Blaze Away

by Bill James

  ‘They like that.’

  ‘Who?’ Alice Lamb replied.

  ‘Artists.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘“So and so with something”, as title of a work. It could be a flask. Or a whippet or a lute. It gives the portrait a connection with the ordinary things of that time. Known as hinterland, or sort of props, like in the theatre. Now it would be an electric toothbrush or pit-bull. Ephemera.’

  ‘There’s some very valuable stuff here, yet not a protective gun in the house, as far as I know. Of course, Charlton was big on guns. Believed in them for home owners – a constitutional right, a near blessed right, as he presented it.’

  ‘That’s an American thing, too, I think.’

  ‘Don’t dismiss it, Mr Ember. Some items have to be guarded. Amelia With Flask, for instance. Not cheap. Why? Because it appeals. It appeals on two levels. Somehow, the artist has to get the universal side of that flask over to the viewer, as an emblem of life-giving water carried with her in what might be a scorching and scorched country, even desert; but, at the same time, Ralph, it has to be a flask unique to Amelia, who is also herself unique, of course. Yes, the flask is in one sense “general”, but in another not general at all, important simply for its blatant flaskiness as a flask, without deeper significance.

  ‘The artist would say to Amelia at the start of a sitting, “Hello, my dear, I want you to nurse this flask while posing, Am.” She’d take it. The flask would be no odds to her, just a flask. It wouldn’t be for her to query his instruction, she not being an artist with an artist’s sensibility. Or, if the artist was known for pranks, she might feel sort of cagey, suspecting it was actually a kind of fart cushion, liable to go off with a rude rasp if she hugged it to herself too hard for a moment, causing the artist to laugh helplessly, bent over his palette while daubing, possibly even to stagger about in the grip of successive, tumultuous, ever-been-had-Am guffaws, liable to knock the whole caboodle to the ground, easel, paints, the canvas. She wouldn’t have any idea of the coding and implications behind that flask. It’s what’s known as semiotics – like a sign or a symbol of something, while at the same time being simply a flask. This duality is what the greatest artists can do every time via a flask or wheat field or old-style warship, namely The Fighting Temeraire. Incidentally, you probably know that the ancient Proto-Indo-European civilization from which most modern languages derive had separate words for two different kinds of fart, actual, not jokey mock-up.’

  ‘No, I may have missed that.’

  ‘Sophistication. Precision. But if this comes as news, I expect you’ll ask, which two kinds?’

  ‘I wondered if Jack might be about,’ Ember replied.

  ‘Yet this was thousands of years B.C.’

  ‘Certain pressures and requirements are timeless. Possible high-fibre veggie diet. The people I bought the club from installed magnificent cloakroom facilities, especially the men’s, which I’m very keen to preserve, and even improve on.’

  ‘Here he is, Ralph. I’m going to hand you over to Jack, now.’

  SIXTEEN

  Iles said: ‘I’ll interpret what you’ve told me, shall, I, Col?’

  ‘That would be a treat, sir.’ What Harpur had told him was that the Peugeot had been hired locally from J. and R. Simmonds Ltd. on Valencia Esplanade the day before, by a woman in her twenties called Elizabeth May Rossol. He did not recognize the name. It would be genuine. The hire documents had to square with her licence and payment card. He’d called in at Simmonds’ to look at the paperwork and, if possible, get a description of the hirer.

  ‘She’s late twenties, I gather, sir,’ Harpur had told the ACC, ‘fair-to-mousy-haired, rather than outright blonde; tall, slim, squarish faced, cheerful looking; pricey jeans; pricey woollen three-quarter-length dark-blue top coat; pricey silver and gold silk scarf worn dangling both sides – unfettered elegance not winter-warm wrap-around; pricey, perhaps man’s, open-necked shirt – blue background multicoloured stripes; pricey half-heel black shoes. Evidently comfortable in her own thong. Signature bold and biggish: “Liz Rossol.”

  ‘The young bloke who did the formalities with her at Simmonds’ was impressed going on bewitched; might have tried some flirt talk but got nowhere. He thought London poise, London money, London accent, meaning metropolitan-aloof and cool, not cockney. No rings, marriage, engagement, signet or decorative, plumpish lips. Deposit covered on American Express, in the due Elizabeth May Rossol name. I have the details. She said it would be a two or three day hiring for short hops around the city and its outskirts, no big mileage.’

