by Bill James
‘You got to do what you can,’ he said.
Sarah Iles smiled, briefly again, and shook his hand. Loxton saw that her thoughts were miles away. He wished he knew for certain how many miles, and where exactly.
‘Benny, I’ve been trying to persuade Sarah to put herself forward for the organizing committee of this function and similar worthwhile events,’ Iles said. ‘She needs something to occupy her.’
Yes, he’d heard that, but thought it had been arranged. ‘They’d be lucky to get you, Mrs Iles,’ Loxton told her.
‘Kind,’ she replied. ‘I’m certainly going to think about it.’
He reckoned that what this meant was that she certainly was not going to. Lamb and his girl walked past, on their way to the dance floor, but neither of the police appeared to know him, so maybe that was wrong about him and Harpur. Maybe.
Now, Harpur said: ‘Here’s Alma, Benny. Looks as if you’ve cleaned up.’
She was carrying a scarlet teddy bear, half as big as herself, that clashed like hell with the turquoise gown, and a bottle of gin. Alma loved to win and despite her big feelings for charity never gave prizes back to be re-raffled. Yes, she worried about the needy and whales, but there came a limit, so the house was full of crap like this dud bear. Gazing at them and smiling in a way that he probably thought looked so kindly, Iles asked: ‘Do you think these two are going off on a private party?’
Loxton and his wife stayed until the end. When they went out to their car, Norman was waiting near. ‘All quiet?’ Loxton asked.
‘No sign of anything at all, Theodore,’ he said. ‘The police brass just left. A motor-bike cop brought a package for the grey-haired one.’
‘Iles. Probably his month’s back-handers.’
Chapter Five
Awaking early, despite their late night at the charity ball, Sarah Iles felt an immediate rush of joy. Today, she would see Ian. Generally, it took a while for her mind to get into its stride as she emerged from sleep, but, this morning, excitement rushed the change, and she was instantly alert and gloriously happy. Ian had come back. Thank God she had decided to call him from the city hall last night. She decided that her life contained no greater moment of delight than when he answered, and assured her he was all right. He had been waiting near the telephone and picked it up at once.
That was not simply luck. Long ago they had hatched an arrangement for telephoning each other at agreed times if either had something urgent to say. Mainly, it benefited her, because Desmond was home at unpredictable hours: she could be ready to grab the receiver before him, and on an extension. But occasionally, it might be useful for reaching Ian, too: there were people he badly needed to avoid, and did not always answer his telephone. The timing told him when it was Sarah.
For days since the Monty incident she had been trying him, without reply. Somehow, last night at the city hall, she felt especially desolate without Ian, and the presence of Desmond and their friends only made it worse: she had company but the wrong company. At 10.40 p.m., one of their chosen times, she could not stop herself detouring on her way back from the Ladies to ring him again. After all those earlier failures, she did not expect an answer, yet there he was sounding fine. So great and lovely was the shock that she let out a single, crazy, soaring whoop of gladness in the telephone box, and when she returned to Desmond and the others she feared they must see the transformation in her. The happiness had been so overwhelming that there was one absurd moment when she felt as if Ian were actually present, and she fussed with her hair in the little mirror, trying to make herself more presentable.
She lay now in bed savouring all the pleasurable surprise of that call, and the sense of huge relief that he was safe and could see her today. Not at the Monty, though, thank you! They had laughed at that notion, joking about what new horrors and complications they might land themselves in if they went back. And, surely, the fact that they could laugh now about it all must be a good sign. Didn’t it show that the stress of what had happened there was dropping into the background, was on the way to being forgotten? Thank God for that, too. She had performed her noble, little, pushy bit – her cop-wife duty as she saw it – without result. Let matters rest there. She and Ian had done nobody any damage, discovered nothing that counted, so they could surely be left alone. She dreaded to think she might have put Ian’s life in peril, and, for herself, she wanted no more visits from Ralph, or people worse than Ralph. What she did want was the good and contented days and nights with Ian again. At least this crisis had forced her to recognize priorities; nothing much rated against her wish to be with him. When she called last night, Ian said it might not be clever to meet at his place today, so they had settled on a dismal transport café where they ate occasionally, pretty sure it was so drab that they would see nobody they knew there. Maybe it let rooms, too.
Alongside her, Desmond stirred, as if sensing she was awake. Still three-quarters asleep, he turned slowly towards Sarah and put an arm around her waist, drawing himself closer to her. They slept without night clothes and she felt him begin to grow aroused. Muttering irritably, as if he had woken her, she moved away. He grunted in disappointment, but did not pursue her and in a moment turned to face the other direction again. It always made her sad to refuse him, even now, after so many months and so many refusals, but she could not have made love with him this morning. Today belonged to Ian Aston. Not long afterwards she left the bed and quickly dressed.
When Desmond came down to breakfast later he seemed untroubled, so perhaps he had been genuinely asleep and did not recall what had happened. Or he might be ignoring it. At times she thought he deliberately avoided a confrontation, because he feared where it might lead. As ever, he looked pretty good, ready to take the day and bend it any way he wanted: alert, fit, brazen, irrepressible, despite the refusal in bed, youthful, despite the grey hair. Yes, Des was a despite sort of person, she reckoned. He tended to do what he wanted and get what he wanted despite what people might do in efforts to stop him. It was something she used to admire, and still did. Now, though, she admired it less. There was a toughness in him that could sometimes go very close to coldness, harshness.
