The Nice and the Good

Eight

Ducane faced Peter McGrath, the office messenger, across the desk.

Ducane said silkily, 'I have information which leads me to suppose that you, Mr McGrath, were connected with the recent sale to the press of a scurrilous story concerning Mr Radeechy.'

Ducane waited. It was hot in the room. Outside, London roared quietly. A little silent fly kept circling quickly and alighting on Ducane's hand.

McGrath's very light blue eyes were fixed upon Ducane's face. Then McGrath averted his eyes, or rather rolled them in his head as if he were doing an exercise. Then he blinked several times. He peered at Ducane again and smiled a little confiding smile.

'We – ell, Sir, I suppose it was bound to come out, wasn't it,' said McGrath.

Ducane was irritated by McGrath's light Scottish voice, whose exact provenance he could not diagnose, and by the man's colour scheme. A man had no right to have such red hair and such a white skin and such pallid watery blue eyes and such a sugary pink mouth in the middle of it all. McGrath was in very bad taste.

'Now I require some information from you, Mr McGrath,' said Ducane, shuffling his papers about in a business-like manner and shaking off the fascinated fly. 'I want first of all to know exactly what this story consisted of, which you sold, and then I shall ask you a number of questions about the background to the story.'

'Am I going to get the push?' said McGrath.

Ducane hesitated. In fact McGrath's dismissal was a cer tainty. However, at this moment Ducane needed McGrath's cooperation. He replied, 'That is not my province, Mr McGrath. You will doubtless hear from Establishments if your employment here is to terminate.'

McGrath put two pale hands, lightly furred with long reddish hairs, on the desk and leaned forward. He said confidentially, 'I bet I get the push. Don't you bet?' McGrath's voice, Ducane now noticed, had Cockney overtones.

'We shall require to have, Mr McGrath, a copy of this story.

How soon can you provide this?'

McGrath sat back. With a slight quizzical effort he raised one eyebrow. His eyebrows were a light gingery colour and almost invisible. 'I haven't got a copy,' he said.

'Come, come,' said Ducane.

'I swear I haven't got a copy, Sir. You see I didn't write the story. I'm not much of a hand at the writing. And you know what those journalist laddies are. I just talked and they wrote things down and then they read out to me what they'd written up about it and I signed it. I never wrote nothing myself.'

This is almost certainly true, thought Ducane. 'How much did they pay you?'

McGrath's pale face became as smooth as a cat's. 'A man's financial arrangements are his own affair, Sir, if I may – '

'I advise you to change your tune a little, McGrath,' said Ducane. 'You have acted very irresponsibly and you may find yourself in serious trouble. Why did you sell that story?'

'Well, Sir, a gentleman like you, Sir, just doesn't know what it's like to need the necessary. I sold it for the money, Sir, and I'll make no bones about it. It was a matter of looking after number one, Sir, as I daresay even you do, Sir, in your own way.'

An impertinent fellow, thought Ducane, and I should think a complete rogue. Though Ducane had never fully realized it, one reason why his career as a barrister had been less than totally successful was that he lacked the capacity to conceive of any kind of villainy of which he would not have been capable himself. His imagination reached out into the world of evil simply by prolonging the patterns of his own faults. So that his judgement upon McGrath that he was 'a complete rogue' remained unhelpful and abstract. Ducane could not conceive what it could be like to be McGrath. The sheer opacity to him of this sort of roguery in fact had the effect of making McGrath more interesting to him and in a curious way more sympathetic.

'All right. You sold it for the money. Now, Mr McGrath, I want you to tell me in as much detail as you can what it was you said to the press about Mr Radeechy.'

McGrath once more rolled his eyes, taking his time about it. He said, 'I can't really remember much '

'You can't expect me to believe that,' said Ducane. 'Come on. We shall have the story itself in our hands very shortly.

And if you help me now I may be able to help you later.'

'Well,' said McGrath, who seemed for the first time a little perturbed, 'well – ' Then he said, 'I liked Mr Radeechy, Sir, I liked him, I did '

Ducane felt a quickening of interest. He felt closer to McGrath, as a bull-fighter might feel to the bull after he had touched it. 'You knew him well –?' said Ducane softly. He had often had occasion to question people, and the sensation which he now had was familiar to him, the sense of spinning in the quietness of the room a web of sympathetic atmosphere for the unwary. Ducane felt a bit guilty at being good at this. This 'making people talk' was not just a matter of what was said or even how it was said – it was a talent which depended upon all sorts of intuitive, perhaps telepathic, emanations of an almost physical kind.

