Blame The Dead

'Very pleasant, thank you.'

An elderly waiter with clipped iron-grey hair arrived and handed out menus.

'And something to drink,' Draper said.

'I'll send the wine waiter, sir.'

'Just send a Scotch and a gin and tonic.' Draper looked at me. 'How about you?'

'Are you buying?'

He snorted with laughter. 'All goes on expenses.'

Maggie put on a forced smile. I shook my head: no drink.

The old waiter said patiently, 'I'll send the wine waiter, sir.' He went away.

Draper snorted again. 'Posh sort of pub, this. Cost you a packet, does it?'

I shrugged and the wine waiter arrived and took the order. Draper pulled out a long thin cigar and the waiter did a fast draw with a book of matches.

But Draper shook his head. 'I'll just chew it a while. Don't last so long if you light 'em – ha-ha!'

The waiter looked at him, puzzled but getting the message that Draper wasn't directly related to Royalty.

Maggie said formally, 'I suppose I ought to apologise for asking Mr Draper to follow you.'

'That's all right. You can send as many as you like if they're no better than he is.'

'Thanks, chum,' he said bitterly. 'Maybe someday I can doyou a good turn.'

I said, 'But what did you expect him to tell you, anyway?'

'Oh…' she fiddled with the silverware; '… just what you were doing."

'You knew bloody well what I was doing. Trying to find out who killed Martin Fenwick.'

She looked up at me quickly. 'Well, that's what yousaid, but…'

'You were worried about what else I might find out?'

Maybe she blushed, maybe not. Damn interrogations by candlelight. 'Well, I don't know… And Mr Mockby said you'd taken the parcel Mart-Mr Fenwick was carrying…'

'That's something I meant to ask you: why was he taking it to France?'

Draper said quickly, 'You don't have to tell. Not a thing, you don't.'

I said, 'I'll get around to you in a moment. Behave yourself until then.'

'Shove it up.'

But just as his employer was giving him a prim look, the wine waiter arrived with their drinks. Both grabbed and gulped, but then Maggie caught my eye and looked briefly shamefaced about it. Probably remembering the last – and first – time we'd met, when she was getting smashed out of her little pointed mind.

'Now let's get back to why Fenwick was going to France.' But then the table waiter arrived to take our orders. Damn interrogations over dinner tables. I took prawn cocktail and half a grilled lobster – after all, we weren't much more than a quarter of a mile from the fish market on the edge of the quay. And Iwas on expenses.

When the waiter had gone, I said to Maggie, 'Well?'

But she'd had too long to work out her reply: it was just a half-shrug, half-shake of her head.

I turned to Draper. 'Fenwick hired some enquiry firm – that was Herb Harris, wasn't it?'

'No.'

'Too fast.' I tried to look reproving. 'The right answer should be "Don't know". You wouldn't know every job Herb took on, would you? And why shouldshe go to him? She doesn't know about private detectives; natch, she'd use the one her boss had used. So now, what were you trying to find out for Fenwick?'

This time it was Maggie looking at him apprehensively. But he just took the chewed-up cigar out of his face, spat a bit off his lip, and said, 'Stuff it up again.'

I shook my head sadly. 'I really am going to have to have a word with Herb about you.'

'I've met some slimy creeping bastards in my time-'

'And now you've met another. Come on.'

He rammed the cigar back in his mouth, glanced at Maggie, and growled, 'He was being blackmailed. Wanted us to find out who.'

'Blackmailed about what?'

He shrugged, and his voice seemed lighter and more confident now. 'He never told us. Something personal, he said. Not business.'

'What about notes and so on?'

'No notes. All done by telephone.'

'You didn't have much to go on.'

'You're bloody right, there. Didn't bloody get anywhere, either.'

Then our first course arrived, and I found I'd been right about being close to the fish market. Those prawns actually tasted of something besides the sauce. Can you imagine that?

So for a time, I just ate.

When I'd finished, I asked Maggie, 'What was he being blackmailed about?'

She stiffened. So she knew. That was the important step.

I said, 'Well?'

Draper was leaning on one elbow and looking at her curiously.

I said it again.

She put on the voice she would have used for getting rid of beggars and life-insurance salesmen. 'You really don't think I'm going to discuss Mr Fenwick's private life with a… a merebodyguard, do you?'

I pulled the pin out of my temper, counted to three, and let it blow. 'Just tell me what in hell gives you the exclusive rights to the late Martin Fenwick, underwriter, will you? He had a wife, a son, he had partners and friends – as well as a silly little secretary with a schoolgirl crush on the boss. And maybe some ofthem want to know why he got his guts blown in even if you don't care a damn!'

I was projecting fine, just fine. Maybe La Scala in Milan had heard better, but never the Grill at the Norge. Several groups at nearby tables were giving me snowbound looks, and the wine waiter was teetering on his toes, praying I'd stop before he had to stop me.

Even Draper was looking a bit shook, making shushing movements with his hands. 'Here, cool it off, chummie-'

I snapped at him.'And you, unless you want your tits kicked through your trapezium!'

And probably that about covered the situation. The trouble with all those years of interrogation procedures is that by now I can't tell how honest my anger really is. But for the moment, it seemed good enough.

Maggie had a definite flush now, and tears sparkling in her eyes. She finished her gin at a gulp. 'All right, all right. It was… I was… having an affair with him.' And she glanced at me quickly, then back to her plate.

Draper was looking at her speculatively, probably wondering whathis chances were. About one in infinity squared, I'd say.

I said, 'All right, so now we know. It happens all the time.' Though it doesn't, you know, not as much as everybody seems to think. In most firms, the one person youdon't start ring-a-dinging is your own secretary. It changes an important business relationship into something else, and the board room doesn't like it. It's a good way to find yourself promoted manager of the North Greenland branch.

Which makes it a better blackmailing point than you might otherwise think, of course.

'And that leaves us,' I said, 'with the question of what he was being blackmailedfor. What they wanted from him.'

I knew it was a bloody stupid remark the moment I'd finished it. She stared at me, tears spilling from suddenly widened eyes. 'Well, you ought to know. You've got it.'

Fast, now. 'What did he tell you?'

'Just that it was evidence about a claim.'

'Well – could you identify it again?' Oh, a crafty one, that.

But: 'No -1 never saw it. It was sent to his home, I think. His flat.'

Yet without leaving any traces around the flat, like covering letters. Unless the party of the other part had nicked them before I'd got there.

'Did he tell you what claim? – what ship?'

'No, I never knew that.' Not true, darling. I can tell.

'You didn't have to write any letters about it?'

'No.'

'He didn't talk in bed much, did he, your Fenwick?'

Her eyes filled with fresh tears, and Draper looked at me and said, 'You know, you're a bit of a right sod.'

At the time, I almost agreed with him.

The old waiter wheeled up a trolley with the next course, giving me a couple of suspicious looks free and with the compliments of the management. He'd long ago formed a private view about Draper, but after my concerto for unaccompanied bad temper he was getting a second opinion on me, too.