NATHANIEL GOES FISHING
Divorces are nice little earners for malefactors. Husbands want evidence to use against erring wives, wives want evidence to nail errant husbands. Money never seems to be a problem – though men generally tend to be more generous than women, possibly because they are invariably driven by lust, and lust likes to deal with an open hand, whereas women pursue power, and power comes far more calculating. Fees frequently prove very large, and my clients always pay me on time. They soon get to learn how rough I can cut up when my mood is bad.
I don’t even have to do anything sometimes. For instance I pretty much flunked my last divorce case, but I still made money. A big tycoon wanted to trade in his wife of many years for something young and flashy. The wife had found herself a topnotch solicitor, the husband was having a tough time.
‘She’s going for equal shares,’ Jack told me. Jack is a private eye with fingers in all kinds of murky pools – that is how he knows me. ‘Her old man wants us to take her out of the running.’
‘Heart attack?’ I asked hopefully. Jack knows my powers, and I believe in doing my research. The pot looked pretty big: a major league construction empire, and any number of fancy homes dotted in smart places around the world. Harry Francis was pushy and smart, a man who only had to touch things to turn them to gold. Well, nine carat plated.
But Viv Francis was also as sharp as a scalpel. Some said even smarter than Harry. The couple had come from nowhere, Harry had started out as a bricklayer. Viv had talked him into buying Ministry of Defence housing as the Cold War ran down, and then Harry had begun hoovering up decommissioned airfields and converting them into dinky little industrial estates. Some of their money had also gone into urban renewal: posh name for slum clearance. Viv had prowled round big cities hunting out crumbling estates, mugged up on housing law, backhanded her way into some really lush contracts, and begun cultivating Society. A big detached vicarage in a pretty Midlands village had paved the way for summer garden parties, and then Harry had added a couple of shoots and begun strutting his stuff in rough-cut tweeds with a shotgun tucked under his arm. More recently Harry and Viv had moved into something very much grander, a real stately home, and begun flying off to exotic holiday homes in a private jet. All very plush. But Harry wanted to plan for the future, and the future threatened his wallet.
Viv had never had children. Some said she had deliberately stayed out of the family way to keep up with Harry: she was a good-looking woman, with a really nice shape – green eyes, copper-coloured hair, two really beautiful little bonanzas, and one of the trimmest pairs of pins this side of the Folies-Bergere. But to tell the truth, she was barren. Harry had lived with it very nicely into his early forties: everyone liked Viv, she was a wonderful hostess, and she threw the kind of parties people remembered with awe.
But then Harry had grown broody, and begun thinking dynasties. Viv could not help him, so he had set out talent-spotting. Being an ambitious and methodical man he had pitched his sights both high and wide, and found himself a princess.
Well, an Italian princess with bottle-blonde hair and a dodgy reputation. But princess is princess, we are all Europeans now, and many a high-spirited girl has had her wild moments. Harry and Daddy also hit it off well: Daddy owned a lot of property, including a fair-sized palace in Rome, any number of smelly slums, and was shaping up to cut a high level deal on decommissioned Italian airforce bases. Moreover he wanted his daughter married off safely.
However Viv stood in the way. Harry had tried buying her off with a couple of mill. Viv, who never believed in mincing her words, had told him to screw himself. She knew the numbers, and wanted them split down the middle. Half the stately home, half the holiday villas, half the construction empire, or the match in folding dosh.
Harry, being a greedy bastard, had fallen off the edge. Hence my private eye, hence Nathaniel. But Harry wanted it done clean, and quiet. So Jack had blocked my bright idea. ‘He doesn’t want any publicity,’ he had told me, watching me inscrutably through dark glasses. ‘Something to distract her attention.’ He had given me a funny look. ‘You might fancy her.’
‘Really?’ I had stared at a glossy print on his desk, twelve by twelve. Viv was a nice looking woman, but hammering her late forties. I have my professional pride, and mutton never tastes the same as lamb.
