Girls

by Bill James

  But now, of course, Manse was into one of the big problems about watching from a car’s rear window. Or two big problems. First, if you wanted to tail, you had to get around quick to the driver’s seat. Second, if the customer went the wrong way, like Hazel now, you must do a U-turn and hope you caught up. It might seem a doddle to catch up a bike, but not always. A bike could snake through a queue of traffic, leaving you distant and stuck. He had expected that if Hazel came out she would be walking and he could follow far back on foot. That wouldn’t suit now. Shale moved swiftly into the driving seat and as soon as there was a chance did a three-point. He could still see the girl and her unworried hair.

  Something disturbed him. While he was getting the Focus around, he noticed a red Renault Clio pull out from the kerb ahead and seem to follow Hazel Harpur. It must of been parked in another Residents Only spot nearer to Harpur’s house. Shale had not noticed it then. Again sloppy, fucking sloppy. If you ran a watch on somewhere you kept an eye not just on the somewhere for fuck’s sake but on anyone else who might have an eye on the somewhere. Shale usually used other people to do surveillance for him, such as the late Denzil, and he knew he had lost some good habits through chiefdom. Big vision could be great, but there was also things close-to that needed work. Yes, so sloppy. Instead of doing a proper scan of other cars in the street he realized he had been taking a mind wallow in the fucking Pre-Raphaelites, and fooling hisself he lived for art, not fucking takings.

  It might be only coincidence that the Clio moved. Perhaps the car in a Residents Only spot belonged to one of the residents and would of gone that direction anyway, whether the girl had come out with the bicycle or not. But it was the speed of the car that interested Manse – meaning the lack of it. To him it looked like the Clio had tucked itself in behind the bike and would keep it in sight but not overtake. That meant hardly any accelerator. Manse could see two men in the front seats. He knew that if he went in behind the Clio and stayed there his slowness would make him as noticeable as the other car. To stick with the girl, he’d have to risk that, though.

  And, definitely, he wanted to stick with the girl. The Clio made that even more important, suppose it was tailing Hazel Harpur, and Shale did suppose. If not, it might turn off soon, leaving things simpler. Why would them two men follow Hazel like this? Who were they? He had an off-on view of the backs of their heads as other cars overtook first Shale, and came between him and the Clio for a while, then passed the Clio, too, leaving a temporary clear gap. That didn’t help him much. Although you might be able to identify someone from the back of his/her head if you already knew him/her well, this view was otherwise more or less fucking dud. Most likely the back of an Alb head would be pretty much the same as the back of a Brit head. Manse thought both men might be dark-haired, which probably would be OK for Albs, but also, obviously, for dark-haired Brits, and there was plenty of them about, think of pictures of the Krays.

  The driver seemed squat, big-shouldered, fat-necked, the passenger possibly taller and thinner. Neither wore a hat. Both had on dark jackets, perhaps suits. Some muscle people in the firms did wear dark suits, longing to look civilized for their families’ sake or their women’s, not just pug-uglies. Albs at the top of firms wore dark suits – and suits bought here, not over in Albania – so they could seem unforeign, like sneaking into the scene. That’s what they hoped, the smarmy foreign fuckers. They’d go up to London to get suits made for them, not reach-me-down, in £2000-a-time tailor shops, because suits from Alb probably looked like suits from Alb and a laugh – flash-Harry lapels and cloth from old post bags joined up. Alb suits would of made them seem even more foreign. Britain could teach the whole world about suits, but Albania didn’t want to learn because it was well known they still believed in the Cold War there and would never copy British suits.

  But why would Albs get after Hazel Harpur? Why would anyone? Well, he, Mansel Shale, was a fucking anyone himself, wasn’t he, and getting after Hazel Harpur? Did the Clio crew want the same as Manse – to find a lead to Scott Grant, the boyfriend? This gave Shale fret. When you thought about it, he was here to protect the girl, keep her happy, keep her boyfriend alive and uncrippled, keep, above all, Harpur happy. Yes, but suddenly that little scheme seemed a lot tougher. Manse had considered himself right out in front, visioning what Harpur and the girl signified up at Chilton Park, and doing one of his intuits about the boyfriend. Now, he saw that others might of got to all the same visioning and intuiting and got to them faster. Christ, was age starting to drag him?

