by Bill James
Bainbridge Williamson.
Of course, once I was a partner I had the run of all the agency’s job records. And – another of course – I’d wanted to examine the one labelled MS DAPHNE DAVENPOLE. It was sure to involve me. Although I wouldn’t rate a file of my own marked THOMAS WELLS HART, I was sure to get a mention, mentions, in hers. I was why she’d asked for the surveillance, I and Judith.
The Righton private inquiry office was a large, three-storey, converted, Edwardian house in Marsh Road. Bainbridge Williamson had kept the property’s original name: Mafeking. What had once been a main bedroom in the front now housed the agency’s ‘Archive and Library’. Few of these spacious houses in Marsh Road functioned as family dwellings any longer. Most of Righton’s neighbours would be private practice dentists, nursing home patients and medics, other private investigation firms’ personnel, beauticians, independent television production companies, accountants, financial advisers. Two walls in Mafeking’s Archive and Library had shelving from floor level to the ceiling. Beige cardboard files were arranged alphabetically under clients’ names.
Three work stations stood near a window looking out on to Marsh Road. Most of the documents in the cardboard files were computer downloads: Bainbridge didn’t trust electronic memories and liked to have paper, hard-copy versions as well as the same material available on screen. I, too, preferred paper and on one quiet afternoon, hunting for a giggle as much as anything else, I took down the Davenpole file and opened it to that contract and attached typed note from Bainbridge, at that time sole head of the firm.
He would become rather prosy and philosophical now and then when discussing the nature of what he called ‘the private investigation profession’. An agency like Righton had to be ‘morally neutral’, he’d told me several times. ‘Our loyalty is to the person or persons who hires, hire, us, Tom, not unlike the responsibility of a defence lawyer, or mercenary solider.’ Bainbridge would admit that in, say, certain divorce cases it might sometimes be almost impossible to abide by this rule. One party could seem considerably more guilty of the marriage breakdown than the other. But if he or she were Righton’s client the agency’s duty was to get the best settlement possible for him or her.
‘Morally neutral’ evidently didn’t mean the same as plain ‘neutral’. The agency was partisan, was not at all neutral, was wholly committed – wholly committed to the cause of whoever paid to hire it. And whoever paid to hire it might not be all sweetness and light and respectability. No matter. The agency had to be indifferent to its clients’ failings, unless they were flagrantly illegal and/or evil. Generally, it made no judgement on clients’ character and behaviour.
Bainbridge always preached this doctrine. And he seemed to half believe it half the time. But, anyone reading his caveat note would have detected some distaste and antipathy in the write-up of his first meeting with this client, Daphne Davenpole, and in the brutally short time limit allowed. He hadn’t followed moral neutrality when he wrote the memo clipped to the Daphne Davenpole file. He must have felt the kind of inquiry she was after might damage Righton’s standing. His call for ‘exceptional sensitivity and discretion’ seemed to show that he found some aspects of this commission worrying, and smelly. I could understand that. I’d recently read a novel, Letters From Carthage, by someone whose name I forget. In it a private investigator has to spy on a couple making love in the back of a car. It is a comic but also sordid scene. Perhaps Bainbridge had read it, too – he read a lot, and not just Henry James – and didn’t want his agency involved in the same sort of louche, furtive situations. Come to think of it, the author’s surname might have been James but not Henry, nor P.D.
The contract was Righton’s usual issue: covert surveillance on the two named targets, Ms Daphne Davenpole and Thomas Wells Hart, at £65 an hour, rising to £80 an hour if duties continued past midnight. Fees to be paid weekly. The surveillance would be concerned mainly, if not totally, with occasions when the two were together, or had recently been together. Alone or in other company they wouldn’t merit much attention.
All periods of surveillance would be logged, giving exact duration and place. Should the surveillance be discovered by either or both targets the standard contract stated that ‘it would be a matter for discussion between the agency and the client whether it should continue regardless.’ I’ve learned since that this kind of decision is always difficult. Successfully covert surveillance lets a watcher see the target(s) behaving unguardedly, normally. Not so when someone knows he/she is being observed. Their behaviour then is deliberately shaped to reveal nothing important and confidential. It becomes a mask. It becomes a closed curtain. The watcher actually helps create what she/he is watching. What he/she is watching is someone aware that he/she is watching him/her and therefore feeds the watcher stuff that won’t tell her/him anything much and is going nowhere. There aren’t going to be any new revelations.
Plainly, if one of the two spotted the surveillance she/he would tell the other. We are most probably dealing with an intimate relationship here – very intimate – and information about a troublesome development for both would be shared.
All agency staff were insured against personal injury incurred during the periods subject to this contract, but if the agency decided that such discovery brought the detective into acute physical danger from either or both targets, the contract would be cancelled; all Righton participation in the case cease; and any fee due from the client calculated only up to the last completed hour of the surveillance.
I finished reading the contract and moved on to the first of the surveillance reports.
