Girls

by Bill James

  Girls

  Also by Bill James in the Harpur and

  Iles series:

  You’d Better Believe It

  The Lolita Man

  Halo Parade

  Protection (TV tie-in version, Harpur

  and Iles)

  Come Clean

  Take

  Club

  Astride a Grave

  Gospel

  Roses, Roses

  In Good Hands

  The Detective is Dead

  Top Banana

  Panicking Ralph

  Eton Crop

  Lovely Mover

  Kill Me

  Pay Days

  Naked at the Window

  The Girl with the Long Back

  Easy Streets

  Wolves of Memory

  Other novels by Bill James:

  The Last Enemy

  Split

  Middleman

  A Man’s Enemies

  Between Lives

  By the same author writing as

  David Craig:

  The Brade and Jenkins series:

  Forget It

  The Tattooed Detective

  Torch

  Bay City

  Other novels by David Craig:

  The Alias Man

  Message Ends

  Contact Lost

  Young Men May Die

  A Walk at Night

  Up from the Grave

  Double Take

  Bolthole

  Whose Little Girl Are You?

  (filmed as The Squeeze)

  A Dead Liberty

  The Albion Case

  Faith, Hope and Death

  Hear Me Talking to You

  Writing as James Tucker:

  Equal Partners

  The Right Hand Man

  Burster

  Blaze of Riot

  The King’s Friends (reissued as by

  Bill James)

  Non-fiction:

  Honourable Estates

  The Novels of Anthony Powell

  GIRLS

  Bill James

  Copyright © 2007 by Bill James

  First American edition 2007

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages.

  James, Bill, 1929–

  Girls / Bill James.—1st American ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-88150-780-5 (alk. paper)

  1. Harpur, Colin (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Iles, Desmond (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Police—Great Britain—Fiction. 4. Drug traffic—Fiction. 5. Prostitutes—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6070.U23G58 2007

  823’.914--dc22

  2007026411

  Jacket design by Rodrigo Corral

  Jacket photograph by Victoria Yee/Getty Images

  Published by The Countryman Press, P.O. Box 748,

  Woodstock, VT 05091

  Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,

  500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Parts of Chapter 1 and Chapter 10 originally appeared in slightly different form in my short story collection, The Sixth Man and other stories (Severn House, 2006).

  Chapter One

  These days Mansel Shale drove the Jaguar himself owing to the quick death not long ago of his most recent chauffeur and bodyguard, Denzil Lake. Denz was found with the barrels of two Astra .38 pistols in his mouth. Both guns had been fired. Manse thought Denz deserved this. He did not replace him. Once you’d discovered a very trusted staff member secretly snuggling up to your enemies, you worried about giving somebody that kind of close job again. There had definitely been good aspects to Denz. Well, obviously, or would Manse have hired him and kept him on? All right, Denzil had sometimes refused to wear the special driver’s navy blue peaked cap particularly bought for him by Manse, but Shale never went into a full rage over this. Denz probably thought the cap made him look like a flunkey subordinate. He was a fucking flunkey subordinate but Shale could understand why a man might not want this signposted. Manse put up with the bolshiness. Betrayal was different. Anyone trying it had to go.*

  Afterwards, there’d been questions for Manse. Although the .38s belonged to Denz himself, not everybody thought suicide because squeezing both triggers at exactly the same moment would be a tricky one. And some said if he done it himself recoil should of jolted the Astras out of his mouth. However, by now inquiries were fading, luckily. Nobody beside his family would see Denz Lake as worth long-term fret, and possibly not them, neither. Now and then, Shale had looked back with quite a slice of longing to the days when Neville Greenage did the driving and so on for him. Nev had been reliable and brilliant. But he had gone off to somewhere in Yorkshire or Tasmania or Austria to start his own operation.

