Trespassers Will Be Mutilated

By Terry White

More from the irresistible Marcus Moon: civil engineer, wanton lover, and protector of all things 'Moon', especially when it comes to his long-suffering girlfriend, Charlie. With her attentions seemingly being diverted by upper class socialite D'Arcy Lyell, Marcus finds himself in and out of the country with a big Middle Eastern deal in the offing that could catapult his career. Not able to keep his eye fully on his prizes, he must ensure the smooth yet oily Lyell has his intentions nipped in the bud. Never one to be beaten at home or away, the gloves are truly off as our hero decides that there's nothing else for it: trespassers will be mutilated!

Hold tight for an hilarious, no holds barred battle as Moon fights his corner at work and at play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legend Press
• Release date: Sep 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781787190931

Terry White

This book is a compendium of rhyming and nonsense poems for children. Terry was born and has lived most of his life in Scarborough. Over the last twenty-five years, Terry has had many poems published to critical acclaim and he also has had a book of 60 of his own poems; 'Where the reflecting river flows' and his own life story; 'The lemon tree' published.

Book preview

fingers.

Chapter 1

D’Arcy Lyell carefully measured a dose of Oralfresh into a glass and rinsed out his mouth. Taking the flower-painted tin from the bathroom cabinet he dusted his balls with Lady Penelope Redolence’s Rose-scented Talcum Powder then carefully eased into his mother’s favourite dress. He noted that the fit wasn’t as tight these days since he had lost weight, and the zip slid easily up the side. Moving into the large drawing room he took the black velvet opera cloak from where it lay across the back of the chaise longue and knotted it around his shoulders. After a glance in the mirror to check that all was as he wanted it, he stepped through the open French window.

I read about it in the Daily Mail the following day; page four was full with lurid shots of him being scraped off the pavement by the ambulance men – well, you don’t bounce much from six floors up when you follow Icarus to eternity, even wearing an opera cloak. Apparently Ricky had been arrested on suspicion of murder, but the press had no doubt it was suicide.

* * * * *

My first reaction was how would Charlie take this? She had no affection for Lyell these days, but she would feel some responsibility, it was inevitable; she was that sort of person. I would have to handle this very carefully. I felt a pang of remorse that he had got himself into this state but annoyed that his action would upset her.

A selfish bastard to the end, was my uncharitable thought as I slung my bag into the passenger seat of the old MG and hit the starter. And how had this come about, I reflected as I set a course through the morning traffic to the office.

* * * * *

It was about a year ago on a morning very similar to today. The sun was trying to break through the early mist on that fresh November morning; a portent of a fine late autumn day. I was in a good mood; a happy, contented Marcus Moon.

It was Friday, my first day back in the office since arriving back from Egypt the previous evening. My report had been completed in the late hours of last night: the weekend approached, my projects were on track and, best of all, Charlie would be arriving back from the long weekend spent at her parents’ house in Gloucestershire on Sunday afternoon. At 4:57, the railway system permitting, we would be reunited on the platform at Paddington Station. She had taken a few days off from the hospital whilst I was in the Middle East and taken the opportunity to visit Sir David and Lady Prinknash at their ancestral seat.

The car swung into my slot next to the rubbish bins in the company car park at twenty to nine. Not bad for me, only ten minutes late! I gave a wave to Amanda on the reception desk and took the stairs two at a time up to the senior partner’s office on the top floor.

You’re alright, he’s not in yet, Marcus, his secretary informed me with a grin.

Well, that was a relief! I waved the draft report. I think he wants this a.s.a.p. but I haven’t had time to print it out; I only got back late yesterday.

Don’t worry. She flicked on her computer and held out her hand. I’ve got a few minutes spare. Leave it with me.

I handed it over with a smile of appreciation. Thanks, Janet, that’ll be a big help.

So that was the first task accomplished. I had done my bit. Whether anybody would bother to read it for a few days remained to be seen.

I wandered back downstairs to what was euphemistically referred to as my office. The fact that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would have prosecuted anybody who kept a large dog in there didn’t worry me. Tight for space it might be but it was my space – and it had a window overlooking the River Thames where the sunlight sparkled on the water.

