The roar of butterflies js-5

by Reginald Hill

  11

  Knobbly

  Scones and Lipton's Tea It wasn't often Joe got away from Butcher on a good line so as he stepped out into the cauldron of Bullpat Square, he felt so full of bounce that he greeted the heat with a spirited rendition of the opening lines of "Mad Dogs and Englishmen."

  Then the words dried up on his lips and his mood deflated as he saw that he and Noel had got it wrong together. It was mad dogs and English traffic wardens that went out in the midday sun. One of them was just about to stick a ticket on the Morris.

  The guy looked very hot and very ill-tempered so Joe aborted his instinctive friendly how're-you-doing- let's-talk-about-this approach. Instead he held out his hand for the ticket and said, "Thanks. I'll see Mr. King gets it."

  "Uh?" said the warden, squinting malevolently through a fringe of sweat.

  "Mr. Ratcliffe King. It's his car."

  The warden looked doubtfully at the Morris.

  "He collects vintage," said Joe. "I'm delivering it to him. Here, let me take a note of your number. You know Mr. King, he likes to keep things up close and personal."

  The warden snatched back the ticket.

  "Piss off out of here," he growled and shambled on his way.

  As Joe got into the car he should have felt triumphant that his ruse had worked. Instead he found himself thinking, if King Rat's name's enough to send an overheated traffic warden into retreat, better watch how you go, Joe Sixsmith!

  ProtoVision House was Luton's Trump Tower, on a more modest scale perhaps, but in proportion to the buildings that surrounded it, just as dominating. Its golden obelisk arrowed into the sky a good thirty meters above its nearest rival and it was said that at certain times of day the sun striking back from its reflective surface caused the pilots descending toward Luton Airport to put on their Ray-Bans. The architect had been not unsuccessful in realizing his client's vision of a building that would convey the power and the feel of a newly launched space rocket, and it was the generally unspoken hope of many Lutonians that they would wake up one morning and find it was actually going boldly where no building had gone before. Certainly it had been born in fire, the much loved if rather dilapidated old theater that had previously occupied the site going up in flames one night. There had been talk of replacing it with a new modern arts center, then suddenly, no one quite knew how, it emerged that King Rat already owned the site and had somehow got planning permission to build an office block there. The sop to civic pride was that the bottom floor contained a small concert hall and studio theater, enabling King to present himself as a local benefactor.

  The next five floors were prestigious office space, soon taken over by Luton's premier commercial organizations who paid a price for the privilege that, combined with the grants obtained for the ground-floor arts area and the insurance pay-out for the burned theater, meant that the ProtoVision Consultancy got the top three floors pretty well free, gratis and for nothing.

  King Rat himself had established his throne room in the obelisk's apex or the rocket's nose cone, depending how you looked at it. Joe had never been in the building before and he entered the reception area at street level half expecting to be subjected to the kind of in- timidatory security checks that were now the norm for anyone crazy enough to go near an airport. Instead as he made his way toward the desk a small but perfectly formed young woman with a smile that could have lit up a prison cell on a cold winter's morning intercepted him and said, "It's Mr. Sixsmith, isn't it? Hi, I'm Mimi."

  He took her offered hand. It was far from frozen, but if he'd been a young romantic tenor he might have burst into song. From a middling aged, middling bald, middling middled baritone it would just be embarrassing. Anyway, she'd probably had to endure the joke a thousand times before.

  He said, "Pleased to meet you. Sorry, I'm a bit early."

  The wall clock behind the desk read ten to three.

  "That's good. Mr. King likes early," said Mimi. "Over here."