  Iles said: ‘But before I give you my deductions, Col, there’s a formality.’ He picked up the phone, dialled and velveted his voice. ‘Tomasina,’ he said, ‘how invigorating to hear you again, as ever. Elizabeth May Rossol – R, O, double S, O, L – under thirty, fashionable, moneyed, probably single. Has someone so christened and describable ever wandered into your bailiwick, or you into hers? Possibly art-related. Well, obviously, or I wouldn’t be calling you, delightful as such a call might be.’

  He listened for several minutes and made a pencilled note or two. They were in the ACC’s suite at headquarters. Iles had been pacing while they talked. This was a habit. He’d apparently read that Churchill often walked about when dictating to typists. ‘Some of us don’t like to seem desk-bound, desk-tamed, Col,’ he’d said. ‘Hemingway, novelist, but also vigorous outdoor marlin-angling man, wrote standing at a kind of lectern.’ Because Iles had two large, adjoining rooms, he could build up quite a good pace on strolls. But he’d stopped and sat down to make the telephone call. He was in uniform today, dark-blue trousers and a short-sleeved white shirt. His tunic hung draped over the back of a chair. He looked slight, wiry, lithe, with no visible tattoos. He hated his mother and possibly had something to that effect, perhaps with threats, on a covered part of his body.

  ‘Did you say “Cog”, Tomasina?’ he asked. ‘Spelled like it sounds, as in a machine? What’s that? A kind of modesty, you think? Yes, I suppose so. Part of something much bigger. Harpur, one of the officers here, is very similar – part of something so much bigger that he becomes more or less unnoticeable. That, of course, could be a great asset for a detective. I do my best to make him feel of some worth – poor Col.’

  When Iles put the phone down he said: ‘Tomasina, Harpur, a stalwart and quietly incisive chum from way back, now with the Arts and Antiques squad at Scotland Yard. She says Rossol is part of the outfit I mentioned, Cog. No convictions yet for her or the firm, but that’s more luck than innocence. Tomasina confirms the high-powered sexiness and audacious fashion sense. Tommo has both of these herself, so her judgement is not negligible. She mentioned uncued that Rossol’s lips are, indeed, plump, but naturally plump, not from a beautician’s puff-up pout treatment to stoke men’s dreams of a very snug, accommodating mouth. Tomasina also confirms the cheeriness of Rossol’s face, and I get the feeling, Col, that this pisses Tommo off because it means Liz is still free with a fine cash-flow and prized by other Coggers, including George Dinnick, the sometimes violent bossman. Nothing sexual in that, just professional, at least from her side, Tomasina says. Liz has something nice going with another Coggy, Justin Benoit, about her age, who’s on the very active, gallery-level side of the business. He has the knowledge – can spot the difference, straight off, between a matchstick-man job by Lowry and Sir Joshua Reynolds’s portrait of his auntie. Cog will conduct quite lawful transactions now and then, or even oftener, but Tomasina and colleagues believe that when it’s something dubious, Liz does a pre-reconnoitre, and if this is OK then Justin will arrive, run through his own preliminaries and get the operation properly under way. Oh, yes, you’d guessed things were like that, Harpur, but I didn’t tell Tommo. It would make her feel redundant and prone to the obvious. I’m one who likes to look after people’s morale, Col, and general well-being.’

  ‘What about mine?’

  ‘You’ll ask me what I visualize now, given this new in
formation, Harpur,’ Iles replied.

  ‘What do you visualize now, given this new information, sir?’

  ‘Your questions are always very much to the point, Col.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘“Reconnoitre”, Col.’

  ‘Who, me, sir? Where?’

  ‘“Reconnoitre”, Harpur. That’s what I see as the key term.’

  ‘Rossol reconnoitres? Reconnoitres at The Monty? But why?’

  ‘A beginning. She had picked up the name from the Press. She told Simmonds’ “short hops about the city”. Right? The Monty was one of the short hops, part of a planned pattern, an itinerary item, Harpur. It led her to another, I expect. We missed that. But we saw the urgency. Somewhere not very far.’