It was that same view I was contemplating gloomily a few hours later as I pondered on the foibles of the fickle finger of fate. The sunshine had gone – in more ways than one. Great slashes of rain spattered against the small panes of my window. A biting east wind skimmed upstream tearing spits of spray from the top of any wave impertinent enough to rise above the heaving brown swell of the river. Flotsam swirled by on the outgoing tide, being twisted and turned at random by eddies and currents. That’s me, I thought, a mere piece of helpless junk floating in the capricious whims of the unfeeling river of life. They say that trouble comes in threes, it never rains but it pours and that lightning can strike out of a clear blue sky. What they didn’t say was that this lot can happen simultaneously to the same person!

The morning had gone well, no inkling of clouds looming over the horizon. I had nipped out for ten minutes to buy a small present and birthday card for my maternal grandmother, which Amanda, our receptionist, had wrapped and posted for me – I’m useless at that sort of thing. My parcels always look like a Sellotaped potato. Nothing untoward awaited my return. I’d read all the e-mails and the correspondence that had accumulated in my ‘In’ tray during my five days abroad and responded to most of it. No problems there.

Then the phone rang.

I eyed it warily then picked it up. Well, you never know. It could be solicitors saying old Aunt Amelia has finally snuffed it in Rio de Janeiro and left you half Brazil. Hope flickered momentarily.

Hello! Marcus Moon.

It was Amanda. Oh, Marcus, I have a Mr D’Arcy Lyell for you. Just putting you through Mr Lyell, she said, before I could respond.

Oh Christ, that was all I needed. I gave a silent but nonetheless deeply felt groan as hope hightailed it over the horizon.

There were a few crackles so I repeated, Marcus Moon here, sotto voce, hoping that perhaps we had a crossed line or something, but no such luck.

Ah, Moon, intoned D’Arcy Lyell, his plummy, well modulated, upper-class sneer well to the fore. Yes, Moon, he repeated as if trying to recall who I was. Been trying to get hold of Charlotte all day, but can’t obtain an answer, so you will have to do. Do you think you can pass a message on?

This was said in tones that indicated that he was extremely dubious about my capabilities to transmit a simple intelligence to a third party. However nothing was to be gained at this stage by being provoked so I replied evenly, Charlie’s away with her parents for the weekend, D’Arcy, and she won’t be back until Sunday night. Do you want to phone then?

No, I’ll be away myself over the weekend. House party, you know, with the Huntingdons. Can you tell her that I am giving a party myself on the 27th – that is in precisely three weeks’ time ... the implication being that I was also incapable of working out a few simple dates, and I want to introduce Charlotte to a few more dear friends in the art world who I think will benefit her, so make sure she will attend.

Charlie’s busy that night, I replied, flicking over the pages of my desk diary and fingering the blank page of the 27th, and then made the fatal error of elaborating.

I’m taking her out to dinner.

There was a long pause before Lyell drawled, Really, as if astonished that I could even find my mouth by myself, let alone manipulate a knife and fork in public. He continued in a slightly exasperated tone, Well, I suppose you had better come along as well, Moon. But for heaven’s sake, dress correctly for the occasion. There will be some very important people present and I do not want to create the wrong impression, so do try to look even half presentable, and try to behave yourself, there’s a good chappie.

This was nasty; a very underhand blow. I scowled at the telephone; Lyell had virtually ignored my excuse. I may just as well have made it up – which I had, I suppose. It was also an unkind cut to bring up the subject of my gear just because at one of Lyell’s previous functions we had turned up believing it to be fancy dress. It turned out it was a society ‘do’ to raise money for The National Art Collection Fund to save some picture from the voracious clutches of foreigners. Charlie had not seemed out of place at all in her outfit compared with at least half of the other women present, who were dressed normally, but there was no escaping the fact that dressed as a tramp with a four-day beard, holes in my jeans and a ripe kipper strapped inside an old sweatshirt, I stood out like a bulldog’s balls for the whole evening.

All the same, there was no need to harp on the matter for ever more.