  Shale drew up and took a good glance all ways before leaving the Jaguar. Since Lake passed on in that rather skull-wrecked style, Manse did his own look-arounds. The Agincourt hotel car park had a lot of shadows. It was a thing about car parks near buildings. You done some real eye work, especially at vehicles already standing here. Cars gave a lot of cover, above all cars in shadow. The point was, Denzil’s dirty scheming and end had come during one of them all-out territory battles that often happened in high commerce – the kind Manse ran. And battles might continue. Always such heavy perils lay near. They could touch anyone in the trade, however major, not just slabs of shoddy like Denz.

  Despite shadows, he did not mind the Agincourt too much. Every six months, or a bit less, Manse and Ralph Ember put on a great dinner in the hotel’s restaurant for main people from their two firms. Business results and prospects could be talked over in quite a relaxed way. It was Ember who originally suggested these social meetings, but Shale would admit they could be useful. Tonight, there might be difficult moments. Manse knew this. Any bad difficulties – he would squash them, most probably without violence or gunfire, instead through personality. This was leadership. Manse believed in leadership – not frothing, Hitler-type leadership but sturdy. He climbed out of the Jag and moved towards the rear entrance of the hotel. The Agincourt’s name was considerably historical, with what was known as overtones. Shale liked the historical item. It gave depth.

  Following the meal and after the accounts had been presented, guests was entitled and even encouraged to raise queries. Shale or Ember or both would answer. Hotel employees withdrew. Tonight, as Manse expected, some ratty, scared questions came about the way immigrant dealers from old Soviet Bloc countries had moved in offering all commodities – ganja to crack to big H, plus girls if required – and stealing clients.

  Although Manse recognized this was a tough problem, he would not discuss it now. Shale and Ralph always made sure they only spoke about convenient topics at these dinners. For instance, they would never disclose the firms’ true profits, or plans by him and Ember to get rid of someone, or more than one, if a more widespread approach grew necessary, as could happen in this new millennium. They did always issue sets of figures for the previous months because it was expected. Shale understood that. But these only gave what Manse thought of as a wise or, say, tactful version of things, enough to take care of morale.

  Shale and Ember had beautiful cooperation between their two companies, and the dinners were set up to help this happy arrangement. They took turns on a yearly basis to organize the meals, pick the wines and settle up. It was Manse’s year as host. He loved it. In the two or three meetings he presided at, he could show he knew as much about grand fucking vintages as that loud smoothie, Ralph, with all his glossy wordage a
nd grammar.

  The firms’ dinners always took place on a Monday night. Normally, the restaurant would be closed then but it could be booked for private parties. Manse thought the room more or less all right. Ancient weapons and other items hung on the walls such as swords, longbows, shields, suits of armour, boars’ heads, and what Shale heard one lad call halberds, or like that – some pieces real, most mock. The hotel put on imitation medieval banquets at weekends, and these old war articles was supposed to give atmosphere then. In Mansel’s view this wall stuff looked childish and naff and knocked dignity from the Agincourt name. He thought of that famous song, ‘Bring me my bow of burning gold, bring me my arrows of desire.’ A bow and arrow of plastic did not fit this idea. But Manse believed in tolerance, up to quite a reasonable point. You could not expect refined taste from every bugger.

  The firms asked for an ordinary menu and drink, with ordinary crockery and ordinary service, not waitresses putting too much on show up top, as in the banquet ads. Manse heard this used to be the rule in what was known as wenching times way back – such as the famed Nell Gwyn wearing sketchy garments to get the king going. But, for God’s sake, the firms’ Monday sessions was serious gatherings, where Manse and Ralph, chairmen of a pair of work-together companies, reported with total thoroughness and detail to their best personnel everything they could be allowed to know. Friendliness and some jollity seemed right in Shale’s opinion, yes, but not a lot of boob skin.

