puffs of smoke from his pipe. 'Quite so. The boy was rather close to his father, I'm wondering if that sort of surmise would be, umm, helpful.'

'I might be the one who brings the bad news from Ghent to Aix; I couldn't be the one who stops it. There just ain't no way. The police in both countries are involved now.'

He harrumphed again and looked sternly at the mouthpiece of his pipe. 'Quite so. But my second problem – you might well appear a rather glamorous figure to young Fenwick. The pistols and so forth, at his age. On the other hand-' he suddenly smiled at me '-I don't think you do glamourize yourself.'

'Who knows? Why am I in this job? '

'Quite so.' He glanced at his watch. 'He'll be free from four-fifteen. You can either talk in his room – he shares it with another boy – or go out to one of the cafés on the Hill.'

Til leave it to him. How old is he? '

'Just fourteen. Rather a bright boy; he's in the Classical Remove now. That doesn't mean he's a classic, by the way. In fact, he's obviously going to be a historian.'

'You said he was close to his father. D'you mean he wasn't close to his mother?'

He cleared his throat and frowned at nothing. 'Ummm…'

'I've only met the lady twice. Have you?'

'Not yet.'

'She gives him rather a lot of money. That's usually a sign that she isn't giving him much else.'

'You don't think Fenwick and his wife were breaking up?'

He said carefully, 'We usually learn about such things because they're reflected in the boy's behaviour. No, I can't say I've seen any of the, ummm, usual warning signs.'

There was a sound like distant thunder. Hawthorn smiled gently. 'The young lions have returned to their lairs. I'll have him shouted for.' He went through to the hall; I followed. He opened a door on the far side and the noise swept in over me. Hawthorn told a few people to shut up, then sent an older boy off down the corridors, shouting, 'Fenwick! A visitor for Fen-wick!'

'We appoint a few specific "shouters",' Hawthorn explained. 'If one makes it a privilege, they stop the rest of them shouting.' He smiled wryly. 'They'll probably entertain you rather more lavishly on the boys' side. Come back and see me on your way out – if you want to.'

A boy in the standard uniform of blue blazer, black de, and grey flannels came galloping up, then stopped dead when he saw me. He was thin, pale, tall for his age – maybe five-eight -and rather better-looking than I remembered his father. Delicate features, large brown eyes, dark hair that kept falling into his eyes and kept being swept back again.

'Mr Card?'he asked.

'James Card.'

'I'm David Fenwick, sir.' He held out his hand, long and slim, and I shook it. 'Would you like to come up to our room, sir?' His voice was very polite, very controlled.

I followed him along a tall, dim corridor, up two flights of stairs, along another corridor, and into a small square room that was surprisingly bright and well furnished. Mrs Fenwick's money, maybe? Anyway, you could see that the school cash had run out with a couple of iron bedsteads folded up against the wall, two small desks and chairs, and two elderly chests of drawers. Private enterprise had brought in two slim Scandinavian armchairs, elegantly shaded table lamps, a fan heater, and some sprawling indoor plants. Probably the school hadn't provided the prints of armoured fighting vehicles, either, nor the big publicity picture of some Italian actress coming up out of the sea having lost almost everything except weight.

A second boy jumped up from a desk where he'd been working on a plastic model of a tank. A Russian T-34,1 think. David introduced him as Harry Henderson: shorter, stocky, with a cheery red face and wild fair hair.

Harry said, 'I'll push off now,' and waited for David to say No. David did and Harry cheered up and turned back to me.

'Would you like a drink, sir? We've only got vodka and sherry at the moment, I'm afraid.'

He picked up a couple of dark bottles off the mantelpiece; one was labelled 'Liquid Plant Manure', the other 'Metal Polish'. 'We have to keep them in these to stop the monitors and old Hawthorn suspecting."

Hawthorn had mentioned 'lavish entertainment'; hadn't he? 'I'll take vodka, please.'

He poured me a healthy dose of plant manure. 'I'm afraid we're out of tonics, but half an Alka-Seltzer tablet makes-'

Til have it straight.'

We all sat down. Harry turned suddenly serious and stared at me, then at his feet; David just went on looking pale and controlled.

I said, 'Cheers. Well, you rang me. Here I am.'

David said, "Could you… well, would you mind sort of telling me what happened?'

So I told it again. When I'd finished, he nodded and asked, 'Do you think it hurt him?'

'Not much. A bad…" I looked at him, wondering if he could take it, decided he could. 'A bad bullet wound gives a tremendous amount of shock. You can't feel much through that.' But it's pain that gives shock.

Harry asked. 'And you couldn't get a shot at them at all, sir?'

'Not a hope. They were behind a pillar and they took off Just about the moment they'd fired. If I'd run after them, I might, but your father…' I looked back at David.

He nodded again. 'And you don't know who did it, or why?"

'No.'

1 spoke to the solicitor, Mr Underbill. He said you wanted to find out – is that right, sir?'

'Yes.'

'Why, sir?'

I stood up and walked around my chair. 'I don't know, really. Just inquisitiveness, maybe. A feeling of loose ends. Maybe no better reason than I hope I'll find out I couldn't have done anything more, anyway.'

David suddenly smiled for the first time. A nice, sympathetic smile. 'I think I understand, sir. Would you… would youfind out for me, too? Can I hire you?'

I came to a dead stop, staring at him.

Harry said cheerfully, 'It was partly my idea, too, sir.'

'Look,' I said slowly. 'I'm not a proper private detective, I haven't got much experience in civilian investigations.'

David said, 'But you want to find out anyway.'

'Yees.' I sat down again. 'There's still another point. I don't know what I'm going to find-if anything. But it might turn out that your father was – well, mixed up in something.'

He was pale and serious again. After a while, he said quietly, 'I think I'd like to know, anyway. Will you do it, sir?'

'There's also the legal position…'

'You mean that I'm under age, sir? As I understand it, that means you can't enforce a contract against me. But if I paid you in advance, you'd be safe.'

'To quote your housemaster – umm. If Oscar Underbill finds out, he'll want to have me pinched for stealing by trick, defrauding a minor, and false pretences."

David smiled politely. 'Then you needn't tell him, sir.'

'I needn't tell anybody – in fact, ethically I couldn't – without your permission.'

'He's going to do it!' Harry squeaked.

Hell, it did ratfter look that way. Certainly I needed a client. His father's fee hadn't run dry yet – I'd been paid in advance and cash, which is usual for bodyguard jobs – but pretty soon I'd have to be drumming up work on the security advice side and letting things slip on the Fenwick front. And he was supposed to have too much money from Mother, wasn't he? I just hoped 'too much' was enough for me.

David reached into an inside pocket and took out a wad of crumpled fivers. 'There's fifty pounds here, sir – that's all you can get from the post office bank in one lump. I'll be able to get more from my real bank when I go through town again. Probably-' he paused and swallowed '-for the funeral.'