Armadillo by William Boyd Page A

apparently tethered trajectories.
    ‘Bloody marvellous!’ Hogg shouted from across the square, and gave the juggler the thumbs up. Lorimer saw him rise to his feet and stride off without a backward glance. Sighing, Lorimer followed briskly but had still not caught him up by the time he entered a modern pub set incongruously in the corner of an office block with a good view of the giant ochrous waffle iron of the Broad-gate Centre opposite.
    Inside, the pub smelt of old beer and yesterday’s cigarette smoke. A row of lurid computer games winked and clattered, thundered and swooshed, trying to entice players, the technobarrage competing successfully with some jazzy orchestral muzak emanating from somewhere or other. Hogg was having a pint of pale, frothy lager drawn for him.
    ‘What’ll it be, Lorimer?’
    ‘Mineral water. Fizzy’
    ‘Have a proper drink, for God’s sake.’
    ‘Half of cider, then.’
    ‘Jesus Christ. Sometimes I despair, Lorimer.’
    They carried their drinks as far away as possible from the squawking and beeping machines. Hogg drank two-thirds of his pint in four huge swallows, wiped his mouth and lit a cigarette. Neither of them removed their coats – the vile pub was cold as well.
    ‘OK, let’s have it,’ Hogg said.
    ‘Standard torching. The subcontractors were running late, facing a big penalty, so they started a fire in the gymnasium. It must have got out of control. There was no way they wanted to destroy five floors and all the rest.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘So I still can’t see 27 million quid’s worth of damage. I’m not an expert but the place wasn’t trading, wasn’t finished. I can’t see why the claim is so large.’
    Hogg reached inside his coat and drew out a folded photocopy and handed it to Lorimer.
    ‘Because the place is insured for 80 million.’
    Lorimer unfolded the copy of the original Fortress Sure policy and leafed through it. He could not make out the signature on the final page.
    Lorimer pointed at the scrawl. ‘Who’s that?’
    Hogg drained his pint and stood up, ready to fetch another.
    ‘Torquil Helvoir-Jayne,’ he said, and headed for the bar.
    He came back with a packet of beef and horseradish crisps and another foamy pint. He munched at the crisps carelessly, causing a small shrapnel fall to dust his coat front. He swilled lager round his clogged teeth.
    ‘So Torquil over-insured.’
    ‘Way over.’
    ‘Big premium. They were prepared to pay’
    ‘Everything was dandy until those arseholes started their fire.’
    ‘It’ll be a hard job proving it,’ Lorimer said, guardedly. ‘Those guys, Rintoul and Edmund, there’s a kind of desperation there. Semi-nuclear, I would say’
    ‘It’s not their problem – or rather,’ Hogg corrected himself, ‘let’s make it Gale-Harlequin’s problem. Pass the buck. Say we suspect foul play and won’t cough up.’
    ‘We’ll have to pay something.’
    ‘I know,’ Hogg said venomously. ‘As long as it’s nowhere near 27 mil. Pitch it low, Lorimer.’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Well… I’ve never done anything this size. We could be talking millions of pounds.’
    ‘I hope we are, Lorimer. Big bonus for you, my son. Big day for GGH. Big smiles at Fortress Sure.’
    Lorimer thought about this a moment.
    ‘Torquil has fucked up,’ Lorimer said, reflectively.
    ‘Big time,’ Hogg said, with almost glee, ‘and we have to pull the baby out of the burning bush.’
    Lorimer admired both the mixed metaphor and the use of the first person plural.
    ‘Go to Gale-Harlequin,’ Hogg said. ‘Tell them we suspect arson. Police, fire brigade, inspectors, hearings, eventual prosecutions. Could take years. Years.’
    ‘They won’t be happy’
    ‘It’s a war, Lorimer. They know it. We know it.’
    ‘They paid the big premium.’
    ‘They’re property developers. My heart bleeds.’
    Despite his instinctive alarm Lorimer felt his heart quicken at the prospect. Applying the arcane formulae that calculated,