To the hilt [en]

More than enough, I thought, to give Ivan a heart attack.

I asked, 'How much is missing?'

He smiled. 'How big is a fog?'

'You mean, you don't know?'

'Our embezzler was the Finance Director. He worked the three-card trick. Find the queen… but she's gone to a nice anonymous bank account for ever and all you have left is debts.'

I frowned. 'You're not being awfully precise.'

'I warned Sir Ivan last year that I thought he had an open drain somewhere, but he didn't want to believe it. Now he's so ill, he still won't face it. I'm sorry to say it, but there it is. And he would rather cover up the theft, if he can, than admit to the world that he - and his whole board of directors - has been careless and even stupid.'

'And he's not the first down that road.'

'Far, far from it.'

'So, what are your life-belt measures?'

He hesitated, picking away at the teeth. 'I can advise you,' he said, 'but I cannot act for you. As an auditor I must keep a certain distance from my clients' affairs. In effect, I can only point out a course of action you might wish to take.'

'Then please point.'

He fiddled some more with his mouth and I felt sore and in need of sleep and not scintillatingly bright.

'I would suggest,' he said carefully, 'that you might call in an insolvency practitioner.'

'A who?'

'Insolvency practitioner. Someone to negotiate for you.'

'I didn't know such people existed.'

'Lucky you.'

'Where do I find one?' I asked blankly.

'I'll give you a name. I can do that at least.'

'And,' I asked gratefully, 'what will he do?'

'She.'

'Oh, well, what will she do?'

'If she thinks the brewery can be saved - and to do that she will have to make her own independent assessment of the position - if she thinks there's still life in the corpse she'll set up a CVA.'

He looked at my face. 'A CVA,' he explained patiently, 'is a company voluntary arrangement. In other words, she will try to call together a meeting of creditors. She'll explain to them the scope of the losses, and if she can persuade them that the brewery can go back to trading at a profit, they will together work out a rate at which the debts can be paid off bit by bit. Creditors will always do that if possible, because if they force a firm into total liquidation, they don't get paid much at all.'

'That,' I said, 'I understand.'

'Then,' Tobias went on, 'if the committee, acting with the brewery, can produce to me a budget and a forecast that will satisfy me as auditor that the brewery has a viable future, then I can sign the audited accounts, and it can continue to trade.'

'Well…' I thought for a bit, then said, 'What are the chances?'

'Fairly reasonable.'

'No higher?'

'It depends on the creditors.'

'And… er… who are they?'

'The usual. The bank. The Inland Revenue. The pension fund. The suppliers.'

'The bank?'

'The Finance Director organised a line of credit for expansion. The money's gone. There's no expansion and nothing in the bank to service the loan. To pay the interest, that is to say. The bank has given notice that they will not honour any more cheques.'

'And the tax people?'

'The brewery hasn't paid its employees' national insurance contributions for six months. The money's vanished. As for the pension fund, it's evaporated. The suppliers, in comparison, are small beer - if you'll excuse the dreadful pun - but the can suppliers are berserk.'

'What a mess,' I said. 'Aren't there any… er… assets?

'Sure. The brewery itself. But there's an outstanding loan on that too, and nothing left to service it with. The bank would foreclose at a loss.'

'What about the pubs the brewery owns?' I asked.

'The tied houses? The Finance Director mortgaged the lot. To put it briefly, that money's gone too.'

'It sounds hopeless.'

'I've known worse.'

'And what about the King Alfred Cup?'

'Ah.' He concentrated on his teeth. 'You might ask Sir Ivan where it is.'

'At Cheltenham,' I said, puzzled. 'They run it at Cheltenham a month on Saturday.'

'Ah,' he said again, 'you're talking about the race.'

'Yes. What else?'

The Cup itself,' he said earnestly. 'The King Alfred Gold Cup. The chalice. Medieval, I believe.'

I rubbed a hand over my face. Bruises were catching up.

'It's extremely valuable,' Tobias said. 'Sir Ivan should really consider selling it to offset some of the debt. But there is some doubt as to whether it belongs to the brewery or to Sir Ivan personally and… I say,' he broke off, 'are you feeling all right?'

'Yes.'

'You don't look it. Would you like some coffee?'

'Very much.'

He bustled about, organising what turned out to be tea.

I took another of Keith Robbiston's pills and slowly stopped sweating. The tea was fine. I smiled feebly to allay Tobias's kind concern and explained I'd travelled all night on the train, which seemed to him reason enough for faintness in the afternoon, even without the rainbowed eye.

'Actually,' I said, getting a better grip on things, 'I was wondering about the race itself, not the trophy. The race is part of the brewery's prestige. A sign of its success. Would… er… would the creditors agree to go ahead on the basis of keeping up public confidence in the brewery, even though the prize money will have to be found, and also the money for an entertaining tent and lunch and drinks for maybe a hundred guests? It's the brewery's best advertisement, that race. Cancelling it now, at this late stage, when the entries are already in, would send a massive message to all and sundry that the company's in a shaky state… and there's nothing like an ill wind for blowing a dicky house to rubble.'

He gazed at me. 'You'll need to say all that to the committee.'

'She… your insolvency angel, couldn't she say it?'

His gaze wandered over my hair and down to my paint-marked jeans, and I could see him thinking that the race had a better chance of survival with a more conventional advocate.

'You'll need to convince her.' He smiled briefly. 'You've convinced me.' He paused. 'Incidentally, among the brewery's possible assets there is a racehorse. That's to say, it's unclear again whether it belongs to the brewery or to Sir Ivan himself. I'd be glad if you could clarify it.'

'I?'

'You are in total charge. Your comprehensive powers of attorney make that unquestionably clear.'

'Oh.'

'Sir Ivan must have absolute faith in you.'

'In spite of how I look?'

'Well…' He gave me suddenly a broad grin. 'Since you mention it, yes.'

'I'm a painter,' I explained, 'and I look like one. You don't find droves of painters in pinstripes.'

'I suppose not.'

I drank a second cup of tea and asked idly, 'What is the name of the horse?'

'How do you hide a horse, Alexander…?'

Hide a horse. Ye gods.

'It's called Golden Malt,' Tobias said.

Yesterday morning, I thought morosely, I was leading the peaceful if eccentric life of a chronicler of the equally eccentric compulsion to hit a small white ball a furlong or two and tap it over lovingly landscaped grass until it dropped into a small round hole. Yesterday morning's sensible madness now lay the other side of a violent robbery, an aching body, an edge-of-the-grave stepfather, his ordeal by domesticity and his shift onto my shoulders of ever-expanding troubles.

Ivan, I saw, wanted me to keep his horse hidden away from the clutches of bankruptcy. Ivan had given me the legal right to commit an illegal act.

'What are you thinking?' Tobias asked.