by Hugh Laurie
I was sitting on the chair in the middle of O'Neal's office. Solomon had gone to make some coffee for me and camomile tea for himself, and the world was slowing down slightly.
'Look,' I said, 'it's perfectly obvious that for some reason I'm being set up.'
'Explain to me please, Mr Lang,' said O'Neal, 'why that conclusion is obvious.'
He'd gone camp again. I took a deep breath.
'Well, I'm telling you first of all that I don't know anything about that money. Anyone could have done that, from any bank in the world. That's easy.'
O'Neal made a big show of removing the top of his Parker Duofold and jotting something down on a pad of paper.
'And then there's the daughter,' I said. 'She saw the fight. She vouched for me to the police last night. Why haven't you got her in here?'
The door opened and Solomon backed in, balancing three cups. He'd got rid of his brown raincoat somewhere, and was now sporting a zip-up cardigan of the same colour. O'Neal was obviously annoyed by it, and even I could see that it didn't live up to the rest of the room.
'We do, I assure you, intend to interview Miss Woolf at some convenient juncture,' said O'Neal, as he sipped gingerly at his coffee. 'However, the immediate concern of this department's operation is you. You, Mr Lang, were asked to perform an assassination. With or without your consent, money was transferred to your bank account. You present yourself at the target's house and very nearly kill his bodyguard. You then...'
'Wait a minute,' I said. 'Just wait one cotton-fucking minute here. What's all this bodyguard stuff? Woolf wasn't even there.'
O'Neal gazed back at me in a nastily unruffled way.
'I mean how,' I went on, 'does a bodyguard guard a body who isn't in the same building? By phone? This is digital bodyguarding, is it?'
'You searched the house, did you, Lang?' said O'Neal. 'You went to the house, and searched it for Alexander Woolf?' A smile played clumsily about his lips.
'She told me he wasn't there,' I said, annoyed at his pleasure. 'And anyway, fuck off.'
He flinched slightly.
'Nevertheless,' he said eventually, 'under the circumstances, your presence in the house makes you worthy of our valuable time and effort.'
I still couldn't work this out.
'Why?' I said. 'Why you and not the police? What's so special about Woolf?' I looked from O'Neal to Solomon. 'If it comes to that, what's so special about me?'
The phone on O'Neal's desk chirped, and he snatched it up with a practised flourish, flicking the wire behind his elbow as he brought the receiver to his ear. He looked at me as he talked.
'Yes? Yes Indeed. Thank you.'
The receiver was back in its cradle and fast asleep in an instant. Watching him handle it, I could tell that the telephone was O'Neal's one great skill.
He scribbled something on his pad and beckoned Solomon over to the desk. Solomon peered at it, and then they both looked at me.
'Do you own a firearm, Mr Lang?'
O'Neal asked this with a cheerful, efficient smile. Would you prefer an aisle or a window seat?
I started to feel sick.
'No, I do not.'
'Had access to firearms of any sort?'
'Not since the army.'
'I see,' said O'Neal, nodding to himself. He left a long pause, checking the pad to see that he'd got the details absolutely right. 'So the news that a nine millimetre Browning pistol, with fifteen rounds of ammunition, has been found in your flat would come as a surprise to you?'
I thought about this.
'It's more of a surprise that my flat is being searched.'
'Never mind that.'
I sighed.
'All right then,' I said. 'No, I'm not particularly surprised.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean that I'm starting to get the hang of how today is going.' O'Neal and Solomon looked blank. 'Oh do come on,' I said. 'Anyone who's prepared to spend thirty thousand pounds to make me look like a hired gun presumably wouldn't stop at another three hundred to make me look like a hired gun who has a gun he can hire.'
O'Neal played with his bottom lip for a moment, squeezing it on either side between thumb and forefinger.
'I have a problem here, don't I, Mr Lang?'
'Do you?'
'Yes, I rather think I do,' he said. He let go of the lip, and it hung there in a bulbous pout, as if it didn't want to go back to its original shape. 'Either you are an assassin, or someone is trying to make you look like one. The problem is that every piece of evidence I have applies equally well to both possibilities. It really is very difficult.'