  Tonight, jollity was scarce because of them competition worries. As a sideline, some of the new, foreign dealers ran very young, smuggled-in, Eastern European girls, such as Albanian, who was fed drugs to hook them, and then put on the street. These girls sold the products, as well as themselves. This was a hellish tactic. Some Brits was starting to imitate these foreign dealers and mix a trade of commodities and whores. One name around that Shale heard was Adrian Cologne, from Hull or Preston or somewhere like that, although the second name sounded overseas.

  ‘Ralph and myself personally, we definitely got the whole situation in mind,’ Shale said, as the bleats piled up. These came from members of both firms.

  ‘Unquestionably,’ Ember said.

  ‘Yes, Manse, Ralphy, you say that but these people are –’

  ‘We definitely got it in mind,’ Shale said. ‘Ralph and self, we note all factors, you can believe it.’

  ‘This goes without saying,’ Ralph told them.

  ‘But Manse, Ralph, if we don’t –’

  ‘This is an area known in boardrooms and such as “executive action”, meaning leave it to Ralphy and me. You heard of executive action at all? A well-known, corporation term you might of missed. The topics you mention are not for open talk at a meat and potatoes do.’

  ‘Manse is right,’ Ember said.

  ‘But Ralph, Manse, these guys are hard, usually tooled up and – the Sun did an article on the Albanians. I’ve got it here with me. They come in on stolen or forged Greek passports. I’ll read a bit: “A police chief in the central European state” – that’s Albania – “A police chief in the central European state told the Sun that the mobsters, many of them murderers, flee here because they see Britain as a gangster’s paradise.” ’

  ‘This is well known,’ Shale said. ‘We don’t need the fucking Sun to tell us about Albs.’

  ‘Listen, though, Manse: “Top Albanian cop Artan Bajraktari said: ‘There are at least forty of them. Many are murderers. I am talking about really serious criminals involved in organized crime.’ ” See, Manse? This is a cop they can put a name to. This is authentic. He’s head of Interpol in Albania. The paper says there’s no extradition treaty with Albania, meaning these crooks can’t be sent back for what they did over there.’

  ‘OK, serious,’ Shale said. ‘OK, serious and duly noted. So, we leave it now. Right? Right?’ He got really brickish brick wall into his voice. This was what he meant when he’d promised himself to squash nuisance people. This was what he meant by leadership. If you was host you made them know you was, and would run things the way you wanted to. And you let nobodies know they was nobodies.

  Naturally, the Agincourt was not the only time Manse and Ralph Ember met. These dinners could be pleasant sessions, Shale would never deny that – what was referred to as ‘bonding’ – but they amounted only to extras, only to trimming. When he and Ralph saw each other alone, they would discuss large policy matters and decide their own rewards. It would be tactless to let folk at that hotel bean-feast know Manse and Ember each took pay of around £600,000 yearly from the firms. This might of led to unrest. Of course, anyone with deep experience of turnover would guess at the profits. Manse knew some believed it more – even a million. You could not control people’s minds. But it was vital to take care nobody except himself and Ralph had the figures as actual, proved fucking fact. Guesses, rumours and gossip would never be enough to cause real bad envy and scheming, except in someone like Denzil, and Denzil was gone. Shale had made sure the cap sat on his coffin in the service, another victory.

  In fact, there had been a dip in income for Manse and Ember lately. And Shale knew the Monday night questions strangled by him told why. In their routine, confidential pre-Agincourt pow-wow a week earlier, when proper topics could be truly discussed, Mansel had said: ‘We got to do something, Ralph.’

  ‘In respect of what, Manse?’

  ‘In respect of overseas interests on the streets. We’re sliding.’

  The two were in Shale’s den-study at his home for this private session. The house used to be St James’s rectory, and it really pleased Manse to think clergymen might of prepared their sermons and written testimonials for parishioners here. Of course, clergymen being what they was, there might have been a bit of quiet wanking in here, too, but Shale did not think of this very much at all. Ember had brought a bottle of Kressmann Armagnac. Shale knew why. This sod probably thought it made up for the refusal ever to allow Shale into Ralph’s own place, what he called ‘a manor house’, named Low Pastures. Ember’s residence and family must be kept clean, and always separate from the substance game, mustn’t they? Oh, yes, yes and yes some fucking more. The jerk was like that, hoping to seem gentry with paddocks.

