by Bill James
‘I wouldn’t say “unusual”.’
‘Few would see an inevitable oneness between a blue van and an Audi.’
‘But you did, did you?’ she said.
‘Is there a colleague in the van?’
‘We’ve discussed where you might be going to, but just as significant might be where you were coming from,’ she replied.
‘If there’s someone in the van he might be wondering why you are such a long while talking to a Ford Focus driver,’ I said. ‘Might he come to join us, d’you think, out of puzzlement or to appear sociable. Is he in touch with art, also?’
‘Why do you say “he”? You’ve said “he” four times. Have you seen the blue van before – that is, the blue van and its driver?’
‘Where could I have seen it?’
‘Yes, where?’ she said.
‘I don’t maintain that because the van and the Audi are so near each other some transference operation might be taking place, or has taken place, like a plane refuelling another in mid-air. There is no evidence of that. In any case, such a transference of an item or items would be easier if the Audi were backed up to the van, not head-on to it. The very adjacent vehicles do seem to imply some kind of shared purpose, but not necessarily a shifting of load from one to the other. Would you accept this as a fair summary?’
‘You mention “no evidence”,’ she said. ‘Are you police? A detective? That’s their kind of lingo, though they can sometimes concoct evidence, I gather, so that where there was no evidence there now is evidence, evidence, fortunately, of just the brand they want because they created it.’
‘I saw no loading from the van to the Audi or vice versa.’
‘What kind of loading didn’t you see?’ she said.
‘Loads can certainly vary.’
‘Could you give me some examples?’
‘The van is small,’ I replied, ‘but it could accommodate quite a significant amount of items if required to, or several large items. It’s well known that some small vans have a surprising amount of capacity despite the left and right casements for the rear wheels taking some of the space. Have you thought, though, that if a police patrol car comes this way on a routine drive through local streets and roads the officers might regard the nearness of the Audi to the van as something of a mystery and come to have a nose around. I’m not hinting that there’s something criminal about the closeness, but it’s odd. The patrol might decide to investigate.’
‘I’ll be on my way soon,’ she said.
‘Ah. It’s been a very pleasant interlude. I take it you’ll be driving the Audi, yes? Will you and the van part together?’
‘There’s no real reason for me to stay. It was just that I wondered why you’d come to the layby, whether there was more to it than bladder pressure.’
‘That’s very understandable. I’m so happy we were able to have a constructive discussion on this topic and I hope I’ve explained everything with total clarity.’
‘Not at all, you devious, jabbering shite,’ she said. ‘Did you mention “disjointed”? I’d say all over the place.’
‘The same place as we’re all being herded to?’
I drove out of the layby, passing the two vehicles and managed an excellent stare into the van’s side window. Suitcase Man was sitting at the wheel gazing ahead and seemed to ignore the Focus. Should there be a profile resemblance to Judy? Couldn’t see one. I felt proud and exceptionally mature to have earned that farewell chirp from the Audi piece, ‘jabbering, devious shite’. It showed she hadn’t been able to get much from our quaint, roadside gossip.
TWENTY-TWO
Harpur was upstairs at 126 Arthur Street carefully getting himself ready for Thomas Wells Hart’s funeral: essential to ensure every detail right and respectful. Dignity, above all, was what he wanted for the service, and he knew he must do what he could to contribute some of that dignity. He wore a good, dark, double-breasted three-piece suit on these occasions: off-the-peg, a long-term joke to Iles, but expensive by Harpur’s standards, the shoulder pads unboxy, the lapels unspivvy, and the jacket with quite decently deep, pockets. Methodically, he put a knuckleduster into one of these and a pair of handcuffs in the other. These were additional measures that might be needed if Iles grew emotional and unduly showy at funerals. Harpur would never think of tasering an assistant chief constable (Operations) though. The finger irons and cuffs had to be enough. The shop assistant at Marks and Spencer where Harpur bought the suit seemed baffled by his fussiness over pocket depths.
