1998 - Armadillo by William Boyd

Author:William Boyd
Format: epub

—The Book of Transfiguration

There was something grubbily attractive about the sullen girl who opened the door to him at DW Management Ltd in Charlotte Street, Lorimer had to admit. Perhaps it was just her extreme youth—eighteen or nineteen—perhaps it was the deliberately botched peroxide job on her short hair, or the tightness of the leopardskin print T-shirt she was wearing, or the three brass rings piercing her left eyebrow, or the fact that she was simultaneously smoking and chewing gum? Whatever it was, she exuded a cut-price, transient allure that briefly stirred him, along with a combination of latent aggression and a massive weariness. There were many minor skirmishes ahead, he sensed, only counter-aggression would work here; politesse and civility were a waste of time.

“Yeah?” she said.

“Enrico Murphy.” He added a hint of urban twang to his voice.

“Not here.”

“This is DW Management, yeah?”

“Ceased trading. I’m packing up.”

Lorimer looked around, concealing his surprise: he had assumed the office was simply a mess but he began to see traces of order amongst the mess, some documents piled, some pot plants in a cardboard box.

“Well, well,” Lorimer said, looking her in the eye. “Turn up for the books.”

“Yeah, brilliant.” She wandered back to the reception desk. “David fired him, Sat’day.”

Everybody getting the bum’s rush, Lorimer thought. “Where is Enrico, anyway?”

“Hawaii.” She dropped her cigarette in a styrofoam cup containing an inch of cold tea.

“All right for some, eh?”

She twiddled with a fine gold chain at her neck. “He must’ve been in here at the weekend—took a lot of files, took the platinum discs.” She pointed at some darker rectangles marking the hessian walls. “Even the fucking phones’re dead.”

“Enrico do this?”

“No, David. Thought I’d nick ‘em, I suppose. Haven’t been paid yet this month, see.”

“Who’s the new manager, then?”

“He’s doing his own management now. From home.”

Lorimer thought: there were always other ways, of course, but this was probably quickest. He took out his wallet and counted out five twenty pound notes on to the desk in front of her, then picked up a pen and a sheet of notepaper and placed them on top of the notes.

“I just need his phone number, thanks very much.”

He looked down at the dark cutting her parting made in her white-blonde hair as she bent her head to scribble the figures on the sheet of paper. He wondered about this young girl’s life, what had brought her here, what path it would take now. He wondered what Flavia Malinverno was doing today.

8. Insurance. Insurance exists to substitute reasonable foresight and confidence in a world dominated by apprehension and blind chance. This has a supreme social value.

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