Girls

by Bill James

  Shale had the basics on Harpur’s family from Ralphy. There was two daughters at John Locke Comprehensive – Jill, thirteen, boyfriend, Darren Cope. And Hazel, fifteen, boyfriend, Scott Grant, but also given approaches and a lot of breathiness by Iles. The girls’ mother had been murdered on a train, maybe after something on the extramarital side in London, supposed to be shopping – Oh, do look what I got at Harrods, girls! The intelligence was that what she got at Harrods wasn’t all she got. Then, also, according to Ember, Harpur’s more or less regular girlfriend, Denise Prior, aged about twenty, was often around the Arthur Street house since his wife’s death. Shale wondered whether she’d arrive or come out now, maybe eyeballing the street in that brassy, awkward way youngsters did. He had to keep alert. She went to the same university down the road where Ember started his mature student course, a gap year at the moment, and most likely for fucking ever, though Manse would not say that to him because Ralphy needed hopes and display, and if they failed he could get crumbly and next to useless.

  Ember said that sometimes Denise stayed in Harpur’s place all night, a true cohabit thing with breakfast, although she had a room at a student hostel. Ralphy believed in research. Manse wondered what the girl’s parents would think if they knew she was snuggling up in a serious way to someone as old and unfinancial as Harpur, with a house down such a rough quarter as this, dog shit and cans everywhere, girls’ arse pages from the Daily Sport blowing about, and daughters not in a private school. Shale would not like his children brought up in a street like this. It was not quite what they called ‘disadvantaged’ meaning low, but it was not advantaged. It could affect them right into when they was adults. Denise Prior’s parents lived a long way off, Stafford or Southampton, that kind of spot, Ralph said, and when Shale thought about his own daughter, Matilda, only a child for now, he wondered was it a good idea to send girls to college in a different town if they was going to get on deep bodily terms with someone local and crude like Harpur. Ralph told him this girl learned French at the college, but what was the use of that if you half lived in a place such as Arthur Street? He didn’t mind France as a foreign place, but Albania he could not take because of them new merchants up Morton Cross bringing so many unnecessary, non-British problems.

  Recognition of the older daughter, Hazel – that’s why this ploy must start with the watch on Harpur’s place. Manse needed to identify the girl and then see where she would lead him. Obviously, where he expected she would lead him to was her boyfriend. And this boyfriend he thought – in fact, he expected – would be right in age and frame for the lad around Chilton Park on pot-shot day. There might be other ways of finding the boyfriend. Mansel could of put one of his research people on to it, and he would soon come up with the data to a T. But he didn’t want one of his research people on it. This had to be Manse acting solo. This would be a special, personal message from him to Harpur and would require a gesture in return. So, the waiting and the tailing seemed simplest. Shale occupied a Residents Only space for now but might agree to shift if a householder arrived in a vehicle and asked him politely, no road rage or property-owner bollocks, which might turn Manse uncaring.

  He had noticed a middle-aged-to-older woman staring towards his car from the front room of a house a little way along from Harpur’s, but she didn’t seem set on giving trouble, or not yet. But would she pick up the phone and do some alerting soon? She might fancy herself as a sentry. Householders these days became jumpy about a loiterer in a car, even down a crap street like this. Maybe especially down a crap street like this. Poor areas often did worst for burglaries. She’d dial 999? He wondered if he should offer a happy smile to signify harmlessness. The trouble was, she might not read it that way. Women who spent their time peering from windows into the street could have mighty kinks. Manse liked all contact with women to be nicely controlled. Occasionally, he failed to fix this, of course. His wife would not of gone off like that if he really had things tied up. Just the same, he aimed for mastery, such as the carefully timed harbouring of companions like Lowri or Carmel or Patricia at the rectory. Manse thought it wise to be very choosy about which woman/women you opened up to, so he did not try charm from the Ford Focus on this old bit of pry in Arthur Street. He concentrated on Harpur’s place.

