1998 - Armadillo

by William Boyd

  “Would you put that in writing? The offer of 10 million?”

  “You are the one making the offer,” Lorimer reminded him. “I’m sure that if it’s acceptable you will be formally notified.”

  “Well, I’ll make the offer formally, you get me an ‘acceptance’ in writing, Mr Black, and we’ll take it from there.” He bowed his head. “If 10 million seems the way of least resistance, then I will—with huge reluctance—reduce my claim on the Fedora Palace.”

  At the door Gale turned to face him, blocking his exit. His tan face was flushed with blood, his anger turning him brick-coloured.

  “People like you are filth, Black, you’re scum. You’re no better than thieves, lying fucking villains. You’ll happily take our money but when it comes to paying out—”

  “Would you please let me leave.”

  Gale continued to swear harshly at him in a low voice as Lorimer stepped back.

  “As soon as we have your communication we’ll be in touch, Mr Gale. Tomorrow, probably.”

  As Lorimer hummed down in the lift towards the lobby, towards its lush greenness and discreet lighting, he felt his head throbbing slightly, felt his chest fill and lighten, as if packed with effervescing bubbles and—strangely, this was a first—his eyes smarted from unshed tears. But beneath his exhilaration, his buoyant sense of triumph, a keener warning note sounded. Gale had seemed angry, sure—he had just lost £17 million that he might reasonably have thought were coming to him—but he hadn’t been nearly angry enough, in Lorimer’s opinion, not nearly, that was the trouble. Why not? This was worrisome.

  117. The First Adjust. You flourished in ‘insurance’ in those early years. Your father’s connections delivered a lowly but secure actuarial job, you diligently worked and were duly rewarded and routinely promoted. As part of a diversification and work-experience scheme in your first company you were sent on attachment to a firm of loss adjusters. Your first adjust was at a shoe shop in Abingdon whose stock had been ruined as a result of a burst pipe, inundating the basement, unnoticed over a bank holiday weekend.

  How did you know the owner was lying? How did you know that the grief and handwringing was sham? Hogg said later it was pure instinct. All great loss adjusters, Hogg said, can spot a liar at once because they understand, at a fundamental level, the need to lie. They may be liars themselves—and if they are they are excellent liars—but it is not necessary. What is necessary is this understanding of the philosophy of a lie, the compulsive urge to conceal the truth, its complex grammar, its secret structures.

  And you knew this man was lying about his soaked and sodden stock, and you knew his wife was lying too as she tried gamely to hold back the tears while they contemplated, alongside you, the destruction of their family business. Mr Maurice, that was the name.

  You looked at the papier mache litter of hundreds of drenched shoe boxes, the shining puddles on the floor, smelt the stench of wet leather in your nose and something made you turn to Mr Maurice and say, “How do I know you just didn’t turn your hose on the rest of the stock that weekend, Mr Maurice? It seems tremendous damage for one burst pipe.”

  It is the quality of the rage that gives them away. The rage is always there, it always erupts, and Mr Maurice’s rage was impressive, but something about the pitch and tone of an indifferent liar’s rage rings false, troubles the inner ear, like the whine of a mosquito in a darkened bedroom, unmistakable, unerringly disturbing.

  So you told Mr Maurice that you were going to advise his insurers to refuse to honour his claim on the grounds of fraud. Shortly after, Mr Maurice was prepared to accept a cash payment of £2,000 as compensation. You saved the insurance company £14,000,you earned your first bonus, it was inevitable that you became a lass adjuster and your continuing, remarkable success in your chosen field brought you, eventually, to the attention of George Gerald Hogg.

  —The Book of Transfiguration

  “Well, well, well,” Hogg said sonorously, and lit a cigarette with his usual little flourish. “Well, well, well. Ten million.” Hogg raised his pint of lager. “Cheers, son, well done.”

  Lorimer toasted himself with his half of Guinness. He had calculated as thoroughly as he could on the way over and, as far as he could tell, on the basis of a £17 million adjust, the bonus due to him was £134,000, give or take a few hundred. A standard 0.5 per cent up to one million and then a complex scale of exponentially diminishing fractions of one per cent as the amount grew. He wondered what the company’s commission would be—Hogg’s commission. Well into seven figures, he guessed. This was a big one: only Dymphna dealt routinely in sums like these with her botched dam projects, unbuilt power stations and disappearing jumbo jets. This was a straight and simple ‘save’ for Fortress Sure. No risk had been laid off. A good day at the office for all concerned, so why wasn’t Hogg happier?

