44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [13]
– everybody –has cut the occasional corner. It’s not as if I had made a report in bad faith. That roof looked fine to me, and I did open that trapdoor and look inside. Fulminating rot? Surely I would have smelled it.
Todd drew in his breath. He was still staring at Bruce accusingly, a gaze which was unreturned.
“If surveyors lie,” said Todd, “then whom can we believe?”
Bruce said nothing, but shook his head slightly. Self-reproach?
“You see,” said Todd, “when a client approaches a professional person, he puts his trust in him or her. He doesn’t expect to be misled. Hmm?”
Bruce looked up briefly. “No,” he said. “You’re right, Todd.”
“We rely on our reputation,” went on Todd. “If we lose that
– and you can lose that very quickly, let me tell you – then we have nothing. Years and years of hard work by my brother and, if I may say so, by me, go out of the window just because somebody is found to be misleading a client. I’ve seen it happen.
“And there are much broader considerations,” he went on.
“All of our life is based on acts of trust. We trust other people 24
Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs
to do what they say they’re going to do. When we get on an aeroplane we trust the airline to have maintained its aircraft. We trust the pilot, who has our lives in his hands. We trust other people, you see, Bruce. We trust them. And that’s why what you’ve done is so dreadful. It really is. It’s unforgivable. Yes, sorry, but that’s the word. Unforgivable.”
It was at this point that Bruce realised that he was about to lose his job. Up to now, it had been one of the little lectures that Todd occasionally gave his staff; now it was something different. He looked at his employer, meeting his gaze, hoping to read his intentions.
Todd’s face registered not anger, but disappointment. This confirmed Bruce’s fears. I’m unemployed, he said to himself. As of five minutes from now, I’m an unemployed (and unemployable, he suddenly realised) surveyor.
“So when you went into that building at No 87 Eton Terrace, you were doing so on trust. You were . . .”
Bruce sat up straight. “Number 78.”
Todd paused. “Number . . .” He looked at the file in front of him. “Number . . .”
Bruce closed his eyes with relief. Yes, there had been a flat for sale at No 87. He remembered somebody saying something about it over coffee. Todd had confused the two. Todd had now extracted a diary from a drawer and was checking a note. He closed the book, almost reluctantly, and looked up at Bruce.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “This is my mistake. I’m very sorry. I was mixing up two properties. You see . . .”
Bruce shook his head. “You don’t need to apologise, Todd,”
he said. “We all make mistakes. All of us. You really don’t need to apologise to me.” He paused, before continuing. “The important thing is to remember that, and to own up to one’s mistakes when one makes them. That’s the really important thing. To tell the truth. To tell the truth about one’s mistakes.”
Todd rose to his feet. “Well,” he said. “We can put that behind us. There’s work to be done.”
“Of course,” said Bruce. “But I was wondering whether I Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs
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could possibly have the afternoon off. I’m pretty much up to date and . . .”
“Of course,” said Todd. “Of course.”
Bruce smiled at his employer and rose to leave.
“A moment,” said Todd, reaching for the file. “Was there an old or a new tank in the roof space? Some of those places still have the lead tanks.”
Bruce again hesitated, but only for an instant. “It was fine,”
he said. “New tank.”
Todd nodded. “Good,” he said.
Bruce left the room. He was trying to trap me, he thought. One would have imagined that he had learned his lesson, but he was still trying to trap me. As if I would lie,