To the hilt [en]

'And beach towels,' Tobias grinned, 'get sent to the laundry.'

I went to see Young and Uttley.

Neither Mr Young (moustache, suit and hat) nor Mr Uttley (football coach, ball and whistle) was in the office, and nor was the skinhead. Alone in occupation I found a secretary at work at a computer, a young woman with dark curly hair, black tights, short black skirt, loose bright blue sweater, scarlet lips and fingernails.

Giving me a flick of a glance, she said, 'Can I help you?' and went on working.

'Well…' I looked at her carefully, 'you can tell me why the hell you made sure Surtees Benchmark saw you following him.'

The busy fingers stilled. The bright eyes looked at my face. The familiar voice deepened and said in exasperation, 'How the shit do you know?

'Eye sockets.'

'What?'

'I draw people. I look at their bones. Your eye sockets slant down in a particular way at the outer corners. Also your wrists are male. You should wear frilled cuffs.'

'Bugger you.'

I laughed. 'So why did you let Surtees see you?'

'Let him? I made sure he did, like you said, I got him real worried. See, if someone knows they're being followed, they're dead careful, but when they don't see their shadow they think they're safe, so they go at once and do what you could wait weeks for them to do otherwise, and you'd never know, either, what things he didn't care about anyone watching, and what he really wanted to keep hidden. See?'

'I guess I do.'

'So I got him busy looking out for a skinhead.'

'And,' I suggested, 'he then doesn't notice a secretary in a dark brown wig?'

'You got it.'

'What did the secretary see?'

'Ah.' Young, Uttley (and associates) enjoyed himself. 'Yon bonnie Surtees has a lady wife who keeps him on a throttling leash. Some men enjoy subjugation, I'm not saying they don't, but Wednesday afternoons it seems Mrs Surtees chairs some sort of local women's action committee and her Mister bolts into Guildford to consult his business colleague. Seems Surtees runs a stud farm that's half owned by his wife and half by someone else, the business colleague. Anyway, Wednesday afternoon - yesterday - Surtees drives round in a circle or two looking out for the skinhead, and when he thinks it's safe he steers not to any business office but to a terrace house on the outskirts of Guildford. That's to say, he parks in the next street and looks all around carefully - a dead giveaway, he's stupid - and then he walks to the little house and opens the front door with a key.'

I sighed.

'Don't you want to hear about it?'

'Yes, but I'd rather he'd visited four thugs in a gym.'

'Sorry about that. Anyway, yesterday Mr Young paid a visit to the house at Guildford, as soon as Surtees had left.'

'Mr Young in suit, hat, moustache?'

He nodded. 'The lot.'

'And?'

'And there's a poor little cow lives there that lets inadequates like Surtees pay to spank her before sex.'

'Damn.'

'Not what you hoped?'

'Too simple.'

'Do you want me to carry on?'

'Yes.' I brought a foil-wrapped packet out of a pocket and gave it to him. 'This is a pair of glasses left behind by one of the four robbers. They're the strength people take off when they want to read. I don't suppose they'll be much use, but it's all they left.'

He/she unwrapped the glasses without excitement.

'Also,' I said, 'see what you can find out about a goldsmith working in London in around 1850 or 60, called Maxim.'

After a short stare, he said, 'Anything else?'

'How do you rate as a bodyguard?'

'That's extra.'

I paid him another week's retainer. Expenses and extras, he said, would fall due at the end.

CHAPTER EIGHT

When Ivan spread out the creditors' agreements on his table and slowly took each of them onto his lap to read them carefully one by one, his overall reaction was one of relieved gloom.

When my mother came into his room, though, he lifted his head to her and smiled, and for the first time since his illness the worry dissolved from the lines on her forehead. She smiled back with the deep understanding friendship of a strong marriage, and I thought inconsequentially that if the area bank bighead had seen that exchange he would have counted it benefit enough for anything I had done.

'Our boy,' Ivan said (and I was usually 'your' boy), 'has signed the brewery into chains and penury.'

'But…' my mother asked, 'why are you pleased?'

He picked up a thick batch of paper in a blue cover and waved it at her.

'This,' he said, 'is our annual audit. Tobias Tollright has signed it. It is our passport to continue trading. The creditors' terms for payment are tough, very tough, but they've been fair. We ought to be able to win our way back. And they've factored in the Cheltenham race! I was sure we'd have to cancel it. But the chalice and Golden Malt are still at risk… I'll not give them up. We must meet the payments. Increase sales… I'll call a board meeting.'

One could actually see his resolution trickling back.

'Well done, Alexander,' he said.

I shook my head. 'Thank Mrs Morden. It was all her work.'

We spent an easy, companionable evening, the three of us, but by morning Ivan's euphoria had mostly vanished and he was complaining that the brewery's shareholders would be receiving only tiny token dividends for the next three years. To do him justice he wasn't thinking of himself, although he was by far the major shareholder, but of various widows and relations left behind by time and mergers from the days before he'd inherited. Several widows relied on their dividends for existence, he said.

'If you'd have gone bankrupt,' I pointed out, 'they'd be lucky to get anything at all. A tiny lump sum and no dividends for ever.'

'But still…'

I'd hoped he would have had energy enough to dress, but he fretted instead about the widows. 'Perhaps I can afford… out of my own funds… heating bills this winter…'

My mother stroked his hand fondly.

I had expected, since he had written his codicil the day before, that he would have told his lawyer not to bother to come, but it seemed he had forgotten to cancel the meeting, and Oliver Grantchester, with his loud voice, bulky frame and room-filling presence arrived punctually at ten o'clock, the meek Miranda in tow.

Ivan began stuttering an embarrassed apology, to which Grantchester didn't listen.

The lawyer looked me up and down without favour and told Ivan that they didn't need my presence. He pointed to me and then to the door, giving me an unmistakable order. I might in fact have gone, but at that moment Patsy arrived like a ship in full sail, Surtees floundering foolishly in her wake.

Surtees the spanker: weak, pathetic and vicious.

'You are not making any codicil, Father, unless I'm sure Alexander' - Patsy spat the word - 'doesn't in any way benefit.'

'My dear,' Ivan told her pleasantly, 'I'm not writing any codicil this morning. None at all.'

'But you said… You arranged for Oliver to come…'

'Yes, I know, I'm sorry I forgot to tell him, but I wrote my codicil yesterday. It's all done. We can just have some coffee now.'

Ivan was naive if he thought coffee would quell a tempest. Patsy and Oliver both berated him. My mother stood like a shield beside him. Surtees glared at me as if his brains had seized up.

'It's perfectly simple,' Grantchester boomed. 'You can tear up yesterday's codicil and write another one.'

Ivan looked at me as if for help. 'But I don't need to write another one,' he said, 'do I?'

I shook my head.

The bombardment of voices went on. Ivan, upset, nevertheless held to his position: he had written his codicil, it expressed what he wanted, and there was no need to write it again.