  And them others would not be thinking of protecting this girl, keeping her happy, keeping her boyfriend alive, keeping, above all, Harpur happy. The only people they wanted happy was theirselves. The boyfriend – a target. Why? Was this the follow-up to Chilton Park? People had been killed and injured there. People had been arrested and locked up. But some got clear. Scott Grant, the boyfriend, had got clear? Had the men in the Clio also got clear, and wanted to go on with the fight now? They and Scott were from different firms, warring firms? Or perhaps there was the simpler explanation Manse had already glimpsed: did they think Scott must be a grass and slipped the word to Harpur and his herd, direct or through the girl, that a turf tournament had been timetabled for Morton Cross? Never forgivable, that. Were they stalking him here, via Hazel Harpur, because the area around Scott’s parents’ house and the local school was still thick with police and no good for a rat hunt? Perhaps they didn’t need an identification of him, the way Shale did, because they knew him already. All they wanted was to get to Scott anywhere outside Morton Cross, and the girl could help with that.

  Manse tapped himself with one hand over the left tit, a sort of stupid comfort twitch, feeling for the gun he knew was not there. Hadn’t he been feeling so prim and sweet because it was not there? Cunt. Oh, God, God, them beautiful Heckler and Kochs, tidy, rectorified, unloaded and, in any case, fucking miles off behind the fucking distinguished diabolical deviousness of the Arthur Hughes. He might have to do something immediate and important here, and had been too dozy and slack to realize it and equip himself. Vision? Intuition? Where the hell had they bolted to? Yes, something immediate and important for the sake of the girl, and the boy, and Harpur, and for the sake of him, Mansel Shale.

  After about ten minutes, he could see that Hazel must be making for the central bus station. Of course. Youngsters of her age did crowd there. Shale thought it would be because it was a sort of nothing place – people going and coming, not settled, so nobody around long enough to bother about these kid gangs and fight them for the territory. It was like this area belonged to them, because they was the ones who did stay and was there day-after-day and night-after-night. It was like this was their colony. They’d conquered it by sticking around, such as when we had India. He understood how they thought like that. They needed a base. It was a wide stretch of tarmac dotted with long, glass-walled shelters for the passenger queues. They could roam this land, this no man’s land. They could skateboard this ground in the parts where a bus or coach was not due yet. Most probably some smoking and pushing went on. Naturally it went on. Kids that age – bound to.

  Manse and Ember did not like this as a sales spot, though. It was too open, too obvious, too unignorable even by Iles, too sure to get snarl letters in the local paper every so often about the vile way the city looked to visitors just come in by coach, when all around was teenagers on grass or stronger up to their eyes. Ralphy hated anything that would link him to a social sore. Of course, his fucking club, the Monty, was a social sore, but he thought he’d clean that up soon and get bishops and admirals as members, the hopeful, daft twat.

  Hazel Harpur dismounted from the bike and chained it to a lamp post. There was a café at the edge of the bus station and she made for that now on foot. Not far from the café stood a small car park for putting down and picking up and the Clio had stopped there. Shale did the same, though with a few vehicles between him and the other car as cover. Both men stayed in the Clio and, as
far as he could make out, both watched Hazel walk towards the café. Shale reckoned they thought the same as he did – that she had come to meet Scott Grant. But God, would they try something here, a busy terminus in the middle of the city? Did them Albs bring full-scale chaos, if they was Albs? Again he reached up as if to lift something effective from a shoulder holster and again he could have spat on that fucking smug Arthur Hughes with all them poncy colours.