  Taking his arm, which was nice because you could feel the animal energy surging through her gorgeous frame, she steered him past the main lifts to a narrower rather anonymous-looking door with a key pad on the wall beside it. She punched in a code and the door opened to reveal a mahogany-paneled lift with a deep-piled carpet. "In you go, Joe-may I call you Joe?" "Oh yes," said Joe. She followed him in and waved up at a discreet camera set in a corner of the ceiling. The door closed and the lift began to ascend so smoothly the motion was almost imperceptible. "You don't press any buttons then?" he said. "Oh no. If you're not who you should be, you stay down below." She laughed as she spoke and he found himself laughing with her. She wasn't conventionally beautiful; in fact she had what Aunt Mirabelle would have called a good old-fashioned homely sort of face. But she radiated so much vitality and merriment that it was a pleasure to be in her company. "You worked for Mr. King long?" he asked. She thought about it then said, "Four years," as if slightly surprised. He recalled what Eloise had said about King's powers of retention. "Was talking to an old school mate of yours when you rang," he said. "Eloise Bracewell." "Oh, Edith," she said. "Haven't seen her for ages. How is she?" "She's fine. Sends her best. Edith, you say? You all change your names?" "A few of us. Why not? Like clothes. Up till nine or ten you wear what your mum buys, after that you choose your own, right?"

  "Right," he said, thinking that he was nearer twenty before he finally convinced Aunt Mirabelle he could buy his own gear. As for turning up one day and saying, from now on in I want to be called Brad, the simple thought made him shudder!

  "Good boss, is he, Mr. King?" he ventured.

  Again she had to think.

  "Fine," she said, a slight frown momentarily darkening her face. But it was only the shadow of a summer cloud cast by the bright sun which now came out again as she smiled and said, "Four years working for the one guy has to mean something, right?"

  But what? wondered Joe.

  He'd never met King face to face but, like most Lu- tonians, he'd heard a lot about him. Nothing to look at, was the general verdict. In fact so inconspicuous you could meet him then forget all about him when you turned your back. Until you felt the pain.

  Only child of middle-class parents who were willing and able to send him to university, instead he had opted to remain in Luton, working as a clerk and getting involved in local politics as a ward councillor. In the eyes of old school friends who were forging ahead in the rat race, he appeared as a stick-in-the-mud they'd left far behind. In council circles, his apparent lack of interest in money won him the reputation of being rather unworldly, and as he never appeared a threat to anyone, he was everyone's compromise candidate when positions of power were wrangled over.

  And then gradually it began to dawn on his fellow councillors that all lines of power led to Ratcliffe King, and on his rat-racing school friends that, far from sticking in the mud behind them, King Rat was already breasting the tape some distance ahead.

  It was said that it only took one meeting for King Rat to suss out your talents and your weaknesses. He could then, if it seemed worthwhile, show you how to channel the former to achieve your aspirations, at the same time using the latter to bind you close to him forever.

  The lift came to a jerk-free halt and the inner door opened, but their exit was barred, literally, by a curli- cued lattice in gold metal through which Joe could see a man seated at a desk behind a bank of security screens.

  The man studied them for a moment. He had the sleek muscularity of a killer shark, the kind of no-expression face you don't want to see on your doctor coming to give you your X-ray results, and his eyes were so cold they froze you where they touched.

  It wasn't a long moment but long enough for Mimi to say with good-natured patience, "Hey, come on Stephen! You going to keep us waiting all day?"

  The man called Stephen looked like he might be considering the possibility. Then he smiled a smile that hardly made even a token effort to get a grip on his features and pressed a button that opened the lattice.


  Joe knew for sure that if he hadn't passed the cold-eye test, there was another button alongside it that would have vaporized him.

  Mimi's warm hand on his back broke his chilly paralysis and he stepped into the room. Cold-Eye said, "Welcome, Mr. Sixsmith." Joe recalled how flattered and impressed he'd been at the Hoo steward's almost instantaneous use of his name. Hearing it from this hard mouth, it felt like a menace.

  Mimi said, "Joe, this is Stephen Hardman, Mr. King's other personal assistant."

  She said it slightly sniffily, but Joe was too busy registering Hardman. Had to be a joke. Didn't it?

  He didn't feel inclined to ask.

