Blaze Away

by Bill James

  ‘Christine?’ Beatty said.

  ‘Yes, her daughter, Christine. So I tried to call her back. It struck me as a duty to try and convince her that, despite what had happened, her daughter would be fine in the nursery. She waved, but drove away.’

  Yes, she did, didn’t she? ‘That explains things,’ Harpur said. ‘But I did need to check. I can tell Margot now what it was all about and put her mind at ease.’ Harpur, also, was glad to get the tree house episode interpreted by Fern, and to learn that Basil Loam had been involved in some sort of disturbance there. Sexual? Or, if Jack Lamb’s launderette confidences were correct, it could be to do with something different. Harpur stood. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Interview over.’

  Beatty said: ‘I feel we’ve been so remiss, offering no refreshment.’

  Leonard had been determined to stay in the room throughout the meeting with Fern. He’d undoubtedly have regarded it as slack and irresponsible if he’d gone to boil a kettle. Leonard read the New Statesman.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Enzyme thought of going out to Ralph Ember’s home, Low Pastures, to ask for the return of the .38 Smith and Wesson automatic following that brazen, odiously antisocial refusal of Timmins to provide a replacement. He felt it was the kind of transaction that might need a special, delicate approach, and The Monty couldn’t always be relied on to provide these conditions. Also, of course, The Monty was where Enz had blasted the Blake. Theoretically, Enz knew he was still banned from the club, although he had tried to smooth things at that previous visit when they’d discussed art for The Monty and Enz had generously undertaken to help find the right kind of paintings.

  It might not be wise or effective to make a plea to Ember beneath what he’d probably regard as the grievously insulted Marriage Of Heaven And Hell. Enzyme thought Ralph kept his anger at that escapade very strong in his memory, despite later developments. Enzyme’s couple of jokey shots at the Blake were coming to seem more significant than the ones that assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, starting the Great War in 1914.

  If Enz went to see Ember at the club he would be more or less saying, ‘OK, Ralph, I handed over the pistol to you as genuine proof of utter regret, so it’s all totally dealt with. Now, I’d like it back, please, on account of that creature Timmins turning grossly obstructive, regardless of my fine customer record there and the general respect due to my name and family.’ The reconstituted Blake would be present, reminding Ralph of the beard injury to some ancient naked guy on all fours and signalling to him that there should be no forgiveness, could be no forgiveness.

  Enz recognized that Ralph might not have taken the gun home from The Monty and wouldn’t be able immediately to give it back. This wasn’t important. Enz could drop in to the club and pick it up discreetly once everything had been agreed. It was the negotiations, the agreement, that he considered would be best carried out at Low Pastures, the actual transfer being a formality only. He considered that at Ralph’s historic manor house there would be an atmosphere of good fellowship and gentlemanly mutual respect. This would lead to swift and trustworthy concord between two men of widely acknowledged, imperishable status. The fact that Enz’s children were at the same private school as Ralph’s would obviously strengthen that feeling of social similarity between Ember and him. Enzyme had heard that in some parts of Low Pastures the walls had been left as bare, original stone, no tarting up with plaster, paper and/or paint. He liked this idea. It went to the rugged, durable essence of things. The talk between him and Ralph would be of that wholly honest and reliable quality.

  He told Irene of his plan. At once he could see it troubled her. In fact, he’d considered not telling her. That would have been untypical, but he’d sensed somehow that she would have doubts. He thought of simply going ahead and then producing the gun at home when the children were not about, and recounting to an astonished Irene how he had done it – explaining to her the kind of four-square, honest understanding that could come into play between two men of very parallel civic standing. Enz would have ensured, though, that he did not make this sound like a male boast. Some women were probably almost capable of a similar, good experience, and he would have certainly stressed this, so as not to irritate her. He knew Irene could get touchy about all that sort of tripe.

  However, habit had been too powerful for Enzyme. It would have entailed quite a break from usual practice for him to take on something as large-scale and chancy as this without consulting Irene. So he mentioned the Low Pastures strategy he fancied and made himself ready to listen to her reaction, but also, perhaps, to argue for his idea if she were sceptical. And he suspected she’d be sceptical.

