through from the sitting room; he sniffed once or twice at his basin of food and then just stood there, staring at it.
‘Not so hungry.’
‘He knows, you see,’ Lady Haigh said with a sigh. ‘The condemned man. He can tell. Won’t touch his hearty meal.’ She folded her arms. ‘You’d better say goodbye to Jupiter, he won’t be here tomorrow.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘I’m having him put to sleep, taking him to the vet. He’s an old dog set in his ways and I don’t want anyone interfering with him when I’m gone. No, no,’ she would hear nothing of Lorimer’s protests, ‘the next cold or flu will carry me off, you’ll see. I’m eighty-eight years old, for heaven’s sake, should have gone ages ago.’
She smiled at him, her pale blue eyes shining – with pleasant anticipation, Lorimer thought.
‘Poor old Jupiter,’ he said spontaneously. ‘Seems a bit harsh.’
‘Fiddlesticks. I wish someone would take me to the vet. It’s driving me loopy.’
‘What?’
‘All this hanging about. I’m bored stiff.’
At her door she put her hand on his arm and drew him close. She was tall, despite her stoop, and Lorimer supposed that once she had been an attractive young woman.
‘Tell me,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘do you think Dr Alan might be a tiny bit of a pansy?’
‘I should think so. Why?’
‘I don’t see any gels coming or going. But then again, I don’t see any gels coming or going for you, either.’ She laughed at him, a breathy giggle, and covered her mouth. ‘Only teasing, Lorimer dear. Thanks for the paper.’
Lorimer worked late, doggedly going through the Gale-Harlequin contracts, paying special attention to the paperwork relating to the Edmund, Rintoul deal. They confirmed his suspicions, as he suspected they would, but the work could not distract him from the dark seep of melancholy that seemed to be penetrating his soul like a stain.
So he spent two and a half hours surfing the channels on his cable TV before he caught the Fortress Sure advertisement once more. He quickly switched on his video and managed to record the last forty seconds. Replaying it, and freezing the frame at the end, he stared at the girl’s gently shuddering face for some moments. Now he had her, caught fast, and it was indeed her, without doubt. And surely, he thought, cheered suddenly, there must be some straightforward way of finding out her name.
At half past four he padded quietly downstairs and slipped a note under Lady Haigh’s door. It read: ‘Dear Lady Haigh, is there any way I can prevent Jupiter’s last journey to the vet? What if I promise solemnly to look after him in the unlikely event of something happening to you? It would greatly please me. Yours ever, Lorimer.’
Chapter 4
Lorimer’s surveillance of Edmund, Rintoul Ltd had lasted two days and he did not anticipate it requiring much longer duration. He waited in a café across the Old Kent Road from their offices, a suite of rooms above a carpet warehouse. At the rear was a small builder’s yard, garlanded with razor wire and containing a couple of battered vans and, unusually, the firm’s own skip-lorry (which was also for hire). Lorimer turned in his seat to signal for another cup of tea, eventually catching the eye of the surly, unhappy patron who was swiping margarine on to a leaning tower of white bread slices. It was 10.45 in the morning and St Mark’s café was not busy: apart from himself there were a nervy, chain-smoking girl with lip, nose and cheek studs and a couple of old blokes in raincoats annotating the Sporting Life, doubtless waiting for the pub or the bookie’s to open.
The St Mark’s was unpretentious in the extreme, not to say unequivocally basic, but Lorimer took a perverse pleasure in the place – these caffs were steadily dying out and soon they’d be distant memories, or else lovingly recreated as temples of post-modern kitsch, serving cocktails along with sandwiches aux pommes frites. There was one long counter, a chilled display unit, a lino floor and a dozen formica-topped tables. Behind the counter was a huge handwritten menu laboriously detailing the dozens of combinations available from a few central ingredients – eggs, bacon, chips, toast, sausages, beans, mushrooms, gravy and black pudding. The windows facing the Old Kent Road were fogged and teary with condensation and the display unit contained only three ingredients for sandwiches – ham, tomato and chopped boiled eggs. Tea was served from an aluminium teapot,