Anansi Boys

“Grahame, at my bank manager’s suggestion, I had your figures and statements for the last decade independently audited. From back when Morris was still alive. You can look at them if you like. The numbers don’t work. None of them. I thought I’d talk to you about it before I called in the police. In Morris’s memory, I felt I owed you that.”

“You do indeed,” agreed Grahame Coats, smooth as a snake in a butter churn. “Indeed you do.”

“Well?” Maeve Livingstone raised one perfect eyebrow. Her expression was not reassuring. Grahame Coats liked her better in his imagination.

“I’m afraid we’ve had a rogue employee at the Grahame Coats Agency for quite a while, Maeve. I actually called in the police myself, last week, when I realized that something was amiss. The long arm of the law is already investigating. Due to the illustrious nature of several of the clients of the Grahame Coats Agency—yourself among them—the police are keeping this as quiet as possible, and who can blame them?” She did not seem as mollified as he had hoped. He tried another tack. “They have high hopes of recovering much, if not all, of the money.”

Maeve nodded. Grahame Coats relaxed, but only a little.

“Can I ask which employee?”

“Charles Nancy. I have to say I trusted him implicitly. It came as quite a shock.”

“Oh. He’s sweet.”

“Appearances,” pointed out Grahame Coats, “can be deceptive.”

She smiled then, and a very sweet smile it was. “It won’t wash, Grahame. This has been going on for yonks. Since long before Charles Nancy started here. Probably since before my time. Morris absolutely trusted you, and you stole from him. And now you’re trying to tell me that you’re hoping to frame one of your employees—or blame one of your confederates—well, it won’t wash.”

“No,” said Grahame Coats, contritely. “Sorry.”

She picked up the sheaf of papers. “Out of interest,” she said, “how much do you think you got from Morris and me over the years? I make it about three million quid.”

“Ah.” He was not smiling at all, now. It was certainly more than that, but still. “That sounds about right.”

They looked at each other, and Grahame Coats calculated, furiously. He needed to buy time. That was what he needed. “What if,” he said, “what if I were to repay it, in full, in cash, now. With interest. Let’s say, fifty percent of the amount in question.”

“You’re offering me four and a half million pounds? In cash?”

Grahame Coats smiled at her in exactly the same way that striking cobras tend not to. “Absa-tively. If you go to the police, then I will deny everything, and hire excellent lawyers. In a worst-case scenario, after an extremely lengthy trial, during which I shall be forced to blacken Morris’s good name in every way I possibly can, I will be sentenced at most to ten to twelve years in prison. I might actually serve five years, with good behavior—and I should be a model prisoner. Given the general overcrowding of the prison services, I’d serve most of my sentence in an open prison, or even on day release. I don’t see this as being too problematic. On the flip side, I can guarantee that if you go to the police, you will never get a penny of Morris’s money. The alternative is to keep your mouth shut, get all the money you need and more, while I buy myself a little time to…to do the decent thing. If you see what I mean.”

Maeve thought about it. “I would like to see you rot in prison,” she said. And then she sighed, and nodded. “All right,” she said. “I take the money. I never have to see or deal with you again. All future royalty checks come directly to me.”

“Absatively. The safe is over here,” he told her.

There was a bookcase on the far wall, on which were uniform leatherbound editions of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, and Austen, all unread. He fumbled with a book, and the bookcase slipped to one side, revealing a door behind it, painted to match the wall.

Maeve wondered if it would have a combination, but no, there was just a small keyhole, which Grahame Coats unlocked with a large brass key. The door swung open.

He reached in and turned on the light. It was a narrow room, lined with rather amateurishly fixed shelves. At the far end was a small, fireproof filing cabinet.

“You can take it in cash, or in jewelery, or in a combination of the two,” he said, bluntly. “I’d advise the latter. Lots of nice antique gold back there. Very portable.”

He unlocked several strongboxes and displayed the contents. Rings and chains and lockets glittered and gleamed and shone.

Maeve’s mouth opened. “Take a look,” he told her, and she squeezed past him. It was a treasure cave.

She pulled out a golden locket on a chain, held it up, stared at it in wonder. “This is gorgeous,” she said. “It must be worth—” and she broke off. In the polished gold of the locket she saw something moving behind her, and she turned, which meant that the hammer did not hit her squarely on the back of the head, as Grahame Coats had intended, but instead glanced off the side of her cheek.