Come Clean (1989)

by Bill James

  Bill James and The Murder Room

  ››› This title is part of The Murder Room, our series dedicated to making available out-of-print or hard-to-find titles by classic crime writers.

  Crime fiction has always held up a mirror to society. The Victorians were fascinated by sensational murder and the emerging science of detection; now we are obsessed with the forensic detail of violent death. And no other genre has so captivated and enthralled readers.

  Vast troves of classic crime writing have for a long time been unavailable to all but the most dedicated frequenters of second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing means that we are now able to bring you the backlists of a huge range of titles by classic and contemporary crime writers, some of which have been out of print for decades.

  From the genteel amateur private eyes of the Golden Age and the femmes fatales of pulp fiction, to the morally ambiguous hard-boiled detectives of mid twentieth-century America and their descendants who walk our twenty-first century streets, The Murder Room has it all. ›››

  The Murder Room

  Where Criminal Minds Meet

  themurderroom.com

  Come Clean

  Bill James

  Contents

  Cover

  The Murder Room Introduction

  Title page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Outro

  By Bill James

  About the author

  Copyright page

  Chapter One

  Sitting in a far corner of the club, Sarah Iles slowly became aware of some kind of disturbance over near the door to the street. After a moment she turned her head to observe better what was happening. If she had been quicker, she might have seen more but Sarah had learned a long time ago to be cautious in the Monty. It was a place which could excite her, and she liked it for that, but often part of the excitement was fright.

  A man in his twenties must have just come in and now, after a few steps, had sunk down to one knee, as if exhausted or injured, one shoulder propping him against the wall and keeping him from slipping further. His head hung forward, seemingly out of control, and a sheaf of dark hair had fallen over his forehead and obscured part of his face. Oddly, despite her anxieties about his state, and although he was crumpled on the carpet, her mind registered that he wore what seemed a very expensive light grey suit, probably custom made.

  Ian had just gone to the bar for drinks and, glancing towards him, she saw he was staring at the man, but made no move in his direction. Nobody else in the club shifted, either, though all of them had seen what was happening. Sarah stood up.

  ‘No,’ Ian called to her. ‘Stay out of it.’

  ‘Of what?’ Very scared, she crossed the little dance square and passed a pool table to where the man remained huddled on the ground. Now, she could make out what was obviously a blood stain under the top pocket of his jacket, and it spread quickly as she watched, like tea through a dipped biscuit. His breathing sounded weak and laboured. As she bent down to him she saw to her relief that Ian had left the bar after all and was at her side. ‘What is it?’ she asked the man. ‘What’s happened?’

  He did not answer for a moment. Then, without lifting his head, he muttered: ‘A drink. Water.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Yes.’ She turned to Ian. ‘Can you stay with him? I’ll go to the bar.’ But as she was about to straighten the man reached out suddenly as if to grip her arm and detain her. He could not complete the movement and the effort made him lose balance and almost topple over. To steady him, she put a hand on his shoulder and waited. Before speaking again, he tried to raise his head, but couldn’t.

  ‘Listen,’ he whispered, ‘in case.’

  ‘In case? What do you mean?’

  He nodded his head very weakly a couple of times. ‘Yes, in case. A mess.’

  ‘He needs an ambulance,’ Ian said, crouching with her.

  ‘Look,’ the man muttered, ‘some things I just can’t take. You’re hearing me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘A silver day. Do you know what I mean? Supposed to be a great day.’

  ‘What?’ Sarah asked, bending closer. ‘Who do you mean? Which day?’

  For a long time he did not answer, seeming to need all his strength to breathe. Then he murmured: ‘I’ll tell you. But some water – or Scotch.’

  She went quickly to the bar and asked Ralph to fill a glass. He did not hurry and, as Sarah waited, she realized with a start that Ian had joined her again. ‘No, you should be with him.’

  ‘Stay here.’ Ralph said. ‘Both of you. No need to intervene any longer. Best keep out of it.’

  ‘Yes, we understand. Don’t fret, Ralph.’ Ian replied.

  When she looked back towards the entrance swing-doors she saw that four or five more men had come in and were grouped around the one on the floor. They looked flushed and excited, as if they had been running. Almost immediately the group began moving, slowly now, across the club towards a door and corridor which led to the wash rooms and lavatories. From the bar, she had trouble making out what was happening and was about to walk back across the room with the drink when Ian and Ralph both said, urgently: ‘No, Sarah.’ Neither of them touched her or held her back, but she found suddenly that fear had mounted so much that her legs would hardly carry her, and, although she felt ashamed, she did what she was told and waited.

  Her first count of the group seemed right: there were four men circling the fifth who was hurt, perhaps helping him, half carrying him now, towards the corridor. He might be on his knees, supported by hands under his armpits and gripping his jacket. The men did not speak and everyone else in the club remained silent and still. The injured man seemed worse and the only sound she could hear was the hideously laboured, rasping efforts as he fought to breathe.