I weighed up the situation rapidly and realised that Charlie would want to go. She enjoyed parties and sparkled at them. Well, I suppose a party was a party and, although Lyell’s parties were hardly laid back, he did provide some quality stuff in the booze and food line. Ignoring his comments about my dress and behaviour, I contented myself by saying, Don’t worry, I’ll ask her, D’Arcy. Goodbye. And then cut him off by putting the phone down.

I felt slightly uneasy about that conversation. D’Arcy Lyell seemed very confident, and appeared to take it for granted that Charlie would attend his party whatever the circumstances. Come to think about it, although we had known him for some time, Lyell had been figuring more and more predominantly in both conversation and presence of late. It was worth having a ponder about and so I pondered. I didn’t get very far.

I didn’t like him. Creepy! Too smooth, too oily, too tactile; he wasn’t what I would call a man’s man. Tall, thin, with puffy translucent features topped by wavy greyish hair, touched up at the temples I suspected, he surveyed the world with cold eyes through rimless spectacles supported on a long pointed nose.

Was he really making a play for Charlie? Probably! Who in his right mind wouldn’t? What exactly was he after? Sex? Prestige? Both?

It couldn’t really be that Charlie’s painting was the genuine attraction, could it? Good though she was – in fact I thought superb, but then I would. I loved her pictures. Bright, warm, cheerful, they made the room light up – a reflection of her – but not commercial class. No, definitely not something one could turn into a business. Pictures equally as good could be found hanging on the fence in most flea markets on a Sunday morning. Good stuff churned out by talented amateurs. You wouldn’t pay more than a couple of hundred pounds for one. It was only a hobby to take her mind off work in the hospital and, if it made her happy, I was equally happy to encourage her. Lyell was just using that as bait, dangling the promise of future fame as a means of drawing her closer to him.

So it must be sex. Jesus Christ, it was hard to believe that he could fancy his chances with her. Still, if he was putting his name in the lists as a potential contender for the metaphorical hand and extremely tangible other parts of Charlotte then I would have to treat him as such.

Still contemplating Lyell’s intentions I strolled down to the canteen for an early lunch with a couple of the other engineers.

On the second bite of the canteen’s metamorphic toad-in-the-hole there was an ominous crack. The third bite was agony. A quick check round with the tongue revealed a jagged edge, a cavity of Cheddar Gorge proportions and a lump of metal rattling round inside my mouth. Abandoning any further attempt to crunch the carbonised concrete that the cook had fused round an innocent sausage, and apologising to the others, I was returning hot foot to my cubby-hole to search for painkillers when I bumped into Hugo Elmes, the senior partner, on the stairs.

Ah, the very man! Been looking all over for you, he exclaimed. We’re having a meeting to discuss workload and want to talk to you about your visit to Egypt.

I’m just ...

He cut me off brusquely. My office in five minutes! and he shot off before I could say more.

So what was that about? It didn’t sound too promising as an invitation. It wasn’t quite, Hello, Marcus, if you’ve got a minute can we talk about your excellent report on your visit to Egypt, was it?

I was quite pleased with my efforts in Egypt. I had made some potentially useful contacts, and getting a foot in the door was not easy in that part of the world.

At the bottom of a drawer I found a packet of Disprin, swallowed a couple and strolled upstairs to the meeting. I was last as usual. The three partners were there: Hugo Elmes, Ewen Splutterbuck Jones, so nicknamed because anyone in his vicinity was showered in spittle when he got angry, and Hamish Robertson the dour Scot. There was one other person present; the other civil engineering Associate besides me, Ivan Masterland.

In front of Hugo was, as far as I could tell – I must practice my upside-down reading – the report of my visit now printed out by the efficient Janet.

Right, said Hugo. Now that Marcus has condescended to show up, let us start with the Middle East. He glanced round expectantly. Who’d like to start?

A further warning bell rang in my mind, but warning of what, was far from clear. But not for long. Splutterbuck Jones cleared his throat, eased his chair back a few millimetres and looked up at the ceiling. I looked up as well, but there was nothing of interest that I could see apart from a few cracks and the odd cobweb. Those certainly didn’t fill me with inspiration. They apparently did him, though.

I must say your report was very disappointing, Marcus. After all your sales talk to us about the prospects in the Middle East we thought you would at least return with a fee earning project under your belt.

He looked at me for the first time.

