Play Dead

by Bill James

  ‘Isn’t it just like police?’ Helga said. ‘They have what they call “an incident” one night. They don’t get to it fast enough, so put a patrol out at the same spot as if they think it’s going to happen again. They’re ruled by the past. I understand you were into a leaf-hunting forage, as almost anyone might be on a standstill building site at night. “I’m popping down to Elms, dear, to bag a leaf.”’

  ‘Just looking closely - amazed at the weed’s power to grow, to survive, on such terrain. Some seed fell on stony ground, but never mind, it makes the best of the situation.’

  ‘Nature’s quite a thing, isn’t it? A lesson to all of us. Adaptability.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘There are people in and out of the house, you know.’

  ‘Which people?’

  ‘Dossers. Crime scene tourists. Jaminel.’ She finished her bread-stiffened soup. ‘As to “the incident” it could be crime nuts - people fascinated by murder locations and acting out the death. They get off on the recollection and imitation of lethal rough stuff.’

  ‘But these two fought on the ground, according to Belinda Laverick. Mallen was shot,’ Cass said.

  ‘The floor-level wrestling, if that’s what it was, might have been a bonus. Dickheads get taken over by their dreams and need to ginger up the brutalities. It starts as charade but can turn real.’

  Did Helge mind, but there was no broccoli today, so would asparagus tips do? the waitress came over to ask. Asparagus tips would do, though they were difficult to pronounce without spitting, after the vodkas and wine.

  ‘Belinda believes there might have been some sort of weapon in the incident, according to a witness - but a witness quite a way off,’ Helga said.

  ‘Yes,’ Cass said.

  ‘A dirk? Are dirks in fashion? A Stanley knife? We’re all guessing. That’s why I queried the blood,’ Helga replied.

  ‘Queried it in which sense?’ Cass asked.

  ‘Whose was it?’ she said.

  ‘Mine. I explained: a thorn,’ Cass said. ‘Not worth making a major issue of, but mine.’

  ‘Yes, you explained, but not how your hands are unmarked.’

  ‘What I’d like to focus on is the Leo Young side,’ Cass replied.

  The main courses arrived. Cass asked for another bottle of Chardonnay. He’d come by taxi and didn’t have to worry about driving. Helga lived just over the Vaze Upper bridge with her partner and had walked. Cass might have to walk her back. They ate and drank for a while in silence. The asparagus tips looked to be right up Helga’s street, an excellent piece of luck. She asked the waitress for another portion. The waitress seemed troubled. This would be two changes and would require substantial reprogramming in her memory for the future: asparagus tips instead of broccoli and not just that: a doubler of the asparagus.

  ‘The museum committee,’ Helga said and stopped. She spoke as if, because of booze, she needed the firmness of a general topic heading first, and she could then, possibly, move into a detail or two, gently incremental, each point leading on to the next by small, negotiable advances. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither were items of chit-chat. ‘Yes, the museum committee.’ She sounded triumphant. She’d picked a parameter and, as parameters went, it was a comely and robust parameter, deserving repetition. She said: ‘This is an aspect that will repay attention.’

  ‘Right,’ Cass said.

  ‘I’m well in with quite a few people around the museum. They want a bit of publicity now and then for this and that. They pick up the phone to Helga. I’ve even got stuff about the museum into The Times for them, and the Guardian, not just locals. So, they’re grateful. So, I’m owed. So, some recip . . . so some recip—’

  That was too big a step. ‘Reciprocity,’ Cass said. Drink hit women harder and more quickly than men. Nothing to crow about: just a gender difference. Advantages equalled out. For example, Cass thought women better than men at taking offence.

  ‘Recip . . . Yes, that exactly,’ she said. ‘This committee - there’s some know-all, straight-talking people on it. They have an eye for conditions around, conditions now, prelavent . . . I mean, not just ancient, as you’d expect, it being a museum.’ They both ordered sticky toffee pudding for dessert, and as finale, coffee and Tia Maria.