  The café had a balcony from which, in good weather, people due to travel or here to meet someone could sit with a coffee and watch the buses and coaches arrive. Hazel Harpur appeared there now holding a bottle of Pepsi and stared down towards the parking yard. She was speaking into a mobile. She put the bottle down on the ground and then with this free hand gave the finger repeatedly to the Clio, real vigorous and Eurosport and insulting – what you would expect from a girl whose father was Harpur. Occasionally she supported this by sticking her tongue far out like a retch at the two men, which would have interfered with her talk on the mobile. She’d had them marked from the start, had she? Or had the younger girl noticed the Clio and the two men up front and very evident? Shale realized Jill might have missed him but seen them. Possibly, she came out for that second inspection just now and confirmed, then called the house. And when Hazel came out on her first walk, she had not been aware of the Focus at all but wanted to inspect the Clio, did inspect the Clio. That lovely relaxed style on her bike was just a show, was it? A senior cop’s daughter, and crafty. Well, two senior cop’s daughters, and crafty. And defiant. Hazel could of stayed in, couldn’t she? But maybe she wanted the Clio to make clear what it was up to. She had conned them – made them tail her.

  Her finger and her tongue seemed to go very clear and exact towards the Clio, and only the Clio. The Focus? She obviously didn’t know a thing about it. Manse guessed what the balcony phone call would be, and it wasn’t a squeal for help to daddy. She’d be telling Scott Grant not to turn up here this evening after all because a couple of Clio monsters was waiting for him, but, don’t worry, love, she’d see them off.

  Well, that was her performance. This ended now. Shale found it brilliant. She left the balcony. He waited for her to come back out. She didn’t, though. She must of decided to stay in the café. Perhaps she felt scared of the men in the Clio, especially after the way she’d mocked them – disrespected them, as the street talk called it these days. Manse hated that kind of language, borrowed most likely from them terrible violent gangs in LA. It struck him that if she did not come out them two might go in and get her. They might not read it the way Shale read it when she was having that cell-phone conversation on the balcony. Maybe they thought Scott was inside with her. His weird wish to protect this copper’s daughter fixed on to Manse again. He knew part of it came from the hope to keep things nice with her father for him and Ralph. But there was more. He felt a kind of duty to this child, and especially now she had shown herself so full of fight and poison. Always this search for nobility – as well as for special consideration from big police, and therefore some sheltered trade and good profit.

  He looked over at the Clio and saw the two men was still in it. That probably would not last. Shale left the Focus and walked towards the café. They might follow. He felt very, very aware now of being very, very gunless and no longer carried out his useless hand search for a holster and pistol. Maybe he should. It might frighten them two off, the way Michael Corleone and the pastry cook pretend to have guns when guarding the godfather in hospital. Shale kept going. He realized that, in a way, he was trying to match the sudden bit of unexpected bravery from Ralph Ember when he went to help that other young girl – the immigrant whore-by-force in Tirana’s car who’d learned some rough slang to thrill clients turned on by words. Manse could not stand the notion that Ralphy might be stauncher than he was. Ralphy Ember? God, never. Panicking? Oh, come on!

  Shale’s walk into the café had no purpose, and this delighted him. When he watched outside the house, then did the gumshoeing, there’d been a purpose, obviously. He thought Hazel might lead him to the boyfriend. But now he felt certain that would not be so this evening. It was as if he had actually heard her warning the boy off by mobile, though he hadn’t of course. Intuition. He trusted his intuition. This stroll to the café had purity to it and goodness because all he wanted to do was help. He would show them two in the Clio that the girl had back-up, and if they tried anything they would have to try it on him, Mansel, or Manse, Shale first.

  In a way, not having a gun made things even more pure and good, even more daring. He was doing big risk for her, although there might be no gain. Humaneness – frequently Manse believed in this. That sight of her on the bike with her hair blowing, it really affected him – and not in the dirty, scheming way Iles was affected, but . . . well, because of humaneness. He felt really glad he had come across this word lately. He had known it already, of course, but only realized the other day when reading about the Red Cross in Africa how very right it was for him in many aspects. The hair blowing like that seemed to tell him about this girl’s lovely high spirits, and watching her give the Clio so much saucy rubbishing he had felt this even more.

