‘I see.’ He said it calmly, but he looked horrified. ‘And do you intend to take similar risks in future?’
‘Only if necessary.’
‘You always said the agency didn’t do much crime work,’ he protested.
‘It will from now on, if I have anything to do with it. Crooks make too much misery in the world.’ I thought of the poor Dunstable Brinton. ‘And listen, the house next door is for sale. We could knock the two into one. Radnor’s is bursting at the seams. The agency has expanded a lot even in the two years I’ve been there. There seems more and more demand for his sort of service. Then the head of Bona Fides, that’s one of the departments, is a natural to expand as an employment consultant on the managerial level. He has a gift for it. And insurance — Radnor’s always neglected that. We don’t have an insurance investigation department. I’d like to start one. Suspect insurance claims; you know. There’s a lot of work in that.’
‘You’re sure Radnor will agree, if you suggest a partnership?’
‘He may kick me out. I’d risk it though. What do you think?’
‘I think you’ve gone back to how you used to be,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Which is good. Nothing but good. But… well, tell me what you really think about that.’ He nodded at my chopped off arm. ‘None of your flippant lies, either. The truth.’
I looked at him and didn’t answer.
‘It’s only a week since it happened,’ he said, ‘and as you still look the colour of a grubby sheet I suppose it’s hardly fair to ask. But I want to know.’
I swallowed. There were some truths which really couldn’t be told. I said instead. ‘It’s gone. Gone, like a lot of other things I used to have. I’ll live without it.’
‘Live, or exist?’
‘Oh live, definitely. Live.’ I reached for the booklet Chico had brought, and flicked it at him. ‘Look.’
He glanced at the cover and I saw the faint shock in his face. He didn’t have Chico’s astringent brutality. He looked up and saw me smiling.
‘All right,’ he said soberly. ‘Yes. Invest your money in yourself.’
‘In the agency,’ I said.
‘That’s what I mean,’ he said. ‘In the agency. In yourself.’
He said he’d need to see the agency’s books before a definite figure could be reached, but we spent an hour discussing the maximum he thought I should prudently offer Radnor, what return I could hope for in salary and dividends, and what I should best sell to raise the sum once it was agreed.
When we had finished I trotted out once more the infuriating photographs.
‘Look them over, will you?’ I said. ‘I’ve shown them to everyone else without result. These photographs were the direct cause of the bombs in my flat and the office, and of me losing my hand, and I can’t see why. It’s driving me ruddy well mad.’
‘The police…’ he suggested.
‘The police are only interested in the one photograph of a ten pound note. They looked at the others, said they could see nothing significant, and gave them back to Chico. But Kraye couldn’t have been worried about that bank note, it was ten thousand to one we’d come across it again. No, it’s something else. Something not obviously criminal, something Kraye was prepared to go to any lengths to obliterate immediately. Look at the time factor… Oxon only pinched the photographs just before lunch, down at Seabury. Kraye lived in London. Say Oxon rang him and told him to come and look: Oxon couldn’t leave Seabury, it was a race day. Kraye had to go to Seabury himself. Well, he went down and looked at the photographs and saw… what? What? My flat was being searched by five o’clock.’
Noel nodded in agreement. ‘Kraye was desperate. Therefore there was something to be desperate about.’ He took the photographs and studied them one by one.
Half an hour later he looked up and stared blankly out of the window at the wet grey skies. For several minutes he stayed completely still, as if in a state of suspended animation: it was his way of concentrated thinking. Finally he stirred and sighed. He moved his short neck as if it were stiff, and lifted the top photograph off the pile.
‘This must be the one,’ he said.
I nearly snatched it out of his hand.
‘But it’s only the summary of the share transfers,’ I said in disappointment. It was the sheet headed S.R., Seabury Racecourse, which listed in summary form all Kraye’s purchases of Seabury shares. The only noticeable factor in what had seemed to me merely a useful at-a-glance view of his total holding, was that it had been typed on a different typewriter, and not by Zanna Martin. This hardly seemed enough reason for Kraye’s hysteria.
‘Look at it carefully,’ said Noel. ‘The three left hand columns you can disregard, because I agree they are simply a tabulation of the share transfers, and I can’t see any discrepancies.’
‘There aren’t,’ I said. ‘I checked that.’
‘How about the last column, the small one on the right?’
‘The banks?’
‘The banks.’
‘What about them?’ I said.
‘How many different ones are there?’
I looked down the long list, counting. ‘Five. Barclays, Piccadilly. Westminster, Birmingham. British Linen Bank, Glasgow. Lloyds, Doncaster. National Provincial, Liverpool.’
‘Five bank accounts, in five different towns. Perfectly respectable. A very sensible arrangement in many ways. He can move round the country and always have easy access to his money. I myself have accounts in three different banks: it avoids muddling my clients’ affairs with my own.’
‘I know all that. I didn’t see any significance in his having several accounts. I still don’t.’
‘Hm,’ said Noel. ‘I think it’s very likely that he has been evading income tax.’
‘Is that all?’ I said disgustedly.
Noel looked at me in amusement, pursing his lips. ‘You don’t understand in the least, I see.’
‘Well, for heaven’s sake, you wouldn’t expect a man like Kraye to pay up every penny he was liable for like a good little citzen.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ agreed Noel, grinning broadly.
‘I’ll agree he might be worried. After all, they sent Al Capone to jug in the end for tax evasion. But over here, what’s the maximum sentence?’
‘He’d only get a year, at the most,’ he said, ‘but…’
‘And he would have been sure to get off with a fine. Which he won’t do now, after attacking me. Even so, for that he’ll only get three or four years, I should think, and less for the malicious damage. He’ll be out and operating again far too soon. Bolt, I suppose, will be struck off, or whatever it is with stockbrokers.’
‘Stop talking,’ he said, ‘and listen. While it’s quite normal to have more than one bank account, an Inspector of Taxes, having agreed your tax liability, may ask you to sign a document stating that you have disclosed to him
‘But no one would have noticed,’ I protested.
‘Quite. Probably not. But to him it must have seemed glaringly dangerous. Guilty people constantly fear their guilt will be visible to others. They’re vibratingly sensitive to anything which can give them away. I see quite a lot of it in my job.’
‘Even so… bombs are pretty drastic.’
‘It would entirely depend on the sum involved,’ he said primly.
‘Huh?’
‘The maximum fine for income tax evasion is twice the tax you didn’t pay. If for example you amassed ten thousand pounds but declared only two, you could be fined a sum equal to twice the tax on eight thousand pounds. With surtax and so on, you might be left with almost nothing. A nasty set-back.’
‘To put it mildly,’ I said in awe.
‘I wonder,’ Noel said thoughtfully, putting the tips of his fingers together, ‘just how much undeclared loot