I shrugged.
'That must be why they gave you such a big desk,' I said.
Eventually they had to let me go. For whatever reason, they didn't want to involve the police with an illegal firearm charge, and the Ministry of Defence is not, so far as I know, equipped with its own detention cells.
O'Neal asked me for my passport, and before I could spin a yarn about having lost it in the tumble-dryer, Solomon produced it from his hip-pocket. I was told to remain contactable, and to let them know if I received any further approaches from strange men. There wasn't much I could do but agree.
As I left the building and strolled through St James's Park in some rare April sunshine, I tried to work out whether I felt any different, knowing that Rayner had only been trying to do his job. I also wondered why I hadn't known that he was Woolf's bodyguard. Or even that he had one.
But much, much more to the point, why hadn't Woolf's daughter?
Three
God and the doctor we like adore
But only when in danger, not before;
JOHN OWEN
The truth is I was feeling sorry for myself.
I'm used to being broke, and unemployment is more than a nodding acquaintance. I've been left by women I loved, and had some pretty fierce toothaches in my time. But somehow, none of these things quite compares with the feeling that the world is against you.
I started to think of friends I could lean on for some help, but, as always happened when I attempted this kind of social audit, I realised that far too many of them were abroad, dead, married to people who disapproved of me, or weren't really my friends, now that I came to think of it.
Which is why I found myself in a phone box on Piccadilly, asking for Paulie.
'I'm afraid he's in court at the moment,' said a voice. 'May I take a message?'
'Tell him it's Thomas Lang, and if he's not there to buy me lunch at Simpson's on the Strand at one o'clock sharp, his legal career is over.'
'Legal career . . . over,' recited the clerk. 'I shall give him that message when he rings in, Mr Lang. Good morning.'
Paulie, full name Paul Lee, and I had an unusual relationship.
It was unusual in that we saw each other every couple of months, in a purely social way - pubs, dinner, theatre, opera, which Paulie loved - and yet we both freely admitted that we had not the slightest liking for each other. Not a shred. If our feelings had run as strong as hatred, then you might interpret that as some twisted expression of affection. But we didn't hate each other. We just didn't like each other, that's all.
I found Paulie an ambitious, greedy prig, and he found me lazy, unreliable, and a slob. The only positive thing you could say about our 'friendship' was that it was mutual. We would meet, pass an hour or so in each other's company, and then part with that all-important 'there but for the grace of God' sensation in precisely equal measures. And in exchange for giving me fifty quids-worth of roast beef and claret, Paulie admitted that he got exactly fifty quids-worth of superior feeling, paying for my lunch.
I had to ask to borrow a tie from the maitre d'hotel, and he punished me for it by giving me the choice between a purple one and a purple one, but at twelve forty-five I was sitting at a table in Simpson's, melting some of the unpleasantness of the morning in a large vodka and tonic. A lot of the other diners were American, which explained why the joints of beef were sell
ing faster than the joints of lamb. Americans have never really caught on to the idea of eating sheep. I think they think it's cissy.
Paulie arrived bang on one, but I knew he'd apologise for being late.
'Sorry I'm late,' he said. 'What's that you've got there? Vodka? Gimme one of those.'
The waiter coasted away, and Paulie looked round the room, stroking his tie down the front of his shirt and shooting his chin out from time to time to ease the pressure of his collar on the folds of his neck. As always, his hair was fluffy and squeaky clean. He claimed this went down well with juries, but for as long as I'd known him, love of hair had always been a weakness with Paulie. In truth he was not physically blessed, but as a consolation for his short, round, runty body, God had given him a fine head of hair which he would probably keep, in varying shades, until he was eighty.
'Cheers Paulie,' I said, and threw back some vodka.
'Hiya. How's things?' Paulie never looked at you when he spoke. You could be standing with your back to a brick wall, he would still look over your shoulder.
'Fine, fine,' I said. 'You?'
