by Bill James
‘Obviously, when I heard the shooting I took notice,’ Mrs Groves said. ‘I’d not long come in from work and was having tea in the kitchen. But because of the sudden racket I went to the front window, not knowing what I might see.’
‘But not a Skoda,’ Iles said.
‘Three people, most likely two male, one female, running back from the dark saloon car towards the Ford Focus. Behind the Focus a black estate car had blocked off the mouth of the close.’
‘Weapons?’ Harpur asked.
‘Too distant and dark to see,’ she said.
‘So you can’t describe faces?’ Harpur said.
‘I was viewing them from behind,’ she replied.
‘Build?’ Harpur said. ‘Can you estimate age?’
‘The front runner squat, wide-shouldered, thick-necked, probably thirties, early thirties, male. One of the pair following seemed younger, more athletic, tall – over six feet, but solid, not gangling, male. The other I thought, think, might have been a woman, mid-twenties, head well back, a jogging style, easy and relaxed, one foot hitting the ground in more or less the exact spot where the leading foot did. A man’s feet won’t usually form such a neat pattern when sprinting.’
‘Someone running while holding a pistol, right or left according to preference, would probably have a different running style from someone not holding a pistol,’ Iles said. ‘It’s unlikely to have looked “easy and relaxed”. I believe the arm and hand with the gun would be kept stiff down at her/his side. Perhaps this one of the trio didn’t do any of the shooting.’
‘No heels, for the woman of course, if a woman,’ Mrs Groves said. ‘I think trainers.’
‘This looks to me like a hastily planned, but very efficient operation,’ Harpur said. ‘She’d know – if it was a she – she’d know she will need to get clear fast, so she wears what’s going to be convenient rather than fashionable, something that can help give the easy and relaxed style. After all, on the face of it, an easy and relaxed style would be tricky to manage after slaughtering Thomas Wells Hart. I suppose you wouldn’t have been able to tell if they were masked.’
‘No. She, if it was a she – had some kind of navy or black skull-cap on,’ Mrs Groves said.
‘So we’ve got no hair colour,’ Harpur said.
‘As you said, a skilled operation,’ she replied.
‘We meet skilled operations with Operations,’ Iles replied. ‘We meet skilled operations with the assistant chief constable (Operations). Me.’
Harpur said …
SIXTEEN
But why always Harpur?
SEVENTEEN
Well, let’s get accurate: it isn’t always Harpur. This time, though, it is. We’d better amend, ‘But why always Harpur?’ to ‘Why so often Harpur?’ Partly it’s because he tries continually, valiantly, to make Iles comprehensible, tolerable and even likeable to those around and about; in fact, to make him comprehensible, tolerable and even likeable to the general populace. Harpur saw this as a kind of almost dazzlingly difficult grail mission, its importance hard to overstate. Hadn’t he already attempted to humanize some of Iles for Mrs Millicent Helen Groves in her homely soap haven in the close; or, at least, humanize him as far as was feasible?
Now, Harpur had to take on a similar routine job with a much younger, grieving, desperate woman. ‘Is it Tom?’ she yelled. ‘It’s Tom, isn’t it? But why? How can it be Tom?’ Her voice filled the sealed-off suburban space. ‘How? Oh, how, why?’
Iles said in that pleasantly ice-breaking tone he occasionally dug out from somewhere, ‘You’ll be Judith Vasonne, I expect.’
‘How do you know that?’ she replied.
‘Or perhaps née Vasonne, but now something other,’ Iles said.
‘How do you know that?’ she said.
‘The ring’s fairly gargantuan,’ Iles said.
Harpur said, ‘Mr Iles – that is, Assistant Chief Constable Iles – will sometimes have moments of revelation that come as an overwhelming surprise to those present, and possibly more than a surprise, a breathtaking shock.’
‘Religious Education,’ Iles said. ‘And Careers.’
‘What are they to do with it?’ she said.
‘With what?’ Iles asked
‘With this murder,’ she said.
Harpur said, ‘We have an incident here.’