‘Have a look at them both.’ Suddenly Jack grinned. It was an evil grin, the kind that might make you judge him a malefactor. ‘The girlfriend’s a big shitty cow – she thinks she’s Lady Divine.’
‘But nice tits,’ I mused, because Italian paparazzi had taken some revealing pictures.
Jack had sniffed. He is a strange man, with a penchant for pretty little boys, and sometimes I wonder why I take his assignments. But he negotiates good fees, and he knows all the right people.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said, and tucked his downpayment into my wallet. I also took a good eyeful of his secretary on my way out, because she was a new recruit: a nice looking girl, with a nicely filled blouse, and a nice smile. I guess Jack employed her as a disguise. She smiled back, and I felt good. But I never mix business with pleasure.
I spent the next couple of days sniffing around. The story was simple enough. Harry had moved out of the family home – a pile of a place less than an hour by helicopter from the City – to squat with his new flame in something rather smaller, with barely enough room for half a dozen staff. Daddy was growing impatient and starting to come on strong, ranting about family honour. He also need to cut a deal with the Italian airforce quickly, using Harry’s capital and expertise. Harry wanted his divorce smartish, and hope to fund it from cash flow: now he was offering five mill up front and three big ones a year for the rest of Viv’s natural. Viv was holding out for six times the cash, and sod the income.
I thought I might pay her a visit: Viv was plainly onto something good, and it is always nice to have rich friends. I also racked my brains for a game plan – I might have a power to make her fall for me head-over-heels, but she was a sight too smart to cut thirty mill for a malefactor. Perhaps I could manoeuvre her into a nice little car crash, something fatal. Harry might have scruples about paying to bump off his missus, but fait accompli is fait accompli when all is said and done, and being a malefactor I often know what suits a client best. Then I could go have a sniff round the princess. I smiled to myself, I reckoned I was on to a winner.
However my visit fell apart right from the start. I talked an acquaintance into setting me up with a trip to the Francis mansion, playing an antique dealer hunting for some nice bits. He told Viv I had heard about the divorce proceedings and planned to turn up stuffed with cash. We both thought she might relish a chance to screw her old man.
She came up trumps with an invitation to lunch. But she was wearing dark glasses when her butler showed me into her drawingroom.
‘You must be Nathaniel.’ She smiled at me knowingly, and I was completely taken aback.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve heard a lot about you.’ I could see her eyes behind her lenses, but I knew I was powerless. I tried one of my classier love looks, just on the off chance, but it bounced right back at me.
‘You might like to give me a hand.’
The butler served a cold salmon and prawn mousse with a big dab of hollandaise sauce, decorated with more prawns set in fancy patterns and served on a bed of blitzed lettuce and shredded cucumber. Very tasty, and a couple of nice glasses of Sancerre to keep it company. We ate facing each other across a long table, and Viv kept blinking. She did not seem too happy with her glasses, and I suggested she might be happier taking them off. But she just laughed.
‘I talked to a friend, and he said you can’t handle them.’
I frowned. She was right, but I’m not keen on having my secrets spread around.
‘I want that princess put in the family way, before Harry can marry her.’
Now it was my turn to blink.
‘Harry’s making a fool of himself.’
Her dark glasses annoyed me. ‘I thought he wanted her pregnant.’
Viv winced. ‘Can’t you divert her? Tangle her up with a nignog? I want her to have something coffee-coloured.’
I frowned. Racial prejudice offends me.
She was silent for a moment, and then took a deep breath. ‘How much for a grave?’
I shook my head. I am a malefactor, so I cannot lay claims to any principles. But I only serve one side at a time.
‘All right.’ Viv sighed, and the life seemed to go out of her. ‘Tell him I’ll settle for a score, five down, and the balance at two year intervals.’
She looked really down, though I was not sure why. Twenty million is a nice little nest egg. I thought of cosying up to her, and relieving her of her glasses. I gave her my card instead.