The practice has spent literally thousands of pounds financing your visits. That bid for the Ajman steelworks design contract alone cost over ten thousand pounds, and we have nothing to show for it yet. The practice must have some return soon or the haemorrhaging must be stopped, he added ominously.

Aye, growled Robertson, we cannae waste any more money.

Looking at his face reminded me of P G Wodehouse’s observation that it wasn’t difficult to tell the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.

However this was a bit heavy for openers. They all knew very well what I was doing; it had all been agreed months ago. I was the only one in the firm prepared to go out to the Arab world and see if we could get some overseas business. The others had all made excuses. I glanced around. Hugo was po-faced as usual; Hamish Robertson doodled on his pad scowling but Ivan had a smirk all over his face. Ah! So that was where this had come from!

The tooth throbbed like a priest’s conscience, lancing pain up the side of my face, but now was not the time for begging indulgence. I launched into yet another patient explanation of my Middle East marketing strategy.

We all know that the Arab world is not an easy market to crack, but they have the money and there is a lot of business there. One has to show one’s face regularly, make contacts, and be patient and persistent. My report shows that we have made some good contacts in Egypt as well as the Gulf .....

Ivan interrupted. How do we know that? You’ve only given us names. You haven’t provided any supporting back-up!

I’ve explained that in the report, I replied. I inadvertently left some documents on the plane when I was drafting it out.

Probably pissed out of your brain, muttered Splutterbuck Jones.

This was a bit delicate. I had to admit, to myself of course, that I had had a few glasses of British Airways champagne during the flight. I reckoned that I’d earned them. But before I could deny being pissed out of my brain, Ivan continued sarcastically, Mohammed this, Sayeed that, they’re not exactly uncommon names, are they? You could have made them up!

Thanks, Ivan, and a happy Christmas to you too, I thought. But again, before I could reply, Hugo cut in sharply.

Don’t let’s go into that. I’m sure that Marcus would do no such thing.

He turned to me. Still, it is disappointing that you didn’t bring a project back. The firm cannot afford to go on funding these trips indefinitely. Ivan thinks that we would be better off spending the time and money going for design work in the European Union. It’s closer and cheaper.

I threw in my last argument.

Look, the Brits are still well thought of in the Middle East because we do a good job. That doesn’t mean that we will automatically get work, but it does give us an edge in competition. Whereas in the EU the competition is ferocious, the French have cleverly positioned themselves to pick off the cream, and the whole thing is a bureaucratic nightmare.

There was a momentary pause, and then Hugo nodded.

Okay, Marcus, we’ll give it a few more weeks, but we must see some action by then.

The or else was left unspoken, but nevertheless hung heavily in the air for all present to appreciate. The others nodded agreement – except Ivan who was busying himself recording the deadline for the minutes, nailing my feet to the floor.

The meeting passed on to other matters; my toothache was getting worse, so my part was somewhat circumscribed. Eventually they decided to call it a day and I was allowed to repair to my hutch to consider matters in order of priority.

First the tooth. I couldn’t think straight until that was sorted out. And I would certainly have to do something about that before Charlie arrived back home. That reunion was not going to be prejudiced by a mere molar. You can’t concentrate on the finer points of foreplay if the top of your head is going to throb off. I scanned the contents of the top drawer of my desk hopefully, wondering in desperation which, if any, of the instruments lying there would, when poked into the pulsating cavity, relieve the pain even slightly. A letter opener – too large; the spike from a pair of compasses – too sharp; a 3H pencil – too dirty. Why the hell a 3H pencil? What about a 2B, or an HB, or even a purple crayon – my God, I was starting to ramble. Did dental caries affect the brain if left untreated for three hours? Panicking, I reached hastily for the phone.

Amanda, do me a big favour and get me the National Dental Hospital as soon as possible, please.

Business or pleasure?

I choked. Well, it certainly isn’t pleasure, I can tell you that. I feel as if my jaw is going to drop off.

You poor soul! I’ll call you back in a minute.

I weighed up the pencils again whilst waiting for the call. Maybe one little poke with the 3H might work wonders. I poked and it did. I came down off the ceiling break-dancing like a demented Rasta, scrabbling desperately for the Disprin. The phone rang. I grabbed it, still twitching violently.