TWENTY-SIX
Thursday May 7 2015
From: Rory Mitchell
To: Bainbridge Williamson
I drove to Gowter Avenue, the address we’ve been given for H and his parents and siblings. I parked at some distance from the house so as to keep a discreet watch. He came out of the house at 1840 and began to walk south west. I identified him from the photographs supplied. I left my car and followed him to the Moderator private apartment block where V has a second-floor flat. He remained there from 1910 until 2140, when he left and walked home, reaching there at 2212. The area between the two addresses is busy and well populated. By merging with other pedestrians I could effectively maintain covert surveillance. I don’t think I was observed by H. En route to the Moderator his mind might have been pre-occupied with the evening’s prospects, anyway, and less than vigilant. The visit to the Moderator was his sole purpose. He made no stops and spoke to nobody on his way to or from there.
The outer door to the block is opened electronically after visitors have announced themselves over an intercom. H appeared very familiar with this security system. I decided to examine it while he was inside the building. I found a panel of six call buttons, each probably linked to an apartment, and each under a printed surname. The top right was labelled Vasonne. I didn’t press it! I’m not in favour of coitus interruptus.
H had dealt swiftly with the entrance procedure. I was across the street, not close enough to see which button he pressed nor to hear properly what followed. But I did hear a woman’s voice answering. He replied very briefly, though, again, I couldn’t make out the words. I had the impression that the visit was expected and the entrance formalities therefore very brief. The door was opened, apparently by a remote signal from the flat, and he went in. The door closed automatically at once after him. I could not follow H into the building and did not see him actually enter one of the apartments, but in my view the likelihood is high and could safely be categorized as ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
Accountable time: I began the watch in Gowter Avenue at 1800 and ended surveillance when he returned there at 2212. Total: 4 hours and 10 minutes.
This was a clever boy: first class honours, Cambridge, and jokey with it. Although they wouldn’t have had lectures on gumshoeing there, they would have helped sharpen his mind via smart-arse teachers: ‘dons’, as they’re are called at Oxbr
idge. I could absolutely confirm six of his guesses – intelligent guesses, very intelligent guesses: (a) I didn’t know I was being shadowed, not on that first there-and-back trip. (b) My thoughts were mainly on the treats ahead, or reminiscing afterwards. (c) I had used the main door call arrangement several times before and could operate it swiftly, like someone advertising the joys of technocracy. (d) The visit had been pre-arranged by phone earlier that day. (e) We kept the front door call brief so I would not be conspicuous waiting. (f) I was visiting Judith, and beyond any doubt at all, let alone reasonable, I went to her apartment door, Number 3, on the second floor and let myself in with the key she’d slipped to me at a confidential moment in school weeks ago.
Friday May 8
From: Rory Mitchell
To: Bainbridge Williamson
This was virtually a re-enactment of yesterday, with a slight difference in timing. I began the watch in Gowter Avenue at 1800 as before and he walked once more to the Moderator. He set out at 1830 taking the same route. He was at the flats from 1900 to 2155 and returned to Gowter Avenue at 2226. Once or twice on his way home I thought he might suspect he had a tail, although I managed reasonable cover from other walking folk as before. He glanced behind him a couple of times, but didn’t change pace or direction. It might be of no significance. He could have heard something unrelated to the surveillance or me. I will increase my alertness all the same.
Accountable time: From 1800 to 2226. Total 4 hours 26 minutes.
Yes, still a clever boy. There’d been a moment on my way back home on the Tuesday when I glimpsed mirrored in a shop’s big window a man behind me, early to mid twenties, just short of 6 ft. and hefty, wearing dark clothes. Nothing much in this, possibly, but I had a fancy that I might have half consciously noticed someone similar, either earlier on that evening, or even on Monday. The repetition – if it was repetition – forced my mind back to this previous possible encounter. Had it been memorized without my realizing it? Perhaps now it was conscripted back to reinforce this later suspicion. Darclad wasn’t immediately on my heels but never more than twenty metres away, though occasionally obscured by other people. Considered separately, neither of these sightings – possible sightings – would have troubled me. There were plenty of tallish, solidly made men in their twenties about, quite a few of them wearing dark gear. Wasn’t it panicky to feel troubled because I’d seen a couple of them? And why would anyone want to tail me or have me tailed? There was that dreary, bitter piece at the school, Davenpole, but however malign she might be she wouldn’t set a snoop on me, on us, surely. Surely?
Well, no, not surely at all, as we know now. But I’d done reasonably all right to think Davenpole at once, even if I tried to dismiss the idea with that ‘Surely?’ But it was ‘Surely’ as a question, one touched by doubt, big doubt.
Saturday May 9
From: Rory Mitchell
To: Bainbridge Williamson.
At just before 1800 I took up my usual position in the Clio at the end of Gowter Avenue, allowing a sight of the house, but not noticeably near. H didn’t appear until 1850. He had a push bike with him. He set off on in the customary south-west direction. This gave me difficulties. I couldn’t keep up with him on foot, but it would be very obvious if I held the car at low speed to stay behind him. I decided to assume he was making for the Moderator building and drive there independently of him. I could watch him arrive and leave. After all, this was what the surveillance needed to discover: times, dates. I’d record events from the comfort of my car. I chose a slightly different route. I didn’t want to overtake him in case he recognized the Clio from Gowter Avenue. I would still get to Moderator before him.