  In a minute, they were near the corridor and to enter it had to go single file. One of the men moved ahead, backing into the space, still half-crouched and with his arms stretched out to draw the kneeling, gasping figure after him. Very briefly then, as the circle around him broke up, the man in the centre was clearly visible to her. Again her guess had been right: he was on his knees, but doing nothing to propel himself, and needing to do nothing, because the others were virtually carrying him. The light grey double-breasted suit, white or cream shirt and a tie which was mostly pink, with some dark stripes, seemed a quaintly dandified outfit now. His head hung forward as before and swung out of control when the men moved, as if he might be only half-conscious, or less. She could still make out little of his appearance: there was the dark straight hair across his brow, and he seemed to have a sharp, bony nose and chin. He might be twenty-five. As far as she could tell, she had never seen him before in the club, nor any of the men around him. Two of them wore suits, one good jeans and a T-shirt, the other brown slacks and a brown leather jacket, also fine quality. This one had rapidly receding grey hair and wore rimless spectacles. To her, they seemed the wrong sort of looks for this setting and this incident, like a passed-over clerk’s or librarian’s. The other face that stuck in her mind belonged to one of the men in suits. His eyes were deep-set and unyielding. Although he could not be much more than thirty, she thought his teeth seemed too white and regular to be real. He had well cared for, very clean-looking d
ark hair, and immensely powerful shoulders. She found him terrifying.

  Now, Sarah thought she discerned some sort of mark on the neck of the injured man, perhaps another wound. His shirt collar seemed stained immediately beneath it, and possibly the pink tie and shoulder of his jacket, as well. Still afraid to go forward, she stood on the foot-rail at the bar and as she did Ian whispered harshly, urgently, one word, ‘Lights.’ Momentarily, she thought he was addressing her and did not understand what he meant. A second later, she heard someone hit the switches and every bulb in the club went out. So, he had been talking to Ralph.

  Ian took her arm and led her to a chair at one of the small tables. Then he moved quickly away, she did not know where. Sitting in the blackness, listening to the appalling wheezing from across the room, and the slither and bumping of the man’s knees and feet over the floor as the others continued dragging him, she suddenly felt as if she had been deserted, left on her own. What she had always half feared about Ian all at once looked to be true: she did not know him, was invited into only those parts of his life he chose to show and talk about. There were other parts, and from those she was carefully locked out, until an uncatered-for incident like this forced him to reveal tiny bits more. Perhaps he knew these men and could make a guess at what had happened. Or perhaps – Oh, perhaps almost any bloody thing, but he obviously felt he had to give them cover from her and others in the Monty, and that hurt. She honestly thought she did not care all that much what he was or wasn’t, but she wished to know it all. Secrecy between lovers sickened her. Didn’t she make a point of being open with him, telling the lot – well, the lot except about Francis Garland, which was a while ago now, and which had become such total ashes finally that she decided it was not worth mentioning?

  ‘It’s all right, everyone,’ Ralph called. ‘Temporary fault. Sit tight.’

  Nobody replied. The Monty was heavy with the silence of people minding their own business, a state of mind they would fall into by habit and instinct here. The only sounds were still those from the five men across the room. The noise of breathing had grown less regular and fainter. She heard a door open and then some subdued grunting, as if the four had adjusted their holds on the burden.

  ‘Ian,’ she whispered, ‘are you still there? Please.’ He did not answer. She turned her head, straining to see, and thought she could distinguish Ralph, leaning forward over the bar and gazing up towards the group, but failed to make out a shape for Ian. She was ashamed of feeling the need of him so much, and, although she wanted to call him again, somehow managed to stay silent.

  A door slammed shut and the sounds from the five men ended. For a moment an idiotic calm took hold of Sarah, as if the silence and the closed door made everything all right again – now you see it, now you don’t, and when you don’t it’s because it never happened at all, did it? Yes, it did, and it was still happening. Four men had a fifth, hurt, maybe dying, maybe dead, in the lavatory of a back-street club, and, if the men’s lavatory was anything like the women’s, nobody was going to mistake it for the London Clinic. Some things she could make herself believe for a while, because it was more pleasant to believe them, but not that the Monty would be sweetly back to normal as soon as the lights came on again and the talk re-started and the games of pool.

  Ian was suddenly sitting with her on the bench and he gripped her hand. ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  ‘What was it? Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Been? Oh, just at the bar.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Just at the bar. Too dark to move.’

  ‘Why did the lights go?’

  ‘Like the pit, isn’t it?’

  ‘But who are they, Ian? What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Ralph may know.’

  ‘You don’t? You don’t, honestly?’ The last word came out as an apologetic whisper, an afterthought. Often she felt that she must not press him too hard with questions, perhaps because she did not want to know all the answers, perhaps because she knew he would put up new barriers, making her feel even more shut out.

  ‘Some little crisis. Some bloody stupidity. They shouldn’t have come here.’ He raised his voice. ‘Any hope of a light, Ralph?’