  His feet made no sound on the deep-piled carpet. In fact he'd been in noisier chapels of rest. There wasn't even that tell-tale hum you got from an air-conditioning system, but this beautifully cool atmosphere with its faint tang of ocean breeze certainly didn't come from downtown Luton. A door opened and a plumpish man of about fifty with a round, pink instantly forgettable face emerged. Assuming he was making for the lift to go down, Joe gave him a nod and stood aside, but he felt his hand seized and a pleasant light voice said, "Mr. Sixsmith, good of you to come."

  Oh shoot! thought Joe. This was him! King Rat himself. He'd seen his photo in the local paper, of course, but he'd still blanked the guy in his own office.

  "Mr. King, hi," he said. "Nice place you've got."

  Mimi giggled and said, "You ain't seen nothing yet, Joe. Can I get you a cool drink?"

  "Thank you, Mimi. Mr. Sixsmith would prefer tea, I think. Stephen, will you see to it?"

  Joe, rather to his surprise, found King was right. Since the heatwave hit the eighties, he'd generally been panting like the hart for cooling streams of extra-cold Guinness, but up here in this temperate mini climate, a cup of tea sounded very nice.

  King led the way through a door behind the desk into a larger office which, with its bright colors, popart paintings, vigorous houseplants and a trace of free- sia on the air alongside the ocean breeze, had to be Mimi's. Then through another door into King Rat's throne room.

  The girl was right. He hadn't seen nothing yet!

  He was on top of the world here. Two huge windows gave him a view of Luton that previously he'd only glimpsed from a holiday charter dropping toward the airport, and then his aesthetic appreciation had been considerably inhibited by the sheer terror he always felt on takeoff and landing. Now he could study at his leisure the bones and arteries of his beloved city. He let his gaze move round from the floodlights of the soccer stadium, across the drooping flags of the Wright-Price Superstore and the golden cross on the dome of St. Monkey's, to the Clint Eastwood dirigible anchored to the roof of Dirty Harry's. The glass had to be that fancy light-reactive stuff you got in expensive sunglasses because it darkened where the sun hit it directly so you could look the old boy straight in the eye. As for heat, there was no competition with the ProtoVision air-conditioning system.

  "Have a seat, Mr. Sixsmith."

  Reluctantly he channeled his attention from outside to in. The room was sparsely furnished with four easy chairs round a glass table. With a view like that you didn't need a desk the size of a football pitch to show you were boss. At the same time he'd have expected something more to confirm you were in King Rat's lair. The color scheme of the decor and furnishings was a restful blend of browns and beiges and ochers repeated in the linen jacket and slacks that Ratcliffe King wore.

  More King Hamster than King Rat, thought Joe.

  Then Hardman came in with a silver tea tray and his sense of relaxed complacency vanished.

  On it was a small wicker basket piled high with the unmistakable knobbly currant scones from the Billa- bong Bakery that were his favorites. Alongside it was a plateful of the delicious apple tartlets that he always had at Charmaine's Olde Worlde Tea Shoppe. He did not doubt that the jam in the jam dish was Baxter's Raspberry, the butter Irish unsalted, and the tea Lipton's.

  Mimi poured his tea. She didn't ask him how he liked it but stirred in three spoonfuls of sugar before adding the milk.

  Suddenly Joe was wanting to be out of here.

  He said, "So what did you want to see me about, Mr. King?"

  "Straight down to business? I like that," said King. "Here then is the situation, Mr. Sixsmith. I have a client who has been relying on my advice in a l arge-scale development project. His role in it is mainly financial and the moment is fast approaching when he must decide whether or not to commit a considerable sum of money to the scheme. On the surface there are large profits to be made that he is eager to share in. In matters of large profit, of course, there are always attendant risks and our main task at ProtoVision is to assess those risks and advise accordingly. You follow me so far?"

  "No problem," said Joe, sinking his teeth into a scone that he'd coated liberally with butter and jam. As he'd expected, Baxter's raspberry and Irish unsalted. Wasn't it Georgie Best who said, "If you're drowning in Guinness, might as well drink deep"?