Harpur didn’t rigidly designate one side or the other of his jacket pockets for each of these accessories: say, the knuckleduster required always to go to the right, the handcuffs to the left, or vice versa. Difficulties sourced by Iles might come from any direction and in unpredictable waves, like a disturbed bee swarm, and in almost any form, making it impossible to know in advance which of Harpur’s special funeral aids would be the more appropriate. He sought a general, ready, all-round usefulness from them. No more than that could be spelled out. If he were forced to attempt a forecast of how things might go, he’d say the irons to stop Iles, the handcuffs to secure and slowly neutralize him, somewhere out of sight and, if possible, out of hearing of the funeral party and clergy, because of possible heated language – though no cursing – in pleas, protests, denunciations from a manacled assistant chief (Ops.) This version of possible incidents was a guess only, no absolutes. Vestries could be ideal accommodation for Iles when recovering from one of his spasms, especially in ancient churches where the vestry might have a very heavy oak door, lockable from outside. As an additional precaution, the manacle from one wrist could be fixed to the handle of something cumbersome and difficult to drag around such as a nice sized box of spare knee cushions.
It was the school holidays and his daughters were elsewhere in the house or out in the garden. The front doorbell rang. Harpur always preferred to answer it himself. His daughters would allow almost anyone in and as a rule get a nosy conversation going with the visitor, visitors, immediately, for instance, an exchange of information about family trees and/or a mutual listing of favourite lettuce types. Harpur thought he might be able to get to the front door ahead of Hazel and Jill, particularly if they were in the garden.
He hurriedly took the knuckledusters and handcuffs out of his pockets and put them in Denise’s dressing table knickers drawer. Denise, his occasional live-in, undergraduate girlfriend, had gone home to see her parents in Stafford during the vacation. Harpur knew she had other knickers. He knew, also, that if Jill noticed the bulges in his jacket pockets, and she would, she’d want to discover what caused this – was he carrying what she’d learned from TV cop dramas to call a piece – even two pieces – meaning a handgun, or handguns. Harpur had hoped to slip away to the funeral without doing more than give a quick ‘see you later’ to his daughters. Matters might be more long drawn out and talkative now.
Jill didn’t have any strong views either way about police carrying guns, but she would assume that if he had one aboard, or even two, he must be going somewhere serious, dangerous. That she did object to. Today, there was no gun, but she might be able to work out from the shapes what he was carrying, and he didn’t want to signal that the assistant chief could turn inchoate now and then and had to be catered for, though he could turn inchoate now and then, and they probably already knew it.
He’d got out on to the landing on his way to the stairs when he heard and saw the door open and Jill seeming to welcome someone. Then the door was shut. Jill shouted, ‘For you, Dad. A lady. She wants to talk to you personal.’
‘Personally,’ Harpur said, reaching the bottom of the stairs.
‘That as well. A Mrs Gaston.’
Harpur saw a woman of about sixty. She had on a beige cardigan, over a white blouse, and a cream knee-length skirt. Harpur thought he might have glimpsed her somewhere previously, but couldn’t remember where or when.
‘Dad’s going to a funeral. A murder in Cairn Close. Y
ou might of heard of it,’ Jill said.
‘Have heard of it,’ Harpur said.
‘Well, of course, you would of heard of it. You’re the police,’ Jill replied.
‘Not “of heard of it”.’
‘Why not?’ Jill replied.
‘Oh, God,’ Hazel said.
‘Volleys. No messing,’ Jill said. ‘Officers go to this kind of funeral for what’s called “community closeness”. Sympathy and so on. Dad’s an officer, a chief super, although he doesn’t wear a uniform because of being a detective. They go in plain clothes so they can mingle and not be obvious before they make their pounce. You’ll notice his special funeral suit. But he’ll have time for a brief chat. He’s always ready to talk to callers.’
‘It’s about the funeral that I wanted to speak,’ Mrs Gaston said.
‘People often come to see him,’ Jill replied. ‘They can get his address from the phone book or on line. Not all police have their numbers in the directories. It might bring trouble from villains, such as windows broken or rude graffiti on the house front. I’ve been told people used to regard most cops as OK. Not now.’
‘Good thing, too,’ Hazel said.