  “Any trouble?” Hogg asked. “Missiles? Screamers?”

  “No. Just the usual insults and oaths.”

  “Sticks and stones, chummy. Still, I take my hat off to you, Lorimer,” Hogg said. “I don’t think even I’d have dared pitch it quite that low myself. So—the question looms large—why did he go for it?”

  Lorimer shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t really figure it out. Cash-flow problems? Doubt it. A little of something better than all of nothing? Perhaps. They seem a pretty secure organization.”

  “They are,” Hogg said, reflectively. “Funny that. I thought there would have been more of an explosion. A few writs, threats, telephone calls…”

  “I must say I was a bit surprised too,” Lorimer admitted.

  Hogg looked at Lorimer, shrewdly. “You cut along to the Fort. See Bowling in Finance, be the bearer of good news.”

  “Me ?” Lorimer said, puzzled. This was normally Hogg’s prized and privileged role.

  “You deserve the credit, son. Drink up. I’ll get another round in.”

  Dowling was genuinely pleased, however. A genial, plump man with a big belly and a capric stink of lunchtime cigars about him, he shook Lorimer’s hand warmly and talked a lot about appalling oversights, damage-limitation and the valued saving to the firm. Then he excused himself and left the room, returning in two minutes with Sir Simon Sherriffrnuir himself. Up close, Sherriffmuir’s face was fleshier and more seamed than had appeared the night of Torquil’s farewell party. But Lorimer could not fault his clothes: a black pinstripe just shy of ostentation, butter yellow shirt and a big-knotted, pale-pink, self-coloured tie. Everything bespoke, Lorimer knew instantly, even the tie. He wore no watch, Lorimer noticed and wondered if there was a fob somewhere. Interesting: he was not up on the protocols of fobs—perhaps he should affect one ?—he would have to check with Ivan.

  “This is the young man,” Dowling was saying, “who’s saved us all that money.”

  Sherriffrnuir smiled automatically, his handshake was firm and brisk. “Best news I’ve had all day. And you are?”

  “Lorimer Black.” He just managed to prevent himself adding a servile ‘sir’.

  “So, you’re one of George’s brilliant young samurai,” Sherriffmuir mused, looking at him almost fondly. “It’s been a bit of a bloody cock-up, this Fedora Palace business, I’m most grateful to you. Can you wrap it up quickly? We want to get the whole mess behind us.”

  “I’ve agreed we’ll OK the new claim,” Bowling interjected.

  “Good, good…” Lorimer felt Sherriffmuir still studying him, with some mild curiosity. “You’re not Angus Black’s youngest, are you?”

  “No,” Lorimer said, thinking: I’m Bogdan Blocj’s youngest, and feeling a small, rare flush of shame.

  “Send my love to your pa, will you ? Tell him we’ve got to get him south of the border soon,” Sherriffmuir said, not listening and turning to Dowling. “Peter, see you at—?”

  “—Half five. All arranged.”

  Sherriffmuir moved easily to the door, slightly round-shouldered like many tall men, the hair on the back of his head curling up
above his collar, Lorimer noticed.

  He gave Lorimer a loose, parting wave. “Thanks, Lorimer, fine work.”

  Despite his better instincts Lorimer felt pride in himself, as if he had been suddenly ennobled, vindicated by Sir Simon’s praise and the familiar use of his Christian name. For God’s sake, he rebuked himself almost instantly: the man’s not God Almighty, he just works in insurance, like the rest of us.

  Rajiv was leaning on his counter, smoking, tie off, his shirt unbuttoned almost to his navel, as if he were on holiday.

  “Hail to the conquering hero,” he said, not smiling.

  “Thanks, Raj,” Lorimer said. “You lose some, you win some.”

  Rajiv slipped his hand inside his shirt and massaged a plump breast. Now he did smile, a slight puckering of his round cheeks.

  “Don’t get too big for those boots,” he said. “Hogg’s in your cubicle.”

