Well, Mr. Asir—smirk, and a nod across the room to our young master, who is sitting in for the experience—let us imagine for argument’s sake that you have acquired large sums of money through your flourishing cosmetics business in, well, let’s just say it’s multinational. Perhaps you do not have such a cosmetics business, but let us imagine for argument’s sake that you do—snigger—and let us further imagine you are helping out your much loved younger brother in Delhi, assuming that you have such a brother, and please don’t tell me if you haven’t, tee-hee. And this brother owns a string of hotels, let us say, and you are under an obligation as his brother to secure for him—purchase—costly and sophisticated catering equipment in Europe, machinery he is unable to obtain in India, poor fellow, and for which he has advanced you, let us say, seven and a half million dollars on an informal basis, you being his brother, which I gather in Asian circles is quite normal. And let us further suppose that, with this scenario in mind, you were to approach Mr. So-and-So of the Bank of So-and-So in the agreeable city of Zug, in Switzerland, and indicate that you are represented by the House of Single & Single and that Mr. Alfred Winser, with whom he recently passed a recreational evening, sends his most personal regards . . .
An insanitary emergency staircase, lit by blue night-lights, rose from the end of the Legal corridor by way of two fire doors and a men’s lavatory to the sumptuous antechambers of the Tiger’s Lair. Oliver climbed one step at a time. A paneled door appeared before him. It was curved and slender with a brass doorknob at its center. He raised a hand and was about to knock, but caught himself in time, grasped the knob and turned it. He was standing in the fabled rotunda. A filmmaker’s star-strewn sky opened above him, projected through segments of a glass dome. By the fickle glow he made out shelves of perfectly bound books that no one read: law books for felons, books on who’s rich and who to con, books on contracts and how to break them, taxation and how to avoid it. New books to show that Tiger is of today. Old books to show that he is trustworthy. Solemn books to show that he is sincere. Oliver was shaking and a nettle rash was crawling up his neck and over the inside of his chest and forehead. He had forgotten everything: his name, age, the time of day, whether he had been sent here or come of his own accord, what he loved except his father. To his left, the boneless sofa and the door to Massingham’s office. Closed. To his right, Pam Hawsley’s crescent desk and the portraits of her three pugs. And straight ahead of him, across forty feet of azure carpet, the Wedgwood curved double doors to the Tiger’s tomb, closed but waiting for the robber.
Navigating by the stars, Oliver crossed the rotunda and located the right-hand of the two doors, turned the handle, crouched and, with his eyes crammed shut, as he supposed, sidled into his father’s office. The air was still and sweet. Oliver sniffed it and fancied he caught a mannish whiff of Trumper’s body lotion, Tiger’s weapon of choice. Discovering that his eyes were after all open, he stumbled forward and halted before the sacred desk, waiting to be noticed. It was vast, and vaster in the half darkness, though never so vast as to reduce the stature of its occupant. The throne was empty. Cautiously he straightened and allowed himself a less inhibited view of the room. The twenty-foot conference table. The ring of armchairs where customers may sit at greater ease while Tiger acquaints them with the sacred right of every citizen regardless of color, race or creed to the best legal loopholes that illicit wealth can buy. The bay window where Tiger, like a miniature captain on his bridge, likes to strut and clutch your arm and study his reflection in the London skyline while he makes your unborn child a five-times millionaire. And where—oh God, oh Christ Almighty!—where now Tiger’s corpse, lengthways and wound in spectral muslin, floated in the air like a new moon on its back. Racked. Stretched until he snapped. Tiger as spider, hanged in his own web.
Somehow Oliver edged forward but the apparition did not alter or retreat. It’s a trick. Astonish your friends! Slice your partner in two before their very eyes! Send stamped addressed envelope to Magic Numbers, Post Box, Walsingham! He whispered, “Tiger.” Nothing came back to him above the sobbing and heaving of the city. “Father. It’s Oliver. Me. I’m home. It’s all right. Father. I love you.” Searching for wires, he flung out an arm and described a wild arc above the corpse, only to discover he had acquired a handful of burial shroud. Cringing, expecting dreadful things, he forced himself to keep his eyes open, looked downward and saw a fogged brown head rise to meet his gaze. And he recognized, not his father sprung from the sepulcher, but the astonished exophthalmic features of the ever-loyal Gupta emerging from the depths of his hammock: Gupta tearful, joyous and bare legged, wearing blue underpants and swathes of mosquito netting, clutching the young master by both arms and shaking them to the rhythm of his terrified delight.