  When Shale found the boy, he and Ember could perhaps have a tender yet illustrated conversation with him and persuade the lad to get out of it fast and final. And the lad would tell Harpur direct, or through Harpur’s daughter, that he was getting out of it fast and final after considerable insights given on a kindly, individual basis by Mr Mansel Shale and Mr Ralph Ember, established business colleagues of each other, famed and full of mature commercial knowledge. They could warn this lad he might get killed or wheelchaired or unattractively scarred, such as his nose mashed by a straight-on 9 mm hit or ricochet, in another Chilton Park-type clash. And tell him he was very fortunate not to of got killed or wheelchaired or unattractively scarred last time, don’t strain his luck.

  On account of police rules, this would be the kind of funeral Harpur could not attend if it was found the boy had a gang job and got killed in it. Sometimes police went to crime victims’ funerals, but not if the crime victim had been well into crime hisself. Maybe Harpur would even stop the girl going to the service. This lad should think about that. Being alive was one thing, but being dead different. That seemed obvious, but not everyone cottoned. This boy might be the sort who’d really like his girlfriend at his funeral if shot, giving noticeable grief in token. Probably he had never thought that Harpur might block the funeral off for her, because of what was known as protocol, the daughter of an officer mourning a gun-kid pusher. This could be explained to the lad by Manse or Ember. Ralphy fancied himself as a talker, as long as he wasn’t so scared of something he could only gibber.

  Shale saw no movement yet at Harpur’s house. He had not brought the Jaguar because Harpur might recognize it. Shale was in this silver Focus. Image did not matter now. Secrecy did. He had realized there might be plenty of waiting. Patience – an element Manse knew he had vats of, and which Ember did not, or would he be called Panicking? But Ember could usually do the heavy chat, perhaps owing to some education. Shale thought that when the two of them had a good parley with the lad about quitting, they might find out what outfit he belonged to. Everyone knew the Albanians was edging in with substances and girls. But this boy would not be with them. Albs stuck to Albs, like an Alb network. There was these new Brit firms up there now at Morton Cross. The names was around – Sprale, Adrian Cologne, Tommy the Strong.

  Shale knew Ralph Ember and him should of done more inquiries about them before this. Sloppy. It would be this two-way, three-way, even four-way competition that started the bullets flying among cared-for flower beds in such a damned disgraceful fashion, and made the deads die there. One tale said Adrian Cologne had tried to take over a tart favoured by Iles. This girl called Honorée was ethnic, but not a recent arrival – here a real while, and with Iles a real while, off and on in the way of things with a tart. He would not like it if Cologne grew brutal with Honorée.

  Shale had moved into the back of the Focus and observed from its rear window, a trick he often used on a watch like this, being much less obvious. US cop drama on TV made everyone expect surveillance to be head on, the detectives very evident through the windscreen drinking coffee from flasks, taking radio calls, talking pussy and checking their guns. Alone, Manse just sat still and crouched as low as he could.

  Even if the lad didn’t get hurt by warfare, he might get killed and worse as a likely grass, suppose someone discovered his girlfriend’s father was Harpur, and someone would. Ember said the girl did not look like Harpur, which was great and a blessing for her, but information re him as her dad could be around. There might be people who thought the police arrived too fucking prompt and full of fire-power at Chilton Park, the way police arrived too fucking prompt at the jewel robbery in that film, Reservoir Dogs. People might start wondering about a rat �
�� a rat who talked to his girlfriend who talked to her father. It did not matter whether this was true. If someone believed it they’d act. The boy had to be warned. Manse’s mother used to tell him that ‘a word is enough to the wise’, a well-known saying from Latin or her uncle Les who worked in London for the BBC or W.H. Smith. Manse and Ember would give this lad more than a word, though – that is, more than one word – because he did not seem to Mansel wise at all if he worked with a gang at his age. The frighteners had to be put on him good for his good.

  A fair-haired girl of about thirteen in a long beigish coat over jeans walked past the Focus and went into Harpur’s house. This would not be the right child, though – too young. Jill. She had passed quite close to the Focus but he hoped she did not spot him. She did not stare back once she’d gone on towards the house, or anything like that, but you could not tell with the kid of a cop, they might of been taught deadpan by Harpur who had a lot of deadpan hisself. It would most probably be on his record card at police Personnel – ‘Oxfam suits but excellent deadpanness.’ The way the girl walked – it was a saunter, like relaxed. That could be an act, too, though.

