'Oh yes, Uncle Benderby,' said Timothy, and swallowed drily. Uncle Benderby terrified him.
'Your Uncle Benderby done some friends of mine some big favours. Like fifteen years,' Mr Smith went on. 'You know that? Fuck.'
Timothy didn't know it but he could see that Mr Smith had just nicked his nose. The situation was most unpleasant. 'I'm sorry about that,' he muttered. 'He's not very popular in the family either.'
Mr Smith dabbed the end of his nose with a blue silk handkerchief and hurled the razor expertly at the desk where it bisected a cigar. He got up and went into the toilet for some paper.
'Got a yacht called the Lex Britannicus? he said while dabbing his nose with the paper.
'Yes,' said Timothy, mesmerized by the performance.
'And your Uncle Benderby sails it out to a place near Barcelona for the winter and brings it back to Fowey for the summer. Then out again in September. Right?'
'Quite right. Absolutely,' said Timothy. 'It's an awfully rough time to sail. With the equinoctial gales, you know. But Uncle Benderby says it's the only time to be a real sailor.'
'He'd know, wouldn't he?' said Mr Smith with a nasty smile. The red-stained paper on his nose didn't improve his appearance. 'Well, you and Uncle Benderby ought to get together. Soon. Like you ride your flash bike down there with a present for him.'
'A present for Uncle Ben ?'
'That's right. A present. What you do is this...'
For the next ten minutes Timothy Bright listened to his instructions. They were very clear and to Timothy's way of thinking didn't add up to anything in the least attractive. 'You want me to catch the ferry from Plymouth to Santander with my bike and drive to Llafranc and meet someone who will have a package for me and I'm to put it in the sail locker on Uncle Benderby's yacht without him knowing? Is that right?' he asked.
'Sort of. Except you'll be taking something with you maybe so you earn your money both ways. That way we know you've done the job proper.'
'But this sounds very dubious to me, I must say,' Timothy protested, only to be cut short.
Mr Smith reached into a drawer in his desk and brought out an envelope. 'Take a look at piggy-chops,' he said and pulled out a colour photograph and slid it across the desk.
Timothy Bright looked down and saw something that might once have been a pig.
Mr Smith let him savour the sight. 'Right, you want to end up like piggy-chops there all you have to do is not do what I say. Right?'
'I suppose so,' said Timothy, who definitely didn't want to end up looking like that indescribable pig. 'I mean, yes, of course. Right.'
Mr Smith put the photo back in the envelope and picked up the razor again. 'You will get the ferry from Plymouth on the twentieth. That'll give you time to arrange leave from the bank. You're owed some. Like three weeks, and you're taking it.'
'I suppose so. Yes, all right,' said Timothy with a lopsided smile. The dreadful man seemed to know everything about him. It was terribly disturbing and frightening.
'So you do what all good yuppie stockbrokers do. Sell in May and go away. Here's your ticket and some spending money. Anything else?'
'I don't think so.'
Mr Smith picked up the razor again and smiled. 'Oh yes, there is,' he said and leant forward with the razor. 'And don't you forget it. There's this.' His left hand produced a brown paper parcel carefully tied with string. He laid it on the desk top and allowed Timothy to study it. 'Don't try and be a bigger smart-ass than you are. You'll end up piggy-chops and no mistake. And this is your present for the Pedro other end. Lose it and...You better keep this picture for a reminder like.' His hand went back to the drawer and the photo of the pig but Timothy shook his head.
'I don't need any reminder,' he said. 'I've got it all straight.'
'So where do you meet the Pedro?'
'Up the hill past Kim's Camping,' said Timothy.
'When?'
'I go past at eleven-thirty every night for three nights from the twenty-fourth through the twenty-sixth and he'll be there on one of the nights. But how will I know he's the right person?'
'You don't have to. He'll know you all right. He's got a nice picture of you, hasn't he? One of the nice "before" ones. He'll pick you up.' Mr Smith took the piece of bloodstained paper off his nose. 'Then he'll give you the article to put in the sail locker. How you get on board is your business but you'd better have a good excuse if you're spotted.' Mr Smith's tone had changed. He was no longer a foreigner and he didn't even sound very London. 'Unless of course you want to just visit Uncle Benderby, pay him a nice social visit. Nothing wrong with that. You do what you want.'
'But won't the...er...package I put in the sail locker be noticed?' Timothy asked. It was a question that had been slowly gaining shape in his mind.
Mr Smith shook his head. 'It will be noticed, and then again it won't. He'll have had it before. Like it's one of his fenders, see. Just like all the others. Nice and worn too. Identical to the one that went missing a few days ago. And in due course, like June, dear old uncle is going to sail into Fowey and you'll have been home and comfy in bed long before he gets here.'
'I see,' said Timothy, with the feeling that he was unlikely ever to be comfy in bed again. Even his father had admitted he was scared of Benderby Bright and said he found the Judge's sentencing on the harsh side. Judge Bright had several times given it as his opinion that drug smugglers and pushers should get a true life sentence without the possibility of parole. And it was well known that he had been the toast of the evening at the last two annual dinners of the Customs and Excise Officers Association. The prospect of stowing a fender containing goodness only knew how many kilos of an illegal substance in the sail locker of the Lex Britannicus filled Timothy with almost as much terror as the dreadful process called 'piggy-chops'. Not quite. Judge Benderby Bright was not a dab hand at skinning pigs with razors. Yet. It was hard to tell what his feelings would be if it ever came out that his nephew had been party to planting a fender full of drugs on him. On the other hand it was almost inconceivable that the yacht would ever be searched by the Customs officials in Fowey.
'You got nothing to worry about that side,' said Mr Smith, reading Timothy's mind. 'About as likely as the Pope handing out condoms in St Peter's Square.'
He paused and toyed with the razor again. 'One more thing,' he said. 'One more thing you got to remember. You go anywhere near the police, even go past a cop shop or think of picking up the phone, like your mobile, you won't just get piggy-chops. You won't have a fucking cock to fuck with again first. No balls, no prick. And that's for starters. You'll have piggy-chops days later. Slowly. Very slowly. Get that in your dumb fucking head. Now.' Once again the cut-throat razor quivered into the desk top and stayed there.
Timothy Bright left the wine bar at 8.15 clutching the brown paper parcel and with an envelope in his pocket containing five thousand pounds. If he did what he was told, Mr Smith had said, he would get another twenty-five grand when he returned. It was exactly the sum he needed to pay Mr Markinkus at the casino. That night he got drunk before going to bed.
In the morning he was late in getting to Bimburg's Bank. There was a letter waiting for him. It informed him that as of 18 May he had no need to apply for three weeks' leave. Timothy Bright had been made redundant.
Chapter 3
At his little cottage at Pud End, Victor Gould pottered across the old croquet lawn to his summerhouse-cum-study overlooking the sea. From its window he could look down at the estuary and watch the fishing boats and yachts heading for the Channel. In the normal way he found great comfort sitting at his desk, but today there was no consolation to be had there. He had just received a very nasty shock and he needed time to think. Mrs Leacock, who came to clean the house and see that he was all right, as his wife Brenda put it, had left a note on the hall table to say that Mr Timothy had phoned to ask if it was all right for him to come down to stay for a few days.