  It was evening again, the children in bed, the TV off. She sat curled up on a chair holding a rum and black as a change, he in another chair with a large vodka and tonic again. ‘Obviously, I don’t know Ralph Ember as well as you do, Bas, but I wonder if going to his house is the right way to approach him about something like this.’

  Meaning, of course, that she didn’t wonder at all. She clearly believed it the wrong way to approach him about something like this. ‘Oh, Ralphy has his difficult sides. Who doesn’t? But he can be managed,’ Enz said.

  ‘You always make him sound so implacable in his attitude to the William Blake shemozzle.’

  Enz saw that the choice of the slangy word ‘shemozzle’ was clever. It made her sound as if she backed Enz’s notion that the rampart incident was trivial, but also let her smuggle in another word, ‘implacable’, which said something like the direct opposite – and which came before shemozzle in her comment, and so had more impact. ‘Ralph has to show a bit of temper,’ Enz replied. ‘A macho thing. Pride. Image. Face. But what we have to remember, Irene, is that Ralphy is a proprietor who longs to introduce some class into the club. Under that obligatory, tedious show of landlordism, he’ll appreciate that people of some breeding will occasionally do things when in a relaxed mood that they would usually quite disapprove of. But high-jinks, nothing more. For me to talk to him at his home would be a sort of boys-will-be-boys situation, not a small-minded, niggly blame interlude about rumpled decor and a couple of sauce bottle ricochets.’

  ‘Always when you spoke of Ember in the past, I had an impression of someone very compartmentalized,’ she replied.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘His home and his family and the kids’ schooling are one area of his life, and the club and his trafficking business are a different area: a very definite and unbridgeable division. The gun is surely very much a club matter. There was the shooting and then the surrender of the pistol, as you’ve described it to me. Both happened in The Monty. If you go out to his home hunting for a point thirty-eight automatic pistol that lately did some illicit pop-pops, won’t you be trying to bring those two very calculatedly separate aspects of his existence together, a sort of shotgun marriage of heaven and hell?

  ‘Don’t you think he’ll resist that? I fear he might, Bas. He’ll see it as your sly, wholly unacceptable way of getting around the Monty ban and tell you to sod off from Low Pastures and its acres. I’m not saying that would be justifiable. But I am saying it would probably happen, given the kind of man you’re dealing with. Of course, the gun wasn’t always identified with The Monty. I became aware you had a pistol, but it was never used, as far as I knew. I could tolerate that. In your line of work some self-protection might be necessary, even though possession is illegal. Like in the Cold War, this was a dormant deterrent. But it moved into a different category, didn’t it, once you opened up on Ember’s pet parapet?’

  ‘But, look, Irene, I’ve put things right with Ralph by promising to give him max help with art acquisitions for The Monty. He really appreciated that offer.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘The art game is totally strange for him. We’re talking very big money here – perhaps. He could make catastrophic mistakes if he acts alone. He thinks of buying from Jack Lamb. That might or might not be sensible. Jack generally has
some rather unprovenanced stuff to market, though. I’ve said I’ll check any possible purchase. I know Ralph is grateful. He recognizes there are far bigger issues involved in picture buying than in an admittedly foolish moment banging off at an illustrated print.’

  ‘You sure?’

  TWENTY-SIX

  They met where they sometimes met – as an alternative to George Dinnick’s Kensington flat – in the restaurant-coffee bar of the Oss Gallery in Piccadilly, not far from Hyde Park. George had a half share with a cousin in the Oss and apparently liked to run some of their confabs here because the setting would remind him that they were in a worthwhile, even noble, trade. There were good, authentic works for sale on the gallery walls under suitable lighting and a constant parade of potential buyers.

  Liz enjoyed something of the same feelings, but there would be occasions when this cheerful, slightly smug mood didn’t last. It was the thing about moods – they came and went. And this one didn’t last today. Liz hadn’t been stupid enough to suppose that it would. She knew that what she would say was not what George wanted to hear. She’d say it anyway, though. She believed she had to, for Justin’s sake. But if George came to suspect it was for Justin’s sake and not the firm’s, she thought he could become very unforgiving.