  ‘With Emily Young, Leo’s missus in the chair,’ Helga said.

  ‘Quite. I remember that from before.’

  ‘You say, “Quite,” as though that’s normal. But think about it, Dave. There’s members of that committee with gongs - up to and including CBEs. These are people of what could reasonably be called discernerment.’

  ‘Discernment.’

  ‘Yes, yes, discernerment.’

  ‘Yes, discernerment,’ Cass replied. He’d come to feel it was wrong, cruel, snooty to correct her, had already let ‘prelavent’ go. Surely someone of her age, in that kind of gear, and three-quarters pissed, should be entitled to temporary dyslexia. Bevies could liberate one from the tyranny of faultless vocab. In any case, he was beginning to be undermined by the alcohol himself and if put to it would agree with Helga that ‘discernerment’, though longer, was easier to say than the rather terse and unrelaxed ‘discernment’. Then he had a couple of panic moments when he realized he didn’t know any longer which was correct, ‘discernment’ or ‘discernerment’, ‘prelavent’ or ‘prevalent’.

  He found himself craving the Tia Maria, which hadn’t been served yet. He reckoned he needed something stronger than white fucking wine to clear his brain, though his unclear brain was clear enough and platitudinous enough to advise him that Tia Maria on top of the rest of it would most likely super-fog his brain, not clear it, and possibly end in an abrupt puke.

  He sorted out, fairly efficiently, he thought, the quickest way to the gents’ lavs, or to any lavs, in case of emergency. If he got this wrong there might be a bit of an eventuality at the post-liqueur stage. The route he charted should cut the risk to others’ clothes and/or meals and, if he did throw up, it would be on to vacant tables - easy for staff to get into rubber gloves and change the cloth, cutlery and condiment jars. He’d put the tip up to 20 per cent, from his own cash, or the paper’s expenses people would kick. As it was, they might query the double asparagus on the bill.

  ‘When I say conditions prelavent, what do I mean, Dave?’

  ‘Contemporary. Of the moment.’

  ‘Contemporary. Of the moment. Correct. So, what conditions of the moment have I got in mind?’

  Cass felt unsure whether this showed she’d forgotten what she was talking about, or, like a good teacher, wanted to prompt a pupil into providing the answer. He said: ‘Emily Young.’ This answer seemed to cover both, and he was proud of it. These were names easy to say and, at the same time, appropriate.

  ‘Emily, educated, cultured, tremendous CV - so what’s she doing with a shady, hamster-faced object like Leo?’ Helga asked. ‘People on that committee must have been wondering that for yonks. And now the puzzle gets really strong. The rumours about Leo have always circulated, but lately they’re in regiments. They’re in regiments because Harpur and Iles are here, you’re here, and Dathan, the Chief, is edgy. Some on the committee have important connections in London and might have heard that Maud is warpathing again and wants you to write up the situation for the Epoch.’

  ‘With the massive and unstinting help of Helga Ormond.’

  ‘What I can, I will.’ Helga pursed her lips, frowned, winced, bared her teeth, which looked like her own, projected her chin. It was as though she wanted to check she still had control of her entire face and features, despite the tipples. And Cass thought that, if she could manage this satisfactorily, she would assume her mind behind the face and features must be in normal shape, too. For whatever was coming next she wanted to sound cogent, not addled: wanted to be cogent, not woozy. She said: ‘Noreen.’

  This sounded like another of those helpful section headings. ‘Someone called Noreen?’ Cass asked.

  ‘Noreen, yes.’


  ‘On the museum committee?’

  ‘Noreen Laucenston-Isson. Family money through kitchen design. Lineage traceable back to somebody minor but definitely there in the court of Victoria. An hon. Noreen is the sort who’d have views about Leo. Well, of course, many have views about Leo. Noreen might voice them, and voice them to Emily. I don’t say Noreen would be insulting or rude face to face, but she’d have a sort of classy way of commenting which would get the insults and rudeness over to the listener, such as Emily, without actually spelling them out. Emily’s perceptive, sensitive. She’d pick up what was being said while not being said.’

