'My problem, Mr Kitchen, is that the solicitor who handled your affairs is now in South Africa, and his secretary who met you is now married and has moved away. So, please, further proof of identity is needed.'
On his screen were copies of terse communications.
He had telephoned down to the basement archive and there was indeed a box there, in the name of Captain Malachy Kitchen, Army Intelligence Corps, of Alamein Drive at Chicksands. He had suggested a call be made to the base but there had been a violent shake of the head opposite him. His firm did wills and con-veyancing for many of the officers there: this man hardly seemed one of them. Old clothes on his back, new scars and bruises on his face. Only the shoes showed a military man's care.
'When is it you were last a visitor here?'
He was told, a month more than two years back, but not an exact date to match against the screen's correspondence.
'I'm sorry, Mr Kitchen, but that is too vague.
Anything else?'
The man sat straighter, pulled down the zip of his anorak, pushed away the neck of his pullover, opened the upper buttons of his shirt and reached down. The twin tags came out in his hand, held by an aged leather bootlace. They were held up for him to examine. He craned forward, read, wrote down the religion, blood group and number, and when the tag with the number was turned, he could see the name.
They were returned to their resting-place against the man's chest. The smell was stifled once the anorak was zipped again.
'That'll do nicely, Mr Kitchen. I'll have the box sent up.'
Ten minutes later the senior partner escorted his client to the main door, wished him well and watched him walk away. For a man so obviously facing acute difficulties in his life, there was a quite cheerful roll in his gait. Back at his desk he cast a quick glance at the box. A will, still there. A building-society savings book, still there. A marriage certificate, still there.
Only the passport had been taken. He wondered what the client had run from, and where he was going now with his passport. He had not liked to ask – but if he had, he doubted that he would have been answered.
They turned into the drive, past the broken gates, and Davey braked. Charlie thought that the gates, electronically controlled, would have been flattened by the first fire appliance to reach the house. All of them in the car, Charlie realized – and it was as true of himself as the others – were strung up tight, like a bow string pulled back. Davey had reckoned they shouldn't be there, not so soon: Ricky had rubbished him. In the car, Benji had tried to raise the journey to Hamburg, where it would lead and why he was called for: Ricky had shut him down. Himself, Charlie was concerned about the cash-flow implications of the fire: Ricky had said he should wait and watch. Ricky wore the big gold chain at his throat, that Joanne had given him, and Charlie knew it had been lost and that Joanne had been belted for asking about it. Ricky fingered it obsessively. Not a bundle of laughs between them as they had driven down from London and into the countryside, not even enough laughs to wrap in a handkerchief. They went past a fence and a horse that had been grazing saw the car and seemed to scream and run. Then they turned a corner in the drive and the house was in front of them.
'Bloody hell,' Charlie murmured, a little gasp.
Ricky and Davey lived in the semi-detached houses of Bevin Close. Benji was in a brick terrace by Loampit Vale. Charlie's place was detached, joined to his neighbour by their garages, nearer to Ladywell Road.
They had four houses that were typical of Lewisham in south-east London. This had been a big pile, had been. A wooden stable block, but the wind must have been coming from behind it, and it hadn't caught. A double garage, with the doors up, was untouched. In front of the building was a mountain of debris, some of which Charlie could make out as furniture, some of which was too charred for recognition. He could make out easy chairs where the material had burned off to leave the wood and springs, a tabletop without legs, wardrobe doors, frames without pictures, the shell of a TV and the front door, but most of the heap had no shape. And parked beside the burned mess, like it was the only place to park, was a scarlet vintage Jaguar.
Beside him in the back, he heard Ricky hiss through his teeth.
The roof in the central part of the house was off.
Some of the beams were in place, others had gone, a few sagged. All the windows were out, like black tooth gaps in a mouth. It was desolation, and quiet.
All of them peered forward through the windscreen.
Sort of made Charlie shudder, everything at bloody peace except for the wrecked house – like it had been a target, picked out and chosen. His father had been a builder, odd jobs, a bit of roofing, a bit of plumbing, a bit of whatever – when he wasn't doing scams with old folks' benefit books – and Charlie had helped him out before he'd joined up with Ricky. He didn't know much about building, but he could see that this pile was beyond repair. It would be a bulldozer job. A site to be cleared, not just scaffolding and work for a year.
George Wright had been done over, done proper. He saw the other car, by the side of what had been the house, and there was a man in a suit, and George. He nudged Ricky and pointed. They stayed put, sat in their car.
The man had a clipboard and a pencil. At that distance the sound of the voices did not travel, didn't need to. The man from the insurance was with George and he had a dour look. He finished scribbling on his clipboard and shrugged, like he was only explaining the reality of the situation confronting him. George was shaking and animated. He gripped the man's sleeve, dropped it, and had his hands at his head, like that was despair. All bastards, weren't they, insurance men? Then George had his head up, gazed at the trees, and the bloody crows – black sods – sat there and honked at the show, and the man hadn't shaken George's hand or had anything good to say and was going for his car. George was left, in a pair of suit trousers and a shirt that had been white before it was stained by the fire's smoke, alone with the crows. The car came towards them but Davey didn't shift off the drive, and it had to go on to the lawn where the first cut had just been done and the lines were good and straight and it left the tyre treads – didn't matter
… Bigger problems for George than his grass.
They went forward.
Ricky said, 'We sort this out, and now. Then there's no misunderstandings.'
He seemed not to see them as they came out of the car, and not to hear them as they stamped on the tarmacadam past the mountain and the open doorway, the kitchen windows that had been smashed, and came to the corner of the house. Behind him were apple trees but the gale from the fire had singed the blossom off them. Ricky was ahead, with Davey trailing him by a couple of paces, and Benji and Charlie hung back because this was not about to be their style of business.
'Sorry to see this, George,' Ricky said briskly.
'What'd you do, leave the chipper on?'
Christ, Charlie thought, his man could play cold.
George Wright had spun on his heel. On his face: end of tether, edge of control.
'What the fuck do you want?'
'That's not nice, George. I come down all polite like a friend, all sympathy. Didn't come down for abuse.
Came to find out what the situation was. You got a difficulty with that?'
'The situation, right. The situation is that the insurance wasn't jacked up in the last five years and it's way under. Got that? My Melanie, she's gone to her mother, she's broke down, and Hannah's with her and worse. I had a load of stuff in the house, and the safe went like an oven. The stuff's cooked – got that?