Blame The Dead

'Cheers.' I drank, then asked, 'Did you finish the vodka and sherry?'

'Why not?' Jesus – she wasn't just half cut, she was pretty near minced.

'You're quitting?' I nodded at the clutter on the desk.

'As soon as they let me. Or before.'

I smiled sympathetically and parked myself on the edge of the desk – visitors didn't seem to get asked to sit much in this office.

'Just what is Mr Mockby? '

'He's a Name.'

'He's about five that I can think of.'

She smiled briefly. 'That means a member; they call them Names. The rich bastards who are supposed to be risking their money here.'

'Well, you can't run an oil well without oil. And a bunch of Names is a syndicate, right? – how many in a syndicate?'

'It can be over a hundred, it can be as small as we are: just nine. Though most of ours are pretty rich.'

'And they split the profits according to how much they've put up – is that right?' She nodded. 'The underwriter himself -does he put up anything? Get any of the profits?'

'Yes, but he doesn't have to berich.' It was a dirty word. 'Big money doesn't make big minds. You don't own it; it owns you.'

'Sometimes.'

'D'you know any rich men?' Her tone suggested it was unlikely.

'It's only the rich men who can afford bodyguards. Or think they need it.'

'I wish Martin had afforded somebody better.'

Oh God, we were back to that.

But she was too far gone to stick to one subject now. She finished her drink, heaved herself up, and poured another – Scotch, this time.

'You're going to end up cronked.' Professionally, I didn't mind, but the residual officer-and-gentleman in me felt it had to say something.

'I'm a big girl now. And you said it wasn't a normal day.' She gulped.

'D'you know why Mr Fenwick was going to Arras?'

'It doesn't matter now. Nothing matters now.'

'But you know?'

'Ask Mockby.'

'Your Mr Fenwick hired me. Granted, maybe I didn't do as good a job as I might have done. But I don't think he'd like me just to drop it now.' And I can sing Mother Macree hand-embroidered with roses and violets, too.

But if there was a psychological moment, I'd missed it. All she said was, 'Forget it. Just forget it all.' Then dumped herself back behind the desk and stared at the typewriter and went peck peck peck at one key.

Blast it.

I put on a more formal voice and said, 'You were going to give me Mrs Fenwick's address.'

'Was I?' She lifted her glass and stared through it. 'You wouldn't like her. She's a cow. You'd step in her cow-pats.' She giggled.

When she got over the top, she certainly went downhill fast.

The address,' I said sternly.

'Kingscutt Manor Kingscutt Kent,' she droned.

I spaced it in my head. 'Thank you.'

'Any time. Anything for an old friend of Martin's.'

I stood up carefully. 'Thank you, Miss…? '

'Mackwood, Miss Maggie Mackwood, at your service.' Then she leaned her forehead on the typewriter and began to cry gently. I tiptoed out.

The little thing at the reception desk looked at me as severely as she could – like an angry mouse.

'I almost rang the box,' she said. 'I mean when you just walked in like that.'

I nodded. 'Next time, ring. You won't get anywhere unless you're ready to get tough with uninvited guests.'

She looked blank, then surprised, and then puzzled-but-friendly. The sound of sobbing came from the door behind her. She cocked an ear and nodded. 'She was very fond of Mr Fenwick.'

'Make sure she gets a taxi home.'

'You think I ought to?'

'Just get one and then tell her when it's here. Be tough.'

She smiled uncertainly. 'All right. Did you really see when he – got shot?'

I had my hand on the doorknob. 'Yes.'

'I wonder whoever did it.'

I turned and went back, meaning to pat her on the head. But suddenly she was a frightened mouse again, rearing back in her seat. So I just smiled, friendly-like.

'Congratulations. It's about time somebody asked that.'

Five

At a bit before four, the rush out of the City was thickening up (what hours do these peoplework?) but I still found a taxi inside five minutes. We only went as far as Fleet Street, where I knew a man who worked in a newspaper library.

A newspaper office is a lot easier than Lloyd's because it employs a much bigger variety of bods. You still have to look as if you know where you're going – but this time I did already. Most of the building has become the usual concrete-glass-fibreboard stuff in the last few years, but the library's in the old tribal country around the central light-welclass="underline" the high dirty ceilings, long, frayed light flexes, and dark mustiness of a real library. The boys there take a perverse pride about it. They say it's the heart of the organisation and a face-lift on a heart never worked yet.

He stood up a bit quickly as I came up to his desk. 'Afternoon, Major.'

I said quietly, 'For Chrissake sit down, Pip.'

He slumped. 'Just instinct, I suppose."

'I wasn'tthat bad.'

'You were still a major.' He picked up a packet of Gauloises; and took one, then offered me. I shook my head. He nodded sadly. 'I don't like them myself, but they help me cut it down. I see you got your name in the papers at last. Have they caught you yet?'

'No. Just ring the newsroom and you'll have a scoop on yout hands.'

He smiled gently. 'Let 'em do their own dirty work; they tell me how to do mine often enough.' He had a tall forehead that hid a remarkable private filing system, curly black hair, and the pale skin of a man whose office never sees the sun. 'What can I do for you, Major?'

'Fenwick.' You don't tell a man like Pip what you want to see, you tell him what you want to know. He'll think of sources you couldn't dream of.

He shook his head slowly. 'We've been trying to get something on him all day. He's not in Who's Who or. the Directory of Directors; we've got no packets on him. Seems to be just a Lloyd's man. We don't keep any of their registers or stuff. You really don't know any more yourself?'

'Nope. I only knew him a few hours.'

'The Standard's got everything we know.' He pushed across a fresh final edition. 'Anything else?'

'Mockby. Paul Mockby.'

He frowned thoughtfully. 'I think… Does he come into it?'

'He seems to be the bright light of Fenwick's syndicate, that's all. And while you're at it, I'd like some general stuff on Lloyd's – how it works and so on.'

'No can do. The packets are out.' He jerked his head to a young man sitting at a table about ten yards off, puffing at an oversized pipe and rumpling, alternately, his hair and a mass of newspaper clippings.

Pip said, 'He's working up some background on how an underwriter works. You ought to buy him a drink – he spent half last night waiting outside your pad for you to come home. I'll see what we've got on Mockby.'

I skimmed the Evening Standard while he was gone. The story was still front page – perhaps because the Arras police had announced finding a Walther PP down a drain; there's got to be a new fact to hang a new rehash of old knowledge on, and the police know that as well as anybody. But they hadn't tied the gun to me, yet. Or else the Standard hadn't risked libel by saying so. The only new thing about me was that I'd once been a major in the Intelligence Corps. No picture. I didn't think they'd find one before the story ran dry, anyway.

Pip was leaning over my shoulder with the Directory of Directors open at Mockby's page. 'I've got a bit of personal stuff on him, too.' He sat down to sort through a handful of clippings while I went through the Directory entry.

It seemed Mockby was a director of about twenty companies, none of which f d heard of, bar a small merchant bank and a shipping line. But there was perhaps something of a pattern to the rest of them. Most of the names – where the names told you anything – suggested electronics, chemicals and drugs, or man-made fibres. Laboratory companies. Find a new cure for cancer or nylon and farm out your patents and then hold on to the rocket stick while your share values go through the ceiling.