  ‘I see these disappointing figures as very much a temporary matter, Mansel,’ Ember stated.

  Always this bastard hated facing up.

  ‘There’s been unhelpful publicity lately about bad addiction cases,’ Ember said. ‘That kind of thing always squeezes sales for a while. Only a while, though.’

  ‘We got to hit one of these people,’ Shale replied. ‘Urgent.’

  ‘One of which people, Manse?’

  ‘They think they can sneak in here and set theirselves up, like entitled. Remember Hitler in Czechoslovakia. It got to be stopped early, Ralph. We got to hit one of their high people. The one they call Tirana. It’s the name of some town over there. Where he came from.’

  ‘Albania,’ Ember said. ‘The capital.’

  ‘Ah, the way they called George Washington after Washington.’

  ‘Well, no, the –’

  ‘If we hit him, this Tirana, the rest get to realize the situation – that they got no rights in this city. But they also get to realize that what they have got – got from us – you and me, Ralph – is big, smart opposition. Maybe then they’ll all go back to their own country, or try it somewhere else – London, Manchester, Winnipeg.’

  ‘This is extreme, Manse.’

  Shale had tapped the genuine, For-Our-Eyes-Only accounts with a couple of fingers. ‘This could get extreme. I mean the slide.’

  ‘I don’t say there’s no threat, Manse, but as I see it we need a more gradual approach. A measured strategy.’

  ‘People at the Agincourt next Monday night will want to be told how we’re going to handle it, Ralph. They wonder about what’s known as their career paths. They thought they had a brill future in the firms and now here comes this Tirana and such. There’s Brit companies as well coming in, imitating them Albs and the ot
her foreigners. You hear the name Adrian Cologne at all?’

  ‘It’s around, yes. But I’m confident you’ll dispose of any unhelpful questions at the Agincourt, Manse.’

  ‘Oh, I can close down their bother, but Tirana will still be a problem, and this Adrian Cologne and so on.’

  ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t exaggerate Tirana’s impact, Manse.’

  As Shale saw things, Ember was often like this – so dodgy about action. Many called him Panicking Ralph, or Panicking Ralphy, and he did get very severe hesitation now and then, the way other people got rheumatism. He had to be helped along. ‘If we slay this Tirana in a nice spot, the crew who work with him or want to be like him will know what we’re saying to them, Ralph. They’ll know it exact.’

  ‘What do you mean, “a nice spot”?’

  ‘Like a sign.’

  ‘In what way, a sign, Manse?’

  ‘So that the way he been done and where he been done will show them they got business methods not at all suitable for here, not at all liked here. Well out of fucking order here.’

  ‘I should think they already know that,’ Ember said.

  ‘But the slaughter of one of their generals – this would sort of clinch it for them, really light up the message. Like Goliath in the Bible. Or like with wolves.’

  ‘With wolves, Manse? I don’t –’

  ‘Wolves. Shoot their pack leader and the rest are lost. Look, we got something lovely here, Ralph. Two busy firms in steady, careful agreement and the Assistant Chief Constable, Mr Iles, also happy as long as no violence from us where the public might get hurt. Yes, all right, there was the way Denzil got it, but something like Denzil and the .38s don’t affect the main picture because it was out of sight and only Denzil, anyway. But now this Tirana and others arrive, and the whole thing, I mean the whole structure – the whole structure could be shook so bad it falls. Our whole structure.’

  ‘These people, the Tiranas and so on, they fight among themselves, Manse, trying for supremacy, dominance. It has to be possible they’ll wipe out one another. This is probably why Iles hasn’t smashed them. He thinks they’ll do it for him. That’s policing, or it’s Iles-type policing, anyway.’