‘Of course you have a fucking incident. The incident is Tom shot to death, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Harpur likes to move slowly and with careful, calibrated vocab from established fact to subsequent established facts,’ Iles said. ‘It’s laborious, yes, but perfectly valid for someone of his nature and abilities.’
He and Harpur had just left Mrs Groves. They were at the gate of her front garden and about to step on to the pavement. The close was taped-off at the entrance and guarded as a crime site, but the officer in charge there must have decided the woman had something useful to say and brought her to them.
‘It was that miserable cow, was it?’ she said.
‘Which miserable cow?’ Iles replied.
‘In touch with you, then – spreading personal information.’
‘Which person, or persons, plural?’
‘Mine and Tom’s. Most probably she’d do it unsigned. Sneaky. Evil. You got anonymous stuff through the post, did you?’ she asked.
‘Which anonymous stuff?’ Iles replied.
‘From the cow,’ she said.
‘Which cow?’
‘The connection,’ she said.
‘What connection?’ Iles said.
‘You know what connection. How could you have my name like that if you didn’t?’
‘Mr Iles and connections – it’s a similar story,’ Harpur said. ‘If a connection exists he’ll spot it. He’s like one of those sniffer dogs, though not with drugs but connections.’
‘Whose blood is that on your gorgeous tunic, Iles?’ she replied. ‘Why was he here, in this damn shooting-gallery?’
‘I think Harpur hoped you’d be able to tell us that,’ Iles said.
‘How would I be able to tell you?’ she said.
‘You got here very quickly,’ Iles replied.
‘Local radio said an attack. They mentioned a Ford Focus.’
‘You made a connection?’ Harpur said.
‘You’ve seen him lately, have you?’ Iles said. ‘Things continue?’
‘It is Tom, is it?’ she asked.
‘I can understand why you feel envious. Yes, I have his blood seeping through on to my chest. But I’m afraid, Judith, we can’t let you get any nearer to the car,’ Iles said. ‘The whole close is non-access and non-exit except for our vehicles and the Focus is especially unapproachable. This is one of the basic police rules at a crime location.’
‘You obviously approached it,’ she said.
‘But as Harpur will tell you, I’m me, and this makes an absolute difference.’
‘Mr Iles is very much him,’ Harpur said. ‘He long ago saw off any competition. Our forensic people will be here soon and photographers, then a mortuary van.’
Harpur had driven himself and Iles to Cairn Close in an unmarked Range Rover. It was parked near the Ford Focus. The three of them – Judith Vasonne, Iles and Harpur – went to sit in it now and talk some more, Harpur at the wheel, Judith alongside him, Iles behind. ‘You’re living not far away, then?’ Harpur said.
‘I’m staying with my brother and sister-in-law near Rastelle Major, a break while my husband’s abroad.’
‘And have you been in touch with Thomas Wells Hart?’ Iles said.
‘We had lunch at The Knoll,’ she said.
‘For old times’ sake?’ Iles asked. ‘How admirably commemorative!’
‘Exactly,’ she said.
‘Nothing more?’ Iles said.
‘What more could there be?’
‘There is clearly a strong, rather lovely bond between you even so long after that initial shag-happy time when he and you were still at school, so to speak.
Your distress and all that bellowing of the “hows” and “whys” would suggest this. I, for one – but a considerable one – don’t believe you were putting it on, giving a woe performance. Perhaps Harpur wouldn’t agree, though. He frequently has his own independent thoughts. It’s brave, really.’
The police photographers in white overalls and headgear were at the Focus. Judith could see them and Harpur watched her shift a little to the left, trying for a view of Hart now the door of the Ford stood open. Harpur decided she was entitled to this and didn’t move to block her attempt. But after a few minutes a body-wagon rolled up and parked between the two cars cutting off completely any sight of the Ford.
Iles said, ‘Those blatantly sincere reactions, Judith – did they mean you consider yourself responsible in some way for what happened to him in Cairn Close? Were they an outpouring of self-reproach?’
