Dave rang back in the middle of the afternoon. 'Hope you weren't expecting too much, Major. Hired car.' He named a small firm in West Kensington. 'D'you want us to try and shake something out of them?"
I thought it over. 'No, leave it lay. Thanks anyway.'
'Pleasure. I'm hoping to hear something about a job on Monday, but it's likely to be out of town. Could you make it?'
'What company is that?'
'Come off it, Major; they'remy clients. No poaching. Will you be free?'
I could probably fit it in; Fenwick's affairs weren't exactly developing at a rush. 'Likely enough.'
'See you, then."
I walked to the window and the Morris was still down there. A hired car probably meant a professional. A newspaperman wouldn't need to hire a car in London, and anyway, he wouldn't get a story just by following me around. It looked as if somebody had put a private eye on me. Mockby? He was the obvious thought, but he'd probably have done it on a bigger scale; one man to watch one man was bloody nonsense. In a city, a proper inconspicuous tail job takes thirty men and several vehicles; no kidding, that's what it takes.
When the pubs opened, I strolled up to the Washington fora. jar and a hope of getting a look at my new friend. But he wasn't that sort of fool. The Morris followed me, all right, but he didn't rush into the pub right behind me. Probably he came in some time in the next ten minutes, just to see if I was meeting somebody, but a whole lot of people came in around that time. And when I went out, the Morris had gone.
He was back by the church when I reached the flat. I don't know what time he went to bed, but I made it by half past ten.
Thirteen
Saturday was a crisp, clear day; so far we'd had every sort of March weather except the traditional winds. Now it was blue and bright, but still with snow lying in the Kent fields and the farmers indoors swearing the hop harvest was fruz to hell and they'd have to sell the Rolls if the Government didn't increase the subsidy.
I had company heading down through South London, but he didn't really stand a chance in that Saturday shopping traffic; I lost him by real accident before we reached Bromley. And once I was on clear roads, I let the Escort go. Nothing too chancy, but just holding her on a chosen line through the bends a couple of mph before her back end would start hedge-climbing, the grass brushing the sides. It made me feel… well, maybe in control of something, for once.
A quarter of an hour before Kingscutt I slowed down; my left arm was starting to ache again anyway. I drove in like any sober City gent – apart from the car, my suit, and various purple marks on my neck; I put on my black sling once I'd parked, too.
It was a small village of varying styles up to and including advertising-agency weekend restoration, but the church was genuine Norman and The Volunteer pub, just across a triangular village green, was genuinely open. I took a large Scotch and soda.
A man in a black suit and a gin and tonic asked politely if I was there for the funeral. I said I was, then pinned him down before he could pin me: 'Did you know him in the City?'
'I'm in Lloyd's, yes. On the brokerage side. And you?'
I chose the opposite alibi. 'Just a friend of the family. Terrible business.'
'Yes. And that other chap with him, running away like that. Englishman, as well.'
I shrugged hopelessly. 'I suppose every country has its share of them.'
'Very true, very true. Well, I don't know, about you, but we're certainly going to miss old Martin.'
'Popular chap, was he?'
He chuckled briefly. 'Oh, everybody knew Martin and his little tricks.'
'He… what?'
'The last of the old-style underwriters. In the old building, where we were really crammed together, there was a great tradition of practical joking, you know. Real club-room atmosphere. Just about all gone since we moved to the new place -but Martin did his best.'
'Well, I'm damned.' I stared into my glass, but the dizzy feeling wasn't coming from there.
He smiled knowingly. 'Seemed a bit of a dull dog to you, did he?'
'Well, you know… nice bloke, straightforward… no real hobbies or anything…'
'I suppose that was his way of relaxing – just switching off the power. Rest is as good as a change, eh? But Lloyd's certainly won't be the same without him, and damned if you can say that for most of them. I mean us.' A church bell began to toll and he emptied his glass quickly. 'Sounds like action stations. You had a bit of an accident?'
I went with him to the door. 'Yes. Just met a ditch that was driving dangerously.'
He laughed cheerfully and we marched out towards the church. A convoy of big black cars was just closing up beside it, with a sizeable and well-dressed crowd spilling out and around. There was money in that mob; almost all the men had real black suits, like my brokerage friend, not just 'something darkish' like mine.
'See what I mean?' he said. 'They wouldn't turn out like that for most of us.'
I put on an impressed expression and managed to lose him on the fringes of the crowd. I took my time going in, which was a mistake: I'd forgotten the old English tradition of rushing for the darkest back pew, so I got a nice conspicuous seat in the middle. Paul Mockby spotted me coming past and said 'Jesus Christ', but not the way it usually gets said in church.
The service was the full works, and we sang, not muttered, the Twenty-third Psalm. Somebody with a voice so inbred that it could hardly climb out of his mouth read the lesson, and the vicar – a pleasant-looking fluffy old boy – gave an address.
He did his best, but he was carrying too much handicap for that course. Partly because it was soon clear that Fenwick had never been inside the church before, so we had the bit about pressures of honourable toil in the ancient market places of the City; and partly he was obviously scared that the Sunday papers might prove the corpse to have been the biggest frauds-man since the Swedish Match King. Over-all, he ran steadiest on the midst-of-life-we-are-in-death and cut-down-in-his-prime stretches.
I spent most of my time talent-spotting, but all I got was Hawthorn near me, David and young Harry Henderson up front beside a tall, slim woman. No Maggie Mackwood that I could find.
Then we were back on our feet and the coffin was processing past on top of six of the tallest, smoothest-dressed men I'd ever seen. They didn't come out of any Kent hopfield. You know, there is something about the rich being bigger than the rest of us; maybe their mothers' milk comes pasteurised.
I caught David's eye as he passed and got a quick, nervous smile. I tried to get a proper look at the tall woman – who must be Mrs Lois Fenwick – but she was wearing a proper veil, and all I did was confirm that tallness and slimness. And she moved well. A black, prim-looking governess dress that fitted the occasion nicely.
I hung back again, and was just about last out. We didn't have far to go: they'd found a plot in the churchyard itself. And, if you care, there're worse places than an old Kentish churchyard to go down for the last time.
'Can't stand this sort of thing. Harping on death and all that. Turns me over, rather. Sorry, old boy.'
He was standing deliberately well back, just as I was, and stirring a little heap of damp confetti with an elegant black shoe. The rest of him was tall, thin – and also mostly black, of course. Except the tangled fair hair, the blue eyes, the face with its mid-thirties boyish good looks.
'Three quick volleys, shoulder arms, right turn, and run for the canteen?' I suggested. It was a guess, but he was old enough to have done National Service.
'That's more like it,' he admitted, then grinned suddenly. 'What were you in?'
'I Corps.'