Come Clean (1989)

by Bill James

  ‘You ate at Leo’s restaurant, Desmond?’ Lane asked.

  ‘Sort of, sir. Not what you’d be used to. Not the Savoy Grill.’

  ‘Wise to go into a place run by someone like that?’ Lane asked, scrabbling for a chance to hit back.

  ‘Ah, the Stalker syndrome. Depends what you hear when you’re in there. It means we won’t be making cunts of ourselves with three battalions at the Cardinal Street office block, when the party’s somewhere else.’

  ‘And he actually spoke to you about marksmen, about possible assassination?’ Lane asked.

  ‘Coded, sir, naturally. He talked about Lentle’s being “talented”, and rightly assumed I knew what the talents were. And he kept off the actual term “assassination”, but told me he’d decided not to expose the family “en masse”.’

  Trying to sort out where this new information took them, Harpur said: ‘Leo will be scared it’s still likely to happen, won’t he – either at this new venue, or somewhere else, later? All right, it might not be possible to get the whole outfit next time, but business is about compromise.’

  ‘Yes, he’s very scared,’ Iles replied. ‘I picked up that much. He’s afraid that if Benny has committed himself to an attempt he’ll go through with it, somehow. Navy resolution.’

  ‘So there must be a chance that Leo could try to get his move in first,’ Harpur said. ‘Self-defence.’

  ‘Almost certain,’ Iles replied. ‘Self-defence and rage at the degree of betrayal.’

  The Chief grew agitated. ‘Something pre-emptive? Where? Christ, I don’t want this patch becoming site for a full-scale gang battle. I won’t have it. Desmond, how’s this to be staged? How?’ He never shouted, but his voice had grown high and weak-sounding. His fingers twitched and pulled at the old wool of the cardigan.

  Iles stretched out, long-legged and thin in the chair, admiring his pricey-looking, black slip-on shoes. ‘I can’t help there, sir. Leo was talkative in Chaff, but not that talkative, and not that explicit, either. As I said, coded. I suppose one wouldn’t really expect more – not to tell a police officer the way you meant to knock out a rival villain and his disciples. It was put to me simply as a business grievance. But perhaps Colin has ideas?’

  ‘Colin?’ the Chief asked, desperately.

  ‘Not at this stage, I’m afraid. In any case, although this is all pretty likely, it is hypothetical, isn’t it, sir?’ He directed the question to Iles.

  ‘The hanged man’s death was hypothetical until the trap door opened,’ the ACC replied.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ Lane muttered. ‘Is it one of your fucking stupid quotes, Desmond? Is it Wittgenstein again? What are you saying?’

  Iles smiled in very kindly fashion. ‘Forgive me. I’m a phrasemonger. My mother used to reproach me for it, too, sir. She thought it arrogant. Arrogant! I? What I am saying, sir, put simply, is that we’re liable to get guns on the streets and a fair quantity of degenerate blood shed fairly soon. Now, you’ll naturally ask, which streets, sir, and to this I regrettably have to say that I don’t know. But I suppose a confrontation like that might remove a lot of our problems. In boxes. The buggers could wipe one another out. End of rackets, at least until the arrival of new gangs scenting the pickings here.’

  ‘Desmond, I won’t have shoot-outs between villains,’ Lane declared.

  ‘I’m not so sure, sir.’

  In the evening, Harpur went up again to Rougemont Place, waiting to see whether Sarah Iles came out once more. This time he moved very gingerly, conscious that Tommy Vit might be prowling there. Harpur still could not fathom what had gone on last night. Had Sarah led Vit to Ian Aston? If so, what had happened? Apparently Sarah came back all right, or he would have heard something from Iles. Perhaps Harpur had been mistaken and the Golf in the shadows had contained no watcher. Had it moved away while Harpur was absent, not because Vit had followed Sarah, but because its owner, living in one of these houses, or visiting, had simply come back to the car and driven off somewhere? That coincidence Harpur could not quite swallow, but it was possible.