‘In the presence of the dead surely everyone is bound to express feelings of regret, sorrow and loss,’ she said.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Iles replied.
They saw Judith to her car, just outside the close and then Harpur drove Iles back to headquarters. ‘Are we supposed to believe all that, Col?’ Iles said.
‘All which, sir?’
‘The sentimental luncheon, homage to their past.’
‘You think there was something beyond that?’
‘Does she strike you as someone who would idolize what’s gone and finished? Her interest in Hart would probably die as soon as he’d left school. It was the risk and sauciness of the relationship then that turned her on.’
‘I’m not too well up on the psychological side of sex.’
‘Hart as lover she’s finished with. Hart as private investigator might attract her, though. Perhaps she had a job for him.’
‘What job?’
‘Of course, she would still have some tender feelings for Hart, and so the noisy grief,’ Iles replied. ‘She thinks she helped get him killed. Maybe she did.’
Harpur said …
EIGHTEEN
But there were also times when Harpur didn’t say anything at all, and particularly didn’t say anything at all to Iles. Generally, this would be a matter of information bagged exclusively by Harpur which he decided should stay exclusive, Iles being the one excluded. It was usually something deeply important, and Iles, as Operations sultan, certainly should have been told about it, would rightly expect to be told about it, and would like to be told about it, if he’d known it existed; which Harpur tried to make sure he didn’t. As someone had said, there were things we knew we didn’t know; but there were also things we didn’t know we didn’t know, and this was the kind of multi-aspect ignorance Harpur occasionally managed to stick on Iles, ignorance squared, you could say.
Harpur had one of those precious, concealed items in his mind as they drove back to headquarters from Cairn Close. He’d decided it should stay in his mind for now, just as he’d described to Mrs Groves that Skoda and that Vauxhall as being in Iles’s mind, and only in his mind. Useful satchels, minds.
Eternally, Harpur wanted to be a little ahead of Iles; at least a little, possibly more. This was intensely difficult because Iles specialized in aheadness – his – and mercilessly schemed for it. Harpur occasionally wondered whether the assistant chief had been on an advanced personal safety course, perhaps devised originally by Stalin. This taught how to remove permanently anyone who threatened a leader’s authority or who seemed to threaten a leader’s authority; or who appeared likely to consider threatening a leader’s authority some time in the future, no matter how far into that future. Insurgency should be put down early, if possible at birth.
Keeping back crucial insights from Iles appeared to Harpur now and then as an extremely appropriate counter-move. He didn’t try to define for himself what that appropriateness consisted of. No need, surely. He considered it would have been clunking and fussy. Harpur reckoned he possessed what was termed in the law ‘a right to silence’, though, admittedly the phrase had a slightly different meaning then. But it required no explanation or excuses. It simply existed, like air, or the sea, or chewing gum, or Mount Kilimanjaro. Of course, he recognized that Iles would continually and ardently suspect Harpur of hiding essential stuff from him. Weren’t they both fast-track senior police officers? Iles didn’t know it as a certainty, though, lacked details, was carefully denied details, didn’t absolutely know he didn’t know, could only routinely suspect.
What Harpur hid from him for the present was that not long ago, his favourite informant, Jack Lamb, the art dealer, had been in touch with some confidential tip-offs, as he often was, though not lately. Harpur had taken the call at home. Best like that. Frequently, one of his teenage daughters, Hazel or Jill, would get to the receiver first, offer a sham pleasant greeting, listen, and then, without covering the mouthpiece, bellow to Harpur that his tout or nark or stool pigeon or snitch was on the line bubbling with disgusting betrayals, the way touts or narks or stool pigeons or snitches did. This was a kind of joke now. When they’d first done it they’d really meant to show their disapproval. They’d met Jack since then and, to their surprise, liked him. But they kept up the ragging now for the fun of it. Jack tolerated this, more or less.