'Yes – ' said McGrath. He had put his hands on the desk again and was looking at them. His hands were singularly clean. The little fly was visiting him now, but he did not shake it off. McGrath and the fly eyed each other. 'He was a nice gentleman to me. I did things for him, like. Things outside the office.'

'What sort of things?' said Ducane softly.

'Well, for his magic, see, he needed things. I used to go to his house, you know, out at Ealing.'

'You mean you brought him things he needed for his magic rituals?'

'Yes. He was a rum chap, was Mr Radeechy. Harmless sort of looney, I suppose you'd call him. But he was a clever chap, mind you. He knew all about that magic business, its history and all. You've never seen so many big books as he had about it. He was a real operator, he knew the lot.'

'What were the things you brought him?'

'Oh, all kinds. You never knew what he'd be wanting next.

Feathers, he wanted once, white feathers. And all kinds of herbs and sorts of oil. I used to get them at the Health Food Stores. And birds he wanted sometimes, and little animals, mice like.'

'Live ones?'

'Yes, Sir. I used to get them at the Pet Shop. I think they got suspicious in the end.'

Ducane shuddered. 'Go on.'

'Then there were things he got for himself like weeds, nightshade and that, and he wanted to teach me to recognize them so I could go to the country and pick them for him, but I didn't care for it.'

'Why not? V 'I don't like the country,' said McGrath. He added, 'I was a bit afraid of those plants, actually growing, it's different in a shop, you understand '

'I understand. Did Mr Radeechy really believe in his rituals?'

'Oh Lord, yes,' said McGrath in an aggrieved tone. 'He wasn't doing it just for fun. He could do it, too, I mean it worked – '

'It worked –?»

'Well, I don't know, I was never there, mind you, but Mr Radeechy was a very strange man, Sir, a man you might say who had supernatural powers. There was a very funny atmosphere round about that man.'

'Have you any definite evidence of Mr Radeechy's supernatural powers, or was this just something that you felt?'

'Well, as to evidence, no, but you felt it, like – '

'Yes, I can imagine that. Where did you first meet Mr Radeechy?'

'Here in the office, Sir.'

'I see. And you did these odd jobs of shopping for him, for which I imagine he paid you?'

'Well, yes, Sir, he did pay me a little for my time – '

'Quite. Did you see anything of Mrs Radeechy?'

'I didn't see much of the lady, Sir, she rather kept out of the way, but I did meet her just to say good evening.'

'Did she seem to object in any way to your visiting the house?'

'Oh not a bit, Sir. She knew all about it. A very cheerful lady and very friendly and polite.'

'Do you think she and Mr Radeechy got on well together?'

'Devoted, Sir, I should say. I've never seen a gentleman so plain miserable as he was after she died. He didn't do any magic for months.'

'Mrs Radeechy wasn't upset by Mr Radeechy's magic?'

'Well, I never saw her upset by anything, but it must have got her down a bit because of the girls.'

'The girls – 'Yes, you see the magic needed girls.'

Now we're coming to it, thought Ducane. He shivered slightly and the room vibrated quietly with electrical animal emanations. 'Yes, I understand that many magic rituals involve girls, often virgins. Perhaps you could tell me a little about these ones.'

'I don't know about virgins!' said McGrath, and laughed a slightly crazy laugh.

Radeechy had him fascinated, it occurred to Ducane. There was a kind of mad admiration in McGrath's laugh. 'You mean the girls whom Mr Radeechy – used – were – well, what were they like? Did you meet them?'

'I saw them a bit, yes,' said McGrath. He was now becoming cautious. He rocked his hand to disturb the persistent fly. He looked up at Ducane, signalling with his colourless eyebrows.

'Tarts, I'd say they were. I never properly saw him at it, mind you.'

'What do you think he did with the girls?' said Ducane. He found himself smiling at McGrath, encouragingly, perhaps con70 spiratorially. The subject matter imposed, almost without their wills, a cosy masculine atmosphere.

'Do with them?' said McGrath, smiling too. 'Well, you know I never saw really, though I did creep back once or twice, and I looked through a window. I was curious, you see. You'd have been curious too, Sir.'