  Perhaps all those phizog contortions really worked and helped restore Helga to accurate, well-ordered speech. She’d got the Noreen surname right, as far as Cass knew; done ‘perceptive’ and ‘sensitive’ OK; and could outline quite well the difference between explicit insults and rudeness, and oblique insults and rudeness. Cass said: ‘You think Emily will start wondering about Leo herself, because of Noreen Whatever?’

  ‘Because of Noreen and others,’ Helga said. ‘We’re discussing something as grave as murder of a police officer here.’

  ‘But, as grim topic, the murder of a police officer has been around for a long while. Emily seemed able to live with this suspicion, didn’t she? And the conviction of Jaminel would help her do that, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe. But I can imagine Noreen pointing out to Emily, without seeming specifically to point it out to Emily, that the Jaminel conviction was a start to the clean-up campaign, not its end. An overture. Noreen would most likely play at sympathizing with Emily, calling the revived investigation “a bore”, for her. When people like Noreen dub a situation a bore it doesn’t mean that it’s boring. Emily would probably like the situation to be boring - that is, going along as untroublesome and ignorable as ever. When Noreen brands something “a bore” she’s saying it’s a pain in the arse, is frightening - very - a threat, a potential catrostrophe.’

  She’d got through what came before ‘catrostrophe’ very well, and Cass continued with his benign policy of non-correction. It was brave of her to make the shot at a blatantly tricky word that could lead to catastrophe in speaking it, or catrostrophe. She could probably have done ‘disaster’ or ‘holy fuck-up’ instead of catastrophe, to perfection. He felt strengthened by her and downed the Tia Maria without qualms. He said: ‘You think Emily could be the means to get Leo, do you?’

  ‘Big pressure on her. This is a woman not without morality, though hitched to a high priest of villainy. She might want to change things.’

  ‘Will Harpur and Iles realize this?’

  ‘Iles sees plenty, doesn’t he?’

  She stood, seemingly without difficulty. Cass paid and followed her out, and was also all right. ‘Shall I walk back with you?’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ She put the tam back on, as if to prove she was equipped for no matter what conditions Fate or Life or both might fling at her.

  ‘Right. And thanks,’ Cass said.

  He called for a taxi and sat on a low wall outside The Platter, waiting.

  EIGHT

  Harpur said, ‘I had a quick look around the room of David Lee Cass, the reporter who’s booked in here. Top-quality Samsonite luggage and not just one but three electric toothbrushes. Nothing of any significance, though, really, except a note to himself, neat copperplate, reminding of an appointment he’s fixed with the Larkspur police Press officer later today. This lad knows about protocol.’

  ‘Those card-in-the-slot hotel room keys are pitifully easy to fool, aren’t they, Col?’ Iles said.

  ‘Lockbust Ferdy back home.’

  ‘Ferdy? Yes?’

  ‘Showed me how to work a card, before we sent him down for doing a complete corridor in The Angel. Luckily I saw Cass’s name in the hotel register,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘You had a quick look at that, too, did you?’

  ‘I suppose we could have guessed he’d come to Larkspur again.’

  ‘How could we have guessed it, Col?’

  ‘A sort of follow-up to his previous. As soon as he heard we’re back here he’d see possibilities. They’re driven, these investigative stars. Driven.’

  ‘But how would he hear?’ Iles said.

  ‘These things get about.’

  ‘How do they get about?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Maud leaks? Purposeful leaks? You have a weird affinity with her, don’t you? Does she seem the leaking kind?’

  ‘Or someone close.’

  ‘A secretary?’

  ‘I suppose Maud would have a secretary, even several. Maud’s big stuff, isn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t know what kind of stuff she is, Harpur. You?’

  ‘This Cass. He’s formidable,’ Harpur replied. ‘Stickability. Intuition. That kind of approach. And, yes, driven. International Press awards for furthering the human cause.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Human.’