  As Lorimer wandered down the corridor Shane Ashgable poked his head out of his office, jerked a thumb and mouthed ‘Hogg’ at him. Such rare solidarity, Lorimer thought, can only mean one thing: Hogg is in one of his black moods.

  Pausing at his door, Lorimer could see through the glass rectangle Hogg openly going through the files and correspondence in his in-tray. He glanced towards Dymphna’s door—she was sitting at her desk crying, dabbing at her eyes with a corner of tissue. Bad, bad omens, Lorimer thought. But why the mood change? What had happened? The first wave of Hogg’s wrath had evidently broken on poor Dymphna: he would have to be nicer to Dymphna, he thought suddenly, charitably, perhaps he would ask her for a drink after work.

  Hogg did not look round, nor desist from his investigation of Lorimer’s paperwork, when he entered.

  “You heard any more from the police about that suicide?” Hogg asked.

  “Just a follow-up visit. Why?”

  “Has there been an inquest?”

  “Not yet. Will there be one?”

  “Of course.”

  Hogg stepped round the desk and lowered himself slowly into Lorimer’s chair and scrutinized him aggressively.

  “Go all right with Bowling?”

  “Fine. Sir Simon came in.”

  “Ah. Sir Simon, himself. Very honoured.”

  Lorimer could see there was a torn-out sheet from a message pad in the middle of his desk blotter. Reading it upside down he saw that it said ‘Dr Kenbarry’ and was followed by a number. A telephone number, and, below that, an address. He felt his throat go dry, tight.

  Hogg was wrestling angrily with something stuck in his jacket pocket and cursing silently. Finally he removed it and handed it over to Lorimer—it was a compact disc, still wrapped in its tight cellophane sheath. On a plain white field in jagged child’s in handwriting the cover read ‘David Watts. Angziertie’. Along the bottom of the square was a photograph of three dead bluebottles on their backs, their sets of six legs brittle, half-clenched.

  “Angziertie,” Lorimer read slowly. “Is that German? Or bad spelling?”

  “For the love of Mike, how should I know?” Hogg said, angrily.

  He is in a filthy mood, Lorimer remarked to himself, and won again what harshness had been visited on Dymphna.

  “Who is David Watts?” Lorimer tried again.

  “Your next job,” Hogg said.

  “Who is David Watts?”

  “Sweet suffering Christ, even I’ve heard of David Watts.”

  “Sorry.”

  “He’s a singer. A ‘rock’ singer. D’you know his music?”

  “The only contemporary music I listen to these days is African.”

  “Right, that does it.” Hogg stood up, furiously, abruptly, to attention. “You know, Lorimer, sometimes I think you’re fucking barking mad. I mean, for God’s sweet sake, man.” He began to pace angrily about the office. Lorimer pressed himself against the wall. “I mean, Jesus Christ, how old are you ? What’s the point of employing young people ? You should have this popular culture stuff at your fingertips. He’s a bloody rock singer. Everyone’s heard of him.”

  “Oh, yes. Rings a bell, now. That David Watts.”

  “Don’t fucking interrupt me when I’m talking.”

  “Sorry.”

  Hogg stopped in front of him and stared, balefully, frowningly at him.

  “Sometimes I think you’re not normal, Lorimer.”

  “Define ‘normal’—”

  “Watch it, right?” Hogg jabbed a blunt, nicotined finger at him, then he sighed, allowed his features to slump, tutted, and shook his head. “I don’t know, Lorimer, I just don’t know…I’m not a happy matelot at the moment. My life is lacking in joy. Janice has got the file on this David Watts character. Sounds right up your alleyway.”

  He paused at the door, made sure it was shut and then in a curious crabwise fashion shuffled back towards him, still keeping half an eye on the corridor visible through the glass panel. He smiled now, showing his small yellow teeth through the slit in his lips.

  “Know what I’m going to do Monday? First thing Monday morning?”

  “No, Mr Hogg. What?”

  “I’m going to sack Torquil Helvoir-Jayne.”

  388. A Glass of White Wine. Torquil is not a particularly proud or vainglorious man; I would not say ‘pride’ was listed among his many vices, but he is fiercely defensive about what he considers his sole claim to lasting fame, and he defends his rights to this obscure celebrityhood with adamant passion. He claims, he insists, he demands to be credited, acknowledged to be the originator, the only begetter of apiece of apocrypha, a snippet of contemporary folklore that he himself spawned but which, to his continuing fury, has now passed unattributed into common currency.

