The man called Stephen looked like he might be considering the possibility. Then he smiled a smile that hardly made even a token effort to get a grip on his features and pressed a button that opened the lattice.
Joe knew for sure that if he hadn't passed the cold-eye test, there was another button alongside it that would have vaporized him.
Mimi's warm hand on his back broke his chilly paralysis and he stepped into the room. Cold-Eye said, 'Welcome, Mr. Sixsmith.' Joe recalled how flattered and impressed he'd been at the Hoo steward's almost instantaneous use of his name. Hearing it from this hard mouth, it felt like a menace.
Mimi said, 'Joe, this is Stephen Hardman, Mr. King's other personal assistant.'
She said it slightly sniffily, but Joe was too busy registering Hardman. Had to be a joke. Didn't it?
He didn't feel inclined to ask.
His feet made no sound on the deep-piled carpet. In fact he'd been in noisier chapels of rest. There wasn't even that tell-tale hum you got from an air-conditioning system, but this beautifully cool atmosphere with its faint tang of ocean breeze certainly didn't come from downtown Luton. A door opened and a plumpish man of about fifty with a round, pink instantly forgettable face emerged. Assuming he was making for the lift to go down, Joe gave him a nod and stood aside, but he felt his hand seized and a pleasant light voice said, 'Mr. Sixsmith, good of you to come.'
Oh shoot! thought Joe. This was him! King Rat himself. He'd seen his photo in the local paper, of course, but he'd still blanked the guy in his own office.
'Mr. King, hi,' he said. 'Nice place you've got.'
Mimi giggled and said, 'You ain't seen nothing yet, Joe. Can I get you a cool drink?'
'Thank you, Mimi. Mr. Sixsmith would prefer tea, I think. Stephen, will you see to it?'
Joe, rather to his surprise, found King was right. Since the heatwave hit the eighties, he'd generally been panting like the hart for cooling streams of extra-cold Guinness, but up here in this temperate mini climate, a cup of tea sounded very nice.
King led the way through a door behind the desk into a larger office which, with its bright colors, popart paintings, vigorous houseplants and a trace of free- sia on the air alongside the ocean breeze, had to be Mimi's. Then through another door into King Rat's throne room.
The girl was right. He hadn't seen nothing yet!
He was on top of the world here. Two huge windows gave him a view of Luton that previously he'd only glimpsed from a holiday charter dropping toward the airport, and then his aesthetic appreciation had been considerably inhibited by the sheer terror he always felt on takeoff and landing. Now he could study at his leisure the bones and arteries of his beloved city. He let his gaze move round from the floodlights of the soccer stadium, across the drooping flags of the Wright-Price Superstore and the golden cross on the dome of St. Monkey's, to the Clint Eastwood dirigible anchored to the roof of Dirty Harry's. The glass had to be that fancy light-reactive stuff you got in expensive sunglasses because it darkened where the sun hit it directly so you could look the old boy straight in the eye. As for heat, there was no competition with the ProtoVision air-conditioning system.
'Have a seat, Mr. Sixsmith.'
Reluctantly he channeled his attention from outside to in. The room was sparsely furnished with four easy chairs round a glass table. With a view like that you didn't need a desk the size of a football pitch to show you were boss. At the same time he'd have expected something more to confirm you were in King Rat's lair. The color scheme of the decor and furnishings was a restful blend of browns and beiges and ochers repeated in the linen jacket and slacks that Ratcliffe King wore.
More King Hamster than King Rat, thought Joe.
Then Hardman came in with a silver tea tray and his sense of relaxed complacency vanished.
On it was a small wicker basket piled high with the unmistakable knobbly currant scones from the Billa- bong Bakery that were his favorites. Alongside it was a plateful of the delicious apple tartlets that he always had at Charmaine's Olde Worlde Tea Shoppe. He did not doubt that the jam in the jam dish was Baxter's Raspberry, the butter Irish unsalted, and the tea Lipton's.
Mimi poured his tea. She didn't ask him how he liked it but stirred in three spoonfuls of sugar before adding the milk.
Suddenly Joe was wanting to be out of here.
He said, 'So what did you want to see me about, Mr. King?'
'Straight down to business? I like that,' said King. 'Here then is the situation, Mr. Sixsmith. I have a client who has been relying on my advice in a l arge-scale development project. His role in it is mainly financial and the moment is fast approaching when he must decide whether or not to commit a considerable sum of money to the scheme. On the surface there are large profits to be made that he is eager to share in. In matters of large profit, of course, there are always attendant risks and our main task at ProtoVision is to assess those risks and advise accordingly. You follow me so far?'
'No problem,' said Joe, sinking his teeth into a scone that he'd coated liberally with butter and jam. As he'd expected, Baxter's raspberry and Irish unsalted. Wasn't it Georgie Best who said, 'If you're drowning in Guinness, might as well drink deep'?
'Excellent. Now my main concern is with another member of the consortium behind this development, a man called Brian Tomlin. His contribution is more in terms of commercial expertise and contacts than hard cash. Basically, he is the one tying everything together. To be honest, I suspect a sting may be planned. I have absolutely no evidence to back my feelings, and I may be wrong. But if I'm not, then there is no way Tomlin cannot be deeply involved.'
'You'll have had him checked out, surely?' said Joe through his second scone.
'Naturally. Everything holds up. But I need to be absolutely sure. There are three days left till D-Day, D standing for delivery of money. During that period I want his movements and his contacts observed and analyzed every waking hour of his day.'
'So it's a surveillance job?' said Joe, turning his attention to the apple tarts. He was seeing his way out of this and thought he might as well tuck in while the tuck was there.
'That's right.'
'And a blanket surveillance job, from the sound of it,' said Joe. 'Well, I'm sorry, Mr. King, but for that kind of operation you need a team and I'm just a one-man band. It can't be done. You need one of the bigger outfits.'
'None of whom come as highly recommended as you,' said King. 'I foresaw the problem, of course. You would need at least one other person, I imagine, to give you cover for rest, refreshment, and calls of nature. Mimi here has volunteered to be your assistant.'
'Mimi?' said Joe, almost choking on his tartlet.
The young woman who'd perched on the arm of one of the chairs smiled at him, her eyes shining with excitement.
'Yes!' she exclaimed. 'I know I've got no experience and I'd just be along to fetch and carry. But I'm a fast learner, Joe. It would be real fun!'
'And Mimi would bring a different kind of expertise to the surveillance, I believe,' said King. 'One based on her work with me.'
'But doesn't this guy know her?' objected Joe.
'In fact, no. They've never met, though Mimi is fully au fait with the file I have put together on him. So your task would be simply to observe and record while Mimi filters out anything she thinks may be pertinent to the business in hand and alerts me. I understand your usual hourly fee is thirty pounds. As this would require your round-the-clock commitment for three, let's call it four days, why don't we bypass the arithmetic and call it a straight four thousand? Plus, of course, expenses.'
Oh dear, oh dear, thought Joe. He saw that the apple tartlets had almost vanished. Could he decently return to the knobbly scones? Such a U-turn would in Aunt Mirabelle's eyes demonstrate the kind of ill-breeding you might expect from rough-edged Johnny-come- latelys but not from a born-and-bred Lutonian.
He said, 'Who was it recommended me so high, Mr. King?'
'Now let me see. I know Detective Superintendent Woodbine thinks very well of you. And Ms. Butcher of the Bullpat Square Law Centre is a fan, I believe. And the Reverend Potemkin of the Boyling Corner Chapel, a fine judge of character as well as of choristers, acknowledges your excellence in both fields.'
For the first time Joe really focused on Ratcliffe King, trying to get beyond the courteous manner, the soft
