'Not clearly,' admitted Naysmith. 'I think it's coming back, but I'm not sure how much I'm being influenced by the police, who are obviously very keen for me to remember that it was Victor Montaigne. I keep getting flashes of Victor but that could be autosuggestion, don't you think?'
'Maybe,' said Joe, who was something of an expert on the way certain cops could keep on dropping ideas in your mind during questioning till you didn't know where your thoughts ended and theirs began. 'I did hear you say What the hell are you doing here? like you knew the guy. And we have established that Montaigne never actually left the country.'
Willie Woodbine was never backward in taking credit from Joe, so no reason the process shouldn't be reversed.
'Is that so. Good Lord. Victor! But no, I'll need to get my own memory back loud and clear before I can accept that, and even then it won't be easy.'
Good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon loyalty, thought Joe. Or Anglo-Saxon arrogant assurance in the infallibility of his own judgement?
He said, 'No one's jumping to conclusions, Mr. Naysmith. Listen, when you spoke to Mr. Potter on the phone and he said he wanted to meet with you because there was trouble in the firm, did he actually mention Mr. Montaigne?'
Naysmith hesitated then said, 'I'm not sure if I should talk about this with you, Mr. Sixsmith. Superintendent Woodbine seemed pretty keen I shouldn't discuss my statement with anyone but the police.'
Joe smiled. Willie Woodbine was a big card to play, but even the biggest bowed to the Ace of Trumps.
'Yeah, well, that's Willie,' he said negligently. 'On the other hand, old Darby is pretty keen I should get the full picture.'
For a second he thought Naysmith was going to challenge his right to sound so familiar, but, like a good - lawyer, he decided to play safe.
'Yes, he did urge me to be frank with you,' he admitted. 'All right. Yes, Peter did mention Victor. But only inter alia, among others. He felt the same distaste as I did, still do, for suspecting any of our staff or colleagues, particularly those who were, are, close friends. All he knew for certain was there were discrepancies. What he hoped to do before we met was pinpoint their source. Till then, little though he liked it, he wasn't excluding any possibility.'
'No? That mean Mr. Pollinger himself was on the list.'
'Yes, he was.'
'And Mrs. Mattison?'
'Everyone,' said Naysmith firmly.
Then why'd he ring you?' asked Joe.
The man's eyes rounded in a shock of indignation.
'Perhaps it's hard for someone like yourself to understand,' he said, his toothless lisp exaggerated by his effort at control. 'But Peter and I had been friends since school, we were like brothers, twins even. If one of us had been in the kind of trouble which could only be solved by big money, the other would have known. It's not a question of either of us being incapable of crime, it's a simple statement of fact.
We would have known. That answer your question?'
'I reckon,' said Joe, thinking, Fafner and Fasolt, the twin giants, big, lumbering, simple-hearted souls. Montaigne might be a crook but he had a good nose for character!
The door opened behind him and Lucy Naysmith said, 'You all right, dear? Anything you need?'
I'm fine,' said Naysmith rather irritably. 'And I really don't see why I should have to be treated like a terminal case. I always found when I got injured playing rugger that the longer you lay in your sick bed, the weaker you became.'
'Yes, dear, we've all heard about the time you and Peter finished playing a match and you found you'd got three broken ribs and Peter had cracked his femur. Oh shit. Sorry, I shouldn't have said ... Mr. Sixsmith, when you're finished, do come down and have a coffee before you go.'
The door closed. Signs of strain, thought Sixsmith. That's the trouble with the dead. You keep on forgetting they are, and each remembering is like losing them all over.
He said, 'Think that's enough for now, maybe, Mr. Nay-smith. Thanks for seeing me.'
'Any time, Mr. Sixsmith. The sooner they nail this bastard, whoever he is, the better. I hope to be up and about very soon, so perhaps the next time we can meet at the office. The further I can keep Lucy from all this, the better. It's always the ladies who suffer most, isn't it?'
This guy's upper lip is so stiff, it's a wonder Montaigne, or whoever, didn't bust his fist on it, thought Joe as he left the room. He needed a run-off, so making an inspired guess he pushed open the most likely door.
So much for inspiration. Not a bathroom but a nursery, all gleaming bright with cartoon characters on the walls, a cot and a rocking horse.
But Mrs. Naysmith had lost her baby and couldn't have any more, wasn't that what Butcher had said?
So this room, once lovingly prepared for new life, had become a memorial to a life that had never really begun.
'Oh shoot,' said Joe guiltily. Closing the door he headed downstairs.
'No, I won't have a coffee,' he said to Lucy Naysmith, thinking of his thwarted bladder. 'Got to be somewhere.'
'I hope that was worthwhile, Mr. Sixsmith,' she said. Implied was, bothering an invalid on his bed of pain.
