Pix (Volume Book 24) (Harpur & Iles Mysteries)

by Bill James

  Whatever the children thought, if Sybil did come back as permanent he would clearly have to say a complete goodbye to Lowri, Patricia and Carmel. This could make them feel like they been on the side only. Hurtful. They might turn bitter and start talking around the city of what they’d seen of his special commercial interests while living at the rectory. They would know the haulage and scrap metal side of things was only part of it. Kiss and tell, times three. This could be deleterious. Also, the children grew fond of Lowri or Patricia or Carmel while one of the three lived here on a stint, and might get upset to know none of them would ever return, because of Syb.

  When the children went to bed he put the pictures back as they should be. Matilda had it right and the rectory did look like his rectory again now. Shale went up to the first landing where the slaughtered man had lain. There was still bad staining but, as Chandor had said, it could be just from an ordinary kind of accident, Manse thought. Could it? He examined the stairs leading down to the hall and found no spotting. They must of brought some kind of efficient body bag. He did another systematic tour of the house inside and out with a flashlight, and this time thought he found where they got in. A utility room window at the rear of the rectory looked to Manse as if it had been forced, though properly closed again afterwards. He could see small scratches in the paintwork, and even a little splintering. It puzzled him that he missed this previously. But perhaps shock had a hold on him then, and he’d been careless. Or, of course, they might not have entered by that window first time. Why would they change, though, if the earlier break-in had been so easy and undetectable? Did Chandor send different personnel for the second visit? Perhaps he was genuinely angry with the original people and replaced them. Manse remained mystified. He’d have all locks changed, but did not really believe this would make things fully secure. The children would ask why they needed new keys, and he’d find some answer that didn’t frighten them, even if he felt frightened hisself.

  Manse went and sat down with a coffee in the drawing room and really enjoyed that Hughes over the safe. Clearly, it was much, much more than a picture for hiding safes with, and Hughes would not of announced to the Brotherhood one day in the Pre-Raphaelite times that he’d just finished a work great for concealing someone’s gun store. But it did conceal the gun store brilliantly. Laurent came in wearing pyjamas. He said: ‘You’ll really have to get new wallpaper and new carpet on the stairs if mum is coming back, dad. She’ll be able to see right off it’s blood. That would bother her because she’s used to an ordinary sort of life now with Ivor. He’s got an ordinary job.’

  ‘Who said mum’s coming back?’

  ‘Did you change all the pictures around, so that was what we would notice, like Matilda did, and not the stuff on the stairs?’ Laurent replied. ‘It’s sort of funny, isn’t it, dad?’

  ‘What?’ Shale said.

  ‘Mum wants to come back, being fed up with Ivor because he is so ordinary. But she wouldn’t like it if she came back and something that was not ordinary at all happened, such as blood all over the stair carpet and wallpaper. Was it to do with the commercial side or –’

  ‘Your mother never said anything to me about coming back,’ Shale replied.

  ‘I mean, was this a death? It’s a lot of blood.’

  ‘Your mother seems to me all right.’

  ‘If Matilda or myself talk about Lowri or Carmel or Patricia you can see mum get like really sad and ratty. Well, it’s jealousy, isn’t it? Oh, yes, she’s wondering about coming back. This wasn’t Lowri, was it?’

  ‘What wasn’t?’

  ‘On the stairs. Did she turn up while we were away? Or one of the others? Did Lowri or Patricia or Carmel get awkward – such as showing she’d noticed too much about the trade? Women – everyone knows they’ll do some blabbing if they think they have not been treated right. In school we’re studying a play that says,

  ‘Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned,

  Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

  ‘Everybody has to learn those lines.’

  ‘I’ve heard of them,’ Shale said.

  ‘If Lowri, or Carmel or Patricia thought mum was coming back –’

  ‘Why should anyone think it?’

  ‘If you said.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say, because I don’t know if she wants to.’

  ‘But you might have said something that Lowri or Patricia or Carmel thought sounded like she was coming back,’ Laurent replied.