“Mr. Oliver, wherever in heaven’s good name have you been, sir? Overseas, overseas! Study, study! My God, sir, you must have studied your eyes out. Nobody could talk about you. You were a mystery of major proportions, to be divulged to no man! Are you married, sir? Are you blessed with children, are you happy? Four years, Mr. Oliver, four years! My Lord God. Tell me only that your holy father is alive and in sound health, please. It is many long days we hear nothing.”
“He’s all right,” said Oliver, forgetting everything but his relief. “Mr. Tiger’s fine.”
“That is the truth, Mr. Oliver?”
“It is indeed.”
“And your good self, sir?”
“Not married, but also fine. Thanks, Gupta. Thanks.”
Thanks for not being Tiger.
“Then I am doubly overjoyed, sir, and so are we all. I could not desert my post, Mr. Oliver. I do not apologize. Poor Mr. Winser. My God. In his second prime of life, we may say. A true gentleman. Always a laugh and a word for us little fellows and specially the ladies. And now the sinking ship is being abandoned, the passengers are departing like snow in the fire. On Wednesday three secretaries, on Thursday two excellent young traders, and now there are rumors that our most elegant chief of staff is not merely on holiday but is permanently removing himself to greener pastures. Somebody must stay behind and tend the flame, I say, even if we are obliged to sit in darkness for reasons of security.”
“You’re a prince, Gupta,” said Oliver.
After which there was an uncomfortable gap while each separately reappraised his pleasure in the other. Gupta had a picnic flask of hot tea. Oliver drank from the only cup. But he was avoiding Gupta’s eye. And Gupta’s eager smile of expectation was coming and going like a faulty lamp.
“Mr. Tiger sends his greetings, Gupta,” Oliver said, breaking the silence.
“Through you, sir? You have spoken to him?”
“‘If old Gupta’s there, kick him in the backside for me.’ You know how he speaks.”
“Sir, I love this man.”
“He knows that.” Oliver was putting on his partner’s voice, hating himself as he listened to his own words. “He knows the measure of your loyalty, Gupta. He expects no less of you.”
“He is most kind. Your father is a person of great and limitless heart, I would say. You are two most kind gentlemen.” Gupta’s little face had turned ugly with unease. Everything he felt—love, loyalty, suspicion, fear—was written in his crumpled features. “In what matter do you come, sir, if I may ask?” he demanded, growing bolder in his distress. “Why do you bear messages from Mr. Tiger suddenly, after four years of silence overseas? Please, sir, forgive me, I am a humble manservant.”
“My father wants me to pick up some papers from the partners’ strong room. He believes they could have a bearing on the unfortunate episode of last weekend.”
“Oh sir,” said Gupta softly.
“What’s the matter?”
“I am a father also, sir.”
So am I, Oliver wanted to tell him.
Gupta’s tiny right hand had stolen to his breast. “Your father is not a happy father, Mr. Oliver. You are his only issue. I am a happy father, sir. I know the difference. The love
Mr. Tiger feels for you is not reciprocated. Such is his perception. If Mr. Tiger trusts you, Mr. Oliver, then well and good, I say. So be it.” He was nodding. He had seen his path and was nodding at its rightness. “We shall witness the evidence, Mr. Oliver, black on white, no ifs or buts. The challenge is not laid down by me. An act of providence has come to our assistance. Follow me, please. Be careful where I am stepping, Mr. Oliver. Do not approach the windows.” Oliver followed Gupta’s shadow to a pair of mahogany doors that disguised the entrance to the partners’ vault. Gupta opened them and stepped inside. Oliver joined him. Gupta closed the doors and switched on the light. They faced each other, the safe door between them. Gupta was even shorter than Tiger, which Oliver had always suspected was the reason Tiger had selected him.