‘Haze’s view of all that is a bit sour because one of the topmost police here, Assistant Chief Desmond Iles, really fancied her way back although underage and Mr Iles had a wife. That’s Haze underage, not him, naturally. He’s Dad’s boss,’ Jill said. ‘He’s got a crimson scarf which he wore loose, not tucked in anywhere, so he could seem more hot and romantic. He didn’t like it if I called Haze Haze because he said there was a book and a film where a man, not too young, was really after a very underage girl called Lolita, whose surname was Haze. Ilesy seemed to think I was getting at him for being a lech and a perv. Most probably he believed he was more like someone we did in a poem at school – the young Lochinvar, who was dauntless in war and had the best steed in the Borders. He carried away a girl called Ellen on it just when she was getting married to someone else … But Iles lays off Haze now. Eventually he saw she had a proper boyfriend called Scott Grant, about her own age, Sometimes I think Hazel is disappointed.’
‘Dandruff princess,’ Hazel replied.
The four of them went into the big sitting room. This was where Harpur’s wife Megan’s books used to occupy shelves to the ceiling on three walls, but Harpur had got rid of most of them and the shelves not long after her death. He said, ‘I don’t want to be inhospitable, Mrs Gaston, but I must be on my way in a few minutes.’
‘We could talk to Mrs Gaston, Dad, and tell you later what it’s about,’ Jill offered at once.
‘Well, no,’ Harpur said. ‘That might not be acceptable to Mrs Gaston. You said, Jill, that Mrs Gaston would like to talk to me personally.’
‘We could tell you personally afterwards what she and we said,’ Jill replied. ‘It would be personally, but personally from Mrs Gaston through Haze and I.’
‘Haze and me,’ Harpur said.
‘No, not you, because you wouldn’t be there, would you? That’s the point. Haze and I,’ Jill said.
‘Haze and me,’ Harpur said. ‘Grammar.’
‘What about it?’ Jill asked.
‘Oh, God,’ Hazel said.
‘Some matters are not for general discussion,’ Harpur said.
‘This wouldn’t be general.’ Jill said. ‘Just us.’
‘Drop it, Jill,’ Hazel said. ‘You know what he’s like. He won’t change.’
Harpur saw that Jill was trying to think of an answer to this, but in the pause Mrs Gaston said, ‘I’m housekeeper at Mr Jack Lamb’s home, Darien.’
Jill switched. ‘Ah, Dad knows Jack Lamb. It’s a business matter, a special business matter.’
Perhaps this explained why Harpur thought he recognized Mrs Gaston. He must have seen her at Jack’s place during the murder inquiry, or on a previous visit, but hadn’t taken particular notice.
‘Yes, a business matter,’ Jill said. ‘Jack’s not so bad when you know him, is he? If it’s just his voice on the phone, that’s different – creepy, and smarmy, like announcers on Classic FM radio. Dad puts it on sometimes when he’s wanting a bit of a pick-me-up from Fred Handel.’
‘I’m ashamed to say I’m a smoker,’ Mrs Gaston replied.
‘No need to feel bad about that,’ Hazel said. ‘It’s a free choice. You’re entitled. I don’t believe people should be forced to give up something they like because the government and others say so.’
‘What’s known as “the nanny state”,’ Jill said. ‘Like rich people have a nanny to look after their children and order them around. Interfering. The nanny state tells us it’s for our own good. Oh, yeah? Dad’s girlfriend, Denise, smokes, doesn’t she, Dad? Yes, it makes her mouth and clothes rather smelly but Dad puts up with it because he loves her, don’t you, Dad? He knows he’s lucky. She’s much younger than Dad. She’s nineteen, only four years older than Haze. But not underage. Dad might object to the smoking, but not enough to put him off. She’s going to have what’s known as a degree, meaning educated plus, so, like Haze says, Denise is entitled to make a choice.’
‘Mr Lamb doesn’t like any smoking in the house,’ Mrs Gaston said.
‘Obviously there are people like that. There’s a lot of publicity,’ Hazel said.
‘Smoke gets into the wallpaper like being sucked up by a lung,’ Jill said. ‘At school they showed us pictures of a smoker’s lung. I don’t know whether Denise has seen one of those. They’re always getting at us with things at school. Sex. A nurse came to talk to the girls and said, “Don’t put yourself at risk for the sake of five minutes’ pleasure. Any questions?” Angelina Mount said, “How d’you make it last five minutes?”’