  This job would be very tricky. If Tommy had been around last night, he might have spotted Harpur in the Viva and be especially alert now. Harpur was using an Astra station wagon this time, but he still could not risk driving into Rougement Place; supposing he was there, Tommy would be marking every vehicle. Yet if Harpur parked a distance away he might have little chance to get back to the Astra in time to follow Sarah.

  As a start, anyway, he decided he had no real option. He left the car as near as he could to the end of Rougement Place and then began to work his way on foot very slowly and carefully up towards Iles’s drive again. He did not expect to see the Golf this time, and was right about that; Tommy would probably change his car daily, whether or not he believed he had been spotted. That was basic in his trade.

  Thank God for the upper middle classes’s love of hedges and large front gardens. Harpur found he could keep off the street itself for most of the time. Perhaps someone in one of these robbable properties would see him and let the dogs loose or, worse still, call the police, but he would have to risk it. He had a pause in one garden and, from behind a couple of hefty shrubs, took a long look at everything parked near Iles’s place. There were half a dozen cars, none present when he drove through last night. He could make out nobody in any of them, but it was very dark again and he would not have taken bets. In a minute, he started moving once more, even more slowly and warily now, as he drew near to Iles’s house.

  He had become very anxious about Sarah, and wondered whether she knew the danger she was in. She was bright, so she presumably had some idea of the hazards, but, if she kept up her contact with Aston, it could mean she did not properly understand where she was treading. Either that, or she had decided she must see him, and to hell with the risks. Almost certainly Sarah would be capable of thinking like that. He had often seen a kind of desperation in her, and maybe this could bring on behaviour that was not always rational: Francis Garland, Sarah’s lover for a long while, always said she had something wild about her. Of course, Harpur did not know for certain whether she really was still in touch with Aston. Perhaps she had not seen him during the trip out last night. On that, though, Harpur would have taken bets, and he was here only in case she had arranged then to visit him again tonight.

  He felt determined to protect her. She was a friend and someone he admired and sympathized with, stuck in that wrong, bleak marriage. Yes, a friend: Harpur felt almost certain he had never really considered her sexually, except in that general, uncommitted way he might want any woman as good-looking as she was. But he worried about Sarah and wished to help her. He liked her toughness and bounce, and feared they could bring her to terrible harm. It seemed to him part of his job to stop that happening, if he could. And there was another part. Sarah might lead him to Aston, and he needed Aston because he might know all sorts. Every sign said he did. Why else would Benny want to find him? Aston might be able to talk about Paynter’s death, for instance. So might Sarah, of course, but if it was possible he would like to keep her out of all that. Increasingly he felt it would not be possible, though.

  Working his way through the front gardens, he eventually found himself looking through the hedge into Iles’s drive from the garden next door. Her Panda was there, but not Iles’s car. The ACC must be at a function somewhere. Not knowing what to do next, he felt his judgement begin to come unstuck and suddenly he found he wanted to abandon secrecy, ring the front door bell and ask Sarah to take him with her to Aston. He would explain the perils she and her lover were in, and it might convince her. Only might, though; most likely, Sarah would be full of suspicion, convinced he wanted to break her love affair, and return her to his colleague, her husband, and to proper behaviour. He couldn’t care less about proper behaviour, hers or his own, but would he be able to make her believe that? He doubted it. She had her view of police, and the Monty and Aston were escapes. Perhaps Aston was more, but he was that
as well.

  No, she would not take him voluntarily. But suppose she did not know. Perhaps the only way he could stay with her and remain unobserved by Sarah and Tommy Vit might be by hiding in the Panda. If he could smuggle himself into the back she might take him to Aston, unaware. He reckoned she probably was not the kind of fussy woman who would lock up in the drive, so there must be a good chance. For a while he thought about it, and almost abandoned the idea; could somebody of his bulk stay unseen in the rear of that little box? But then he decided he had no choice, a situation he was growing used to tonight. He pushed through the hedge and, treading as lightly as he could on the gravel, stepped to the car. He found both doors and the hatchback locked. So, that was how well he understood Sarah. Had any of his assumptions about her tonight been right?

