Chapter 12

From:
Holliday & String
Solicitors
7, Main Street
Chinfold Major
23 March

To:
Trask, Blaimire & Co.
Solicitors
1, Haymarket
Lower Newton Godfrey

For the attention of Mr Henry Blaimire

Dear Mr Blaimire,

Yours of 20 March to hand. This strange communication serves only to confirm the impressions I had already formed. However, I shall not avoid dealing with it and will comment first upon your accusation that my remark concerning the Nether Walford chess team is contentious. What nonsense! As for the implication that my statement might verge on the defamatory, you may wish to dust off your law books to answer that one. If you wish to make anything of this, you will have a hard time trying to prove me wrong. For a start, how does one go about producing a team of chimpanzees? I do not wish to overburden you, so perhaps you should deal with that before I introduce more complex arguments.

With regard to the proposed chess match, if I could stop laughing I would go into detail about your manifestly patchwork arrangements for receiving visitors. Is this the best you can do? Let me cut through the niceties and suggest that you come here, where you will find the facilities vastly superior to yours. I mean, really, kings of such disparate sizes, oriental sets and playing surfaces of folding cardboard. I don’t wish to speak disparagingly, but what choice do I have? Mr Blaimire, you are dealing with people of substance.

There would seem to be no point in beating about the bush on this one, so I now extend to you a formal invitation to visit us for a six-board match. Our programme is quite hectic but we have an evening free on 1 April. Shall we say seven-thirty? I would suggest an earlier start, but frankly I don’t think you will detain us for more than two hours or so.

As for sustenance, I imagine that for the kind of engagements you usually undertake, you carry your own snacks. On this occasion, you will not need them, as we shall provide refreshments in the form of burgers, fish and chips or, for the likes of yourself, cucumber sandwiches. I hope this does not offend you, but am merely thinking of your likely susceptibilities. If you wish to give us maximum notice, you may telephone me. I am almost always on duty from about ten a.m. until three-thirty p.m., though you may wish to avoid the lunch period – noon to two-fifteen.

I regret to note that you are a little sensitive about the age matter. Please be assured that it was not, and is not, my intention to cause annoyance to a gentleman who must be, as we are now obliged to say, chronologically challenged. If I may be permitted a playing card analogy, I will not speculate on whether you are in the jack, queen or king stage, but will hazard a guess that you are hoping that in your particular game, the ace is high. Need I elaborate?

Had our correspondence taken a more congenial turn, I might have been disposed to accept your offer of parsnip wine as an antidote to restlessness at the board. However, in view of our exchanges, I am inclined to wonder whether your apparently benign gesture might have Machiavellian undertones. By this I mean that I have indicated that my bladder is not what it was, and I believe that wine is something of a diuretic. Did your proposal arise from a spirit of amicability, or was it born of a desire on your part to distract me from the chessboard by possibly inducing my frequent absences for biological reasons? I will try to be positive by accepting the former interpretation.

As for your remarks concerning talons and carrion, words fail me. I can assure you that they will not do so when we meet in the Aytuzi v King matter.

Yours fraternally,

Lionel String Partner

Memo from area representative Stephen Rook to Aytuzi Finance Company Head Office 25 March

Brian,

I write following receipt of your memo and my interview with A2. It was kind of you to prepare me, but I can’t help wondering about the matter of my intake of booze when I visited Cedric King. Was it really necessary for you to reveal this to the chief? I mean, he couldn’t have known except through you, right? You said you were trying to watch my back. I am almost tempted to think that with friends like you, I need no enemies.

I took your advice and sponged my serge suit, polished my shoes and generally spruced myself up – admittedly not an aesthetically pleasing process for any observer, but there was nobody around. In the time available, I could not do anything about producing a moustache. There wasn’t enough notice to grow one and we don’t have any theatrical outfitters or joke shops in this area.

I don’t think the governor was much impressed. As you indicated, he did suggest that he might have to re-evaluate the merits of employing legmen. However, I think his attitude was tempered by the fact that I was wearing a regimental tie. Happily, he was too discreet to ask me about the mob concerned – I would have been unable to satisfy him. I think it might be a Green Howards’ thing, but wouldn’t bet on it. A2 is a tough character. He had that lean and hungry look – I thought of Cassius – which conveyed the impression that he was fasting. I reckon a noggin or two now and then would unwind him a bit. Still, if his attitude really has to do with religion, I wouldn’t understand, as I’m not into that kind of thing.

With regard to swashbuckling, I agree that one buckles a swash rather than the reverse. However, I am bound to wonder about a business ‘executive’ who spends his time on such matters. I hope you will not take my response amiss, but the best suggestion I can make is that you opt for pre-emptive action by consulting some people in white coats before they approach you. That way, you might get a more sympathetic hearing.

As for your comment that A2 does not suffer fools gladly, I will be charitable and interpret that in the widest context – I cannot believe that this was another stab in the back from my ‘protector’ at HQ.

For as long as I am an employee of Aytuzi, I will continue to do my best. More later.

Steve

From:
Trask, Blaimire & Co.
Solicitors
1, Haymarket
Lower Newton Godfrey
27 March

To:
Holliday & String
Solicitors
7, Main Street
Chinfold Major

For the attention of Mr Lionel String.

Dear Mr String,

Many thanks for your rousing letter of 23 March, from which I gather that combat is imminent. We can meet you on 1 April as you suggest. Your offer of refreshments is most welcome, though I must protest at the suggestion that we usually carry our food with us. We offer hospitality and assume that the custom is reciprocal. By the way, you will find that I eat as heartily as my team-mates. Cucumber sandwiches indeed!