'Got the bugger off, after all that.' He shook his head, wonderingly. A man constantly amazed by his own abilities.
'I didn't know you did buggery cases, Paulie.'
He didn't smile. Paulie only really smiled at weekends.
'Nah,' he said. 'The bloke I told you about. Beat his nephew to death with a garden spade. Got him off.'
'But you said he'd done it.'
'He had.'
'So how did you manage that?'
'I lied like fuck,' he said. 'What are you having?'
We swapped career progress as we waited for the soup, with every one of Paulie's triumphs boring me, and every one of my failures delighting him. He asked me if I was all right for money, although we both knew he hadn't the slightest intention of doing anything about it if I wasn't. And I asked him about his holidays, past and future. Paulie set a lot of store by holidays.
'Group of us are hiring this boat in the Med. Scuba diving, windsurfing, you name it. Cordon bleu cook, everything.'
'Sail or motor?'
'Sail.' He frowned for a moment, and suddenly looked twenty years older. 'Although, come to think of it, it's probably got a motor. But there's a crew who do all that stuff. You getting a holiday?'
'Hadn't thought about it,' I said.
'Well, you're always on holiday, aren't you? Got nothing to take a holiday from.'
'Nicely put, Paulie.'
'Well, have you? Since the army, what have you done?'
'Consultancy work.'
'Consult my arse.'
'Don't think I could afford it, Paulie.'
'Yeah, well. Let's ask our catering consultant what the fuck's happened to the soup.'
As we looked round for the waiter, I saw my followers.
Two men, sitting at a table by the door, drinking mineral water and turning away as soon as I looked towards them.
The older one looked as if he'd been designed by the same architect that had done Solomon, and the younger one was trying to head in that direction. They both seemed solid, and for the time being I was happy enough to have them around.
After the soup arrived, and Paulie had tasted it, and judged it to be just about acceptable, I shifted my chair round the table and leaned towards him. I hadn't actually planned on picking his brains, because, to be honest, they weren't properly ripe yet. But I couldn't see that I had anything to lose by it.
'Does the name Woolf mean anything to you, Paulie?'
'Person or company?'
'Person,' I said. 'American, I think. Businessman.'
'What's he done? Drunk-driving? I don't do that kind of thing now. And if I do, it's for a sack of money.'
'As far as I know, he hasn't done anything,' I said. 'Just wondered if you'd heard of him. Gaine Parker is the company.'
Paulie shrugged and ripped a bread roll to pieces.
'I could find out for you. What's it for?'
'About a job,' I said. 'I turned it down, but I'm just curious.'
He nodded, and pushed some bread into his face.
'I put you up for a job a couple of months ago.'
I stopped my soup spoon half-way from bowl to mouth. It was unlike Paulie to take any sort of hand in my life, never mind a helping one.
'What sort of job?'
'Canadian bloke. Looking for someone to do some strong arm stuff. Bodyguard, that kind of thing.'
'What was his name?'
'Can't remember. Began with J, I think.'
'McCluskey?'
'McCluskey doesn't begin with a J now, does it? No, it was Joseph, Jacob, something like that.' He quickly gave up trying to remember. 'Did he get in touch?'
'No.'
'Pity. Thought I'd sold him on the idea.'
'And you gave him my name?'
'No, I gave him your fucking shoe size. Course I gave him your name. Well, not straight away. I put him on to some private dicks we use a bit. They've got some big blokes who do bodyguard stuff, but he didn't take to them. Wanted someone upmarket. Ex-army, he said. You were the only person I could think of. Apart from Andy Hick, but he's earning two hundred grand a year in a merchant bank.'
'I'm touched, Paulie.'
'You're welcome.'
'How did you meet him?'
'He'd come to see Toffee, and I got roped in.'
'Toffee being a person?'
'Spencer. The guv'nor. Calls himself Toffee. Don't know why. Something to do with golf. Teeing-off, maybe.'
I thought for a while.
'You don't know what he was seeing Spencer about?'
