Armadillo by William Boyd Page B

with a suitcase. Dark, seriously pale, chic, simply dressed, shorter glossy hair. Music soars. They run to each other, embrace. Lorimer was completely obsessed by now. Sonorous, throaty voice, caption fades up: ‘IN THE END THERE IS ONLY ONE CHOICE. STAY TRUE TO YOURSELF. FORTRESS SURE.’ Good God Almighty. But in the whirling, slow-motion embrace he had seen something that both disturbed and moved him in its serendipity. The slim, dark girl at the end of the cobbled mews. The girl returning to the morose hunk. He had seen her not forty-eight hours ago, he was sure of it: she was, indubitably, mystifyingly, the girl in the back of the taxi.

Chapter 3
    The phone on Lorimer’s desk rang: it was Hogg, bluntly ordering, ‘Up here, sunshine.’ Lorimer took the fire stairs to the floor above, where he discovered that the configuration of the place had been altered over the weekend: Hogg’s secretary, Janice – a plump, cheerful woman, with enormous green joke spectacles, iron-wool hair and a jangling charm bracelet on each wrist – and her typing-pool (an ever-changing cycle of temps) had been moved across the hall from her boss, and three large grey filing cabinets, like standing stones, were now parked in the corridor outside her new office. Rajiv and his young assistant Yang Zhi had also been displaced – neat stacks of cardboard boxes with cryptic serial numbers stencilled on their sides were being carried to and fro. The ambience was one of mild chaos and peppery irritation. Lorimer could hear Rajiv shouting at his secretary with unfamiliar emotion.
    ‘One sugar and a slice of lemon, isn’t it, Lorimer? Digestive or Garibaldi?’
    ‘Yes, please. But no biscuits, thanks, Janice. What’s going on?’
    ‘Mr Helvoir-Jayne moving in.’ She emphasized the ‘heever’ with some vehemence. ‘He needed a bigger office so I’ve moved, Rajiv’s moved, and so on.’
    ‘Musical chairs.’
    ‘I think that would be altogether more jolly, Lorimer, if I may be so bold. He’s ready for you.’
    Lorimer carried his tea into Hogg’s office, a large but spartan place, as if furnished from some 1950s, low-grade, civil-service catalogue, everything at once solid but nondescript, apart from a vivid orange sunburst carpet on the floor. The dusty reproductions on the ivory walls were Velazquez, Vermeer, Corot and Constable. Hogg was standing at a window, gazing fixedly down at the street.
    ‘If that stupid arsehole thinks he can park there…’ he said, musingly, without turning.
    Lorimer sat and sipped quietly at his tea. Hogg wrenched open the window, admitting a keen draught of wintry air.
    ‘Excuse me,’ he shouted. ‘Yes, you. You cannot park there. It’s reserved. You cannot park there. Do you speak English? Well, understand this: I am calling the police now. Yes, YOU!’
    He closed the window and sat down, his pale face dead, and took a cigarette – untipped – from a silver box on his desk, tapped an end a couple of times on a thumb-nail and lit it, inhaling avidly.
    ‘There are some stupid fucking bastards loose on this earth, Lorimer.’
    ‘I know, Mr Hogg.’
    ‘As if we don’t have enough to cope with.’
    ‘Exactly’
    Hogg dipped a hand into a drawer and pitched a green file at him across the desk. ‘Get your incisors into this. A right shagger.’
    Lorimer reached for the folder and felt a small hammer of excitement vibrate through him. What do we have here? he thought, admitting that this curiosity was one of the few reasons he stayed in the job, this thrill of unknown encounters and experiences ahead – this and the fact that he couldn’t think what else he might do with his life. Hogg stood up, tugged fiercely at his jacket and began to pace steadily up and down the length of his vivid carpet. He smoked his cigarette rapidly, with a small flourish, a little shooting of the cuff of the smoking arm as he brought the cigarette to his lips. Hogg, rumour had it, had been in the services in his youth;