  It happened at a weekend house party in Wiltshire (or Devon or Cheshire or Gloucestershire or Perthshire). On the Saturday night, copious alcohol had been consumed by the guests, all in their twenties (this was a while ago, in the 1989s), young men and women, couples, singles, a few marrieds, escaping to the country for their precious weekends, fleeing their city homes, their jobs, their humdrum weekday personae. Torquil had been possibly the drunkest that Saturday night, knee-walking drunk, he said, mixing drinks with abandon, whisky following port following claret following champagne. He had risen late on the Sunday morning, after midday, when the other guests had already had breakfast, been for a walk, read the Sunday papers and were now forgathering in the drawing room for pre-Sunday lunch drinks.

  “I arrived downstairs,” Torquil says, taking up the story, “feeling like total shit, serious bad news, hill-cracking headache, mouth like an ashtray, eyes like pissholes in the snow. And they’re all standing there with their bloody marys, gins and tonics, vodkas and orange juice. There’s a bit of jeering, bit of ribbing as I stumble in, feeling like death, and the girl whose house party it was—forget her name—comes up to me. Everyone was looking at me, you see, because I was so late and I looked like absolute death warmed up, all laughing at me, and this girl comes up to me and says, ‘Torquil, what’re you going to have to drink? G and T? Bloody mary?’ Actually, to tell the truth, the thought made me want to puke and so I said, quite seriously, quite spontaneously, ‘Ah, no thank you, I couldn’t possibly touch a drop of alcohol, I’ll just have a glass of white wine.’ ” At this point he stops and stares at me long and hard and says, “Now, you’ve heard that story before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” I remember I said. “I have. I can’t think where. It’s an old joke, isn’t it?”

  “No. It was me!” Torquil protests, helplessly, voice cracking. “That was me. I said it: I was the first person who said it, ever. It was my line. Mow any old smart-arse bounds down the stairs on a Sunday morning and gets a cheap laugh. It’s not an ‘old joke’, it was something I said. I said it first and everyone’s forgotten.”

  —The Book of Transfiguration

  He punched out the telephone number that Alan had given him, realizing that he was functioning on a kind of personal automatic pilot; he was acting on pure whim, without reflection or a
nalysis or thought of any consequences beyond the present moment. The phone rang, rang again, rang again.

  “Yeah?”

  A man’s voice. He was jerked out of his robotic reverie: he thought fast.

  “Hello, could I speak to Mr Malinverno ?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Oh good. I’m calling from—”

  Lorimer hung up. Why had he not thought of this before ? How could this probability, or possibility, not even have entered his calculations ? So, she was married. No—it could have been a brother, or even a father, or even an uncle (just). All feeble, self-deluding stuff, he realized: a Mr Malinverno had answered the phone—the odds were that this was the man in her life.

  To clear his mind, and calm himself down, he turned to other more pressing matters: he dictated a letter into his pocket memo for Gale-Harlequin confirming that a reduced claim of £10 million would be acceptable to his clients, Fortress Sure. Janice would arrange to have it typed up and sent off in the morning - at least some sort of satisfactory full-stop had been appended to that chapter of his life.

  Dymphna’s eyes were still heavy and pink-rimmed but she seemed to have regained her usual animated and genial mood, he thought. Appropriately, it was happy hour and they were in The Clinic, a newly themed, large pub off Fleet Street—Dymphna’s choice. The barmen wore white coats and the serving waitresses were dressed in skimpy nurses’ uniforms. Dymphna was drinking a cocktail called a Soluble Aspirin which, as far as Lorimer could tell, was made up of a random selection of white spirits (gin, vodka, white rum, triple sec) topped off with a dash of coconut milk. The music was full-throatedly loud and the place was hectic with suited young men and women weary from work and looking for fun. Dymphna lit a cigarette and puffed smoke into the low grey haze that shifted and eddied above their heads. Lorimer had a slight tension headache, the epicentre located an inch above his left eyebrow.

  “He’s a complete bastard,” Dymphna said. “He just wanted to make me cry, for some reason. Kept going on at me. Do you know what made me break? I’m so pissed off with myself. Furious.”