‘Hi, Milo, you haven’t heard anything from Torkie, have you?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Well, he went home, Saturday, to sort out some sort of lawyer business but he never came back. I’d cooked him dinner and he’s missed a ton of work. I wondered if he’d shown up at your place.’
‘No. No sign. Tried his home number?’
‘Nothing but answer machine. You don’t know if he’s turning up Monday morning, do you?’
‘I’m not Torquil’s keeper, Slobodan.’
‘Fair dos, fair dos. Just thought you might be in the loop, is all. See you tomorrow, then. Three.’
Lorimer had forgotten. ‘Oh yeah, right.’
‘Shame about old Dad, eh? Still he had a good –’
Lorimer interrupted before he could round off the homily. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Cheers, Milo.’
When he reached home, and as he crossed the hall to the stairs, he heard Jupiter give a brief, gruff bark from behind Lady Haigh’s door. He was usually the most silent of dogs and Lorimer chose to interpret this exception as a fond, canine ‘hello’.
Chapter 18
Monday, Lorimer reflected, had not started in a promising manner: in the night someone had stolen his car. In the dawn darkness he stood by the empty space where he had parked it and asked himself what inept thief, what desperate fool, would choose to steal a car with such an obvious dose of terminal corrosion? Well, to hell and back with it, he thought, at least it’s insured, and strode off into the gloom towards Victoria Station to catch a tube.
He sat in a hot, crammed compartment with his fellow commuters, trying to keep irritation at bay and, also, ignore the thin, keening note of indeterminate worry that nagged at him like tinnitus. Moreover, he was already missing his car, knowing he would have needed it for the funeral, to make the long trajectory across town to Putney. It’s just a motor car, he told himself, a mode of transport – and a pretty inauspicious one at that. There were other methods available when it came to the ferrying of his person from point A to point B: by the standards of the world’s injustices he was getting off lightly.
The tube network bore him efficiently beneath the city’s streets so that he was at the office fifteen minutes before his appointment with Hogg. He was about to clamber up the flight of stairs when he saw Torquil emerge on the landing, suited and tied, and with a pile of files under his arm. Torquil conspiratorially waved him back outside and presently joined him on the pavement. They wandered a way along the street, Torquil regardlessly hailing every occupied taxi that passed as if it would at once disgorge its paying customer at his imperious behest.
‘The most amazing thing happened this weekend,’ Torquil told him. ‘There I was, Saturday evening, arguing the toss with Binnie about getting the kids into cheaper schools, when Simon calls.’
‘Sherriffmuir?’
‘Yes. There and then he offers me a job. Director of Special Projects at Fortress Sure. My old salary, secretary, car – better car, actually – as if nothing had ever happened. TAXI!’
‘Special projects? What does that mean?’
‘Well, not so sure… Simon said something about feeling our way forward, establishing parameters as we go, sort of thing. For Christ’s sake, it’s a job. Pension, BUPA, the works. TAXI ! I knew Simon would see me right. Just a question of when.’
‘Well, congratulations.’
‘Thanks. Ah, got one.’ A black cab had stopped across the street and was waiting to make its tight turn.
‘And,’ Torquil added, a little smugly, ‘the Binns has forgiven me.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, you know. The kids, I suppose. Anyway, she’s a noble soul. And I promised to be a good boy.’
‘What about Irina?’
Torquil looked blank for a moment. ‘Oh, I told her I couldn’t see her – for a while. She took it pretty well. I think we might let that one just fizzle out, anyway. Plenty more fish in the sea.’ Torquil opened the cab door. ‘Look, let’s have lunch some time.’
‘I’ll tell Lobby you won’t be turning up.’
‘Lobby? Oh, God, yeah, would you? Forgot about him in all the excitement. Tell him I’m taking a cut in salary, that’ll make him laugh. It’s true, actually. Sorry to hear about your pa, by the way.’
Lorimer closed the door on him with a satisfying bang and watched Torquil rummaging in his pockets for a cigarette while telling the taxi driver where he wanted to go. He didn’t bother to wave goodbye as Torquil didn’t bother to look out of