Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,34

I flicked a finger at the page, ‘go rootling around in factories?’

‘Not exactly.’ He was quietly amused. ‘When we’re approached by a prospective client I go along to size up what’s happening and what’s needed, and then either alone or with colleagues, according to the size of the problem, I plan how to get results.’

There was a pause while I thought over what he had and hadn’t so far told me. I evaded all the head-on questions and in the end said only, ‘Don’t you have any better business cards than photostats of the ‘phone book?’

Unruffled, he said, ‘We don’t advertise anywhere else. We have no pamphlets or brochures and carry only personal cards ourselves. I brought the photostat to show you that we exist, and what we do.’

‘And all your business conies from the Yellow Pages?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘And from word of mouth. Also, of course, once-satisfied clients call upon us again whenever they need us, which believe me the larger corporations do constantly.’

‘You enjoy your job?’

‘Very much,’ he said. I listened to the quiet assurance in his depths and thought that I wasn’t a hunter and never would be. Not I, who ducked through gates to avoid jumping fences, even if the fox escaped.

‘Occasionally,’ he said conversationally, ‘we’re asked to investigate in areas for which none of our regular people are ideal.’

I looked at my coffee.

‘We need someone now who knows whisky. Someone who can tell malt whisky from grain whisky, as Flora says you can.’

‘Someone who knows a grain from the great grey green greasy Limpopo River?’ I said. ‘The Limpopo River, don’t forget, was full of crocodiles.’

‘I’m not asking you to do anything dangerous,’ he said reasonably.

‘No.’ I sighed. ‘Go on, then.’

‘What are you doing on Sunday?’ he said.

‘Opening the shop from twelve to two. Washing the car. Doing the crossword.’ Damn all, I thought.

‘Will you give me the rest of your day from two o’clock on?’ he asked.

It sounded harmless, and in any case I still felt considerable camaraderie with him because of our labours in the tent, and Sundays after all were depressing, even without horseboxes.

‘O.K.’ I said. ‘Two o’clock onwards. What do you want me to do?’

He was in no great hurry, it seemed, to tell me. Instead he said, ‘Does all grain whisky taste the same?’

‘That’s why you need a real expert,’ I said. ‘The answer is no it doesn’t quite, but the differences are small. It depends on the grain used and the water, and how long the spirit’s been aged.’

‘Aged?’

‘Newly distilled scotch,’ I said, ‘burns your throat and scrubs your tongue like fire. It has to be stored in wooden casks for at least three years to become drinkable.’

‘Always in wood?’

‘Yes. Wood breathes. In wooden casks all spirit grows blander but if you put it in metal or glass containers instead it stays the same for ever. You could keep newly distilled spirits a thousand years in glass and when you opened it it would be as raw as the day it was bottled.’

‘One lives and learns,’ he said.

‘Anyway,’ I added after a pause. ‘Practically no one sells pure grain whisky. Even the cheapest bulk whisky is a blend of grain and malt, though the amount of malt in some of them is like a pinch of salt in a swimming pool.’

‘Flora said you told her some of the scotch at the Silver Moondance was like that,’ McGregor said.

‘Yes, it was. They were selling it in the bar out of a Bell’s bottle, and in the restaurant as Laphroaig.’

McGregor called for the bill. ‘This wasn’t my case to begin with,’ he said almost absentmindedly as he sorted out a credit card. ‘One of my colleagues passed it on to me because it seemed to be developing so close to my own doorstep.’

‘Do you mean,’ I asked, surprised, ‘that your firm were already interested in the Silver Moodance?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But how? I mean, in what connection?’

‘In connection with some stolen scotch that we were looking for. And it seems, my dear Tony, that you have found it.’

‘Good grief,’ I said blankly. ‘And lost it again.’

‘I’m afraid so. We’re very much back where we started. But that’s hardly your fault, of course. If Jack’s secretary had been less fond of Laphroaig… if Larry Trent hadn’t invited him to dinner… One can go back and back saying “if”, and it’s profitless. We were treading delicately towards the Silver Moondance when the horsebox plunged into the marquee; and it’s ironic in the extreme that