Harpur and his tout or nark or stool pigeon or snitch would fix a rendezvous where, if there were any bubbling with disgusting betrayals to take place, it might be more secure than on an open landline. Touts, narks, stoolies, snitches had to be careful. Many – most – criminals would like to see them obliterated and turned into ex touts, narks, stoolies, snitches, now deceased; perhaps helped along to become deceased, not always painlessly.
‘Him, Dad?’ Jill, his younger daughter, had asked, when Harpur finished.
‘Most probably him,’ Hazel, the fifteen-year-old, replied. ‘Those very short, nuff-said, probably coded calls, intended to defeat any phone-tap enemies. Squealers have plenty of enemies.’ Sometimes Harpur thought they pushed the jape too far.
‘Or it could be shame,’ Jill said. ‘He knows he’s a traitor, so get it over fast.’
‘Cloak and blabber,’ Hazel said.
‘Information comes in many different ways,’ Harpur replied.
‘Some of them pretty nasty,’ Hazel said.
‘Possibly,’ Harpur said. His daughters seemed to believe they had a duty to apply the new generation’s values to him, and to monitor his behaviour and attitudes. They’d obviously agreed between them that nobody else would do a proper appraisal job on Harpur, and that he badly needed this proper appraisal. Their mother couldn’t help. She was dead, knifed one night in the station car park as she left the late train from London.1
Lamb would cite in the brief call an obscure or anonymous meeting place. He and Harpur had agreed three eligible discreet spots which could be rotated. They’d given each a number and only referred to that when fixing a rendezvous. A few nights ago, Jack suggested a one-time anti-aircraft gun site on a hillside at the edge of the city. The concrete emplacements were still there and sittable on. Harpur and Lamb could use a stretch of partly overgrown roadway laid originally for lorries bringing ammunition, food, tea and tit-and-bum magazines in those dark Second World War days. At night as Lamb and he talked, they would gaze down protectively at the massed lights of the buildings and streets and moving traffic. It was a sight German bomber crews would have loved, but all they’d got was blackout, searchlights, hate and ack-ack shells.
For a time the two had abandoned this post because Harpur feared it had become known. But after a while they’d decided the scare was probably wrong and replaced the gun site on their shortlist. Harpur had noticed a special urgency in Lamb’s voice when he called that evening to ask for the face-to-face. He had suffered catastrophic trouble recently at the gallery he operated in his country mansion, Darien. Jack’s mother, over for a visit from the United States and at ease with pistols, had shot dead a supposed burglar in the gallery and was now in jail.2 This had badly rocked Jack and his business He hadn’t been
in contact with Harpur for months and it was a surprise and a relief to hear from him a few days ago.
Harpur had driven out to the former weapons base and found Lamb already there, waiting for him, As far as Harpur could see in the darkness, Jack wore ordinary leisure clothes. Unusual. Normally, when they met here, Jack would come dressed in gear from his considerable army surplus collection – bits of British, German, French Foreign Legion, Russian uniform, or sometimes a mixture of all four. He did the same when they chose from their list a defence pill box, built on the foreshore in 1940 to beat back the Nazi invaders. They never came. Jack adored showy militariness.
‘It’s classic isn’t it, Colin?’ he’d said, almost before Harpur had climbed out of his car. Lamb’s voice seemed ragged now, more than tense.
‘What?’
‘First, that awful incident at Darien, and then the spurt of unrelated results. Or seeming unrelated.’
‘What classic unrelated results or classic seeming unrelated results, Jack?’
‘That shooting – my mother blazing away in a picture gallery. This made the papers, made the media generally, didn’t it? I mean on a national scale.’
‘Well, yes, it got coverage.’
‘It’s what they’d call in their glib, trivializing way, a great story, isn’t it – an elderly woman, popping away with a shooter surrounded by very pricey daubs, noble, historic country house, an intruder dead, the elderly woman done for manslaughter.’
‘Yes, it was going to attract some journalism,’ Harpur replied.
‘And the effect of that journalism, Colin?’ Jack’s tone now was almost plaintive.
‘Effect in which sense?’
‘In the reputation sense.’