  ‘I never talk to Lowri or Patricia or Carmel about your mother. That would not be right.’

  ‘Or it could be that, couldn’t it?’ Laurent said. ‘You never talk about her so they might think, Hello, something secret’s going on and you’ll give them the push soon. Did you have a bad squabble with one of them and –’

  ‘I don’t want you telling Matilda the staining looks like blood. It would fret her, Laurent.’

  ‘It is blood, not just looks like it. Blood under sauce. You see, dad, it isn’t the kind of thing that happens in Ivor’s house. Oh, they’ve got sauce there, but it’s for food. If mum came back and saw the staining she’d say, “Can the leopard change his spots?” That’s another thing from school – the Bible – meaning you, you, dad, the leopard – you can’t change because you’re into that kind of life. I worry that that blood might be from Lowri or Carmel or Patricia owing to a quarrel.’

  At breakfast, Matilda said: ‘That’s blood at the top of the stairs, isn’t it?’

  ‘Blood?’ Manse said. ‘Oh, really!’

  ‘And someone’s been in my room. I can feel it,’ Matilda replied.

  ‘Tomato sauce looks just like blood,’ Laurent said. ‘Often they use it when they’re making films and want to do wounds. In that one about the shower when the woman is stabbed by the mad guy – you know that tall mad guy at the motel – and you see the blood mixed in with the shower water running down the plughole, they used tomato sauce to imitate blood. When I looked at those marks at the top of the stairs, I thought at first they could be blood, but now I think definitely only tomato sauce.’

  Matilda said: ‘Was one your friends here while we were away, dad – Lowri, or Patricia, or Carmel?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ Manse replied. ‘I had some ideas I wanted to run through in my mind, you know. Concentrating. I needed to get solo for a while.’

  ‘Did you tell one of them mum wanted to come back, and this made her angry I mean, Lowri or Patricia or Carmel, and there was a terrible fight?’ Matilda asked.

  To Manse it seemed like she wanted to continue, And Lowri or Patricia or Carmel got killed? But, no, that would be too much for her.

  Manse said: ‘I haven’t heard your mother wants to come back.’

  ‘It’s obvious,’ Matilda said.

  ‘Norman Bates,’ Laurent said. ‘He dresses up as his own dead mother and kills Janet Leigh.’

  Shale considered it really strong and kind of Laurent to try to soothe Matilda. That’s how a brother should be. But Manse saw both of them was very badly hit by what had happened here, or what they thought happened here. Although Matilda showed it the most, Shale spotted plenty of strain in Laurent, too. Manse hated the thought that suddenly the rectory had come to seem a threatening, dark place for them. This was not how a rectory ought to be. The house had a history of goodness and calm and order – one reason Manse bought it, and an important reason. Somehow he had to give back to the children that sense of goodness and calm and order. Matilda’s feeling about the jumbled-up pix, and her strange belief that someone had been in her bedroom, brought Manse a fine notion. He thought what he would do was buy her her own picture to hang in her own room, and a good picture, a real one, not some fucking wishy-washy watercolour or a production line print. This would create a really settled and steady feel to things. When she looked at the picture she would be able to think, That lovely picture is always there and wipes out for keeps by its true beauty the idea someone been in here lurking. Of course, he would do similar fo
r Laurent. You had to behave equal. In any case, Laurent might need it as much as Matilda. Boys thought they must act hard. A wise father should look behind this cover, though.

  * See Easy Streets.

  * See Girls.

  Chapter Two

  Iles said rather movingly: ‘An admirable and really mature thing about Manse Shale, Col, is the civilized arrangement for their children he has with his wife. They’re separated, you know – Manse and Sybil.’

  ‘Well, yes, sir, it’s in his dossier,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Mutual tolerance.’

  ‘You’ve been doing some research,’ Harpur said.

  ‘I aim to take an interest in folk like Manse Shale.’

  ‘It’s one of your major strengths – this all-round awareness.’

  ‘What are the others?’ Iles said.

  ‘The other what, sir?’