  And then, Harpur recalled, she’d spoken also of ‘the outskirts’. Jack Lamb in Darien would rate as a rural outskirt. If Rossol were reconnoitring art connections, Jack might be on her list – that itinerary. Harpur didn’t speak of this to Iles, though. Harpur was never certain how much the Assistant Chief knew about that ‘arrangement’ between him and Jack Lamb. This was like Iles: he knew a lot but didn’t necessarily show what he knew. He could deliver rough shocks when it suited him to.

  Harpur grew anxious about Jack. He recalled – of course he recalled – that vision of him with his throat cut, infringing on Amelia With Flask. There always existed the fear that someone just out of jail would come looking for the secret voice that put him there: secret, but not secret enough. And now Lamb might get reconnoitred by Elizabeth May Rossol of Cog, and anyone who came as follow-up, if Rossol put in a positive assessment to George Dinnick for onward reference to Justin Benoit, as Harpur recalled the names.

  He gave the Peugeot registration and a description to the Traffic and Rapid Response people and ordered a general call for any sightings of the vehicle, probably still with one woman driver. He stressed he wanted sightings only, no contact to be made by the patrol if she and the car were located. The aim had to be discreet surveillance at this stage because, at this stage, he didn’t really know what he was looking for and needed the green Peugeot and the lady from Cog to offer him a clue. Then he might be able to get to the next stage, supposing there was one.

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘I saw you in there and waited for you to come out.’

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘I hope that’s OK. I wanted a word, that’s all.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I had a feeling you’d understand.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’ Or, possibly, yes. Liz Rossol had left Silver Bells And Cockleshells and was walking towards the Peugeot when Gordon Loam appeared from somewhere ahead of her – the bus shelter? One of the shop doorways? A planned interception, at any rate. He said so and offered the greeting with a very nicely worked, reassuring smile. He must reckon that, if you were going to accost a woman on the street, you’d need to do it with a disarming, neutered smile or it might seem you’d mistaken her for a whore. He appeared to have recovered from the rage that had so vividly invaded his chops when he stormed from the nursery not long ago.

  ‘I was in there, too,’ he said. ‘As you know, of course.’

  ‘Well, yes, I had noticed.’

  ‘To be frank, I wondered why you’d called,’ he said.

  ‘But why would you wonder that?’ she said. ‘I’m sure lots of people visit – the children’s parents and so on.’

  ‘I don’t see you in that kind of role.’ He lowered his voice, and the words came confidingly, came as a compliment: she wasn’t a mere run-of-the-mill parent; she was her special, enigmatic self, worth hanging about for and aiming some gauche charm at.

  ‘But why don’t you see me in that kind of role?’ she said.

  ‘It’s a feeling I have, a kind of instinct.’ His voice reverted to full-pitch now. She sensed a big-time sprawling spiel starting. Nerves? Salesmanship? ‘I believe wholeheartedly in instinct,’ he told Liz, not in the tone of, say, ‘I believe wholeheartedly in God,’ or, ‘I believe wholeheartedly in colonic irrigation,’ but more combatively, more defiantly. ‘Perhaps it’s an inherited thing,’ he said. ‘My family were big in commerce, you see, and they’d be used to following impulse, perhaps with no actual data or other evidence to back their decisions, but something in their very blood pushing them irresistibly towards a new positive venture. Fractions of that virtually clairvoyant attitude come to me as a happy legacy, perhaps.’

  ‘There seemed to be a little trouble for you in the nursery,’ Liz replied.

  ‘Trouble? Oh, Fern! Moods.’ He had a small, tolerant laugh. ‘She can become disturbed and aggressive for no apparent reason.’

  ‘Instinct?’ Liz said.