Yes!

National Dental Hospital, Brenda speaking, can I help you? she chanted.

Oh hello, Miss. My name is Marcus Moon. Can I speak to Doctor Tony Scales, please? It’s urgent. Very urgent! I tried to inject suitable pathos into my plea.

How do you spell it? said Brenda.

What, urgent? U-R-G-E-N-T!"

No, how do you spell Barkis?

Marcus, I said. M-A-R-C-U-S.

And to whom do you wish to speak?

To whom? That surprised me. Doctor Tony Scales, I repeated patiently. S-C-A ...

Brenda interrupted. I know how to spell Scales, she said with some asperity. You don’t have to get smart with me, Mr Barkis!

Moon. Marcus Moon. And I would like to speak to Doctor Scales, that is if he hasn’t died of old age by now, I added.

And where are you from?

I sighed. This could go on all afternoon. Well, I was born in York, but after a short spell in Birmingham moved down to London ...

She cut me off. Doctor Scales has left for the day – and it’s Ms, not Miss, she added coldly.

There was a click and the connection was broken. The dialling tone echoed hollowly. I sighed again, heavily. It certainly was not my day. Well, I’d see if Tony Scales had made it back to his flat yet. I punched out his number and was relieved to hear, almost immediately, the breezy Hello on the other end of the line.

It’s Marcus, Tony. Are you free to talk?

Salaam Babool, bringer of goodies to our newly emerging brethren in big white bird!

That stabbed deeper than the toothache after this afternoon’s performance with the partners, with Ivan sticking the knife in wherever possible.

Look, Tony, I’ve just had a long hard battle over the Middle East with the hierarchy of the practice and lost. I have rubbed up against your telephonist at the National Dental and lost again. And I’ve got raging toothache. I am not in the mood for a load of funnies.

Oh dear, oh dear; you do seem to be in a bad way! So it’s not the normal Moon sunny disposition that’s prevailing. What can I do for you – as if I can’t guess?

Can I come round tomorrow early and have this molar attended to? A filling must have dropped out whilst chewing lunch today, and when I put my tongue there, there seems to be a cavity that Barnum and Bailey would be proud to hold their three-ring circus in.

There was a pause, and I could hear pages being turned.

Mmm! It’s Saturday tomorrow, so I could do you at ten, but don’t be late, I’ve got a meeting with the Prof at ten-thirty. By the way, how is the gorgeous Miss Charlotte Prinknash these days? I wouldn’t mind filling her cavity any time! He gave a filthy chuckle.

All dentists seem to be like that – it must be all that nitrous oxide they sniff that makes them randy. I said as much.

I’ll give you a whiff tomorrow if you need help, laughed Tony.

I put the phone down. The Disprin were beginning to take effect and the brain function more clearly. I checked the office diary to see what I was doing the following Monday: I was due out in Essex at a Leighdon working party meeting to discuss the redevelopment of their town centre. No problem there. Clearing a couple of dog-eared reports off the desk with one foot, I made some room and propped both feet on the scuffed leather surface, leaning back in my rickety chair to contemplate. Not too far back, mind you; the second-hand junk with which they had furnished my office was not up to bearing too much strain.

So what of the day so far?

After a good start, a fucking awful afternoon, and D’Arcy Lyell hovering in the wings. It could only get better. I hoped.

So I had got a bit cheerful on the flight back from Cairo – not pissed out of my brain as Splutterbuck Jones had put it. Well, if you’re cramped in the back of a Jumbo in the middle row in economy between a large Arab lady swathed in a black tent who farted throughout the flight and an equally fat Lebanese who had been pimping for some sheikh or other, there was not much else to do except enjoy a touch of British Airways’ hospitality. The problem was, I had left half my notes on the plane, resulting from a slight lapse of memory.

As the whole purpose of the trip had been to follow up a bid we had submitted and to make new contacts; which I might add I had done successfully. We now had some very useful connections in Egypt but I had no idea who they were! I could remember one or two names but, as Ivan Masterland was only too eager to point out, Mohammed and Sayeed weren’t uncommon in that area. That was another thing. I would have to watch my back with Ivan; he and his wife were very ambitious and I had no intention of being used as a stepping stone so that he could cross the great divide between top management and the rest. He was the sort of person who was always first out of the taxi and last in the pub.