  Shale admitted to hisself his whole project now could seem far-fetched, even crazy. That’s why, at this first stage, he would handle it unsupported. Ember? Manse could tell Ralph had big doubts. But Ember almost always had big doubts, which could sometimes nearly strangle him, and change him into Panicking Ralphy, often dangerous for people he worked with.

  Shale watched the house windows for a while now, instead of the door, in case that young girl gave an alert and someone had a gape into the street from behind curtains, wondering about the Focus, maybe Harpur, possibly getting binoculars going. It could be tricky if he came out and asked Manse why the loiter. Perhaps Manse would have to give the true tale, explain his peace programme. But would Harpur understand? People could be dim. For instance, when he had described to Ralph the little scene where Harpur comforted the daughter on their Park visit, Manse saw immediate it didn’t mean the same to Ralph as it did to him. To Manse it showed she had some tie-up with the shootings, maybe through a boyfriend. Of course, Manse would admit an amount of guesswork came into the way he read these things. Or that’s how our super knowall, Mr Higher Education (suspended), Ralphy W. Ember, would consider it: just guesswork, speculation. Shale preferred another word, a word with dignity and scope in it. Vision.

  Someone tapped the side rear window of the Ford. Shale was concentrating on Harpur’s house since seeing the girl go in and had not noticed the approach of Mrs Sentry. She was older than he’d thought. Whatever her age, he didn’t want her near the car, making him more conspicuous than he would be anyway. How, how, to get rid of her fast? He rolled down the window. ‘Can I help you in any way, madam?’ he said. Manse reckoned it was a voice of terrific sweetness, not at all the kind of tone she would be expecting from a parked Focus.

  ‘You Vice?’ she replied.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You police? Vice Squad? You watching 126 for vice? Unmarked vehicle as cover-up?’

  ‘Vice?’

  ‘That’s what I said to myself when I noticed this car just waiting, and someone in it, and the gaze down towards 126. I thought, Brilliant! About time!’

  ‘A certain mission in this street,’ Shale replied.

  ‘Well, obviously. I expect you hear what I hear.’

  ‘That’s possible.’

  ‘I hear from someone in a house opposite to 126 of vice in there, no curtains drawn. And this is supposed to be a police officer. The address of a police officer, and not just an ordinary police officer. This is a top man. That’s what I understand. He’s in the phone book. Or an on-top man. So, you are police hunting one of your own? That 126 – a disgrace. This was the full act, that’s what I hear, not just oral or a hand job, and before ten o’clock. I mean ten o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘We keep an eye,’ Shale replied. A different sort of vision.

  ‘I knew you must be Vice because of watching from the back. That’s always a cop trick – to pretend you’re not there.’

  ‘We like to be discreet.’

  ‘That’s more than that one is in 126. This was defiant and flagrant, as I’m told it. Arse absolutely in view for minutes and not inactive. And there are children in that house, you know. Young girls. What will they make of it?’

  ‘We got it all in mind,’ Shale said.

  ‘Grand.’

  ‘Thanks for your guidance, madam.’

  She turned and went back to her house, but remained watching from the porch. He did let her have a smile now, as he put the window back up and got his eyes on to 126 again – the kick-off point for his real vision. Yes, ‘vision’ was the term he would set above Ember’s ‘guesswork’ and ‘speculation’. Manse honoured vision. Naturally, Ember thought he supplied all the vision in their arrangement and did not believe Manse had much of it at all. But Ralphy often got things wrong, especially about Manse.

  Shale saw no curtain movement after the girl, Jill, went into 126 Arthur Street. Of course, he realized something might have happened there while he was preoccupied with the neighbour. But Manse believed that probably when Jill strolled past the Focus it had been only an incident, with no results. She had been out somewhere. She came home. Simple. Manse could not allow time to get anxious re that. He had to think in a more global way – this being what he regarded as his role. Shale thought that word, ‘vision’, had a sort of high-class religious feel to it.