He arrived at 1903 and took the bike with him through the front door. There were no developments until at 2020, as the sun went down, I saw a red Honda appear from what must be a private car park for residents behind the Moderator. From photographs I recognised V at the wheel. H was beside her. I started the Clio and got into a tailing position. I followed them to Cordwains country park and lakes, a well known, secluded spot for backseat couples and doggers. This surprised me. They didn’t need rural privacy. They had the flat, and the door security.
She pulled up among the trees and both climbed out of the Honda. It was dusk. They walked together holding hands down to the lakeside. I’d parked the Clio a little way from the Honda and for several minutes I had a terrible rush of very sombre romantic clichés: jinxed, persecuted lovers, dark waters, night falling. Had they agreed to finish it all? Was I too far away to stop them? Perhaps he had spotted me tailing him, yesterday or on Monday, had told her and they’d agreed a drowning pact. ‘In their death they were not divided,’ as that Victorian novel says about characters caught in a flood, pinching the line from the Bible.
As it turned out my fears were foolish, tripey and alarmist. They walked for a few hundred yards around the lake, still hand-holding, probably chatting, seeming entirely relaxed; then returned to the Honda and she drove them back to the Moderator.
Perhaps they had become a little ashamed of their relationship’s furtiveness until now, bored by it. They wanted normality, maybe, and needed to prove to themselves, at least, that there was more to what they had together than sex. They’d take a walk in the park. V might have started this affair because of its daring and defiance of moral rules. Had she grown out of that cheap brand of excitement? I felt touched by their bravery and search for honesty.
Accountable time: From 1800 to 2210. Total 4 hours 10 minutes.
Someone – probably Bainbridge – had remarked under this in green ink, ‘Felt? Who the fuck cares what you felt? You’re supposed to be writing a report not a novelette. And keep your feeble witticisms to yourself.’
In fact, though, Rory’s interpretation of what he’d seen was fairly close to the truth, I’d told Judith that I might have been tailed. This enraged her. ‘Dotty fucking Daphne Davenpole,’ she said. It made her even more defiant and combative than before. She’d said we must go out in the Honda to a notorious mating ground and do some brilliantly nonchalant, entirely wholesome strolling there, to prove we had no sense of guilt or taint. She became very set on this. I went along, though I wondered if this was a wise plan. It seemed confused. We would be visiting a celebrated sex site to have a little innocent hike, and so demonstrate that there was more to us than all that kind of thing, and we didn’t care who knew it. Actually, of course, we did care, and the sex between the two of us was a joyful, sweet, probably main factor.
No further reports or mini-novelettes from Rory Mitchell appeared in the Daphne Davenpole file. I could see the reason for this. The Cordswain trip had taken place on May 9th. Next day, back to pedestrianizing, I’d managed to lose him, using that well-known up-and-down-the-aisles supermarket dodge, as featured in crime and spy plays on TV, and had met Bainbridge for the first time in the car park there. He must have decided that any further covert surveillance was impossible. A no-brainer: I obviously knew about it, and, more importantly, knew how to counter it, and make it look farcical. He’d accused Rory of bungling the operation and more or less offered me a job on the spot. Bainbridge wouldn’t be giving that kind of work to Rory any longer. And so, no further reports for the file, although they’d been attractively graced with clever insights. Bainbridge wouldn’t know that, though, at the time.
He might also have decided that the three reports he had received from Rory and sent on to Ms Davenpole were probably enough for her purpose – whatever her purpose might be. There couldn’t be much uncertainty about what sort of relationship V and H had. It wasn’t all short, fully dressed interludes by Cordswain lake at twilight.
The latest item in the file was a copy of an invoice sent to Ms Davenpole ‘For inquiry services as agreed,’ and marked ‘Paid’ in green ink. It contained three entries:
May 7 2015: Observation episode 4 hours 10 minutes
May 8 2015: 4 hours 26 minutes
May 9 2015: 4 hours 10 minutes
Total: 12
hours 46 minutes at £65 an hour.
Amount due: £829.83, but say £800.
There was no charge for time spent on the dismally messed up surveillance of May 10, although it must have been not less than a couple of hours. Bainbridge wouldn’t want to admit by making a charge – even a reduced charge – that the Righton firm could be so quaintly hopeless.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Harpur said …
But why more of Harpur saying, saying, saying?
Simple: he’s one end of a phone chat that could help bring things together a bit.
So, Harpur said, ‘Yes, I’ll take the call. Put her through, please.’
A delay. Some unexplained background sounds: perhaps a door being shut, a heavy door, maybe a metal door. Then: ‘Harpur? You? I’m ringing from the slammer.’
‘Well, Mrs Lamb, yes, you would be.’ The slammer had metal doors that could be … well, slammed, phone booth included.
‘Not would be. Am. I would like to be somewhere else. But I am here. Grammar. I’m hot on it these days. Some of the other prisoners can’t read or write, the dears, so I’ve been giving them lessons. I see a duty to share what education has given me. They call me Brainstorm.’
‘That’s good,’ Harpur said. ‘That’s considerate and responsible.’ Education hadn’t kept her out of the slammer, though.
‘“Would” is the subjunctive,’ she said.