  "Excellent. Now my main concern is with another member of the consortium behind this development, a man called Brian Tomlin. His contribution is more in terms of commercial expertise and contacts than hard cash. Basically, he is the one tying everything together. To be honest, I suspect a sting may be planned. I have absolutely no evidence to back my feelings, and I may be wrong. But if I'm not, then there is no way Tomlin cannot be deeply involved."

  "You'll have had him checked out, surely?" said Joe through his second scone.

  "Naturally. Everything holds up. But I need to be absolutely sure. There are three days left till D-Day, D standing for delivery of money. During that period I want his movements and his contacts observed and analyzed every waking hour of his day."

  "So it's a surveillance job?" said Joe, turning his attention to the apple tarts. He was seeing his way out of this and thought he might as well tuck in while the tuck was there.

  "That's right."

  "And a blanket surveillance job, from the sound of it," said Joe. "Well, I'm sorry, Mr. King, but for that kind of operation you need a team and I'm just a one-man band. It can't be done. You need one of the bigger outfits."

  "None of whom come as highly recommended as you," said King. "I foresaw the problem, of course. You would need at least one other person, I imagine, to give you cover for rest, refreshment, and calls of nature. Mimi here has volunteered to be your assistant."

  "Mimi?" said Joe, almost choking on his tartlet.

  The young woman who'd perched on the arm of one of the chairs smiled at him, her eyes shining with excitement.

  "Yes!" she exclaimed. "I know I've got no experience and I'd just be along to fetch and carry. But I'm a fast learner, Joe. It would be real fun!"

  "And Mimi would bring a different kind of expertise to the surveillance, I believe," said King. "One based on her work with me."

  "But doesn't this guy know her?" objected Joe.

  "In fact, no. They've never met, though Mimi is fully au fait with the file I have put together on him. So your task would be simply to observe and record while Mimi filters out anything she thinks may be pertinent to the business in hand and alerts me. I understand your usual hourly fee is thirty pounds. As this would require your round-the-clock commitment for three, let's call it four days, why don't we bypass the arithmetic and call it a straight four thousand? Plus, of course, expenses."

  Oh dear, oh dear, thought Joe. He saw that the apple tartlets had almost vanished. Could he decently return to the knobbly scones? Such a U-turn would in Aunt Mirabelle's eyes demonstrate the kind of ill-breeding you might expect from rough-edged Johnny-come- latelys but not from a born-and-bred Lutonian.

  He said, "Who was it recommended me so high, Mr. King?"

  "Now let me see. I know Detective Superintendent Woodbine thinks very well of you. And Ms. Butcher of the Bullpat Square Law Centre is a fan, I believe. And the Reverend Potemkin of the Boyling Corner Chapel, a fine judge of character as well as of choristers, acknowledges you
r excellence in both fields."

  For the first time Joe really focused on Ratcliffe King, trying to get beyond the courteous manner, the soft brown eyes, the amiably undistinguished features, to King Rat who knew everybody and everything. But it was impossible, and that was truly frightening.

  He looked from King to his PA. This was better. Mi- mi's eyes were shining with excitement, like a kid who's been promised a fun outing with a favorite uncle. How could he disappoint her? And surely her involvement confirmed this was a genuine job. He must be crazy to think anyone would go to this trouble just to divert his attention from a case that only his soft heart had prevented him from giving up already.

  His soft heart and Porphyry's hard cash, he corrected himself. Which he could now afford to refund in full and hardly feel any pain at all.

  He said, "When would you want me to start?"

  "Your fee-payment meter started ticking at three o'clock, or perhaps we should more strictly say five to three when you turned up here," said King. "But you need not bother with hands-on involvement till tomorrow morning. That will give you time to clear your decks, so to speak, and of course to pack."

  "Pack?"

  "Oh yes. Didn't I say? Our man is flying out to Spain in the morning. Hopefully he'll feel relaxed enough there to drop his guard and give himself away, if there is anything to give away. Mimi…"

  Mimi handed him a pale green plastic file smart enough to deserve a Gucci label.