East of the City (4 page)

‘Looks like,’ he said. ‘Have to do the lab tests, but probably petrol. Then he glanced back at Max, adding, ‘And this is the fastest insurance claim I ever heard of.’

Max was too busy staring at the wreckage to take that one in. I glimpsed a German Shepherd working up ahead.

‘Sniffer dog,’ the bloke said, but I knew that already. It was a sniffer dog that had found Mum and Dad.

We went into what used to be the dining room, he said the dog had finished in there. There’d been a wooden floor, but now it was a thick layer of charcoal and ash, it crunched beneath our feet as we walked. The bloke told us to stay put, then he went deeper into the house, we heard him talking with his team.

‘Christ Almighty,’ Max said. He turned a slow circle, trying to take it all in. He said it again. Christ Almighty.

The ceiling had collapsed and burnt, and the only signs of what used to be furniture were the thicker patches of charcoal. And the smell. It was so sour it was making my eyes water. I took out my hankie again.

Sebastian Ward’s house. The last time I’d been there I’d been served whisky from a crystal decanter. And now? It looked like my parents’ house had looked, only bigger. And I was sure there was another difference too, one you couldn’t see. I tried not to think about it, but it kept coming back. Unlike Dad, Sebastian Ward would have kept his house insured.

There was a shout from somewhere deeper in the house. When I looked at Max, he shrugged. Then the shout came again, someone calling for the rest of the team.

‘Come on,’ Max said, and before I could stop him he went blundering through. We found half a dozen men in blue overalls in the drawing room. They were gathered together in a circle, crouching round a bunch of tangled wires, all that was left of the grand piano. One of them had hold of the dog.

Someone said, ‘Get some pictures,’ then a camera came out, the flash went off a few times.

One bloke started ordering us out, but the boss, our guide, said, ‘Leave them a sec,’ then he said to someone else, ‘Bag.’ A clear plastic bag got handed to him. He pulled some tongs out of his pocket and poked around in the mess. A few moments later, he lifted something. It was a pistol. He studied it a while before dropping it into the bag, running his fingers over the seal.

Then he bent forward again, prodding with his tongs.

‘Mr Ward,’ he said, still prodding.

Max made a sound.

‘Do you recognize the gun?’

‘That?’ Max said, looking at the bag.

‘Was that a yes or a no?’

When Max didn’t answer, the bloke went back to fossicking with the tongs, turning over other stuff now. He said, ‘Some private security people think a gun’s part of the uniform. Sometimes their employers think that too.’ It was like he was talking to himself, but Max was looking very uncomfortable. ‘You know how stupid that is, Mr Ward?’

The tongs brought something else from the mess, metallic-looking, just a couple of inches across. The bloke dropped it into a bag, sealed it, then handed it to Max. ‘Recognize this?’ 

I craned over to see. The thing in the bag was a security badge, you could just make out the name, Eddie Pike.

‘My father has a right to protection,’ Max said.

The boss of the fire investigation team nodded sadly. He turned back to the debris, gave one more pull with his tongs., and I felt my gut heave. The thing was finally uncovered, black and shrivelled, and twisted into a grasping claw. But unmistakably human. A hand. The bloke looked up at Max again. ‘You wanna tell that to Eddie here?’

T
he news of Eddie Pike’s death shook Allen, no question, and Angela too. If they’d had any doubts about how serious this thing was, or if they were hoping for some painless resolution, the news I gave them about Pike soon put them right. I told them I’d already phoned the bad news through to Bill Tyler.

Allen Mortlake was a serious-looking bloke at the best of times, but now he had a face on him like the grave. He looked from Angela back to me. ‘Angela’s had a thought,’ he said, passing me a folder from his desk. ‘Look at these?'

There were about twenty pages, typed and handwritten. I only got to the bottom of the first paragraph before I lifted my head. ‘Jesus,’ I said.

Angela leant across and turned that page over. ‘There’s worse.’

The next letter didn’t have any paragraphs, not much punctuation either, but the rage came off the paper like heat. I looked up again. ‘Who are these people?'

‘Names,’ Angela told me. ‘Unhappy investors looking for someone to blame.’

I turned a few more pages. Anger. Hatred. Despair. Names are the people who act as final guarantors for the risks the Lloyd’s syndicates sign up to. Becoming a Name used to be like joining an exclusive club, a handy tax dodge for the moderately rich. Not any more. Too many have lost their shirts in the market.

Flicking through the pages, I said, ‘WardSure gets a few mentions.'

Angela told me it was those she’d specifically requested from the files. She reached across me again and flipped to the last letter. ‘Look at that one.’

There was no signature, but along the bottom of the page someone had scrawled, ‘For the attention of the police?’

‘The others are lunatics,’ Allen said, taking the letter. ‘But this one?’

‘How long ago was it sent?’

‘Two years,’ Angela told me.

I looked at her. ‘Two years?’

She dropped into the sofa. She looked dreadful. The older blokes in the market used to tell me that as a young woman Angela was every bit as stunning as her daughter, Justine. Right up to just before her mastectomy, you could believe it too. But that operation had knocked her, and now this business with Sebastian was almost too much for her to bear. She looked how she felt, as worried as hell.

‘How long do you think it would take him to forget his wife?’ she asked me.

‘So he stews for two years, kidnaps Sebastian, kills the security guard and torches the house? I don’t think so.’

‘Well, have you got any better ideas?’ Allen asked irritably. He went and sat at his desk and held his head in his hands. He was worried about Sebastian, sure, but he was also worried about how this was going to affect the merger he had going, and his chances of a seat on the Lloyd’s Council.