  ‘I’m trying. A minute,’ he replied. His voice now came from the other side of the room and as he spoke he switched on a flashlight and shone the beam down to the floor. She had not seen him move from the bar. Ralph walked slowly along the route taken by the group of men, the beam still pointed slightly ahead of him, obviously looking for something. Did he fear traces, unpleasant stains on the Monty’s old, worn carpet? The search went as far as the closed door, but Ralph did not open it. ‘Yes, a minute,’ he said. He sounded anxious. The beam was played carefully over the same ground again, perhaps even slower now, as if he were fixing in his memory the spots that would need attention. ‘All very much in order,’ he announced, the tone saying the dead opposite. Perhaps he realized that, and when he spoke again he deliberately lightened his voice. ‘Yes, all fine.’

  The beam moved back towards the bar and in a few seconds all the lights came on. In full, tired splendour the Monty gleamed again. ‘Apologies all round,’ Ralph cried. ‘I’d say the club should stand everyone here a drink after that, wouldn’t you? Another power failure, a damned and depressing nuisance. So, what will it be, folks? Arthur, Neville?’

  But the two men he spoke to stood up, both looking troubled and obviously eager to get out. One of them made a small gesture to wave Ralph’s offer away, and glanced towards the closed door. Then they hurriedly left. Ralph called a genial ‘Good night, boys,’ after them, which they ignored. He turned: ‘Ian? The lady?’

  ‘Yes, why not,’ Ian said. ‘Brandy again, Sarah?’

  For a moment she was on the point of answering him. Because of fear, and because she should not have been in this place at all, and should not have seen what she had seen, she was going to take the drink, cave in to the Monty’s nervy ambience again, tag along as a smiling, sipping part of the conspiracy of wise blindness. Then she found she couldn’t do it. Instead, she yelled: ‘Ralph, a man might be dying behind that fucking door.’

  Angrily, Ralph glared at Ian, signalling unmistakably that he regarded him as responsible for Sarah in the club, and that she was deeply out of order and should be kept quiet. ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why not go and see?’

  ‘I –’

  ‘Your place, but you don’t go and see. Ian, how can he be like this, how can you be like this, for God’s sake? How can any of us?’ She found she was yelling, as if to reach everyone in the club and to get through to them, despite the blankness they so carefully built.

  ‘I told you – stupid behaviour, stupid people, they shouldn’t have come here. Who wants to get mixed up with them?’ Ian replied. ‘Look, let’s leave now, shall we?’

  Again she wavered and was almost on the point of backing down, choosing caution, and agreeing with him. It had become routine: in the Monty there would always be things it was cleverer not to have seen, and things it was brighter not to have heard: the rule was, Just close your eyes once in a while, like in so much of life. Tension never altogether left the Monty and you had better learn how to handle it. Normally, Sarah could handle it: she took a little care, forgot what it was best to forget, yet still got her kicks. She was on a night out, not a course of ethics. No, definitely not a course in ethics.

  But tonight she said quietly: ‘Ian. I want to see he’s all right.’

  ‘Why? You don’t know him.’

  ‘What the hell does that matter?’

  ‘It’s crazy, Sarah. You’re just curious, on the look-out for any damn thing new.’

  ‘Maybe. I’m going to find out, all the same.’

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Take my word.’

  ‘What word?’ For a second, she sat plucking up strength. Was Ian right, and did she simply need a new thrill? She certainly could not deny that it was the atmosphere of threat and possible danger
which helped draw her to the Monty. Absurd and childish, really, but every time she came into the club looking for Ian she felt that same bright burn of excitement, a sense of risk-taking and freedom and – and a sense of something else she could not define properly, and maybe did not want to. Was it more than the snobby thrill of slumming, an off-colour delight in the seedy raciness of the place and probable villainy of many of its members? Probable? And some more. Ian used to tell her quietly which were crooks, most of them pathetically small-time, but crooks all the same. A few reached middling, and might be waiting the chance to move up, thinking big, walking cocky, but staying put. Occasionally, Ian would introduce her to some of the regulars, and even without help she could have guessed they lived on the wrong side. Mostly, they tried to be cheerful and friendly with her, even charming in their rough style, but, of course, they knew who she was and that eventually she would go home to a police husband rich in braid and commendations, and they did not understand what she was doing in the Monty or why she went on seeing Ian Aston. How could they when she did not really understand it herself? They kept their talk with her short and afterwards stayed at a distance, up near where the five strangers had just passed, beyond the pool tables, so she couldn’t hear. One or other of them used to watch her all the time, and she did her best to ignore it.

  Their attitude always amused Ian, and so did hers: he could find a laugh almost anywhere. On the whole, she loved this in him, though now and then it might turn her ratty and explosive, but only for a while: she couldn’t stay like that with anyone, and especially not with Ian. Usually, she fell easily into harmony with him, thought as he thought, felt as he felt, did what he suggested.

  Now, though, she fought off his advice that they should leave and apply the standard Monty veil. Instead, ditching the greasy habit of tact she had acquired here over the months, she stood up.

  Even after what she had said, Ian misread the move. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We’re going?’