Dead Men's s Boots

I took it up and swirled it in the glass, the rich aroma rising so that I breathed it in like an olfactory French kiss.

‘The crematorium,’ I said again.

‘Yes.’ Covington took a sip of his own drink, held it on his tongue for a second or two and then swallowed. ‘Why do you want to know, Mister Castor?’

Truth as far as it goes: the Galactic Girl Guides’ ever-serviceable motto.

‘Because of John,’ I said. ‘He changed his will only a month or so before he died, and his widow, Carla, doesn’t know why. I think it would help her to accept John’s death if she was able to understand what changed his mind.

Covington strolled back around the bar, setting his drink down on the way as though he was already tired of it. ‘And how does that translate into you coming here?’ he demanded. He walked past me and sat down on the settee, waving me to a seat opposite him that was only big enough for a quick round of three-and-in. I took the seat, because it gave me a few moments to think of an answer.

‘I was just wondering if there was anything special – anything unique – about the site itself,’ I said. ‘Anything that might have attracted his attention in the first place. It’s a long way from where he lived: if all he wanted was to be burned instead of buried, the Marylebone crematorium was a lot closer.’

Covington nodded, but he was looking at me a little quizzically. ‘That’s bullshit,’ he said at last.

His disarming directness caught me off balance. ‘In what sense of the word?’ I asked, gamely but lamely.

‘There’s only one sense of the word, Mister Castor. Bullshit is bullshit. Tell me what you really want to know.’

For a moment, flushed out of cover, I weighed the possible outcomes of doing just that. It was hard to read this man. Despite the harsh language, he didn’t seem angry: just matter-of-fact, and maybe slightly impatient at being snowed. Which could mean that he already knew more about this situation than I’d been assuming. Maybe more than I did myself: in spite of all my globe-trotting investigations, that wouldn’t have been hard.

I hesitated long enough for him to notice, but he didn’t seem to be in any kind of a hurry: he waited in silence for me to make up my mind.

‘Okay,’ I said at last, trying to find a way of putting it that got the essential point across without sounding ridiculously melodramatic. ‘There’s something going on down there. Something really strange, and really dangerous.