“Your father was most circumspect in his personal confidences, Mr. Oliver. ‘Who can we trust with total confidence, I ask you, Gupta?’ he said to me. ‘Where is the gratitude for all that we have given to those we love the most, I am asking, Gupta? Where may a man look for total commitment, if not to his own flesh and blood, tell me if you will be so kind? Therefore, Gupta, I must arm myself against treachery.’ These were his words to me, Mr. Oliver, confided on a personal basis over the midnight oil.” Tiger’s words or not, they were assuredly Gupta’s, delivered with tremulous accusation in the presence of the locked gray steel door on which his gaze had fixed itself with mysterious reverence. “‘Gupta,’ he says to me. ‘Take guard against your sons if they are envious. I am not blind. Certain misfortunes that have occurred to my House are not to be dismissed without a most detailed examination of all the facts. Certain correspondences known only to a certain person and myself have fallen into the hands of our implacable enemies. Who is to blame here? Who is the Judas?’”
“When did he say all this to you?”
“When the calamities began to multiply, your father became reflective. He spent many hours in that strong room you are attempting to enter, questioning the loyalty of other eyes than his, sir.”
“Then I hope he was able to clear his mind of unworthy suspicions,” Oliver replied haughtily.
“I too, sir. Most devoutly. Please, Mr. Oliver, sir, help yourself at your leisure. Take your time. Let Providence decide, I say.”
It was a challenge. Observed minutely by Gupta, Oliver stooped to the dial. It was green with raised digits. Gupta placed himself belligerently the other side of it, little arms folded. “I’m not sure you’re supposed to be watching this, are you?” said Oliver.
“Sir, I am the de facto custodian of your father’s house. I am awaiting proof of your good faith.”
The knowledge stole upon Oliver without fanfare, like knowledge already possessed. Gupta is telling me Tiger has changed the combination, and if I don’t know the new combination, then Tiger hasn’t given it to me. And if he hasn’t given it to me, he hasn’t sent me and therefore I’m lying in my teeth and Providence is about to prove it, and Providence will be bang on target. “Gupta, I really would like you to wait outside.”
With an ill grace Gupta switched out the light, opened the door, stepped outside and closed it again. Switching the light back on, Oliver heard him delivering a eulogy of Tiger through the keyhole. Tiger as martyr to his own goodness. As defender of the weak. As the victim of a planned and devilish deception by certain persons nearest to him. As generous employer, model husband and father.
“A great man should be judged only by his friends, Mr. Oliver. He should not be judged by those who are inveterately disposed against his person for reasons of envy or the smallness of their souls, sir.”
My bloody birthday, Oliver thought.
It is an evening close to Christmas. Oliver has been Brock’s man for a mere few days, yet he lives in an altered state. Spying has made him dependent on stronger natures than his own, more obedient than he ever was before he spied. Tonight, at Brock’s behest, he plans to stay in late and continue his examination of clients’ offshore bank accounts before Tiger has the chance to edit them. Seated nervously at his desk, he tinkers with a draft contract while he waits for Tiger to put his head round the door on his way out. Instead, he is summoned to the presence. When he gets there, Tiger seems, as usual, uncertain what to do with him.
“Oliver.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Oliver, it’s time I initiated you into the mysteries of the partners’ strong room.”
“Are you sure you really want to?” Oliver asks. And it is touchand-go whether he will give his father a much-needed lecture on personal security.
Tiger is sure. Having lit upon an activity, he must now expand it into a matter of moment, for nothing Tigers do can be less than momentous. “It’s for your eyes only and no one else’s, Oliver. To be shared between you and me and no one else on earth. Do you understand that?”
“Of course.”
“No little whispered confidences to our latest ladylove, not even Nina. This is for the two of us.”
“Absolutely.”
“Say ‘I promise.’”
“I promise.”
Filled with a high sense of his own gravity, Tiger demonstrates the secret. The combination of the partners’ strong room is none other than Oliver’s birth date. Tiger enters it on the dial and invites Oliver to turn the great handle. The iron door swings open.
“Father, I am moved.”