  Quickly, he retreated out of the drive the way he had come, and began to make his way back towards the Astra. He felt defeated. The whole expedition had been stupidly conducted, he now realized. He was not even sure why he had needed to approach the house at all, except to check that she had not already gone out. If he had wanted to spot Tommy Vit, it was a wasted trip, and he should have known it would be. Tommy was not in advertising.

  For a few minutes Harpur’s morale stayed sunk, and his brain refused to operate. Then he slowly recovered. Couldn’t this thing be handled much more simply? Why did he ignore knowledge he already had? It was obvious that last night Sarah had driven out of the other end of the road, or he would almost certainly have met her as he came back from circling the block. If she went to see Aston again she must take the same route.

  He drove the estate car in the opposite direction around the block to near the junction where he had turned last night after seeing the Golf. There, he pulled in, switched off his lights, and waited, about fifteen yards from the entrance to Rougement Place. He sank down as low as he could in the car, though he knew that if Vit came up here and had a look it would be all up. But, with any luck, Tommy’s interest would be totally taken up with Idylls and Rougement Place.

  After only twenty minutes the Panda appeared, with Sarah driving, and turned away from him at the junction. Harpur started the engine, but did not light up yet and stayed where he was. After another couple of minutes a yellow Opel that had been one of the half-dozen cars near Iles’s house came out of Rougement Place and followed the Panda. At the wheel was a man who could be Tommy. Harpur gave him a fair distance, then put on his lights and went after both of them. So, if Vit was watching, it indicated that Benny still wanted Aston, and that must mean he did not know about the switch from the Roundhouse and regarded the attack as still on. It meant Sarah Iles was driving to a very sombre situation. Harpur knew he should have had help, and that he should have been armed. But how could he have asked for help to tail the Assistant Chief’s wife to a love meeting with a villains’ messenger boy and odd-job man? And how would he have explained to the armoury that he might need a handgun to protect her?

  They seemed to be driving down towards the Valencia Esplanade area. That would make sense; anyone who wanted to go to ground might choose rooms in one of those big, old, multi-flatted houses, where few tenants remained for very long, and where people did not talk much about who they were or where they had come from, or where they would be moving to next. Harpur still kept far back from Tommy’s Opel. It meant a danger of losing them, especially if other vehicles came between, but to go closer would be like lighting up neon to tell Vit he was there. Of course, for all Harpur knew, Tommy had him spotted already. People like Vit were not just good at tailing, they could feel when they were being followed themselves. Well, what else, when they lived by all the gambits? The Panda was far ahead, and could be any one of several sets of rear lights. He had to rely on Tommy to know which and to stay with her. Perhaps he would be so busy keeping track that he would not have time to watch his mirror. Yes, perhaps.

  The Opel went suddenly right into Tempest Street, and when Harpur followed, he could see no moving vehicles ahead. For a moment, he feared he had fallen too far back, and that Sarah and Tommy had already left from the other end of the road. Panicked, he was about to accelerate up to the junction when he saw a woman who might be Sarah about a hundred yards off on foot, walking away from him with the striding, sexy, confident lope which was one of her trademarks. Immediately, he pulled into the side and watched her. Soon afterwards, he picked out the Panda parked far up on the other side of the road. A little way behind, but separated from it by several vehicles, stood the Opel, its lights already out.

  Sarah turned and ran up the front path of one of the biggest houses and seemed to open the door with a key. She disappeared inside. Immediately then, a man in a long, dark trenchcoat and with a lot of rather gorgeous fair, wavy hair left the Opel and walked unhurriedly towards the house. As Harpur remembered them, the squat build and the layered hair were right for Tommy Vit, and the disarming leisureliness with which he moved. For a moment, he paused in front of the closed door, then bent over the lock, with what could have been a credit card in his hand. In a second he had opened the door and went in after her.

