"You're rich, by the by," Ham blurted, as open fields gave way to suburbia. "Not that you were exactly a pauper before, but now you're stinking. Her father's, mother's, the trust, whole shooting match. Plus you're sole trustee of her charity. She said you'd know what to do with it."
"When did she say that?"
"Month before she lost the baby. Wanted to make sure everything was kosher in case she snuffed it. Well, what the hell was I supposed to do, for Christ's sake?" he demanded, mistaking Justin's silence for reproach. "She was my client, Justin. I was her solicitor. Talk her out of it? Ring you up?"
His eye on the wing mirror, Justin made appropriate soothing noises.
"And Bluhm's the other bloody Executor," Ham added in furious parenthesis.
"Executioner more like."
The hallowed premises of Messrs. Hammond Manzini were situated in a gated cul-de-sac called Ely Place on two wormy upper floors with paneled walls hung with disintegrating images of the illustrious dead. In two hours' time, bilingual clerks would be murmuring into grimy telephones while Ham's ladies in twinsets grappled with the modern technology. But at seven in the morning, Ely Place was deserted except for a dozen cars parked along the curbside and a yellow light burning in the crypt of St. Etheldreda's Chapel. Laboring under the weight of Justin's luggage, the two men clambered up four rickety flights to Ham's office, then up a fifth to his monkish attic flat. In the tiny living-dining-kitchen hung a photograph of a slimmer Ham kicking a goal to the jubilation of an undergraduate crowd. In Ham's tiny bedroom where Justin was supposed to change, Ham and his bride Meg were cutting a three-tier wedding cake to the fanfares of Italian trumpeters in tights. And in the tiny bathroom where he took a shower hung a primitive oil painting of Ham's ancestral home in coldest Northumbria, which accounted for Ham's penury.
"Bloody roof blew clean off the north wing," he was yelling proudly through the kitchen wall while he smashed eggs and clattered pans. "Chimney stacks, tiles, weather vane, clock, buggered to a man. Meg was out on Rosanne, thank God. If she'd been in the vegetable garden, she'd have caught the bell tower slap in the withers, whatever they are."
Justin turned the hot tap and at once scalded his hand. "How very alarming for her," he commiserated, adding cold.
"Sent me this extraordinary little book for Christmas," Ham boomed, to the sizzle of bacon. "Not Meg. Tess. Happen to show it to you at all? Little book she sent me? For Christmas?"
"No, Ham, I don't think she did — " rubbing soap into his hair in the absence of shampoo.
"Some Indian mystic chap. Rahmi Whoosit. Ring any bells? I'll get the rest of him in a minute."
"Afraid not."
"All about how we should love each other without attachment. Struck me as a pretty tall order."
Blinded with soap, Justin emitted a sympathetic growl.
"Freedom, Love and Action — that's the title. Hell she expect me to do with freedom, love and action? I'm married, for fuck's sake. Got a baby in the pipeline. Plus I'm a bloody Roman. Tess was a Roman herself before she jacked it in. Hussy."
"I expect she wanted to thank you for all that running around you did for her," Justin suggested, picking his moment, yet careful to preserve the casual note of their exchange.
Temporary disconnection from other side of wall. More sizzling, followed by heretical expletives and smells of burning.
"What running around was that then?" Ham bawled suspiciously. "Thought you weren't supposed to know about any running around. Deadly secret, according to Tess, the running around was. "To be kept strictly out of reach of all Justins." Health warning. Put it as the subject in every e-mail."
Justin had found a towel, but rubbing his eyes made the smarting worse. "I didn't know about it exactly, Ham. I sort of divined it," he explained through the wall with the same casualness. "What did she want you to do? Blow up Parliament? Poison the reservoirs?" No answer. Ham was engrossed in his cooking. Justin groped for a clean shirt. "Well, don't tell me she had you handing out subversive leaflets about Third World debt," he said.
"Bloody company records," he heard back, over more clashing of saucepans. "Two eggs right for you or one? They're our hens."
"One will be fine, thanks. Whatever records were they?"
"All she cared about. Anytime she thought I was getting fat and comfortable: pow, in there with another e-mail about company records." More crashing of pans deflected Ham to other paths. "Cheated at tennis, know that? In Turin. Oh yes. Little minx and self were partnered in a kiddywink knockout competition. Lied like a trooper all through the match. Every line calclass="underline" out. Could be a yard in, didn't make a blind bit of difference. Out. "I'm Italian," she said, "I'm allowed to." "Like hell you're Italian," I said. "You're English to your boots, same as me." God alone knows what I'd have done if we'd won. Given the cup back, I suppose. No, I wouldn't. She'd have killed me. Oh Christ. Sorry."
Justin stepped into the drawing room to take his place before a greasy slag heap of bacon, egg, sausages, fried bread and tomatoes. Ham was standing with one hand crammed to his mouth, dazed by his unhappy choice of metaphor.
"What sort of companies exactly, Ham? Don't look like that. You'll put me off my breakfast."
"Ownership," said Ham through his knuckles, as he sat down opposite Justin at the tiny table. "Whole thing was about ownership. Who owned two pissy little companies in the Isle of Man. Anyone else call her Tess, d'you know?" he asked, still chastened. "Apart from me?"
"Not in my hearing. And certainly not in hers. "Tess" was your sole copyright."
"Loved her rotten, you see."
"And she loved you. What sort of companies?"
"Intellectual property. Never had it off with her, mind. Too close."
"And in case you were wondering, it was the same with Bluhm."
"Is that official?"
"He didn't kill her, either. Any more than you or I did."
"Sure?"
"Sure."
Ham brightened. "Old Meg wasn't convinced. Didn't know Tess the way I did, you see. Special thing. Can't be replicated. "Tess has chums," I told her. "Buddies. The demon sex doesn't come into it." I'll tell her what you said, if you don't mind. Cheer her up. All that shit in the press. Sort of rebounded on me."
"So where were these companies registered? What were their names? Do you remember?"
"'Course I remember. Couldn't help bloody remembering, with old Tess hammering away at me every other day."
Ham was pouring tea, clutching the teapot in both hands, one for the pot, one to keep the lid from falling off while he grumbled. The operation completed, he sat back, still nursing the teapot, then lowered his head as if he were about to charge.
"All right," he demanded aggressively. "Name me the most secretive, duplicitous, mendacious, hypocritical bunch of corporate wide boys it's been my dubious pleasure to encounter."
"Defense," Justin suggested disingenuously.
"Wrong. Pharmaceutical. Beats Defense into a cocked hat. I've got it now. Knew I would. Lorpharma and Pharmabeer."
"Who?"
"It was in some medical rag. Lorpharma discovered the molecule and Pharmabeer owned the process. Knew I would. How those chaps come up with names like that, God knows."
"Process to do what?"
"Produce the molecule, arsehole, what do you think?"
"What molecule?"
"God knows. Same as the law but worse. Words I've never seen before, hope never to see 'em again. Blind the punters with science. Keep 'em in their place."
After breakfast they went downstairs together and put the Gladstone in Ham's strongroom next door to his office. Lips pursed for discretion, eyes lifted to the heavens, Ham spun the combination and hauled back the steel door for Justin to go in alone. Then watched from the doorway while Justin laid the bag on the floor close to a pile of age-honored leather boxes with the firm's Turin address embossed on the lid.