'Who says I don't?'
'Do you?'
'No.'
Paulie had fixed his gaze somewhere behind my head and I turned to see what he was doing with it. The two men at the door were standing now. The older one said something to the maitre d who aimed a waiter in the direction of our table. A few of the other lunchers watched.
'Mr Lang?'
TmLang.'
'Phone call for you, sir.'
I shrugged at Paulie, who was now licking his finger and picking crumbs off the tablecloth.
By the time I reached the door, the younger of the two followers had disappeared. I tried to catch the eye of the older one, but he was studying a nameless print on the wall. I picked up the phone.
'Master,' said Solomon, 'all is not well in the state of Denmark.'
'Oh, what a shame,' I said. 'And things were going so nicely before.'
Solomon started to answer but there was a click and a bang, and O'Neal's reedy tones came on the line.
'Lang, is that you?'
'Yup,' I said.
'The girl, Lang. Young woman, I should say. Have you any idea where she might be at this moment?'
I laughed.
'You're asking me where she is?'
'Indeed I am. We are having problems locating her.'
I glanced at the follower, still staring at the print.
'Sadly, Mr O'Neal, I can't help you,' I said. 'You see, I don't have a staff of nine thousand and a budget of twenty million pounds with which to find people and keep track of them. Tell you what though, you might try the security people at the Ministry of Defence. They're supposed to be very good at this kind of thing.'
But he'd hung up half-way through the word 'Defence'.
I left Paulie to pay the bill, and hopped on a bus to Holland Park. I wanted to see what kind of a mess O'Neal's lot had made of my flat, and also to see if I'd had any more approaches from Canadian arms dealers with Old Testament names.
Solomon's followers got on to the bus with me, and peered out of the windows as if it was their first visit to London.
When we got to Notting Hill, I leaned over to them.
'You may as well get off with me,' I said. 'Save yourselves having to run back from the next stop.' The older one looked away, but the younger one grinned. In the event, we all got off together, and they hung a
round on the other side of the street while I let myself back into the flat.
I'd have known that the place had been searched without being told. I hadn't exactly expected them to change the sheets and run a hoover over the place, but I thought they might have left it in better shape than this. None of the furniture was in the right place, the few paintings I had were skewed, and the books on the shelves were in a pathetically different order. They'd even put a different CD in the stereo. Or maybe they just felt that Professor Longhair was better flat-searching music.
I didn't bother moving things back to how they were. Instead, I walked through into the kitchen, flicked on the kettle and said in a loud voice, 'Tea or coffee?'
There was a faint rustle from the bedroom.
'Or do you fancy a Coke?'
I kept my back to the door while the kettle wheezed its way towards boiling, but I still heard her as she moved into the kitchen doorway. I dumped some coffee granules into a mug and turned round.
Instead of the silk dressing-gown, Sarah Woolf was currently filling a faded pair of jeans and a dark-grey cotton polo-neck shirt. Her hair was up, tied loosely back in a way that takes some women five seconds, and others five days. And as a colour-matching accessory to the shirt, she wore a Walther TPH .22 automatic in her right hand.
The TPH is a pretty little thing. It has a straight blowback action, a six-round box magazine and two-and-a-quarter-inch barrel. It's also utterly useless as a firearm, because unless you can guarantee hitting either the heart or the brain first time, you're only going to annoy the person you're shooting at. For most people, a wet mackerel is the better choice of weapon.
'Well, Mr Fincham,' she said, 'how did you know I was here?' She sounded the way she looked.
'Fleur de Fleurs,' I said. 'I gave some to my cleaning lady last Christmas but I know she doesn't use it. Had to be you.'
She threw a sceptically-raised eyebrow over the flat.
'You have a cleaning lady?'
'Yeah, I know,' I said. 'Bless her. She's knocking on a bit. Arthritis. She doesn't clean anything below the knee or above the shoulder. I try to get all my dirty stuff at waist height, but sometimes ...' I smiled. She didn't smile back. 'If it comes to that, how did you get in here?'