  Harpur left the car and approached the house, taking cover behind a parked van. In a ground-floor room he could see an elderly woman lit up by the silver light of a television set, the way three-quarters of humanity continually exhibited itself these days. The floor above seemed totally dark. A young woman and a small child were looking from a window on the storey above that, Harpur decided that Aston, if it was Aston, must be in the attics; two rooms up there had lights showing.

  He thought it would be wisest to wait though until Vit left. That should be all right; Tommy was a tail and only turned violent when cornered, or so the dossier said, and the dossiers were sometimes right. His job here would be simply to find Aston, and then tell Benny where he was, strictly a pathfinder. Sarah and her lover were probably in no danger yet, and there would be time to warn them to get out. And time to go with them. That was crucial. He did not want Aston to disappear again. Harpur remained behind the van but prepared himself for some very rapid movement, in case what he saw or heard showed he had read things badly.

  After about ten minutes the door opened and Vit came out at the same relaxed pace, made for his car and drove away. He would be reporting to Loxton now what he had found, either on a car phone, or from the first workable booth he came to. His job was over, and it must have been soft money; follow the girl, get an identification of Aston when he opened the door upstairs, observe the layout of the house, make a decent guess at how the rooms were arranged, then brief Benny on the lot. He and his people would come immediately, but Vit would not hang about to watch the action or take part. His chief objects now must be to get well clear and put an alibi together. Tommy was a specialist, and the demarcation understanding would be that his fee did not require him to carry out or watch executions.

  Harpur left the Astra and went down a side lane to reach the back of the house. Even in this road, the fire regulations would demand an escape and he had decided to get in that way, if he could. Perhaps there were bells at the front door and perhaps Aston would answer if he rang the right one. But perhaps he would not. This was a man lying low and expecting no callers, except the one already there, who had a key. Some more would certainly be on the way very soon. Tommy could be delivering the invitation at this moment.

  Harpur began to climb the escape, moving swiftly and moving quietly, he hoped. It did not matter all that much because he was here mainly to offer help. They ought to be pleased to see him.

  At the top storey, the escape became a simple metal ladder leading to a platform outside an unlighted window, with curtains partly across. He went up the ladder and rested for a moment on the platform, then moved close to the window and tried to see inside through the curtain gap. It was a rough bedroom, but, as far as he could make out, unoccupied, thank God. Sarah was entitled to her love sessions, with anyone she liked or loved, but he did not want to arrive in the middle of one, like a divorce snoop. The a
im was to look after her, not frighten her frigid. He tried the window but it did not budge. He would have to force the catch, and brought out his pocket knife. This simple burgling skill he had learned years ago, and should be easy enough in this old house, where the wooden frames were getting soft.

  While he worked there he thought suddenly that he had heard someone below in the rear yard, and he paused while he listened and looked down. But he located nobody. Intent on speed, he turned back to the window. And then, just as he felt the catch move, the curtains were violently pulled fully open and a flashlight beam from inside the room blinded him momentarily. Someone flung up the window and a man said: ‘You? Harpur? Why you? You’re in with them? Where are the other bastards?’ A large-calibre pistol was pointed at him and he remained very still, crouched low on the platform. There seemed something familiar about the shadowy figure holding the weapon but, for the moment, he could not identify it, nor the voice.

  From behind him, he was aware of another man coming fast up the ladder. He snarled at Harpur: ‘Keep still. You’re covered all ways. Where’s the rest? Where?’

  ‘It’s fucking police,’ the man in the room said. ‘Harpur.’

  ‘Police? How police?’ the other man grunted anxiously. ‘Police, how many? This is a set-up?’

  Now, Harpur did recognize them. ‘It’s Leo, yes?’ Harpur asked the man in the room. Without too much success he tried to keep the astonishment and wonder out of his voice. ‘And Lay-waste – I mean, Anthony.’

  ‘Get in,’ Lay-waste said. ‘Into the room.’

  Before Harpur could move, though, Leo thrust his small thin body out through the window and searched him quickly for a gun. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Lay-waste said, sounding enraged. ‘What the hell is this? You come here clean, a situation like this? You mad or something?’