  The woman came out in the street again from her porch. This time, though, she did not approach the Focus but stood on the pavement giving Harpur’s house a stare. She would be able to see it better from there. Perhaps she hoped for an encore. It pained Manse – the way her busybodiness might cut across his large, humane, visionary project and possibly put it in peril. No true leader operated without vision, and Manse did see himself as quite a leader. Napoleon, Churchill, Walt Disney, Florence Nightingale, Mao – one gift they all had by the palletload: vision. Manse would bet that if you read what the papers said about any one of these when they died you would find vision mentioned often because it drove them. In fact, if they didn’t have vision they would not of done what they did do when alive and so the papers would not be writing about them at all when they was dead.

  The woman went back into her porch, thank God, and glanced towards the Focus. Shale allowed her a brief wave with his hand just above the window frame to show he appreciated her cooperation and signal she should fucking stay there. So, Harpur had it off in his front room with the student, did he? And made a morning show of it. Rotten, really. Shale agreed with the neighbours. He detested unkempt behaviour. He tried to keep a proper, clean outlook on the future – yes, to keep a vision of it – and then he meets ugly information like this, something so jarring and rude and back-street. Whereas, Mao with his Little Red Book of thoughts: these were worldwide vision in Chinese. The language did not matter. Anyone could have a vision. The book was not called little because the thoughts in it were little but because it was small and could go into a Chinese smock pocket and be there when someone wanted a read of Mao’s ideas and visions for morale. All right, lately Ralph Ember had a class or two down the university so he now believed everything had to be calculated and proved like arithmetic before you made a move. Fine at the fucking look-each-way-before-you-cross-the-road level. But the real, creative business giant had to use absolutely different qualities in himself/herself now and then. These could be summed up in another quite well-known term. Intuition.

  Wasn’t it Florence Nightingale’s intuition that told her soldiers needed hospitals with antiseptic when they got a leg shot off in Russia, so she became ‘the lady with the lamp’? Vision and intuition, they mixed with each other, was part of each other. Manse’s feeling that somehow Harpur, and perhaps even Iles, must be kept in a good alliance with himself and Ralphy was one bit vision another bit intuition. This vision, this intuition, said, Look after Hazel Harpur’s boyfriend, sa
ve him, and her father will be into very helpful gratitude.

  Luckily, that kind of big thinking was easy for Manse. Periodically these days, he would do a survey of the skills he found most powerful in himself as a company figure-head, and always at the summit came what was referred to in business manuals as ‘strategic awareness’, sometimes also called ‘over-view ability’. His mind went that way now as he resumed watching Harpur’s front door, not the windows. The door looked like phoney wood, just veneer with packing. Pathetic: all Manse’s doors at home had true, genuine weight, being real old timber from quality times when the house was St James’s rectory and wood meant wood, a rector having quite a rank, higher than a vicar. Anyway, Shale thought that, in trade, if you had built something of grand scale and good earnings, you must plan beyond the day-to-day. Yes, vision. Yes, listen to your intuition and feel glad you got some.

  Of course, he’d admit that now and then urgent, immediate decisions might be needed on a day-to-day or night-to-night basis, for instance the emergency scheme to see off that top Albanian, Tirana, although, obviously, this turned out inappropriate once they found him already done. No question, short-term actions could become vital from time to time, but, never mind how sudden, even rushed, these had to be, they should also fit a company’s general policy and aims – its strategy. This would mean agendaring not just for the day-to-day, or even week-to-week, but for the widest future.

  He noticed some cramp and possible seize-up coming on and changed position in the Focus to get more relaxed and able to continue his thoughts. Although Manse despised all vanity, he knew he had a brain that could cater for months ahead, several months – three, four, no trouble. And he realized he must do some of that now, following the Chilton Park tussle. Manse felt sure the people running, say, ICI or Coca Cola had a similar grip on times to come. They tried to estimate what sales possibilities would be then in Argentina and the Yukon, for instance. Manse had to think of sales possibilities far ahead, also. Vision. Over-view. That’s why he waited here now, watching Harpur’s home, an address – as the woman said – that anyone could find in the fucking phone book, which Shale considered mad for a police officer. That front door – useless. It wouldn’t keep out a bullet, it wouldn’t keep out someone who gave a bit of shoulder.