“I don’t want your gratitude. Gratitude means nothing to me. What we’re looking at here is a symbol of mutual trust. There’s a decent whisky in the cupboard. Pour us both a glass. What is it old Yevgeny says when he wants a drink? ‘Let’s have a serious conference.’ Thought we might have a spot of dinner afterward. Why don’t I ring old Kat? Is Nina game?”
“Nina’s tied up tonight, actually. That’s why I’m at a loose end.”
“‘When I am stabbed in the back, Gupta, tell me whose hand is on the knife!’” Gupta was yelling through the keyhole. “‘Is it the hand closest to my heart, I am asking myself? Is it the hand I have fed and watered like no other? Gupta, if I told you I was today the saddest man on earth, this would be no exaggeration whatsoever of my current personal situation, regardless of the fact that self-pity does not befit a person of my stature.’ These were his very words, Mr. Oliver. From the Tiger’s mouth.”
Alone inside the strong room, Oliver stared at the dial. Stay calm. This is not a good time to panic, he told himself. So when is? First, if only to confirm the hopelessness of his predicament, he entered the old combination, two left, two right, four left, four right, two left and twist the handle. It refused to budge. My birth date is no longer operative. On the other side of the door Gupta continued his lament while Oliver desperately lectured himself. Tiger does nothing carelessly, he reasoned, nothing that does not enhance his self-esteem. Without conviction he dialed Tiger’s own birth date. Nothing budged. Commemoration Day! he thought, with greater optimism, and dialed the numbers 050480, this being the date of the firm’s foundation, traditionally celebrated with a champagne barge ride up the Thames. But no cheer resulted. He heard Brock: “But you, you can feel him, guess him, live him, just by breathing in. You’ve got him here.” He heard Heather: “Girls count roses, Oliver. They like to know how much they’re loved.” Sickened by the dawning of his prescience, he again spun the dial with sweating fingers, three left, two right, two left, four right, two left. Grimly, stoically, no demonstrations of emotion permitted. He was entering Carmen’s birth date.
“Sir, it is not beyond my competence to call nine-nine-nine and demand the appropriate service, Mr. Oliver!” Gupta was screaming. “This will be very soon my next move, you will see!”
The bolt clanged free, the door to the strong room swung open and the secret kingdom displayed itself before him, boxes, files, books and papers stacked with Tiger’s obsessional precision. He switched out the light and stepped back into the office. Gupta was wringing his hands, moaning pitiful apologies. Oliver’s face was on fire and his bowels were churning, yet he contrived to speak sn
appishly, an officer of the Single raj.
“Gupta, I need to know as a matter of urgency what my father did from the moment he received the news of Mr. Winser’s death.”
“Oh, he was demented, sir. How the news came to him is a matter for speculation. Office rumor maintains it was a telephone call, who from is not given to us to know, but probably a newspaper. His eyes were most wild. ‘Gupta,’ he says, ‘we are betrayed. A chain of events has reached its tragic culmination. Find me my brown coat.’ He was a stranger to reason, Mr. Oliver, a man confused. ‘Sir, then are you going to Nightingales?’ I said. Always if he is going to Nightingales he wears his brown coat. It is an emblem for him, a symbol, a gift from your sainted mother herself. Therefore when he wears it I am confident of his destination. ‘Yes, Gupta, I am going to Nightingales. And in Nightingales I shall seek the comfort of my dear wife and sound a bugle of distress to my only surviving son, whose assistance is imperative to me in my hour of need.’ At this moment Mr. Massingham comes in without knocking. It is most unusual, bearing in mind the respectful demeanor of Mr. Massingham at other times. ‘Gupta, leave us.’ It is your father speaking. What transpires between the two gentlemen I do not know but it is brief. Both men are white as spirits. Each has seen his vision simultaneously and now they are comparing notes. That was my impression, sir. There is talk of a Mr. Bernard. Ring Bernard, Bernard must be consulted, why don’t we lay this at Bernard’s door? Then abruptly your father commands a silence. This Bernard must not be trusted. He is an enemy. Miss Hawsley was weeping copiously. I did not know that tears came to her except in regard to her small dogs.”
Single & Single Page 19
