Horse Under Water

33 Jean when I find her

I got back to my flat about five thirty. I fixed coffee and started a large coal fire. Outside, lines of mud-spattered cars moved southward out of the city through a gauze of diesel fumes. The weather forecaster was worried about snow and I’ll bet the six o’clock news didn’t relax him any.

I erected a card table in the bedroom, dusted off the Nikon F and clipped it into the holder after loading it with fine resolution film. Over the baseboard four photoflood holders were directed downwards. I flipped the switch and a glare of tungsten light splashed around the walls. I left the bedroom and locked the door behind me.

I was drinking a second cup of Blue Mountain as Jean arrived. Her mouth was cold. We touched noses and exchanged hellos and ‘isn’t-it-turning-colds’ and ‘snow-before-Christmas-I-wouldn’t-be-surpriseds’, then I put her into the Ivor Butcher picture. Jean said, ‘Buy it’, but I didn’t want to do that. If I showed any interest it would reveal more than I wanted to reveal, especially to Ivor Butcher. Jean said I was a paranoiac, but she hadn’t been in the business long enough to develop that sixth sense that I was always telling myself I had.

Ivor Butcher sat in his blue Jag across the road for some time before coming to the front door. It was very professionally done. I took his coat and poured him a drink. We hung around waiting for my fictional man from the F.O. for twenty minutes. Ivor Butcher had the diary in a sealed manilla envelope. When the tension had built up a little I asked him if I could look at it. He passed the envelope across my desk and I tore the top off quickly and extracted a leather diary with gold-edged pages. The surface was scuffed and it didn’t look any too new. Ivor Butcher was about to open his mouth to protest, but I kept the diary tightly shut and he kept his mouth the same way. I put it back into the envelope.

‘Looks O.K.,’ I said. Ivor Butcher nodded. I turned the envelope slowly around, passing it between fingers and thumbs. His eyes watched the envelope. I got up, walked across to him. I folded the torn envelope top and pushed it into the pocket of his shiny, synthetic fibre suit. He smiled sheepishly. ‘I’ll phone the F.O. man’s office,’ I said, and went to the extension phone in the bedroom.

It had been simple to drop the diary out of the torn end of the envelope into my lap and not too difficult to substitute an object of approximately the correct shape and size. Luckily Ivor Butcher’s description of the dimensions had been fairly accurate, but I had two variations handy had it not been.

I clipped it on to the baseboard and switched on the bright lights. I pushed the shutter. Kerlick — the roller blind moved gently across the film. I turned the page and photoed the next one. Now everything depended upon Jean keeping Ivor Butcher occupied. She could reasonably ask him not to come within earshot of a conversation between me and the F.O., but if he got that envelope out of his pocket and found six coupons that would get him a bar of Fairy Soap fourpence cheaper, my photography was liable to be interrupted.

By 12.45 the last print was off the dryer and Ivor Butcher had long since departed, with his diary back once more in his pocket. I went into the lounge; Jean had slipped her shoes off and was dozing in front of the dying coal fire. I leaned over the back of the big leather chair and kissed her funny upside-down face. She awoke with a start.

‘You were snoring,’ I said.

‘I don’t snore.’ She looked at me in the mirror.

‘And you told me I was the only man in London in a position to know.’ Jean ran her long fingers through her hair, dragging it high above her head.

‘Do you think I should wear my hair up like this?’

‘Don’t wear any at all,’ I said.

We were looking at each other in the mirror. She said, ‘You are getting terribly fat. What are you going to do about it?’

‘Not a thing,’ I said, ‘let’s …’

At that moment the phone rang. Jean laughed, and although I let it ring for some time I finally went to get it.

‘It’s probably your Mr Butcher who has decided to come down to nine hundred,’ said Jean. ‘Poor Mr Butcher.’

‘Thieves must learn to cry,’ I said.

I answered the phone. It was Alice, who wasted not a word.

‘Mr Dawlish says get along here right away, something urgent has turned up.’

‘O.K., Alice,’ I said.