  The three of them had their customary coffees and their customary table. Liz gave them her final fieldwork report. ‘Much as previously,’ she said, ‘but some serious new factors, in my view. They stem from what would seem at first of no account, even absurd. Someone, probably drunk, fired a gun in a rough-house club one night. No injuries, but damage to a William Blake illustration that seems to have been emblematic of something for the club owner. It gave a sort of cultural tinge to a place that could badly do with it. So, there were repercussions – why I said, “serious new factors”. They led to what I have to describe as a lot of unfortunate activity.’

  ‘Oh?’ George said, and Liz could sense at once that she’d been sharp to expect trouble.

  Justin seemed to sense something wrong, too, and tried to give her some help. He said: ‘Liz has come across some real potential difficulties, George. We’re probably very lucky she went on this second scouring. But that’s just like Liz, isn’t it?’

  ‘You two have talked about these supposed “serious new factors”, have you?’ George replied.

  ‘Liz did give me an outline,’ Justin said.

  Naturally, she had spoken to Justin about her new information. Didn’t her anxieties ultimately centre on him?

  ‘Sometimes I feel like an outsider with you two,’ George said.

  ‘No, George, no. Liz and I think constantly about the firm, its health, its future,’ Justin said.

  ‘Yes?’ George replied. ‘So, what “serious new factors”, Liz?’

  His tone hammered her. ‘I was doing a standard re-look at the possible target property, Jack Lamb’s Darien, when two women on horseback suddenly appeared out of woodland, sort of stealthy, sneaky.’

  ‘They’re on horseback, but you didn’t hear them approach?’ George said.

  ‘Well, yes, I did, but not in time,’ Liz said.

  ‘How not in time?’ George asked.

  ‘I was using field glasses on Darien to get a full result and extend our familiarity with it. I hid the field glasses fast when I heard their approach, but it might not have been quickly enough.’

  ‘Who were they?’ George asked.

  ‘This is the point, George,’ Justin said. ‘They didn’t tell Liz that. She thinks they actually avoided telling her that.’

  She saw that Justin was doing what he could to divert some of George’s hostility from her, and she was grateful. She didn’t think it would work, though. Always there had been this hazard. George wouldn’t worry about Justin and her being lovers, as long as this didn’t hurt Cog. She could tell he suspected now that their affair, and Justin’s safety, were getting priority.

  ‘I recognized them from before, of course,’ Liz said. ‘We’ve got them on film. Almost certainly these two were Lamb’s live-in partner, Surtees, and his mother over from the States. She actually spoke of her home in San Francisco.’

  Justin said: ‘They would tell Jack what they’d seen, wouldn’t they, George – a woman surveying the property? Sure to.’ He spoke without any great emphasis or drama, as though he considered the changed situation so obvious that argument was superfluous. She’d call it Justin’s seminar voice. ‘Jack will get himself ready for trouble,’ Justin said. ‘This is bad, George. I usually feel pretty positive at the start of one of our expeditions, even foolishly positive. Not this one.’

  ‘She’s got at you. Liz has got at you, Justin,’ George replied ‘You’re fucking windy.’

  Liz thought it good tactics to get away from the horse women. ‘There’s something else, George,’ she said. ‘I had what seemed to be the police on my tail at one point, possibly that burly guy we also have on film. I got rid of him, yes, but he’d trace the car and get my name as hirer.’

  ‘Got on your tail how?’ George said.

  ‘I don’t know. He’d picked me up, though.’

  ‘It’s a mess, George.’

  ‘The two women on the horses,’ Dinnick said. ‘Did they give their names?’

  ‘As I’ve said, nothing like that,’ Justin said. ‘And they didn’t ask for Liz’s name either. As I say, that’s the point, isn’t it? No introductions.’

  ‘Why is it the point?’ Dinnick replied.

  ‘They conceal they’re from Darien – or try to – because, suppose she’s casing the property, they’d prefer she didn’t know they’ve rumbled her. If she’s been sent to prepare for some operation against the house and Lamb’s gallery they will be ready for it – but without forewarning her they’ll be ready for it. They want surprise.’

