Mori started laughing softly halfway through this description, and by the time Jury got to the attempt on Flora’s life, he was laughing so hard people were staring.

“What’s so funny, Mr. Mori?”

In the middle of a choked laugh, Mori said, “Sorry, what was your name?”

“Richard Jury. CID superintendent.”

“Mr. Jury, people just didn’t get it. I don’t deny a lot of your description—he drank, he gambled—but won. What I do deny is the out-of-control implication. Tony was never out of control. He had control of everything he did. Tony was a fixer. You didn’t get that? A fixer.”

Jury frowned. “What?”

“You want an example? Buy me another drink and I’ll tell you.” As if he were literally waiting for the fresh drink before he gave out any information, Vincent leaned against the bar, arms out, hands folded. When the drinks came, he turned back to Jury. “You remember that Cholmondeley thing several years back. A decade back. Never ended up coming out. This British peer, Earl of I think Harwood, the younger brother of the Marquess of Cholmondeley, got caught in a call box out on an A road near a Little Chef. He was in the box with a young guy named Billie Whitelaw—

“Going at it. Someone took a picture, Harwood was still holding the telephone receiver.” Vincent laughed. Then he went on. “You imagine how Cholmondeley would have liked the family name dragged through the press and the courts if it came to that. He gets his bank of solicitors on it. They try to buy off Billie Whitelaw, but Billie refuses to be bought. My guess is he likes the publicity, likes the idea of a trial because he pretty much holds the winning hand. So the legals get Tony Servino to buy the kid off. No way.

“Tony finds out everything he can about Billie, looking for arrests, citations, anything he can use. Kid is clean as a whistle. Nothing. Nil. But in the course of looking at Billie’s life—what he hated, what he loved—Tony sees what he wanted was Africa. Apparently the kid’s dream is to be a safari guide. Safari guide, for God’s sake. Tony searches out the businesses that use them—the luxury camps, the ones in the bush and so forth. He looks for the ones less solvent, those in financial trouble. He finds a tented camp, a really pricey one in Kenya on the edge of bankruptcy, contacts the owner and tells him he can take care of the financial problem if he’ll get his guides to take on this kid as an intern. Well, that deal is easy to do; the camp has nothing to lose and a lot to gain.