All the same, she had watched other women in his company and felt sure that many would think themselves lucky to get anywhere near being wanted by him. Occasionally she wished she could still find it a joy, herself. So, why not? Something had died, that was all: no five-act tragedy. It happened in so many marriages, marriages which kept going, regardless. Maybe the absence of children did have something to do with it, but simply as an institution, marriage packed a very big punch. ‘A beautiful fellow exists,’ she said, working on The Times crossword alongside her coffee.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘A clue, berk.’
‘Adonis,’ he told her. ‘The word breaks up into “a don” – slang for a fellow of a university – and “is”, meaning exists.’
For some reason, as Desmond explained the answer to her, a recollection of that revered university man in the city hall foyer leapt into her head – existing, but only in stone. Well, no, not just for some reason: she could hardly think of anything today but the delight of making that telephone call and finding Ian at home. She half smiled as she relived the moment now, could almost feel the receiver in her hand again, and the tautness of her dress, caught in the door because of her hurry. When she made that whoop of joy in the booth, had she been half-aware of a man glancing around, comically startled, from near the monument? The vague memory of his shocked face made her smile almost grow into an outright laugh and to conceal it, she bent her head and wrote in Adonis, ‘Aren’t you the bright one, though, Desmond?’
‘Oh, well, yes, but –’
‘So why aren’t you clever enough to nail people like Benny Loxton, lording it at the do last night? He’s a crook, yes?’
‘Of course. On the Nobel prize short-list for extortion and drug dealing, inter alia.’
‘I suppose in a way it’s a giggle to see him decked o
ut like a master of ceremonies, putting on the gravitas. In another way it’s bloody frightening. Can they do what they like, Des?’
‘The world’s full of crooks we can’t nail, living at the top of the heap, wearing handmade shirts and drinking malt. Just as it’s fucking full of blind and intimidated juries and loot-laden, conniving defence lawyers.’
‘Are you afraid of him because he’s so successful, so well set up socially?’
‘Afraid? Well, he is formidable. Yes, we go carefully. He’s always got the first five digits dialled to his solicitor. I suppose we don’t jump on him quite so fast as on a piggy bank burglar.’
‘Isn’t that disgraceful?’
‘Harpur’s wife gives him this sort of bad time, you know. Ethics and the whole civil liberties lump.’
‘Well –’
‘Benny’s done time in the past as a matter of fact,’ he said, and she saw she had stung him. ‘And we might have him again soon. Something epic’s brewing up between him and another heavyweight – though what, we don’t know. That’s what Colin Harpur and I have been trying to discover. Discover? Well, guess at. There’s no information yet, just atmospherics and undefined tension. But we both feel it. As it happens, I think things might have started moving at the ball last night.’
‘You what? Why, for heaven’s sake? I saw nothing.’
He concentrated on his breakfast for a while. ‘Sarah, I shouldn’t talk about police matters, you know, not beyond the general and routine, such as standard contempt for juries, Queen’s Counsel, newspapers and the Home Secretary.’
‘Do I gossip?’
For a few moments, she watched him calculate how much he might safely tell her. There had been a time, not all that long ago, when he would never reveal anything. In those days he had quite obviously taken pleasure in secrecy, and drew feelings of superiority from keeping her at a distance. Perhaps this had been one factor that started the gap between them, and then made it wide and permanent. She knew he regretted it now and yearned for the power to interest her, to draw her to him that way and hold her, even if he could not draw her to him and hold her in bed.
This morning she waited for him to cave in and decide to talk, and then when he did his words almost stunned her. ‘I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a public phone box in the city hall foyer,’ he said.
‘Is there?’ she muttered, her voice suddenly gone to milk and water.
‘Benny made a very dark call to one of his people from there.’
‘Oh, Desmond, speak plainly. What the hell does dark mean?’
‘Alarming.’ He hesitated again. ‘What sounded like hit instructions.’
She was dazed by what he said. Jesus, had they been monitoring all calls from that box? What for? ‘How can you tell?’
‘Tell what? That they were hit instructions?’
‘That he made such a call.’
Iles did not answer.
‘Someone saw him in the box? But how do you know what he said and who he was talking to?’
Iles gazed at her.
In a little while, her mind started working properly again, and she saw with relief – relief for the moment – that it must be from the other end of the line that Loxton’s call had been overheard.
‘You’ve got a phone tap going on some crook’s house – one of his people?’
‘We’re keeping an eye and ear open in all sorts of ways, Sarah.’
‘But when did you hear about all this – the phone call?’
‘I had a report.’
‘When?’
‘Does it matter?’
She thought for a moment. ‘The motor-cycle man who turned up after the ball last night brought you a transcript, did he? It’s so urgent?’
‘Someone’s life, possibly. Yes, it’s urgent, we’re here to stop hits.’
‘But tapping’s illegal.’
‘Except in specially ordered cases.’