Now Lyell was entering my space again. That was all the supercilious bugger was going to enter as far as I was concerned. I switched the Moon brain to focus on this threat to my equilibrium.

So what did we know about him? Not a lot, was my conclusion. There was no doubt he was very successful, apparently rich and seemingly extremely well-connected amongst the arty crafty set of London’s West End. He ran a major gallery in Mayfair, and his disdainful features were frequently seen despising the world over the shoulder strap of some socialite hostess or other out of the pages of Harpers and Queen. Rumour circulating in the salons also had it that there were other more dangerous and disturbing ingredients within Lyell’s personality. Dangerous and disturbing as far as I was concerned, that is. It was said that he couldn’t get enough, and wasn’t choosy from whom he got it. He had that smooth, creamy, puffy, slightly translucent skin with the long thin nose and flared nostrils which could be indicative of a front-line brown-noser. Yet on the other hand more rumours, usually spread, I recalled, by middle-aged wives and widows of the county set, also maintained that under certain circumstances, undefined, he was a right little goer. Perhaps he was both, AC/DC. A little switched-on electric Lyell. Yes, well, he might be, but his nasty little plug was not going near sockets I was interested in. Anyhow, there was no way Charlie was going to fall for his painting ruse, she was far too bright for that and would see through him in an instant. She just liked the social life and, if I was honest with myself, so did I – to a point.

I rubbed my cheek pensively. What with raging toothache; an unjustified bollocking from the partners; with bloody Ivan sitting there wearing his self-satisfied smug look, twiddling the ends of his moustache in that irritating way of his, and sticking the knife in very gently just when the argument seemed to be drifting my way; and finally D’Arcy Lyell, I was not exactly feeling one of the brightest and best of the sons of the afternoon.

The tooth throbbed again, but with less power than before, when suddenly I had a flash of inspiration. It was like a shaft of sunlight striking through heavy storm clouds to light up a solitary hill.

Anwar Salati, that was his name; he was in charge of procurement for the Ministry of Roads and Ports in Cairo, and his sidekick was – let me think – was ...? Mohammed Mannai! That’s it! I dropped the feet off the desk and turned to the phone. Ten minutes later I had phoned the Egyptian Embassy and got both the addresses and phone numbers of these two guys. Today was Friday, the weekend in Egypt, but it was Mohammed Mannai who had introduced me to the others, and he would be able to give me their full names and more importantly their job descriptions and addresses tomorrow – Saturday being a working day.

A promising career at The Consultant Design Group, which had been looking distinctly dodgy a few minutes ago, may just get the kiss of life. It was a faint flicker of hope, that was all.

I grabbed the bottle of Disprin, switched off the light and headed off early through the rain, to the empty house in Fulham, to be happily self-pitying in private – Charlie being away. No doubt Ivan, in the adjacent office, would take note of my early departure and drop it into his conversation with one of the partners at some opportune time. Well, sod him!

Chapter 2

I would have been feeling infinitely worse however had I known what was happening at the other end of the phone line after I had cut Lyell off.

D’Arcy Lyell registered the click followed by the electronic burr of the dialling tone that told him communication had been unilaterally terminated. His lips tightened and his nostrils flared with annoyance. Then his mouth twisted into a thin smile as he slowly replaced the receiver recalling the outcome of the brief conversation. He had achieved his purpose and that was what mattered, that long lanky lout had accepted the invitation on behalf of Charlotte; or to be more precise he’d dared not refuse it for fear that it would upset her. He’d been compelled to accept. Lyell gave a scornful laugh. Don’t worry– he was not in the slightest worried, the matter was entirely under control and always had been. It was a pity that Moon had had to be included in the invitation, but that was just a temporary minor irritant, appropriate plans were in operation to ensure that Moon would not trouble him much in the future. And if he did dare to turn up inappropriately dressed, the doorman would be instructed to send him skating on his ear back down Portland Place.

