‘Sorry, Joe! I shouldn’t have announced your rank just like that.’ She smiled sweetly at the other two. ‘You know what these war heroes are like! They do so hate to be reminded of it.’
Sir Montagu didn’t appear to Joe to have the slightest knowledge of war heroes or the war. His dissolute good looks were marred by a fleshiness acquired during a life of moneyed indolence. His thick black hair was swept off his forehead and plastered to his scalp with brilliantine. The dark eyes were bright and, set in a less bloated face, would have been handsome.
‘Just call me Joe.’
‘Monty. How d’ye do? Have some champagne?’
Joe caught the eye of the maître d’hôtel, who was discreetly lingering in anticipation of his request. ‘Have the waiter bring us another bottle. One of your best, Emil,’ said Joe with largesse, in the knowledge that it would in some mysterious way be charged to the house.
They settled to an easy and meaningless conversation. After the right interval, Joe politely asked Joanna to dance and Mathurin held out his arm to Tilly, executing, Joe noticed, a surprisingly skilled and energetic black bottom. Joe was amused to see that Tilly was playing her role with mischief and was quite obviously setting out to charm Mathurin.
Two foxtrots and another bottle of champagne later, Tilly caught Joanna’s eye and, giggling together, they began to make their way towards the powder room. Joe undid a button of his waistcoat and leaned confidentially towards Mathurin. His eyes flicked to the girls who were weaving unsteadily, arm-in-arm, across the floor.
‘God! They’re young!’ he said with a sigh. ‘Much too young for a pair of dissolute old hulks like us. Why do we get entangled?’
‘Are you mad?’ grinned Monty. ‘No such thing as too young when it comes to fillies, I’d say.’
‘Ah yes, of course. Your reputation in that quarter goes before you, old man!’ He gave what he thought was a convincing leer. Mathurin would have been very surprised to learn that Joe’s information had come that afternoon from a disgusted perusal of a file held on him at the Yard.
At that moment the girls stood aside, wondering whether to curtsy and deciding it would be inappropriate, as a tall and elegant woman passed them, returning from the dance floor. Joe’s eyes fixed on her and trailed her as she swayed past their table in a cloud of Gardenia. He surreptitiously twisted his head, the better to appreciate her lean but sensuous figure in its low-backed, clinging gown of some golden stuff.
He turned back to Mathurin, face blank, having apparently forgotten what they’d been talking about. Then, recollecting himself, he picked up the thread. ‘As I say . . . no rudeness intended, old boy. We all have our preferences . . . Man of the world, what? I must say I can’t share your enthusiasms though. I’ve sailed the seven seas, I know seventy ports inside out. Could tell you stories that’d curl even your hair. And, in the end, you know, it’s experience you look for. Experience and maturity.’ He gave a world-weary sigh. ‘No new chapter to be written for me in the ars erotica but at least I can try to avoid going back constantly to page one, chapter one. So irritating these little English girls!’ He’d heard much the same nonsense trotted out by Edgar Troop, drinking companion and brothel-keeper in Simla. ‘Just as well, I suppose you’d say? Wouldn’t do for everyone to go sticking his rod into the same over-fished pool!’
‘Look, is all this leading somewhere?’ asked Mathurin, his porcine features gleaming with cunning. ‘This is a nightclub, not a confessional.’
Joe grinned and leaned towards his target. ‘No fooling you! I see I’d better come clean! As a matter of fact, I do have a confession to make. It was not by chance that we were shown to your table . . .’
Mathurin waved a negligent hand. ‘Thought I saw a folded note join the others in the flunkey’s over-stuffed back pocket,’ he said casually.
‘I wanted to meet you. I wanted to ask a favour. It’s a rather delicate business . . .’ He hesitated.
‘You’re talking to the soul of discretion,’ said Monty, encouragingly. ‘A favour, eh? I often do people favours. You’d be surprised to hear . . . but then, as I say – clams are garrulous in comparison with me! But when I do people favours, I find they generally like to repay me.’ His gaze wandered off towards the disappearing girls and, Joe was sure, lingered lasciviously on Tilly. ‘Perhaps you would be in a position to repay me in kind?’ He smirked, happy with his subtlety.
Joe’s right fist clenched and, for a moment, he balanced the satisfaction of punching it into Mathurin’s face and hearing the snap of breaking cartilage against the distress such a scene would cause to the Kit-Cat, to say nothing of Scotland Yard. He flexed his hand and reached for the champagne bottle. ‘It would always be my intention to make an appropriate repayment,’ he said.