‘These are specially ordered?’
‘Permission is very rare. It’s got to be endorsed by twelve authenticated virgins, three members of the Magicians’ Circle, the Privy Council, a director of a marmalade factory and the religious correspondents of the Guardian and Comic Cuts – that’s two separate papers, though I’ve heard convincing arguments the other way.’
‘So, you haven’t got –?’
‘He’s extremely careful what he says, possibly suspecting a tap himself.’
‘What do you mean, hit instructions?’
‘A target to be knocked off because he or she’s seen something awkward for Benny, or knows something awkward for Benny, possibly heard something awkward for Benny. That was suggested in the call.’
‘But who?’
‘Now, Sarah, come on. Could I tell you that, even if I knew, darling? I don’t. No names. I understand we can identify Benny’s voice, but that’s as far as we go. And we didn’t have surveillance on the man receiving the call, or we could have followed him.’
‘You’re saying, these were orders to go out and kill somebody right then?’
‘That’s how it sounds. At about 10.50 – between the tangos and teddy bear raffle – he gave unmistakable instructions for a death.’
‘Instructions to whom?’
‘Now, now. Naturally, I do know the answer to that, but I’m telling you too much already.’
‘To one of his people?’
Iles ate his breakfast.
‘Well, obviously,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, why the tap on his line? But making the call there, in the middle of a dance, as if he’s just thought of it – what brought that on, for heaven’s sake? He was provoked? What happened? He met someone, heard something?’
‘You really mustn’t ask about these things, Sarah. You’ll get me hanged.’ Preparing to go, he stood and put his jacket on, but again she saw that he could not resist having her attention, for once. ‘Now, this is the last: it looks as if he’d seen someone else make a call in the same box – probably a woman – and from that he deduced that his target must be at home. They’d been looking for him.’
‘My God.’ Once more she felt as if she were losing control of her mind and strength. Loxton’s call had been about her and Ian?
‘Deduced how?’
‘Perhaps she looked so pleased. They could be lovers. Benny might have known that.’
‘But you’ve no names?’ She guarded against sounding over-anxious.
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Will you talk to Benny?’
‘About what?’
‘About the call, of course.’
‘We don’t know about the call, do we, love? How on earth could we? Permission for taps is hardly ever given, as I told you. Anyway, if we approach Benny he’ll realize we’re watching him and his.’
Desperately, she tried to dig out from her subconscious those memories from last night in the city hall foyer. Yes, surely there had been someone hanging around, a man in full evening clobber gazing reverentially at the seated stone scholar, almost communing with it? And, yes, hadn’t he glanced her way when she gave that shriek? She struggled to recall what he looked like, but could bring no face from her memory. Her mind had been too much taken up elsewhere. But why had her brain jumped to Benny Loxton just now when Desmond spoke of a university man as part of the crossword answer? Had she noted him near the monument without being properly aware of it? Perhaps she had scarcely recognized him. There had been only the briefest identification of Loxton for her by Desmond when they were dancing.
She suspected that after the first surprised stare towards her the man in the foyer had deliberately turned his back. His clothes? From when they were all talking together later, she recalled that Loxton had been in a penguin suit and wearing a preposterous blue cummerbund, plus a flower of some sort in his buttonhole. Did the man near the telephone box sport such extras? She could not recall this, either. He was tall, though, no doubt of that, as tall as Loxton.
‘But it’s terrible.’
‘W
hat’s terrible is that we can’t discover the target’s name. We have to wait until we find a – Well, until we hear of some unexplained violence, and then see if it links to Benny.’
‘You think it will?’
‘Oh, yes. His people do what they’re told, and they’re good at it, particularly one of them, the one he called. And, before you ask, yes, we’ve failed so far to nail him, too.’
As soon as Desmond left for work, she telephoned Ian’s flat again, but could get no reply. She feared that even if she hung on for one of their special times he would not answer today. Oh, God, it was still hours before they were due to meet, and she could not bear to wait so long before trying to find if he was safe. She stayed in the house until 9.25, one of their chosen moments for calls, but nothing came, and five minutes later drove out to his flat, in a big, handsome Edwardian house, about a quarter of a mile from the Monty. Once, very early on in their relationship, he had offered her a key and she had refused, feeling it would bind her more than she wanted then. He never asked her again.
She ran up the stairs to the second floor and tried his door before ringing the bell. Ian was paranoid about security and had two locks and a top and bottom bolt, yet, to her amazement, the door opened when she turned the knob. Taking one small step into the flat, she softly called his name and listened. There was no answer, nor when she called again, a little more loudly. Then, before she could move any further inside, she heard two or three sets of footsteps on the landing behind her. They seemed to slow down as they came near the door, as if people were looking in, or might enter after her, and for a second she felt too terrified to turn around to find who was there.
When she did, she saw an elderly couple in the doorway glaring suspiciously at her. I’m looking for Ian,’ she said. ‘Do you live here? Have you seen Ian – Mr Aston?’
Long-nosed, gruff and heavy with acrylic cardigans, the woman replied: ‘We got keys. We come in to feed the hamster occasional.’
‘Oh, yes: Redvers.’