send him a passenger Filmer
didn’t
know. One of my men. Then if Filmer does try anything, and after all it’s a big if, we might have a real chance of finding out how and what, and catching him at it.’
My God, I thought. So simple, put like that. So absolutely impossible of performance.
I swallowed. ‘What did Mr Baudelaire say?’
‘I talked him into agreeing. He’s expecting you.’
I blinked.
‘Well,’ the Brigadier said, ‘not you by name. Someone. Someone fairly young, I said, but experienced. Someone who wouldn’t seem outof place …’ his teeth gleamed briefly ‘… on the millionaires’ express.’
‘But –’ I said, and stopped dead, my mind full of urgent reservations and doubts that I was good enough for a job like that. Yet on the other hand, what a lark.
‘Will you go?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘I hoped you might.’
Brigadier Catto, who lived ninety miles from London in Newmarket, was staying overnight, as he often did, in a comfortable bedroom upstairs in the club. I left him in the bar after a while and drove the last half-mile home to where I lived in a quiet residential street in Kennington.
I had looked in that district for somewhere to put down a few roots on the grounds that I wouldn’t be bothered to use the club much if I lived on the other side of London. Kennington, south of the Thames, rubbing shoulders with the grittiness of Lambeth and Brixton, was not where the racing crowd panted to be seen, and in fact I’d never spotted anyone locally that I knew by sight on the racecourse.
I’d come across an advertisement: ‘House share available, for single presentable yuppy. 2 rooms, bath, share kit, mortgage and upkeep. Call evenings’, and although I’d been thinking in terms of a flat on my own, house sharing had suddenly seemed attractive, especially after the loneliness of work. I’d presented myself by appointment, been inspected by the four others in residence, and let in on trial, and it had all worked very well.
The four others were currently two sisters working in publishing (whose father had originally bought the house and set up the running-mortgage scheme), one junior barrister who tended to stutter, and an actor with a supporting role in a television series. The house rules were simple: pay on the dot, show good manners at all times, don’t pry into the others’ business, and don’t let overnight girl/boy friends clog up any of the three bathrooms for hours in the morning.
There was a fair amount of laughter and camaraderie, but we tended to share coffee, beer, wine and saucepans more than confidences. I told them I was a dedicated racegoer and no one asked whether I won or lost.
The actor, Robbie, on the top floor, had been of enormous use to me, though I doubted he really knew it. He’d invited me up for a beerearly one evening a few days after I went to live there, and I’d found him sitting before a brightly-lit theatrical dressing table creating, as he said, a new make-up for a part he’d accepted in a play. I’d been startled to see how a different way of brushing his hair, how a large false moustache and heavier eyebrows had changed him.
‘Tools of the trade,’ he said, gesturing to the grease paints and false hair lying in neat rows and boxes before him. ‘Instant stubble, Fauntleroy curls – what would you like?’
‘Curls,’ I said slowly.
‘Sit down, then,’ he said cheerfully, getting up to give me his place, and he brought out a butane hair curler and wound my almost straight hair onto it bit by bit there and then, and within minutes I looked like a brown poodle, tousled, unbrushed, totally different.
‘How’s that?’ he said, bending to look with me into the looking glass.
‘Amazing.’ And easy, I thought. I could do it in the car, any time.
‘It suits you,’ Robbie said. He knelt down beside me, put his arm round my shoulders, gave me a little squeeze and smiled with unmistakable invitation
didn’t
know. One of my men. Then if Filmer does try anything, and after all it’s a big if, we might have a real chance of finding out how and what, and catching him at it.’
My God, I thought. So simple, put like that. So absolutely impossible of performance.
I swallowed. ‘What did Mr Baudelaire say?’
‘I talked him into agreeing. He’s expecting you.’
I blinked.
‘Well,’ the Brigadier said, ‘not you by name. Someone. Someone fairly young, I said, but experienced. Someone who wouldn’t seem outof place …’ his teeth gleamed briefly ‘… on the millionaires’ express.’
‘But –’ I said, and stopped dead, my mind full of urgent reservations and doubts that I was good enough for a job like that. Yet on the other hand, what a lark.
‘Will you go?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘I hoped you might.’
Brigadier Catto, who lived ninety miles from London in Newmarket, was staying overnight, as he often did, in a comfortable bedroom upstairs in the club. I left him in the bar after a while and drove the last half-mile home to where I lived in a quiet residential street in Kennington.
I had looked in that district for somewhere to put down a few roots on the grounds that I wouldn’t be bothered to use the club much if I lived on the other side of London. Kennington, south of the Thames, rubbing shoulders with the grittiness of Lambeth and Brixton, was not where the racing crowd panted to be seen, and in fact I’d never spotted anyone locally that I knew by sight on the racecourse.
I’d come across an advertisement: ‘House share available, for single presentable yuppy. 2 rooms, bath, share kit, mortgage and upkeep. Call evenings’, and although I’d been thinking in terms of a flat on my own, house sharing had suddenly seemed attractive, especially after the loneliness of work. I’d presented myself by appointment, been inspected by the four others in residence, and let in on trial, and it had all worked very well.
The four others were currently two sisters working in publishing (whose father had originally bought the house and set up the running-mortgage scheme), one junior barrister who tended to stutter, and an actor with a supporting role in a television series. The house rules were simple: pay on the dot, show good manners at all times, don’t pry into the others’ business, and don’t let overnight girl/boy friends clog up any of the three bathrooms for hours in the morning.
There was a fair amount of laughter and camaraderie, but we tended to share coffee, beer, wine and saucepans more than confidences. I told them I was a dedicated racegoer and no one asked whether I won or lost.
The actor, Robbie, on the top floor, had been of enormous use to me, though I doubted he really knew it. He’d invited me up for a beerearly one evening a few days after I went to live there, and I’d found him sitting before a brightly-lit theatrical dressing table creating, as he said, a new make-up for a part he’d accepted in a play. I’d been startled to see how a different way of brushing his hair, how a large false moustache and heavier eyebrows had changed him.
‘Tools of the trade,’ he said, gesturing to the grease paints and false hair lying in neat rows and boxes before him. ‘Instant stubble, Fauntleroy curls – what would you like?’
‘Curls,’ I said slowly.
‘Sit down, then,’ he said cheerfully, getting up to give me his place, and he brought out a butane hair curler and wound my almost straight hair onto it bit by bit there and then, and within minutes I looked like a brown poodle, tousled, unbrushed, totally different.
‘How’s that?’ he said, bending to look with me into the looking glass.
‘Amazing.’ And easy, I thought. I could do it in the car, any time.
‘It suits you,’ Robbie said. He knelt down beside me, put his arm round my shoulders, gave me a little squeeze and smiled with unmistakable invitation
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