very against discussion of their respective adjustments.
‘Hogg’s given me this Dupree job to finish off. Seems pretty straightforward. Paperwork, really.’
‘Well, it is, now that he’s dead.’
‘Topped himself, didn’t he?’
‘It happens. They think their world has been destroyed, and, well…’ He changed the subject. ‘Look, I’ve got an appointment with Hogg. Where shall we meet?’
‘El Hombre Guapo? You know, Clerkenwell Road? Six?’
‘See you there.’
‘Don’t mind if I bring someone along, do you?’
Hogg was standing, scarfed and coated, in the middle of his orange carpet.
‘Am I late?’ Lorimer asked, perplexed.
‘See you in Finsbury Circus, in ten minutes. I’m going out the back way, give me five minutes. Leave by the front door – and don’t tell Helvoir-Jayne.’
Hogg was sitting on a bench beside the bowling green in the small oval square when Lorimer arrived, his chin on his chest, looking thoughtful, his hands thrust in his pockets. Lorimer slid himself down beside him. All around the neat central garden were the leafless plane trees with their backdrop of solid, ornate buildings with a few frozen workers smoking and shivering in doorways. The old city, Hogg always said, as it used to be in the great days – which was why he so liked Finsbury Circus.
Twenty yards away a man expertly juggled three red balls to an audience of none. Lorimer realized Hogg was staring fascinatedly at the juggler, as if he’d never seen the trick done before.
‘Bloody marvellous,’ Hogg said, ‘sort of mesmerizing. Run over there and give him a pound, there’s a good lad.’
Lorimer did as he was told, dropping the coin in a woollen hat at his feet.
‘Cheers, mate,’ the juggler said, the balls still following their apparently tethered trajectories.
‘Bloody marvellous!’ Hogg shouted from across the square, and gave the juggler the thumbs up. Lorimer saw him rise to his feet and stride off without a backward glance. Sighing, Lorimer followed briskly but had still not caught him up by the time he entered a modern pub set incongruously in the corner of an office block with a good view of the giant ochrous waffle iron of the Broad-gate Centre opposite.
Inside, the pub smelt of old beer and yesterday’s cigarette smoke. A row of lurid computer games winked and clattered, thundered and swooshed, trying to entice players, the technobarrage competing successfully with some jazzy orchestral muzak emanating from somewhere or other. Hogg was having a pint of pale, frothy lager drawn for him.
‘What’ll it be, Lorimer?’
‘Mineral water. Fizzy’
‘Have a proper drink, for God’s sake.’
‘Half of cider, then.’
‘Jesus Christ. Sometimes I despair, Lorimer.’
They carried their drinks as far away as possible from the squawking and beeping machines. Hogg drank two-thirds of his pint in four huge swallows, wiped his mouth and lit a cigarette. Neither of them removed their coats – the vile pub was cold as well.
‘OK, let’s have it,’ Hogg said.
‘Standard torching. The subcontractors were running late, facing a big penalty, so they started a fire in the gymnasium. It must have got out of control. There was no way they wanted to destroy five floors and all the rest.’
‘So?’
‘So I still can’t see 27 million quid’s worth of damage. I’m not an expert but the place wasn’t trading, wasn’t finished. I can’t see why the claim is so large.’
Hogg reached inside his coat and drew out a folded photocopy and handed it to Lorimer.
‘Because the place is insured for 80 million.’
Lorimer unfolded the copy of the original Fortress Sure policy and leafed through it. He could not make out the signature on the final page.
Lorimer pointed at the scrawl. ‘Who’s that?’
Hogg drained his pint and stood up, ready to fetch another.
‘Torquil Helvoir-Jayne,’ he said, and headed for the bar.
He came back with a packet of beef and horseradish crisps and another foamy pint. He munched at the crisps carelessly, causing a small shrapnel fall to dust his coat front. He swilled lager round his clogged teeth.
‘So Torquil over-insured.’
‘Way over.’
‘Big premium. They were prepared to pay’
‘Everything was dandy until those arseholes started their fire.’
‘It’ll be a hard job proving it,’ Lorimer said, guardedly. ‘Those guys, Rintoul and Edmund, there’s a kind of desperation there. Semi-nuclear, I would say’
‘It’s not their problem – or rather,’ Hogg corrected himself, ‘let’s make it Gale-Harlequin’s problem. Pass the buck. Say we suspect foul play and won’t cough up.’
‘We’ll have to pay something.’
‘I know,’ Hogg said venomously. ‘As long as it’s nowhere near 27 mil. Pitch it low, Lorimer.’
‘Me?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well… I’ve never done anything this size. We could be talking millions of pounds.’