Zanna Martin came to see me the next afternoon, carrying some enormous, sweet-smelling bronze chrysanthemums. A transformed Zanna Martin, in a smart dark green tweed suit and shoes chosen for looks more than sturdy walking. Her hair had been re-styled so that it was shorter and curved in a bouncy curl on to her cheek. She had even tried a little lipstick and powder, and had tidied her eyebrows into a shapely line. The scars were just as visible, the facial muscles as wasted as ever, but Miss Martin had come to terms with them at last.
‘How super you look,’ I said truthfully.
She was embarrassed, but very pleased. ‘I’ve got a new job. I had an interview yesterday, and they didn’t even seem to notice my face. Or at least they didn’t say anything. In a bigger office, this time. A good bit more than I’ve earned before, too.’
‘How splendid,’ I congratulated her sincerely.
‘I feel new,’ she said.
‘I too.’
‘I’m glad we met.’ She smiled, saying it lightly. ‘Did you get that file back all right? Your young Mr Barnes came to fetch it.’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Was it important?’
‘Why?’
‘He seemed very odd when I gave it to him. I thought he was going to tell me something about it. He kept starting to, and then he didn’t.’
I would have words with Chico, I thought.
‘It was only an ordinary file,’ I said. ‘Nothing to tell.’
On the off-chance, I got her to look at the photographs. Apart from commenting on the many examples of her own typing, and expressing surprise that anybody should have bothered to photograph such ordinary papers, she had nothing to say.
She rose to go, pulling on her gloves. She still automatically leaned forward slightly, so that the curl swung down over her cheek.
‘Goodbye, Mr Halley. And thank you for changing everything for me. I’ll never forget how much I owe you.’
‘We didn’t have that lunch,’ I said.
‘No.’ She smiled, not needing me any more. ‘Never mind. Some other time.’ She shook hands. ‘Goodbye.’
She went serenely out of the door.
‘Goodbye, Miss Martin,’ I said to the empty room. ‘Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.’ I sighed sardonically at myself, and went to sleep.
Noel Wayne came loaded on Friday morning with a bulging brief-case of papers. He had been my accountant ever since I began earning big money at eighteen, and he probably knew more about me than anyone else on earth. Nearly sixty, bald except for a grey fringe over the ears, he was a small, round man with alert black eyes and a slow-moving mills-of-God mind. It was his advice more than my knowledge which had turned my earnings into a modest fortune via the stock markets, and I seldom did anything of any importance financially without consulting him first.
‘What’s up?’ he said, coming straight to the point as soon as he had taken off his overcoat and scarf.
I walked over to the window and looked out. The weather had broken. It was drizzling, and a fine mist lay over the distant sea.
‘I’ve been offered a job,’ I said, ‘Clerk of the Course at Seabury.’
‘No!’ he said, as astonished as I had been. ‘Are you going to accept?’
‘It’s tempting,’ I said. ‘And safe.’
He chuckled behind me. ‘Good. So you’ll take it.’
‘A week ago I definitely decided not to do any more detecting.’
‘Ah.’
‘So I want to know what you think about me buying a partnership in Radnor’s agency.’
He choked.
‘I didn’t think you even liked the place.’
‘That was a month ago. I’ve changed since then. And I won’t be changing back. The agency is what I want.’
‘But has Radnor offered a partnership?’
‘No. I think he might have done eventually, but not since someone let a bomb off in the office. He’s hardly likely to ask me to buy a half share of the ruins. And he blames himself for this.’ I pointed to the sling.
‘With reason?’
‘No,’ I said rather gloomily. ‘I took a risk which didn’t come off.’
‘Which was?’
‘Well, if you need it spelled out, that Kraye would only hit hard enough to hurt, not to damage beyond repair.’
‘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.’