the way out he picked up a letter postmarked from Grasse. He read it going down the street with Elaine.
Dear Douglas,
We arrived on Saturday night. The weather is perfect and this is quite a pleasant hotel with delightful view. The food is quite good. The people are very pleasant. at least so far! We have had one or two pleasant drives along the coast. Quite frankly, Richard needs a rest. You know yourself how he forces himself and is so conscientious.
Richard is very pleased with the arrangements we came to the other evening. It will be so much better to have someone to support him as there are so many Drovers in the firm now. (I almost think, quite frankly, the firm should be called Drover, Drover, Drover Willis instead of Drover Willis!) I hope you yourself are satisfied with the new arrangements. Richard instructed the accountant before he left about your increase and it will be back-dated from the date of your joining the firm as arranged.
I feel I ought to tell you of an incident which occurred just before we left, although, quite frankly, Richard decided not to mention it to you (in case it put you off!). A young boy in his teens waylaid Richard and told him you were a paid police informer employed apparently to look into the industries of Peckham in case of irregularities. Of course, Richard took no notice, and as I said to Richard, there would hardly be any reason for the police to suspect any criminal activities at Drover Willis’s! Quite frankly, I thought I would tell you this to put you on your guard, as I feel I can talk to you, Douglas, as to a son. You have obviously made one or two enemies in the course of your research. That is always the trouble, they are so ungrateful. Before the war these boys used to be glad of a meal and a night’s shelter, but now quite frankly…
Dougal put away the letter. ‘I am as melancholy a young man as you might meet on a summer’s day,’ he said to Elaine, ‘and it feels quite nice.’
They came out of the pictures at eight o’clock. Nelly Mahone was outside the pub opposite, declaiming, ‘The words of the double-tongued are as if they were harmless, but they reach even to the inner part of the bowels. Praise be to the Lord, who distinguishes our cause and delivers us from the unjust and deceitful man.
Dougal and Elaine crossed the road. As they passed, Nelly spat on the pavement.
Chapter 9
MERLE COVERDALE said to Trevor Lomas, ‘I’ve only been helping him out with a few private things. He’s good company and he’s different. I don’t have much of a life.’
‘Only a few private things,’ Trevor said. ‘Only just helping him out.’
‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’
‘Typing out his nark information for him.’
‘Look,’ Merle said, ‘he isn’t anything to do with the police. I don’t know where that story started, but it isn’t true.’
‘What’s this private business you do for him?’
‘No business of yours.
‘We got to carve up that boy one of these days,’ Trevor said. ‘D’you want to get carved alongside of him?’
‘Christ, I’m telling you the truth,’ Merle said. ‘It’s only a story he’s writing for someone he calls Cheese that had to do with Peckham in the old days. You don’t understand Dougal. He’s got no harm in him. He’s just different.’
‘Cheese,’ Trevor said. ‘That’s what you go there every Tuesday and every Friday night to work on.’
‘It’s not real cheese,’ Merle said. ‘Cheese is a person, it isn’t the real name.’
‘You don’t say so,’ Trevor said. ‘And what’s the real name?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Lomas, truly.’
‘You won’t go back there,’ Trevor stated.
‘I’ll have to explain to him, then. He’s just a friend, Mr Lomas.’
‘You don’t see him again. Understand. We got plans for him.’
‘Mr Lomas, you’d better go. Mr Druce will be along soon. I don’t want Mr Druce to find you here.’
‘He knows I’m here.’
‘You never told him of me going to Dougal’s, week-nights?’
‘He knows, I said.’
‘It’s you’s the informer, not Dougal.’
‘Re-member. Any more work you do for him’s going to go against you.’
Trevor trod down the stairs from her flat with the same deliberate march as when he had arrived, and she watched him from her window taking Denmark Hill as if he owned it.
Mr Druce arrived twelve minutes later. He took oil his hat and hung it on the peg in her hall. He followed her into the sitting-room and opened the door of the sideboard. He took out some whisky and poured himself a measure, squirting soda into it.
Merle took up her knitting.
‘Want some?’ he said.
‘I’ll have a glass of red wine. I feel I need something red, to buck me up.
He stooped to get the bottle of wine and, opening a drawer, took out the corkscrew.
‘I just had a visitor,’ she said.
He turned to look at her with the corkscrew pointing from his fist.
‘I daresay you know who it was,’ she said.
‘Certainly I do. I sent him.’
‘My private life’s my private life,’ she said. ‘I’ve never interfered with yours. I’ve never come near Mrs Druce though many’s the time I could have felt like telling her a thing or two.’
He handed over her glass of wine. He looked at the label on the bottle. He sat down and took his shoes off. He put on his slippers. He looked at his watch. Merle switched on the television. Neither looked at it. ‘I’ve been greatly taken in by that Scotch fellow. He’s in the pay of the police
‘No, you’re wrong there,’ Merle said.
‘And you’ve been in with him this last month.’ He pointed his finger at her throat, nearly touching it.
‘You’re wrong there. I’ve only been typing out some stories for him.’
‘What stories?’
‘About Peckham in the old days. It’s about some old lady he knows. You’ve got no damn right to accuse me and send that big tough round here threatening me.’
‘Trevor Lomas,’ Mr Druce said, ‘is in my pay. You’ll do what Trevor suggests. We’re going to run that Dougal Douglas, so-called, out of Peckham with something to remember us by.’
‘I thought you were going to emigrate.’
‘I am.’
‘When?’
‘When it suits me.’
He crossed his legs and attended to the television.
‘I don’t feel like any supper tonight.’ she said.
‘Well, I do.’
She went into the kitchen and made a clatter. She came back crying. ‘I’ve had a rotten life of it.’
‘Not since Dougal Douglas, so-called, joined the firm, from what I hear.’
‘He’s only a friend. You don’t understand him.’
Mr Druce breathed in deeply and looked up at the lampshade as if calling it to witness.
‘You can have a chop with some potatoes and peas,’ she said. ‘I don’t want any.’
She sat down and took up her knitting, weeping upon it.
He leaned forward and tickled her neck. She drew away. He pinched the skin of her long neck, and she screamed.
‘Sh-sh-sh,’ he said, and stroked her neck.
He went to pour himself some more whisky. He turned and looked at her. ‘What have you been up to with Dougal Douglas, so-called?’ he said.