No, there was no problem there. D’Arcy knew that he had him – he had him exactly where he wanted him, and one day by God the insolent Philistine would find out what it really meant if he tried D’Arcy Lyell’s patience too far with his futile attempts at humour. But that could always come later, when he had got what he wanted – and D’Arcy always got what he wanted. His preparations had begun many months ago after Doctor Charlotte Prinknash and her talents first came to his notice, and since then had been maturing satisfactorily.

Oh yes, he was going to win, of that he was quite certain. He smiled a sardonic smile. He doubted if the cretin Moon even realised yet that there was competition, let alone that that matter had already been decided. His fingers drummed on the smooth leather top of his desk as his irritation surged again.

He had always got what he wanted ever since he was a child, he was very clear about that. He remembered how the pressure would build up in his head until he couldn’t bear it unless he got what he wanted, and he didn’t like it when that happened. His mother knew that he didn’t like it, she understood those things. She knew that he didn’t, couldn’t, must not lose anything, once he had set his mind on obtaining it – that was the rule.

Stretching out a hand, he drew the large antique silver frame towards him from its position at the front of his desk.

The clear wide eyes of the beautiful lady looked adoringly at him from the rather weak smiling face set at an angle in the sepia-toned photograph. There was an innocence about her expression, but then that had been in her younger days before her face filled out; before the full lips became fleshy and the smooth skin became blotched; before the chin sagged and the once fine brown hair showed its lack-lustre henna tint. He had forgotten all those things now, his mother was to him as she was in the photograph, and he kept her with him on his desk so that she could learn of each acquisition he made, each possession he secured and each deal he pulled off, and appreciate with him just how clever he was.

You understand, Mummy, he whispered. You always understood me, not like the others. He smiled gently. Except once – just the once ... and the tears welled in his eyes.

A burst of nostalgia surged through him as he savoured the recollections of his childhood. The large old house in Kensington Square where he was born in 1946, and where he had spent his formative years. The huge rooms with their stately fireplaces, polished satin furniture, ornate plasterwork, beautiful chandeliers and above all the paintings.

He could recall the summer sun streaming through the tall south-facing windows, casting bright fret patterns on to the rich oriental carpets; he pictured the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams, contrasting with the deep mysterious shadows in which the pictures lurked. Sometimes scintillas from the rich polish of the inlays set into the furniture, sparkled on the walls and ceilings, reflecting light on to the rows of pictures hung on the dark panelling revealing the mystery. At other times all remained obscure but he knew they were there all the same. What depth of feeling they had stimulated in him from as far back as he could remember. And in the winter evenings, when the velvet curtains were drawn, the log fire crackled in the hearth and the individual electric lamps washed their warm light over each painting, his heart would almost burst with pleasure when they left him alone with his treasures.

His father had started the collection of furniture and pictures; he supposed he had inherited his addiction to beautiful things from him, but that was the only credit he would ever afford to that monster, and that was but a fortunate accident of genealogy.

After his father died his vapid mother had had her hands full merely to keep the house running, let alone add to or even appreciate the collection – that had ultimately been left entirely to him.

He gave a shudder of distaste at the thought of his father even now. There were no photographs of his father in D’Arcy’s office or home, he had burnt every single one years ago. He had disliked his father from as far back as he could remember, a dislike that changed into hatred with the development of his sensitivities.

St Pierre Lyell had been a handsome, extrovert, moustachioed, swashbuckling man; a man of shrewd judgment but boisterous manner. To the small boy he was over-powering, his very presence dominated every scene reducing the timid D’Arcy to fearful introversion. He disliked his father’s manner, his appearance and even the smell he exuded of fine cigars and brandy when he picked up the boy D’Arcy, bundled him about, and tossed him into the air bellowing with laughter.

Those were the things that he disliked him for, but he hated him for the affection that his mother bestowed upon him; affection that was rightly D’Arcy’s due, and which was being stolen from him.

One night he had awoken from a nightmare and cried out for his mother. The flickering nightlight, which was always kept burning in his room, failed to reassure him and he had screamed for her to come. She didn’t come, and the terrified little boy had crept out of the nursery to go to her, sobbing quietly as he walked the dark corridor. At his mother’s bedroom door he had stopped, puzzled by the noises he could hear, gruntings and moanings and rasping of breath. He had eased the door open and