  Inside the café he found her at a table with half a dozen friends, all girls, jollying and joking. This heartened Manse a lot. He saw them as like youthfulness – triumphant despite everything. They could not be squashed. They had life, vigour. He quite liked this place. It was cheerful, spacious, pretty clean and the shelves full of sweets, chocolate, drinks in coloured packaging and cartons, giving a true feeling of optimism, in his view. The furniture and counters were mainly Formica. He did not mind this. You would not expect the kind of solid mahogany theme he had in his den room at the rectory. This café was a passing-through area. People came here on their travels – just going for a bus, just come from one and waiting for another – and they wanted a quick bit of refreshment in cheerful, spruce surroundings. You did not expect a bus station caff to look historical. His den room at the rectory had most probably been the clergyman’s study, where he did all kinds of serious work, such as the sermons or making notes on the Book of Daniel, and, obviously, it needed a more solid atmosphere than a caff’s. Decorum again – what fitted. Manse had a big mahogany desk to go with the room’s panelling, plus a leather suite and Salem bookcase. He felt it important to match the sort of flavour the room possessed when owned by the church. He liked to do his accounts in there, the full ones as well as the doctored set for the Agincourt meetings. He had a documents safe in the den, as well as the gun safe behind the Arthur Hughes. The Pre-Raphaelites hung in the drawing room, not the den. They would of been too colourful, in his opinion. He did have a picture in the den, but from what was known as the Dutch School, and less vivid. Now, the point was, surely, the bus station café needed vividness, though, so folk weary from journeying could get bucked up. Some would definitely call the bus station café garish. But garishness could work all right sometimes. Think of Las Vegas or a royal wedding – or the old kind of royal wedding, not a register office.

  Hazel seemed to be doing plenty of talk, perhaps telling them about the cabaret she put on from the balcony just now. Shale did not think she’d give them the whole tale, though – that is, if she understood it. Did she realize she had been tailed because of Scott? She’d probably just say the Clio had a couple of leches in it who’d liked what they saw when she was cycling. Shale bought himself a Fanta and took a table a little way from theirs. He knew it would be wrong to introduce himself to the girl. That would make any future secret watch on her very tricky. Hazel showed them how she had given the finger and they all laughed and hooted. Then two girls stood and Shale guessed they would go out on to the balcony also, and perhaps offer a bit more mockery and rudeness to the Clio. He thought that was all right. Useful. It meant the two men outside must see she had a troupe of pals around her now and could not be approached. They would not try anything.

  After a few minutes, the girls came back and said they could spot no
Clio, only a silver Ford Focus. They all had a big laugh again because they must of thought Hazel and the finger must of frightened them off. Shale went out to the car park and saw they had it right, and the Clio was gone. He looked about for one or other of the two men but found neither. He sat in the Focus for a while, wondering if Scott might show now, told by mobile that it was all right. This did not happen. The girls came out and Hazel unlocked her bike. They walked together out of the bus station and on to the route taken by her from Arthur Street. Perhaps she had invited them home. Shale watched until they turned a corner, then went back to the rectory.

  He didn’t have a girl in residence at present and, of course, Denzil, who once lived in a flat at the top of the house, had gone. The children were out at the ice rink for their skating lessons and he would drive over to collect them soon. For now, Manse found the rectory bleak after the bus station café. He went and stood in front of the Pre-Raphaelites. They gave him a kind of companionship. The Pre-Raphaelite artists had organized what they called a Brotherhood. This idea warmed and thrilled him always.

  Chapter Six

  Mid-evening, Harpur left headquarters and went home. For most of the day, he had sat in as observer while Francis Garland interrogated two men picked up at the Chilton Park ructions. Garland knew about interrogating. He had a delicate but believable way of convincing any prisoner that Francis could put him very much further into the shit than he already was in if he failed to cough intelligently. This kind of persuasion had to be delicate because the interviews went on to tape and might be available to the defence at trial. There must be no flagrant pressurizing, or judges grew bug-eyed and niggly. Bye-bye third degree, Hello! Hello! subtlety. Garland seemed young enough to adapt easily. Erogenous Jones had been the supreme interrogator, of course, but Erog was dead from a knife wound delivered on Iles’s lawn in Rougemont Place – though not by Iles – a fair while ago now.* Francis might soon get near Erog’s standard. What the interrogations confirmed so far was that a range of new firms, besides the Albanians, had been working the Morton Cross area, some of them adopting the Alb tactic of running not just drugs but girls. The names were fairly familiar by now: Tommy the Strong, Bobby Sprale, Adrian Cologne.