house’s sole ornament, a large crucifix with a quarter-life-size, writhing, blood-drizzled Christ. The television was on and watching the lunchtime news was Phil Beazley, a can of beer in hand, Drava’s ex-husband and Slobodan’s partner in B and B Mini-cabs and International Couriers.
‘Hey, Milo,’ Phil said, ‘my main man.’
‘Hi, Phil.’
‘What you drinking, Milo?’ Slobodan stood by his crammed drinks trolley – over fifty beverages on offer, was his proud boast. Lorimer passed; Phil had his beer replaced and Slobodan fixed himself a Campari and soda. Phil knelt forward and turned down the volume on the television. He was a small, thin man – dangerously thin, Lorimer thought – with sunken cheeks and jutting narrow hips. He dyed his fine hair blond and wore an earring. His blue eyes were slightly astigmatic and he cultivated a jolly, laddish demeanour that seemed entirely false. One’s first and lasting impression of Phil Beazley was one of suspicion. For example, Lorimer suspected strongly that Beazley had only married Drava – a hunch that was reinforced by the christening of Mercedes – for the euphonious motoring associations of her name.
‘Good to see you, Milo,’ Phil Beazley said, regaining his seat. ‘Been a while. Looking terrific, isn’t he, Lobby?’
‘Smart as a new pin, Phil.’
‘You handsome bastard. I can see life’s treating you well, no worries,’ Beazley said.
Lorimer felt a weariness descend on him and simultaneously a concomitant, metaphorical weightening of his cheque book in his breast pocket, as if its leaves had turned to lead.
It duly turned out that B and B’s cash-flow problem was insignificant and temporary, so Slobodan and Phil warmly informed him. A valued account customer had gone bankrupt, leaving four months’ unpaid bills. This valued account customer had turned out to be a fucking bastard evil cunt because even though he knew he was going to go belly-up he was still ordering cars like ‘they was going out of fashion’. Cars here, cars there, cars to take packages to Bristol and Birmingham, cars for wait-and-returns clocking up idle hours outside pubs and nightclubs. Phil said he wanted to sledgehammer the valued account customer’s kneecaps or do a ‘chesterfield’ on his back with an industrial stapler but Lobby here had dissuaded him. They were taking on more drivers to make up the shortfall but in the interim, temporarily, through no fault of their own, they were in need of an injection of capital.
Above board, Milo, no favours, here’s what I propose. I, me, am going to sell you the Cortina.’
‘How much?’
‘Three K.’
‘I have a car,’ Lorimer said. ‘What do I want with your Cortina? You need it.’
‘I’ve got a new motor, a Citroen. The Cortina is a classic car, Milo. Look on it as an investment.’
On the television set were mute images of a burning village in Africa. Boy soldiers brandished Kalashnikovs at the camera.
Lorimer reached for his cheque book. ‘Three grand will cover it?’
Phil and Slobodan looked at each other as if to say: shit, we should have asked for more.
‘You can’t do it cash, can you, Milo?’
‘No.’
‘That going to be a problem, Phil?’
‘Ah. No. Could you make it out to my dad? Anthony Beazley. Great. Terrific, Milo, ace.’
‘Diamond,’ Slobodan agreed. ‘Diamond geezer.’
Lorimer handed over the cheque, trying to keep the resignation out of his voice. ‘Pay me back when you can. Keep the car for the firm. Find another driver, use it, make it work for you.’
‘Nice idea, Milo. Good thinking, Phil, isn’t it?’
‘That’s why he’s the City gent, Lobby, not like us daft cunts. Nice idea, Milo.’
As he drove east – New King’s Road, Old Church Street, along the Embankment, along the sunken, torpid, mud-banked river, past the bridges – Albert, Chelsea, Vauxhall, Lambeth – on to Parliament Square and its honey-coloured, busily buttressed and fretted palace (focus of Marlobe’s unquenchable bile), an uncharitable thought edged its way into his mind: how had Slobodan known he was coming that day and so contrived to have Phil Beazley present? Answer: because when he, Lorimer, had called his mother she had said his father was unwell and he had immediately arranged a visit. But his father had seemed unchanged, or at least much as usual, despite all the loud diagnosis about the state of his bowels. And this business with the sandwiches – his mother and grandmother practically pushing him out of the kitchen… It was as if he had been set up, set up by his own family for a three grand sting to help Lobby Blocj out of a jam.