Part 2 (1/2)

'No! They need to look you over, check your family and friends then move on to your bank balance, your tailor and your table manners. After that if you've got someone to propose you, second you and probably third and fourth you, they take a vote ...'

'Who's this they?'

'Some committee,' she said dismissively. 'And it just takes one blackball and you've had it.'

'Black ball?' said Joe. 'Don't like the sound of that.'

'Don't go vulgar on me, Joe,' she said.

'Sorry. So Chris is putting Willie up for members.h.i.+p, is that what you're saying?'

'So I'd guess. And of course if you want to get into the Hoo, then getting yourself proposed by Christian Porphyry is just about the closest thing you can get to a guarantee of success.'

'Because everybody likes him, you mean?' said Joe, who didn't find this hard to believe. One of the many perks of being a YFG had to be that everybody liked you.

'Don't be silly. What's liking got to do with it? Because the Royal Hoo more or less belongs to the Porphyry family, of course.'

'That more or less?' asked Joe.

'I don't know the precise details,' said Butcher. 'Just what I picked up when researching the family background. Know your enemy, Joe. You never can tell when some little detail might come in useful in court.'

Joe shuddered at the thought of finding himself on the wrong end of Butcher in a courtroom. Not even Young Fair G.o.ds were safe.

He said, 'OK, give me the history lesson, long as you're not charging.'

'I'll put it on your slate,' she said. 'Back in the twenties, one of the Porphyrys was so hooked on golf he built a course on an outlying stretch of the family estate known as the Royal Hoo because, according to tradition, King Charles had been hidden there in a peasant's hut during the Civil War.'

'And he was anonymous, so they called it Hoo?'

'Funny. I hope. No, it's called Hoo because that's what hoo means: a spur of land. At first it was for private use only, by invitation from the family. Then the war came and the course got ploughed up. When peace broke out, and the UK was once more a land fit for golfers, the old gang of chums and hangers on started pestering Porphyry to have the course refurbished. Only this was a new Porphyry, your boy's grandfather, I'd guess, and he was commercially a lot sharper and didn't see why he should pick up all the tabs. He insisted a proper company was formed and the Royal Hoo Golf Club as we know it everyone, that is, except you came into being.'

'With the Porphyrys still in control?'

'Don't know the contractual details, but I'd guess they kept a controlling interest. People like them don't give their land away, free gratis and for nothing,' she said grimly.

'So, with Christian's backing, Willie looks like a cert for members.h.i.+p? Good for him, if that's what he wants.'

'And good for you too, Joe. Maybe. I'd guess whatever trouble Porphyry's got, he did what the ruling cla.s.ses always do and turned to his old butler for help. That's OK if you've got a Crichton or a Jeeves, but all he had was Woodbine, who felt he couldn't help officially but tried to keep his nose up master's b.u.m by recommending you as a last resort.'

Joe tried not to show he was hurt but he wasn't very good at dissimulation, and Butcher, who was very fond of him, said placatingly, 'Look, I don't mean you don't get results. For G.o.d's sake, I've recommended you myself, haven't I?'

This was true, and the memory eased the smart a little.

'All I meant was, I mean, Jesus, what can you do in a set-up like the Hoo? You'll stick out like a ...'

She seemed lost for a simile.

'Like a black ball,' completed Joe.

This time she didn't reprove his vulgarity.

'Something like that. When Porphyry met you, didn't he say anything?'

'Like, hey man, no one mentioned you were a short black balding no-hoper with parrots on his shorts? No, I don't recollect hearing anything like that. Unless giving me four fifties and saying come and have lunch with me at the club is posh shorthand for I'd be crazy to hire a slob like you.'

'Joe, don't go sensitive on me. It doesn't suit you.'

He consulted his feelings. She was right. And in any case, it was too much of an effort in this weather to keep it up.

'Apology accepted,' he said.

'Apology? You going deaf too?'

That was better. Now they were back on their proper footing.

They chatted about other things till Butcher told Joe to drop her in an area on the fringe of Hermsp.r.o.ng that even in the full brightness of a midsummer day had an aura of dark menace.

'You want I should come with you?' offered Joe, glancing uneasily at a group of young men who looked like they were planning to blow up Parliament.

'To do what?' she asked. Then, relenting, she added, 'No, I'll be OK, Joe, but thanks for the thought. It's you who needs protection. I'm just going among the poor and the disadvantaged. Tomorrow you'll be mixing with the rich and successful. That's where the sabre-toothed tigers roam. Take care of yourself there, Joe.'

She got out of the car, lit her cheroot, and set off along the pavement, pausing by the terrorists to say something that made them laugh and exchanging high fives with them before she moved on.

Sixsmith watched her vanish behind the graffti'd wall of a walkway, tracking her progress for a little while by the spoor of tobacco smoke which hung almost without motion in the lifeless air. She'd be OK, he guessed. She was worth more to these people alive than dead. This was her chosen world. People like Porphyry and the other members of the Royal Hoo were the enemy, which was why she knew so much about them, presumably.

Not that Butcher was the only one able to identify the enemy.

The terrorists had begun a slow drift towards the Morris.

He gave them a friendly wave and accelerated away towards the visible haven of Ra.s.selas.

Tiger.

That night, with Beryl working, nothing but repeats on the box, and his cat Whitey plunged deep into whatever the summer equivalent of hibernation was, Joe decided to wander round to the Luton City Supporters' Club bar in search of social solace.

To start with it seemed a good decision. He arrived just in time to get in on the end of a round that most democratic of club chairmen, Sir Monty Wright, was buying to celebrate the close-season signing of a sixteen-year-old Croatian wunderkind. Word was that Man U and Chelsea had both been sniffing around, but while they hesitated, Sir Monty, who hadn't got where he was by hesitating, had dipped his hand into his apparently bottomless purse and said to the manager, 'Go get him.'

Joe bore his pint of Guinness to a seat next to his friend, Merv Golightly, self-styled prince of Luton cabbies but known because of his exuberant driving style as the man who put the X in taxi.

'Good to see you, Joe,' he said. 'But I thought you was on a promise tonight. What happened? Beryl give you the elbow?'

'Something came up at the hospital,' said Joe.

'Better than was.h.i.+ng her hair, I suppose,' laughed Merv. 'So how's business? Slow or stopped?'