Then I ferried the good news back to Jack. He got Harry on the blower, and the divorce went through on a rail. The princess’ old man took tea with the Italian defence minister, and Harry began learning Italian. He also moved the girl into the big house, and invited me to a celebration munch. I was deliberately vague about lunching with Viv: Harry put her climb-down to my magic powers, and stuffed a nice fat envelope into my hand.
The meal was good again, the same salmon and prawn mousse. But the house smelled strange. There seemed to be fish everywhere, and not very nice. Fish going off. It put me right off my stride: I thought of having the princess away, and changed my mind.
Jack filled me in a couple of weeks later. ‘Viv went back,’ he told me. ‘She asked Harry if she could collect her things. He was so chuffed at her giving way he left her in the house on her own with a couple of hired hands. Then the house began to smell. Soon it was worse than a bloody sewer. The princess flounced off back to Rome, he called in the decorators. The smell got worse, and worse, and worse. Then the decorators found the cause. Viv and her hired hands had taken down the drawingroom curtain rods, big hollow brass things, and stuffed them full of shrimp. The princess made Harry sell the house. He cut a bundle on the deal.’
I grinned wryly. Viv was even sharper than a scalpel. ‘Malice aforethought?’
He nodded. ‘I bet she had it all figured out.’
‘But he wins on the family front.’ I had been reading the tabloids. The princess was proud to be in the family way.
Jack looked vindictive. The princess must have somehow put his nose out of joint. ‘Rumour has it that she was so pissed off that she took up with a Yank for a couple weeks. Some singer.’
Suddenly I could see Viv smiling. ‘Was he black?’
‘As the ace of spades.’
‘Poor Harry.’
Jack shrugged. ‘She had a miscarriage a week after discovering that she was pregnant. She was out riding, and took a nasty toss.’
Viv must have laughed and laughed. Harry can hardly have been very happy, because news travels fast, and cows are cows whether single or married. But then vengeance is a really tasty dish, especially when savoured cold.
Viv called me a couple of weeks after that, she wanted to lunch with me again, this time at the Belvedere, a really smart restaurant in the rosegarden at Holland Park, very chic.
I was doubtful, not to say suspicious, but she promised to come without glasses, and malefactors are always curious. She was already there when I arrived, looking like a Botticelli angel in a simple summer dress of watered green silk. Nothing flash, but plainly straight from some supersmart couturiere. The Belvedere was pretty busy that day, and I felt proud, because all the women stared her away, and the men with them were straining at their leashes.
‘I’ve got a new man’, she told me over a plateful of blanquettes de veau in a butter saauce, this time with a Chablis – I always prefer white in the middle of the day. ‘He’s French, but he’s planning to tie up a big deal in Italy.’
Something about her expression made me look at her sharply, and I tried a little winning look, but it bounced back at me, and I could tell she was wearing contact lenses. I waited.
Viv was innocence itself. ‘He’s in the building business. Industrial estates.’
‘Airfields?’ I asked.
‘We’d like Daddy out of the way.’
I was a little shocked.
‘We’ve got a Sicilian on standby, he comes in really quite cheap. But bullets are messy.’ Viv might have been talking about tidying up a weed-infested flowerbed. ‘I thought you might like it, for a bob or two. You know Harry, you’ve met the princess. Think of it as a family picnic.’
‘Picnic?’ I echoed. This woman was plainly plotting big tricks.
‘Chop the lot.’ Viv had a strange look on her face, and for a moment I wondered whether she might have malefactor somewhere in her bloodline. But then hell hath no fury, and so on.
I had to refuse, of course, though she was offering good money – she could afford to, with a nice little nest egg.
I read about the helicopter crash a couple of weeks later. So sad. But of course Viv came up trumps – she was the kind of woman who always would. She married her Frenchman, and made herself a big new pile. I hear she has a beautiful chateau in the Loire valley. Maybe she will invite me to lunch one day. I just hope the menu includes no prawns.