  ‘Strengths. My other strengths, major or minor. List them, would you? Indicate which you regard as major, which minor. I don’t like the sound of “minor strengths”. Are these your sort? Another term for weaknesses?’ They were in Iles’s suite at headquarters, Iles standing behind his desk, head half turned towards the window so Harpur would get the granite of his profile, but not a full outline of the Adam’s apple. Iles regarded his Adam’s apple as a bad let-down. He wore uniform today. He said: ‘I listen in to Shale now and then. And similar, of course.’

  ‘Listen in?’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s the least I can do.’

  ‘Unauthorized intercepts are –’

  ‘I authorized it, jerk.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but you’re not actually –’

  ‘I think the sod knows.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That I’m listening. Or that I’ve got someone listening. Shale talks code. A transcript here.’ Iles bent to the desk and picked up a thin sheaf of stapled papers. He glanced at them. ‘Manse can’t put two fucking words together properly and his head’s a jangle, but he’s crafty just the same. Well, of course he’s crafty just the same. Would anyone who can’t be crafty just the same get so he’s drawing £600,000 a year untaxed from substance trading?’

  ‘What kind of code?’

  Iles read some words aloud: ‘ “Items”. “Every one of them items is different from every other one.” What items? We’re not told. Just that “these items are items”. Is this communication, Col? And then, “possessions”. What possessions? We’re not told. Or “another aspect”. “Not just possessions missing. There’s this . . . well . . . another aspect altogether.” What other aspect? We’re not told. But I’ll crack it, of course.’

  ‘Many would confidently expect that of you, sir.’

  ‘Who exactly?’

  ‘What, sir?’

  ‘Who would expect it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, many, if not most.’

  ‘Humane. Adult,’ the Assistant Chief replied.

  ‘What is, sir?’

  ‘The way they share duties to the children, Shale and Syb. The decencies.’ Iles’s voice began to move towards an enraged scream, as it would sometimes, when he and Harpur were alone and the word ‘decency’, singular or plural, came up. Occasionally Iles would drag it in if it didn’t come up naturally. ‘I mean the way the family structure is respected, even though, technically, and more than technically, Shale’s family has fragmented. Do you know what I think to myself when I witness this considerate, sensitive, decent approach to things, Harpur?’

  Yes, Harpur knew, and also knew he would be told, anyway. He said: ‘I feel you’d admire this care for children even from two people who –’

  ‘I think to myself, Harpur: Here’s an out-and-out, through-and-through, titanic villain, Mansel Shale, yet he still exhibits a certain propriety and decorum.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I –’

  ‘Whereas I, I, Desmond Iles, have a colleague, a moderately high rank police officer – Detective Chief Superintendent – who might be expected to live by certain standards, have certain decencies, yet who, on the contrary, contemptuous of all such propriety and decorum, decided regardless, utterly regardless, that he would pursue and have, have repeatedly and in varied locations, Sarah Iles, the dear wife of his superior, and –’

  ‘Who was he talking to?’ Harpur said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Shale. When he said “items” and “possessions” and “another aspect”, who was listening – beside yourself on the phone tap, that is? Perhaps his main listener already knew what the “items” and “possessions” were and the “other aspect” and didn’t need anything more specific. A kind of shorthand.’

  ‘Now, when Sarah looks back on that short chapter, that furtive interlude, with you, Harpur – and that’s what we term it, “a short chapter”, “an interlude”, nothing more substantial or meaningful – when she looks back on that interlude she fails to understand how it could ever have taken place,’ Iles replied. The scream thickened to a shout. ‘She can’t. She can’t. I tell you, she can’t, Harpur.’ The door to the Assistant Chief’s suite was closed but these traditional agonized sounds would get out into the corridors and cause fond smiles. Such froth-flecked denunciations of Harpur by Iles had become familiar to staff. They’d be reassured by the consistency – would know the ACC was still the ACC and could fall effortlessly into one of his agonized fits. ‘To tell the truth, Harpur – and she, as well as I, calls you Harpur, no first name recognition – to tell the truth, we enjoy an amazed chuckle over it together, Harpur, commenting on your appearance and clothes and the fact that you’re at your career ceiling because, if for no other reason, I’ll make fucking sure you’re at your career ceiling,’ Iles said. The shout had now slipped down to a frenzied, hysterical hiss. A kind of forecastable progress of tones governed these performances, like an over-rehearsed symphony.