  George had done no eating and drinking, though Liz and Justin had. Liz saw George was keeping himself focused. ‘Justin, why can’t she tell me these things herself?’ he said. ‘You her priest, her intercessor, as well as her bedmate?’

  Yes, George could get very evil. She’d witnessed that once or twice before. It might be necessary if you headed a firm.

  ‘She could tell you, would tell you, of course she could, would, George,’ Justin said, ‘but I’ve listened to Liz, gone over her account of things, asked all the questions I imagine you’d like to ask. So, I can bring you information I’ve got straight in my own head, and maybe I can put things a little clearer than she might.’

  ‘Yes, I’m glad of Justin’s help,’ Liz said. She thought he’d lost some of his calm, though. He sounded flustered, alarmed.

  ‘You’re in cooperation, you two. Sure you are,’ Dinnick replied. ‘In cooperation against me. She puts these trivial “factors” to you – the supposed cop trailing her, the horsey women – because she’s somehow taken big fright over this project – fright not so much on her own part, but yours. The lover “factor” has become more important than the Cog, Darien factor, despite the very reliable murmurs I get that Lamb has some great prizes there for us, including Amelia With Flask itself. Those “factors” are nothings, are pretexts to get the raid killed off. She’s turned you yellow, Justin.’

  Dinnick’s voice stayed very low. There were customers about. Very low, but very clear.

  Liz could tell Justin was hit off balance. That wasn’t a normal state of mind for him, not how he saw himself and how he expected others to see him – nerveless, capable, magnificently decisive. ‘I’ll get down there at the end of the week and check on Lamb’s stuff, George,’ he said. He’d gone conversational again, matter-of-fact, as though promising to pop into the shop for a packet of biscuits. George had riled him, shamed him, manoeuvred him: clever, professional, ruthless George.

  Justin and Liz made love that night. Or it would be more meaningful to say she made love to him. There was joy to it, as ever, and there was also a touch of despair to it this time. She’d hare back to the realm of Darien tomorrow, well ahead of him, and make such an obvio
us and crazy assault on the place that even he and George would see the operation had become unarguably hopeless, unquestionably impossible. Some risk would be entailed. Justin deserved it.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Harpur drove out to Darien, this time in an official car and with Iles as passenger. ‘Do you know what I think all this dates back to, Col, the killing included?’

  ‘All which, sir?’

  ‘Yes, all this, the killing included.’

  ‘What do you think it dates back to, sir?’

  ‘That Blake incident at Ralphy’s club. Or, rather, the “I Spy” version of it.’

  ‘How?’ Harpur replied.

  ‘How what, Col?’

  ‘How is it connected to all this, the killing included?’

  ‘Yes, that’s how I see it, Col.’

  Lamb let them into the house himself. Harpur thought he looked very shattered. No pictures hung on the drawing room wall. To Harpur, this seemed a house that had suddenly lost its purpose, its focus. Chaos had moved in. Lamb’s mother was seated, un-handcuffed, between a female police sergeant and Helen Surtees, on one of the big settees. ‘Hi guys,’ Alice Lamb said. She gave a pained, token grin and raised her right hand in greeting, as if she wanted to demonstrate very clearly that her arms were free. ‘I acted in defence of the property and everyone in it, including staff.’

  ‘Well, maybe a court will understand and go gently,’ Iles said, in a mild, considerate voice that he kept on standby somewhere, as with Albert and Vernon. ‘But this is not the States,’ he said.

  ‘It was dark, I hear breaking glass,’ Alice Lamb replied. ‘OK, OK, it turns out to be an unarmed solo woman, but I’m not to know that, am I? She’d planned this. It wasn’t just some silly adventure.’

  Helen said: ‘We’d seen her taking a really thorough look at Darien and the estate. Field glasses.’

  ‘And a rush to hide them,’ Alice Lamb said. ‘What I had to keep in mind was she might have been a vanguard, a trailblazer for a gang. I couldn’t tell how many people had broken in.’