Suckers

But she and Duncan were getting on like a house on fire; he was radiating charm like a chat-show host. She offered to make tea, rounded up three or four dirty mugs, and disappeared. Duncan turned to me and winked, even though he should have known better.

I scowled. 'Were you really at school with Dino?'

'Mmm, he was one or two years below me.'

'Why didn't you say?

He shrugged. 'It didn't seem important. I don't think we ever spoke. Oh, except one time when a couple of us beat the crap out of him.'

'You did what?'

'He was a disgusting little toad, even then.'

'You beat him up?' I couldn't believe what I'd heard.

He shrugged again. It was no big deal. 'He insulted my mother.'

He fell silent as Francine came back and picked up where she'd left off with the flirtatious chit-chat. I was still stunned. I'd always imagined Duncan as a sensitive and artistic little boy, a loner who preferred library books to the rugby field. Never in my wildest dreams had I seen him as a violent and obnoxious bully.

When the tea had brewed, Francine poured some for Duncan and offered him biscuits as well. As an afterthought, she poured a cup for me but forgot to hand it over, so I had to go round to her side of the desk to get it. She stood up to allow me past her chair, and a blast of garlic caught me full in the face. No wonder Duncan had recoiled from her kiss.

From my new vantage point, I was able to read the scribbled notes on her memo-pad. She had doodled a baroque framework of leaves and flowers around a small clearing in which the name Dino had been scored and scored again in fat black letters. I could also see a partly opened drawer containing a number of large brown envelopes. The name Dino was visible there as well. I sipped at my tea and decided to stay put. For an instant, my eyes met Duncan's; it was almost as good as sex. He bit into a custard cream. 'And how is Dino? What's he up to?'

Francine lost some of her self-composure. She looked genuinely upset. 'He's gone,' she said in a small voice. Duncan asked what she meant.

'I mean he took off. Doesn't work here any more.'

'This is a recent thing, right?' I said, in case Duncan was thinking I'd made a mistake with the address.

Francine took a deep breath. 'I came in one morning last week and found him trying to burn the place down.'

'You're kidding.'

'It's true. He put all his negs in a pile and set fire to them. It could have been a major disaster if I hadn't come in. Look, you can see the burn marks.' She went over to the cardboard box and pushed it to one side to uncover an expanse of scorched carpet.

'Crikey,' said Duncan. 'The whole place could have gone up.' He glanced at me and I nodded. He examined the scorch marks closely, all the time keeping up an inane patter and contriving to stand so Francine was forced to turn her back on me — just for a second, but it was enough.

'He was in a frightful state,' she was saying. 'Hadn't shaved or changed his clothes for days. God, he was smelly.'

I thought that was rich coming from someone with her garlicky breath. Mission accomplished, envelope tucked safely beneath my jacket, I moved away from the desk with my best butter-wouldn't-melt expression.

'Did you call the police?' Duncan was asking.

'Didn't seem worth it,' said Francine. 'He was only trying to burn his own property.'

'What happened then?'

'I put the fire out.'

'No, I mean what happened to Dino?'

'He called me a stupid cow and stomped off.'

'Do you know where?'

She shook her head.

'Well, where does he usually hang out? Where would I be most likely to bump into him?'

She frowned. 'Gnashers, I suppose. And there's some place in Covent Garden, I can't remember the name. Oh, and he took me to the Foxhole a couple of times.'

'The Foxhole?' queried Duncan.

'I know it,' I said. 'Over the river.' I'd had quite enough of Francine, so I grabbed Duncan by the elbow and steered him towards the door. 'Just the place for a quick drink,' I said.

I looked back over my shoulder and was delighted to see that Francine was glowering. She'd got the message. Duncan belonged to me.

Chapter 6

We were driving north over Blackfriars Bridge when Duncan remembered the envelope and asked what was inside. I peeked in and saw negatives.

'No contact sheets?'

I checked. 'Just negs.'

Duncan whistled the first few bars of the theme from The Third Man. 'So he didn't burn them all.'

'Francine was lying.'

'Of course she was. She's in with Violet. So's Dino. They're all in it together.'

'She can't be in with Violet,' I said. 'Didn't you smell her breath? The girl reeked of garlic.'

Duncan mulled over this. 'I'm still not letting Lu go off on her own tomorrow.'

I told him he was overreacting. One photographer may have been behaving strangely, but we had no proof that working for Bellini was going to turn Lulu into a pyromaniac as well. I tried to put things into perspective. 'This is a magazine we're talking about. A fashion magazine, all about clothes and make-up. Not some sinister East European agency which jabs poisoned ferrules into people because they refuse to wear the autumn colours.'

Duncan said, 'Do be serious.' I hated it when people told me to be serious, especially when I was being serious.

'I feel responsible for her,' Duncan went on. 'I know she gets on your nerves — and she gets on mine too sometimes — but she's a genuinely nice person, Dora. There is not an ounce of maliciousness in her, and these days that's remarkable. She's not as dumb as she looks, either, even if she hasn't got round to reading Proust. Neither have I, come to think of it. We can't all be intellectuals like you.'

He said 'intellectuals' the way one might say 'fascists' or 'serial killers'. I protested I wasn't an intellectual, I just happened to have read a few French authors, but he was getting into his stride now. 'I owe her so much. She saved my life, and I mean that literally. I don't think you've any idea what shape I was in.'

I was fuming. This was his selective memory at work again. He hadn't noticed all the things I'd done for him. And I'd done a lot — a hell of a lot more than Lulu. 'It seems to me,' I said, choosing my words carefully, 'that you're less worried about Lulu's welfare than about the possibility of her running into one of your old flames, and maybe learning rather more about your sordid past than you would care to have her know.'

That hit him where it hurt. By the time he'd found somewhere to park in one of the narrow streets around the Savoy we were both sulking. I flounced out of the car, intending to catch the tube home. I was annoyed when Duncan tagged along behind me. I walked faster, but couldn't shake him off.

We got almost as far as the railway arches, where the Have Nots huddled in their newspapers and cardboard boxes. I stopped and wheeled round to face Duncan and asked where he thought he was going.

'I thought we were going in there,' he said, pointing to the top of a staircase visible through a nearby doorway. I recognized it as the entrance to the Foxhole. 'You look as though you need a drink,' he said, adding, 'I could do with one too.' I reminded him he'd given up drinking a long time ago. He said maybe it was time he started again, and gave me a peculiar little smile which crinkled the corners of his eyes. When I saw that smile, I almost forgave him everything.