Armadillo by William Boyd

own), bead-swagged with a flower tattooed on her throat. In one of the booths down the side was the obligatory lost-waif couple, two chalk-faced girls, black-clad, talking worriedly in furious whispers – too young, in trouble, pimp-fodder. And behind them a man smoking a tiny pipe who looked like a member of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, tangle-haired with big muddy shoes, unshaven, wearing a collarless shirt and baggy corduroy suit. At the counter two unnaturally tall girls were smoking and paying. Breastless, hipless, they had swan necks and tiny heads – models, he assumed, there must be an agency near by – they drifted in and out of the Matisse all day, these lanky, freakish females, not beautiful, just differently made from all the other women in the world. All human life ventured into the smoky interior of the Matisse at some stage; if you sat long enough you would see everyone, every prototype the human species had to offer, every product of the gene pool, rich or poor, blessed or afflicted – which was the key to the place’s strange and enduring allure, in his opinion. Even he, he realized, must sometimes attract such idle speculation – who is the quiet young man in the pin-stripe suit? A journalist on an upmarket weekly? A lawyer? A Eurobond dealer? – with his dry cleaning and pile of newsprint.
    ‘Fancy a drink this evening? Torquil asked, leaning round Lorimer’s office door. Then coming in and mooching about as they talked, fingering a picture frame (Paul Klee) and leaving it a degree or two awry, touching the leaves of his potted plants, drumming a rhythm on the flat top of his PC.
    ‘Great,’ Lorimer said with scant enthusiasm.
    ‘Where is everybody?’ Torquil said. ‘Haven’t seen you for days. Never known an office like it, all this coming and going.’
    ‘We’re all on various jobs,’ Lorimer explained. ‘All over the place. Dymphna’s in Dubai, Shane’s in Exeter, Ian’s in Glasgow –’
    ‘I don’t think our Dymphna likes me at all,’ Torquil said, then grinned. ‘A cross I shall just have to bear. What’re you up to?’
    ‘Tidying up a few things,’ Lorimer said ambiguously – Hogg was very against discussion of their respective adjustments.
    ‘Hogg’s given me this Dupree job to finish off. Seems pretty straightforward. Paperwork, really.’
    ‘Well, it is, now that he’s dead.’
    ‘Topped himself, didn’t he?’
    ‘It happens. They think their world has been destroyed, and, well…’ He changed the subject. ‘Look, I’ve got an appointment with Hogg. Where shall we meet?’
    ‘El Hombre Guapo? You know, Clerkenwell Road? Six?’
    ‘See you there.’
    ‘Don’t mind if I bring someone along, do you?’
    Hogg was standing, scarfed and coated, in the middle of his orange carpet.
    ‘Am I late?’ Lorimer asked, perplexed.
    ‘See you in Finsbury Circus, in ten minutes. I’m going out the back way, give me five minutes. Leave by the front door – and don’t tell Helvoir-Jayne.’
    Hogg was sitting on a bench beside the bowling green in the small oval square when Lorimer arrived, his chin on his chest, looking thoughtful, his hands thrust in his pockets. Lorimer slid himself down beside him. All around the neat central garden were the leafless plane trees with their backdrop of solid, ornate buildings with a few frozen workers smoking and shivering in doorways. The old city, Hogg always said, as it used to be in the great days – which was why he so liked Finsbury Circus.
    Twenty yards away a man expertly juggled three red balls to an audience of none. Lorimer realized Hogg was staring fascinatedly at the juggler, as if he’d never seen the trick done before.
    ‘Bloody marvellous,’ Hogg said, ‘sort of mesmerizing. Run over there and give him a pound, there’s a good lad.’
    Lorimer did as he was told, dropping the coin in a woollen hat at his feet.
    ‘Cheers, mate,’ the juggler said, the balls still following their