In fact I did have a better idea. I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it, but if some fruitcake letter from two years back was the best they’d come up with, why not?

I said, ‘That security guard of Sebastian’s, the one who died in the fire? He was Sebastian’s runner.’ They looked at me blankly. ‘He used to place bets for Sebastian at the dogs. Collected for him when Sebastian couldn’t make it. I used to see him sometimes, you know, with my old man.’

Allen said, ‘He wasn’t a security guard?’

‘Maybe he was a security guard too.’ I touched my chest. ‘I mean he had the badge, but what if this is some kind of revenge thing? Sebastian upset someone down there and this is the payback.’

‘Have you told Tyler?’ Angela asked me.

‘I wasn’t sure it was important.'

Angela turned to Allen, but he kept his eyes on me. ‘Payback for what?’ he said.

‘I don’t know. He used to bet big. Could be anything.'

‘Could you find out?’

I hesitated.

Allen said, ‘Tyler’s got his hands full, and the fewer people know about this K and R the better.’ You could see him warming to the idea. ‘You’re sure this Eddie Pike was a whatsit?’

I nodded. Allen picked up the unsigned letter from the ruined Name and studied it. ‘You could chase this up too,’ he said.

I asked him what was meant to be happening down on the box while I was off` playing pin the tail on the donkey.

‘Well get by,’ Angela said. ‘For a few days.’

Allen pointed at her. ‘Done.’

I was caught now; even if I’d dug my heels in I’m not sure I could have stopped it. Sebastian was their friend, it was only natural they wanted to do everything they could to rescue him safely. Besides that, Allen wanted the merger kept on track and his path to the Council clear. He needed Sebastian found fast, I think he would have tried anything; but Angela saw my doubts.

‘Leave it till the morning,’ she said. ‘If nobody’s had any better ideas by then—’

‘Okay, tomorrow morning,’ Allen butted in. ‘Ring me and check first, Ian.’

Then what? I thought. Play Sherlock Holmes down at the dogs? I was starting to regret opening my mouth.

Allen picked up his phone, punching buttons. That seemed to be it.

Turning to Angela, I said, ‘Maybe this isn’t the time, but I really need to know about that promotion.'

Allen stopped punching buttons. ‘What?’ he said sharply.

‘On the 486 box—’

‘Christ,’ he said, throwing up a hand. ‘Not now.’

Angela gave me a part-annoyed, part-sympathetic look, the kind she used to give me in the old days when I’d just signed up for an absolutely stinking piece of business.

'K
aty?'

The TV was on, she’d left a wine glass and a half-eaten microwaved dinner on the coffee table. I took the plate and the empty wine glass through to the kitchen. The cutting board was out, pieces of sliced fruit and peelings littered the bench. In the middle of all this, a tub of cream. The tub was leaking, a white trail dribbling down the cupboard door to the floor.

I leaned back. ‘Katy?’

She didn’t answer so I took a stab at clearing up the mess, then I got a beer from the fridge and went back to the lounge. When I turned down the TV I could hear the hairdryer going in her room. My kid sister, preparing for a night on the town.

Katy was born thirteen years after me, enough time between us so that I never found her a pain in the arse when we were growing up. When I was in my teens, she was barely in kindergarten, and by the time I hit twenty I was old enough to find her occasional sulks pretty funny. She was cute right from the start; that stayed with her, and as she got older she developed this weird sense of humour, even now she could really make me laugh. Mum and Dad spoilt her rotten, but somehow she never turned into a brat.

Two weeks after Mum and Dad’s funeral, she’d shown up on my doorstep with a rucksack and a suitcase, bawling her eyes out. She told me she’d dropped out of her biology course at college, she was looking for somewhere to stay. Short-term, she said. Just until she’d got herself sorted out.

Six months later, Katy still had the spare room.

‘Good day?’ She came out of her room wearing a pink towelling robe, her hair frizzed up from the blow-dry.

‘Not great.’ I sipped my beer.

‘Hey, where’s my glass?'

‘Try the sink.’

She pulled a face and went out to the kitchen. When she came back there was a glass of white wine in her hand. She rested a knee on the sofa. ‘Your friend was hunky.’ I gave her a blank look, and she said, ‘Yesterday? The guy with that report thing?’

The Ottoman report. Bill Tyler had come round to discuss it. It seemed like a week ago, and I turned back to the TV wondering if I should give Bill a call.

‘Is he coming back?’

‘He’s twenty years older than you, Katy.’

She laughed so hard she spilt her drink. ‘You are so unplugged,' she said, ‘it just isn’t true.’

After I moved out of home into my first flat, Katy used to come and see me sometimes with Mum. Then I was the big brother, out in the big wide world. And later I was a stopping-off point for her. She’d arrive with a couple of friends, they’d get tarted up then disappear to the West End for the night. The old man would have blown a fuse if he’d known. Back in those days Katy looked up to me. Back then she thought I was cool. But now after six months sharing my flat, seeing me go off to work each morning in a suit and tie, she had a different view of things. Now I was - what? Unplugged?

‘Did you ask them at work?’

The promotion. I’d made the mistake of telling Katy how far my neck was sticking out financially over the penthouse.

I shook my head. ‘Something came up.’

‘Oh, Ian,’ she said.

‘I’ll ask tomorrow.'

‘You said that yesterday.’

‘Katy.’ I looked at her. Without make-up she could have passed for sixteen instead of going on twenty-one. And she hadn’t meant to nag; she was concerned, that was all. She wanted to help but she didn’t know how. ‘Can we drop it?’

She pressed her lips together, not quite a smile, then went back to her bedroom.