LITMIR.BIZ

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6

      Saturday. Dr Pike was in St James’s Park before me. He was sitting on the bench near the pond reading the Financial Times exactly as arranged. So, not to spoil the fun, I asked him about the stock exchange and he lent me his paper. He was dressed more prosperously than he had been at the surgery: saxony suit, tweed fisher hat and a short reversible raincoat with knitted collar. He flipped his cuff upon a gold wristwatch as I took his newspaper.

      ‘It’s incredibly cold,’ Pike said.

      ‘I didn’t come a thousand miles to discuss the weather. Where’s the package?’

      ‘Steady on,’ said Pike. ‘It will probably be ready today, don’t fret.’

      ‘Did you have me followed yesterday, Pike?’ I asked.

      ‘Nigel, don’t put your new shoes in the water, there’s a good boy. No certainly not. Why should I?’

      Nigel stopped putting his new shoes in the water and began to poke a large Labrador with his toy whistle.

      ‘Someone did.’

      ‘Not me. The doggy doesn’t like that, Nigel.’

      ‘So you won’t mind if I have him laid out?’

      ‘Couldn’t care less. He’s growling to tell you he doesn’t like it, Nigel. Have him killed for all I care.’

      ‘And you still say you don’t know who it is?’

      ‘Mr Dempsey or whoever you are: I do a job and keep my nose clean. If the people for whom we work send someone to follow you and you decide to brain the fellow, good luck. He thinks you are giving him the whistle to play with, Nigel. Good doggy, give Nigel his whistle back; good doggy, stroke him, Nigel, show you want to be friends. Anything the fellow gets will serve him right for being inefficient. Too much inefficiency in this country at the moment. People are damned slack. Brain him by all means. It might teach the top people to keep me informed.’

      Dr Pike went and retrieved Nigel’s whistle and brought Nigel back to where we were sitting.

      ‘Look at your hands.’ Pike produced a large handkerchief, held it for the child to spit on, then wiped his hands with the damp cloth. It seemed unhygienic.

      ‘Where is the package now?’

      ‘At my brother’s, I think.’ He looked at his watch again and did some sort of calculation. ‘At my brother’s. It’s tar, Nigel. I told you not to touch the fence. Tuck your scarf in; don’t want to catch cold.’

      ‘How far is that?’

      ‘There you are. A nice clean boy. Besterton, a village near Buckingham.’

      ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

      ‘I’d like to drop young Nigel first,’ Pike said. Me too, I thought, right into the lake.

      ‘They think you want to give them bread, Nigel. I’ll take him to his riding school. Then we’ll go on from there. It’s not far out of our way. They won’t hurt you, Nigel, nice kind ducks. Don’t be frightened, they won’t hurt you. Shall we go in my car?’

      ‘Suits me.’

      ‘They think you want to give them bread. Well, we’ll walk that way. No; they never hurt nice little boys. My Jaguar’s the red one. Don’t kick gravel at the ducks, Nigel, you’ll spoil your shoes.’

      Doctor Felix Pike and his brother Ralph both lived in a small village. There was a sharp frontier between the houses of the natives – plaster gnomes, nylon curtains, metal-frame windows and pre-fab garages – and the houses of the invaders – modern sculpture, whitewash, antique gates, brown wainscoting, grandfather clocks. Pike drove up to a modern version of a Georgian house. In the drive there was a silver Porsche convertible. ‘My brother’s car,’ Pike said. ‘He’s not married,’ as though the car was an automatic reward for a remarkable feat; which I suppose in a way it was. ‘My younger brother Ralph lives there,’ Felix Pike said pointing to a converted limestone barn adjacent to his house. The driveway was full of bronze urns and the house was full of regency stripes, illuminated niches, wall-to-wall Wilton and furniture with bobbles on. There was a sweet smell of lavender polish as we walked through a couple of rooms that were just for walking through, into what Mrs Pike – a tightly scripted woman with mauve hair – called the small lounge. There was a quartet of Queen Anne chairs arranged round a late-medieval electric fire. We sat down.

      Through the french windows the lawn was the size of a small landing strip. Beyond it six bonfires built tall columns of smoke on flickering bases of flame, as though a besieging army were encamped there among the bare foggy trees.

      The woman with mauve hair waved to the nearest fire and a man threw a final shovel-load of something on to it and walked to the patio. He wiped the blade of the shovel clean with a wire brush and placed it in a wooden box. He brushed his boots upon the mat, then entered through the french windows. He wore those sort of worn-out ancient clothes that the English upper classes wear on Sundays to distinguish them from the people who wear their best clothes on that day. He adjusted the silk choker at his throat as though it was a mosquito net, and I was a mosquito.

      ‘This is my younger brother, Ralph,’ said Dr Felix Pike. ‘He lives next door.’

      ‘Hello,’ I said. We shook hands, and Ralph said, ‘Good man’ in the low sincere voice they use in films just before they do something dangerous. Then, in case the old clothes and choker should have misled me, he produced a hide case containing six Cristo No. 2s. He offered them round, but I preferred my Gauloises.

      This man Ralph was younger than the first Pike, perhaps not even forty in spite of his pure white hair. He was slightly flushed and shiny with the exertions of gardening, and although at least twenty pounds heavier than his brother he either had it well strapped up or did thirty push-ups before breakfast. He smiled that same tricky smile that his brother Felix had. He fished a gold cigar-cutter from his gardening waistcoat and circumcised his cigar.

      ‘Things at the surgery,’ said Ralph, the one in gardening clothes, as if he was offering them with the cigars. His foreign accent was a trace heavier than his elder brother’s.

      ‘Fine,’ said Felix Pike. ‘Fine.’

      ‘I do the honours?’ Ralph asked and without pausing poured us all brandy and soda into heavy cut-glass goblets.

      Dr Felix Pike said, ‘And I trust all your …’ His voice trailed away.

      ‘Fine,’ said the man in gardening clothes. He lit his cigar with care and sat down in a hard chair to avoid soiling the chintz.

      Dr Felix Pike said, ‘I see our Corrugated Holdings dropped a packet, Ralph.’

      Ralph exhaled without haste. ‘Sold Thursday. Sell while they’re rising; don’t I always tell you that? Certum voto pete finem, as Horace says.’ Ralph Pike turned to me and said, ‘Certum voto pete finem: set a limit to your desire.’ I nodded and Dr Felix Pike nodded and Ralph smiled kindly.

      Ralph said, ‘When I go public I’ll look after you, never fear. I’ll give you a green form, Felix. And hold on to them this time. Don’t do an in-and-out as you did with the Waldner shares. If you want a word of advice: unload your coppers and tins; they’re going to take a nasty drop. Mark my advice, a nasty drop.’

      Dr Felix Pike didn’t like taking advice from his younger brother. He stared at him fixedly and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.

      Ralph said, ‘You should remember that, Felix.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Dr Felix Pike. His mouth slammed down like a guillotine blade. It was a nasty mouth, an all-or-nothing device that closed like a trap, and when it opened you expected a greyhound to leap out.

      Ralph smiled, ‘Been down to the boat lately?’

      ‘Was

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