Bert considered, saw no harm in answering this and said, 'Mr. Surtees, Mr. Lillihall, and Mr. Plimpton.'
'Arthur Surtees, the lawyer, that would be?'
'Right,' said Bert. 'Him and Mr. Latimer call the shots, the other two are just there to make up the numbers. At least, that's what I hear. But I've not said anything to you, right?'
'Of course you haven't, Bert. Cheers, mate.'
'You take care now, Joe. One of the things I haven't said to you is, there's some mean bastards in this club. Cheers.'
Joe would have liked a list of names, but Bert had vanished into the building and in any case Joe guessed that the only response he would have got would have been, 'Next question.'
He set off down the service road in search of the greenkeeper's shed.
It took some finding, not because it was obscure but because it turned out to be a shed in the same way that Balmoral is a holiday cottage. Originally an old barn in the same creamy stone as the clubhouse, it stood foursquare and solid in a small copse of beech trees. Converted into a country dwelling, it would have made a developer a small fortune. There was no one in sight, so Joe wandered down the side of the building and round the back. No scooter here, but there was a large patch of oily grass against the rear wall.
Before he could examine it closer, a voice grated, 'Help you?'
Joe turned to find himself the object of a suspicious gaze.
As the gaze was emanating from the sun-ravaged features of Davie Davie, and as Joe was poking around behind the building in which presumably the head greenkeeper kept all that was most precious to him, he couldn't blame the guy for being suspicious.
Joe had to make a decision. Did Davie, like Bert, know he was a PI? Or was he still under the impression he was a chum of the YFG's?
He made his choice and said, 'Oh hello, Davie. Just having a look around while I'm waiting for Mr. Porphyry and I seem to have got a bit lost.'
It sounded pretty stilted to Joe, but most of what Da- vie heard at the Hoo must sound pretty stilted to his Caledonian ears.
He said, 'If it's the clubhouse ye're wanting, ye'll need to walk back along the track a ways.'
'Thanks. Some places I've been, this would have done for the clubhouse, yeah?'
'Aye, well, it does the job, sir,' said Davie with the modest pride of a man who knew his worth.
The sir confirmed to Joe that his cover remained in place here at least.
As the Scot turned away, Joe took a pound coin out of his pocket, palmed it, then stooped and said, 'Hey, it's my lucky day. Oh shoot, it's a bit oily.'
He held the coin up and ostentatiously began to wipe it with his handkerchief. Davie again was regarding him suspiciously, but this time it was the suspicion of a Scot who knew it was written somewhere in the Old Testament that he would be able to spot lost money in his backyard long before any poncy Anglo of no matter what shade.
Joe quickly moved from the coin to the oil which he was sure the greenkeeper would have spotted.
'Seems to be a patch of the stuff down there,' he said indicating the area he'd been examining when interrupted. 'One of your mowers must be leaking or something.'
'No way!' Davie snorted indignantly. 'One of my lads parks his bike there and that's what's got the leak. When I was his age I'd have had it sorted in two jinks of a cat's tale, but nowadays they've nae pride in what they possess. It all comes too easy, that's my way of thinking.'
'But I bet you don't let him get away with anything when he's working on the course,' said Joe. 'From what I've seen, it's immaculate.'
'Aye, they leave their standards behind and work to mine once they're out there,' said Davie. 'To give him his due, this laddie did a fair day's work when I made him put his mind to it.'
'Did? He's gone, has he? I only ask 'cos the oil seems quite fresh.'
This was pushing it a bit, but golf club greenkeepers have to get used to vacuous waffle from their members and Davie replied, 'Aye, he took off a few days back, but his machine was around till yesterday, I'm sure. He must have snuck in to collect it, scairt of running into me likely, the way he let me down. I'll be hard put to get a decent replacement this time of year.'
'Plenty of lads out of work would surely jump at the chance,' said Joe.
'You'd think so, but most of them are likely sunning themselves on a holiday beach, and those that aren't don't like to get their hands dirty,' said Davie sourly. 'Good day to ye.'
Joe walked away, his mind buzzing like the mysterious scooter and probably making as much smoke.
Exactly a week ago, the morning after Porphyry's disputed victory in his Vardon Cup match, Waring had risen, eaten a hearty breakfast, walked out of No. 15 Lock-keeper's Lane and vanished off the face of the earth.
The night before, he had been given a lift home by someone driving a silver Audi 8, almost certainly Colin Rowe.
His motor scooter had remained here behind the greenkeeper's shed till yesterday or maybe early this morning when someone had removed it. Also this morning someone had turned up at Lock-keeper's Lane to collect Waring's belongings from his lodgings, and pay his rent up to date. That person, or rather those persons, had also been in a silver Audi 8 identified by young Liam Tremayne as the same in which he'd seen Waring traveling the evening before his disappearance.
And Colin Rowe's Audi was presently standing in the Hoo car park with mud on its tires and an oil stain on its boot carpet.
This needed a bit of thinking about.
He glanced at his watch, and realized that he'd need to do his thinking on the way to the airport.
His phone rang. The display read Butcher. He looked around guiltily, wondering if the Hoo embargo on mobiles extended here. But no one came running out of the trees shaking their fists and brandishing their niblicks, so he put it to his ear and said, 'Hi, Butcher.'
'Sixsmith, what are you doing? Basking by the hotel pool, charging your pint glasses of sangria to King Rat's account?'
'No. I'm still here.'
'Still in Luton? Oh, Joe, Joe, you do like living dangerously. His Majesty won't like you changing his plans.' 'It's just the timetable I've changed. I'm catching a later plane. Just setting out for the airport.' 'Oh good. Then call in here as you're passing. Something I want to show you.' 'What is it? I'm a bit pushed. Couldn't you just-' 'Got to go now, Sixsmith. See you soon.' She switched off. 'Oh shoot,' said Joe. There had to be a trick to ignoring bossy women, but Aunt Mirabelle hadn't taught him it. He hurried back to the car park.
20
Lightning Strikes Twice
At the Law Centre, Butcher saw him straight away, which had to mean something. She said, 'When I got in this morning my fax had spewed out a lot of stuff about the Royal Hoo.' 'Yeah, I gave Porphyry your number.' 'You not got a fax of your own, Sixsmith?' 'Course I have. Only it doesn't work too good.' Merv Golightly, who'd been present in Joe's office when the machine churned out fifty pages of midnight blackness, had said, 'Joe, whoever sold you that fax got the vowel wrong. Why didn't you come to me? I know this guy who's going bankrupt…' 'In any case,' Joe went on to Butcher, 'this was stuff you wanted to look at.' 'Which I've done. Have to say that when old Porphyry set up the club, he really tied up the loose ends so the family kept control.'
'You're not going to start talking all that legal mumbo-jumbo to me, Butcher?' said Joe fearfully.
'No, Joe. I'll give you the idiot child's version,' she said. 'Grandpapa Porphyry got his lawyers to tie up the business side of things. Members are shareholders, with the current head of the Porphyry family the majority shareholder. Any shares owned by ordinary members-that is, members other than said Porphyry- are non- transferable. They cannot be sold outside the club or inherited. On the death of a member, his share reverts to the club, where it remains in a share-pool till such time as a new member is elected who must purchase his qualifying