‘It’s the need, the addiction, that I’m ashamed of,’ Mrs Gaston replied. ‘So when that need comes I have to go into the yard for a quick break. So furtive and grubby.’
‘This is not at all unusual,’ Hazel said.
‘When the smoking ban first began in Ireland someone who’d been away for a while returned and saw women smoking outside a pub. He thought they must be tarts,’ Jill said.
‘I try hard to get rid of the butts and so on,’ Mrs Gaston said.
‘Known as PC,’ Jill replied. ‘Politically correct. This means the people who think they got a right to tell us all how to live would say, “Although it can’t be OK to smoke, if a person does smoke, regardless, it can be only decent for that person to get rid of the dibbie-ends.” Usually, if something is correct, such as the answer to a question in an exam, this is excellent. But “politically correct” is goody-goody and obeying dull rules.’
‘Anyway, while I was clearing up like this a week or so ago a van appeared on the drive and parked near the house, A man got out, opened the vehicle’s rear doors and produced a big suitcase from inside, a suitcase on wheels. He went into the porch to the front door.’
‘Ah,’ Harpur said.
Hazel said, ‘Don’t take this badly, Mrs Gaston, will you, but I’m looking at Dad’s face? I think I’m quite good at reading what he’s thinking, and I get the notion that he already knows what you’re saying.’
‘He can be like that, Mrs Gaston,’ Jill explained gently. ‘He knows many varieties and aspects of things, but he doesn’t mention them. All police are like that, most probably, but Dad especially. Do you have the info re this van, already, Dad?’ Jill asked.
‘Let Mrs Gaston go on,’ Harpur said, ‘as long as it’s brief.’
‘Mr Lamb must have opened the front door of Darien himself, and when I went back into the house, I could hear his voice. He was obviously angry.’
‘Saying what?’ Hazel asked.
‘To do with pictures. There was that awful trouble at Darien, as you know, and it seemed to be mixed up with that, and also about money,’ Mrs Gaston said.
‘What money?’ Jill asked.
‘Mr Lamb was saying some pictures were worth a lot more than that money,’ Mrs Gaston said.
‘But which money?�
� Hazel said.
‘I didn’t hear which,’ Mrs Gaston replied.
‘What was in the suitcase?’ Jill asked.
‘Don’t know,’ Mrs Gaston said. ‘I can’t say if the suitcase was even opened. I could hear the two of them, but not see. They might have been just into one of the downstairs side rooms with the door open. It wasn’t friendly talk.’
‘So what did the other one, not Jack Lamb, say?’ Hazel asked.
‘Sorry about his mother being jailed only for trying to protect the gallery and Jack himself,’ Mrs Gaston said. ‘A disgrace. And therefore some people wanted to help Jack, which was the reason for the visit. But Jack said he didn’t want their help – he said their effing help, but I’m thinking of the children, Mr Harpur – and it wasn’t help anyway, it was trying to cash in on a disaster. So get effing lost.’
‘And he did, did he?’ Hazel asked.
‘That was the end?’ Harpur said.
‘You knew it all already, did you, Dad?’ Hazel said.
‘Not quite the end,’ Mrs Gaston said. ‘I was driving down to the town for some shopping not long afterwards and in a layby a few miles from Darien I saw three vehicles. I wouldn’t have thought much of that but one of them was the blue van. An Audi was parked behind it, very close, and there was another car, maybe a Ford, a little way away, and a man and a woman standing near it, talking.’
‘Blue van man?’ Jill asked.
‘I don’t think so. I didn’t get a really good look at any of it because I needed to keep driving. I had to decide which reg number to remember because I couldn’t do all three as I passed. I hadn’t fixed on the van number when it was at Darien because I thought there was nothing unusual about it – just delivering ordered goods. It was only when I heard Mr Lamb shouting that I realized the situation wasn’t normal. So I’ve got the van’s number, but not the other two’s. We’ve all been tense at Darien because of the shooting, which is why I thought I should talk to you, Mr Harpur.’
‘So right, Mrs Gaston,’ Jill said.