  ‘She has her own problems that we know nothing of, I expect. Occasionally, they’ll burst out, affecting her general behaviour. One learns to accept these unpleasant moments for what they are – unpleasant, yes, but of the moment only. I feel no enmity towards her. Absolutely none … none … none.’ His face and neck became flushed. His tone sharpened suddenly. He seemed to have ditched tolerance. There was quite a pause between each ‘none’, as if he had methodically to recheck his attitude to Fern before all three announcements. He said: ‘To retaliate would confer a significance on Fern that the ludicrous, unstable, ugly cow in no way merits. One is forced to wonder whether it’s wise to have her in contact with children. Well, I gather she doesn’t actually foam over them. But she should take her screams and yells to where they might be regarded as normal – e.g., a madhouse. How can someone like Fern understand the sort of respect due to a family such as the Loams? I trust I do not speak boastfully, but I’m the product of a lineage that cannot be gainsaid or discounted.’

  ‘You visit Silver Bells often, do you, and sometimes Fern’s unbonkers, sometimes super-bonkers?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say often, but occasionally.’ This came as more or less a snarl. It indicated: topic closed. Then he went ingratiating again. ‘Do you know what I thought when I saw you waiting there today, and not looking at all like a parent or some sort of inspector? I noted those stylish clothes – and this is going to sound silly – but your face didn’t seem right for either of those roles: the cheeriness, and something about your mouth and lips. Taken together, these points made me fix on another explanation for your presence.’

  ‘You could read my lips, could you? Didn’t some American politician say that?’ She felt an increasing absurdity about this conversation – about this situation, standing face-to-face in the street mid-morning, chatting away intently near the Peugeot. What would people think, glancing at them as they passed the pair on foot, or in their cars or lorries or on a bus? Did he and Liz look as if they might be friends, bumping into each other after a long absence, both eager to bring things up to date? Or even like ex-lovers, maybe even an ex-married couple? Perhaps such spectators would have time to notice the abrupt changes of emotion on Gordon Loam’s snub features and wonder whether they were watching the start of a quarrel. Or a reconciliation.

  Although they were not friends, of course, or otherwise linked, ex-linked, she felt fairly sure now that she had seen Gordon Loam around in galleries and/or auctions. Her memory of him was vague and possibly imagined, possibly, in fact, false, but she thought he’d been in small-time, fringe jobs on those days. Didn’t she recall the dark hair worn long over his ears and the blue-black eyes and blobby nose? Did he recognize her, too? Was some sort of game being played out here? If so, which sort? She couldn’t answer this, but she wanted it to continue, badly needed it to continue: somehow, he might offer a route into the sort of conditions she was here to investigate – and, so far, the only route.

  ‘Do you know the lady chief well?’ he said.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Of Silver Bells. Judy.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Judy can be a bit variable.’

  ‘Like Fern.’

  ‘Have you noticed it with Judy?’

 
‘I suppose we’re all a bit various from time to time,’ Liz replied.

  ‘Woman to woman, though, it might be easier.’

  ‘What might be?’

  ‘She can be illogical, hasty. Negative.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Yes, hasty. A woman might have a better chance of leading her back to good sense. What could seem like bullying from a man would be simply well-intentioned advice from a sympathetic, close female acquaintance.’

  ‘You’re assuming I’m a sympathetic, close female acquaintance, aren’t you?’ Liz had the notion that he wanted her to intercede for him about something or other with Judy. But what something or other? There’d been that obvious all-round hostility towards him at the nursery, and he seemed to think she might be able to talk to Judy, plead for him. And talk to Fern, also? But he’d said he considered Fern and her moods and loudness didn’t really matter. Liz felt that something was under discussion between them here which could not be defined, as if to speak openly, clearly about it would be tactless, or even dangerous. Perhaps he knew what it was. Of course he did. Liz didn’t. He seemed to take for granted that she did and was acting ignorant, only acting. This would probably exasperate him eventually. She couldn’t see how to avoid that. ‘I don’t have any cause to fall out with Judy,’ Liz said.

  ‘No, naturally not. That’s what I mean.’

  ‘What is what you mean?’

  The clever-clever, mock-awkward, would-be-witty use of his own words against him seemed to speed up his fury. She realized she’d been stupid. He lost any sign of a smile. His voice fell and grew gruff. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘when I saw you I had two thoughts of why you were there, and I’ve said that doesn’t include being a parent or a look-about official. No, I thought you’d come with the same objective as mine. Or, you’d followed me.’