  ‘That right, sir?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘ “An amazed chuckle”. Which would be the main component?’

  ‘In what sense, Harpur?’

  ‘The amazement or the chuckle?’

  ‘I had an experience at Severalponds, Col,’ Iles replied.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I’ve been out there, you know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Harpur said: ‘Some of these service stations boast interesting names, don’t they, and are worth a visit to see the landscaping and fluorescent billboards?’

  ‘This came up,’ Iles said.

  ‘What did, sir?’

  ‘Severalponds.’

  ‘Came up where? During your phone tap? Shale said he was going to Severalponds?’

  ‘And I thought, This is an opportunity. I’ll get out there and observe unobserved.’

  ‘That would be like you, sir – getting out somewhere and observing unobserved. This is hands-on. People know you for that. I’ve heard folk say at a mention of your name, “Oh, Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles, he’s very hands-on.” ’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Which what, sir?’

  ‘Which folk said it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, quite a few.’

  ‘Obviously, at that stage, during the phone spiel, when Manse spoke of his children and a transfer at Severalponds from his wife to him, I couldn’t tell whether he was lying like the damn full-time degenerate and dodger he is, or really meant it. But once I got out there – everything, so admirable. The wife, the children, Mansel himself – harmonious. A benign ritual. That’s how it struck me, Col. I felt privileged to be present, despite the crummy crowds you see cross-legging in for a piss at these places, entirely unashamed of their market stall clothes and roughhouse skin. And the men are worse.’

  ‘Shale has his complexities.’

  ‘I left very satisfied. That’s why I refer to it as an experience. They were still there when I decided to return, so happy in one another’s company, husband, wife, children, even though the wife is, in fact, having it off with someone else. In Wales, is it? Tranquil.
Amiable. Soft drinks. Expensive, hygienically wrapped snacks of palpable freshness. Manse magnificently dressed, probably carrying something at waist level, but no upper-body holster to spoil the jacket line.’

  ‘Grand. But Severalponds wouldn’t be the chief element of the intercept to interest you, would it? It’s the cryptic “items” and “possessions” and “other aspect”, that are the challenge. You revel in challenges, don’t you, sir?’

  Iles waved the papers. ‘Col, it’s quite possible I’ll show you this transcript. Oh, yes. I could treat it as in the Most Secret category, but I do notice you around the place and to a significant degree accept you’re part of operations here.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t be able to make sense of it. I’d have to do that for you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You’re head of CID, after all, Harpur, and deserve some basic consideration as a colleague, despite that disgusting, now risible, betrayal with my –’

  ‘Who was he speaking to?’ Harpur replied.

  Iles threw the transcript pages over the desk. Harpur read them quickly. ‘This is about his house being stripped of pictures,’ he said. ‘ “Collectables” and so on. Shale buys art. He’s a sort of connoisseur. It’s in the dossier.’

  ‘Oh, God. Of course, of course, it’s about his house being stripped of pictures,’ Iles replied. ‘ “Items” equals pix, yes. But, more important – considerably more important, obviously – the murdered body on the stairs.’

  Harpur reread, more quickly: ‘Which murdered body on the stairs, sir?’

  ‘The “other aspect”, isn’t it?’

  ‘How can you tell that?’

  ‘A Paul Mixtor-Hythe suit, non-reach-me-down. The Laity shoes. What else could these mean, Harpur?’

  ‘What else but what?’

  ‘This dead man on the stairs.’

  ‘I don’t get it, sorry, sir. There’s no mention of a body anywhere. Why do you speak of that? Is this transcript a full account of the conversation? Am I short of something?’