security cameras positioned here and there covering all possible angles of approach.
Lorimer had thought hard about how to present himself for this encounter and was quietly pleased with the results. He had not shaved since his meeting with Flavia and his jaw had been dark with stubble. So when he did shave he left a postage stamp-sized rectangle of bristle immediately below his bottom lip. He chose an old suit, off the peg, mouse-grey, and to it added a royal blue Vneck sweater, a white nylon shirt and a thin tie, olive green with a narrow, diagonal, pistachio band. Shoes were rubber-soled ankle boots, highly polished, with yellow stitching on the seams. He had decided to wear spectacles, square, silver-framed with clear lenses, and he added – a nice touch this, he thought – a binding of Sellotape to the right hinge. The look, he hoped, said striven-for unexceptionalness; the pretensions of the figure he wanted to cut had to be almost imperceptible.
He was sitting in his car a hundred yards up the road from the Watts mansion, contemplating his reflection in the rear-view mirror, when he realized suddenly that the underlip patch was wrong. He reached into his glove compartment for his electric razor (always carried) and he immediately shaved it off. He sloshed some mineral water over a comb and dragged it through his hair to remove any shine as a final touch. Now he was ready.
It took two minutes to gain access through the gate in the wall and another three before the front door was opened. While he waited he paced around the paved courtyard with its terracotta urns of bay and box aware, as he did so, of the minute adjustments of the cameras tracking his every move.
The man who opened the door eventually was overweight and baby-faced, his gut covered by a ‘The Angziertie Tour’ sweat shirt (Lorimer wondered if this were pointedly for his benefit). He introduced himself as Terry and led him across an empty hall, newly parqueted and smelling of varnish, to a small sitting room, furnished with various uncomfortable black leather and chrome chairs. A huge primeval fern sprouted and sprawled in one corner and on the walls were classic posters behind perspex – Campari, SNCF, Esso, Aristide Bruant in his red scarf. Up in the corner of a wall beside the winking red eye of the movement detector was another camera the size of a household box of matches. Lorimer sat himself down on two or three chairs, found one his spine could tolerate, took his glasses off, polished them, replaced them and then sat still, his hands in his lap, and waited, inert and uninterested.
Twenty-five minutes later David Watts came in with Terry and was introduced. Watts was tall but seemed almost anorexically thin, Lorimer thought, with the concave chest and the tapered hips of a prepubescent boy. He was wearing leather trousers and a crew-neck Shetland sweater with a hole in one elbow. The long, buttery hair that had featured in the CD liner-notes photo had gone, replaced by a U S marine buzz-cut, and, curiously, his left cheek was unshaved – it looked like a small square of carpet tile stuck to the side of his face. Watts’ long, bony fingers stroked and touched this partial beard constantly, and rather repellently, Lorimer thought – as if it were a comfort blanket. Lorimer was glad of his last-minute, prescient shave: two beard patches in the same room would have looked suspiciously mannered.
‘Hi,’ Lorimer said, not smiling, ‘Lorimer Black.’
‘Yeah,’ said Watts.
Terry offered drinks and Watts finally settled on Italian beer. Lorimer asked for Pepsi and when this was not forthcoming said he would accept no substitute – he was fine, thanks.
‘We got Coca, don’t we, Terry?’
‘Coke, Diet Coke, Caffeine-free Diet Coke, Caffeine-free Regular Coke, Diet-free Caffeine Coke, you name it.’
Terry left to fetch the Italian beer and Watts lit a cigarette. He had small, even features, his eyes were pale greyish brown and a spatter of tiny moles was splashed under his jaw and down the side of his neck, disappearing beneath his jumper collar.
‘You with the insurance?’ Watts asked. ‘You the sods been jerking us around all these months?’
Lorimer briefly explained the functions and duties of a loss adjuster: not independent but impartial.
Watts frowned at him and drew on his cigarette.
‘Let me get this straight,’ he said, there was the faintest hint of the near-west in his glottal urban-speak,