  ‘D’you think he sees the perils here?’ Iles said.

  ‘Routine for them. Danger’s built in to that kind of job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Has he got family?’

  ‘There were framed pictures of kids in his room.’

  ‘Wise to put himself at risk?’ Iles asked. The ACC could get like this sometimes: motherly. Harpur found it disgusting.

  ‘And there was that game old bird, Helga, who helped point him in the right direction last time,’ he said.

  ‘The sun shone out of her medallion - reflected. We’d better sit in on Cass’s interview with the mouthpiece.’

  ‘The Chief won’t like that.’

  ‘No, he won’t. Hard cheese, as Orwell might say.’

  ‘He came out with all sorts, didn’t he, sir?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The one you mentioned.’

  ‘Orwell?’

  ‘That’s the one. It’s a river, isn’t it - like they call a Welshman, Taff.’

  ‘Have you heard of him, Col?’

  ‘Some of these people - they know the exact phrase to hit on in a situation,’ Harpur replied heartily. ‘Because, you see, sir, hard cheese is still indisputably cheese, but not very pleasant, especially for those who like their cheese soft, as with, say, ripe Camembert. Hard cheese has to be put up with, though, from time to time. Those two words “hard cheese” contain all that meaning!’

  ‘No need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, Harpur.’

  ‘Ah, that’s another of those spot-on phrases, sir.’

  ‘Fuck off, Harpur. That’s another.’

  At the headquarters meeting, Dathan, the Chief, also sat in. The Press officer had a spacious room with a long, impressive, solid oak conference-style table. Harpur thought it was probably all meant to show the force took relations with the media seriously and that only the double-checked truth would be put before them here. They sat in chairs around the table, the Press officer at the head. She introduced herself as Inspector Ruth Bowles and said she would read a statement first and take questions from Cass afterwards. She was plump and friendly-looking, probably not far off retirement age, obviously knowledgeable about what could and could not be said, and aware that the people in front of her today, and on other days, knew she was bound by the unyielding rules of what could and what could not be said. Truth had to be sanitized, redacted. Her voice for the statement was conversational, matter-of-fact, take-it-or-leave-it, as if she recognized this was not great oratory, but so sodding what, and roll on pension day.

  She said: ‘I know I speak for the Chief when I say how happy we are to have the present unsatisfactory situation on our ground examined and, I’m sure, remedied, by the two distinguished officers from outside.’

  Dathan muttered, ‘Indeed,’ and gave an endorsing nod each to Iles and Harpur, an unflamboyant ‘Thank you, pals,’ for striving to drop him and his outfit in the shit.

  ‘But perhaps I should state what I mean by an “unsatisfactory situation”,’ she
said. ‘Unsatisfactory in the sense of aftermath.’

  ‘So true,’ Dathan said.

  ‘This aftermath stems from a past, grave crime - a murder - for which a police officer was found guilty and sent to prison,’ Ruth Bowles said. ‘Although that would have seemed to close the matter, some felt certain aspects of the case stayed unresolved. A shadow of doubt fell, unsettling, even demoralizing for all in the force.’

  ‘True, again,’ Dathan said. ‘Yes, beyond unsettling. Demoralizing.’

  ‘Morale, an item to be cherished, protected,’ Iles replied.

  ‘And so, we are grateful and relieved to have the two officers who helped us with the original case return now and recommence their investigation, though with perhaps a wider remit,’ she said. ‘We trust that - but, no, we are confident that their second intercession will have as result a final clearing of the air. Fortunately, we have absolutely nothing to hide.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Dathan said. ‘Fortunately. This is not to criticize those who have commissioned the new inquiry, not in the least, but I think we are bound to feel unthreatened by it, unresentful of it - though not smug or complacent - because we know that nothing but good can come out of it for us.’

  ‘There are times when it is a very positive matter to be given a fresh, blazingly impartial view of what might have become overfamiliar factors for those in the host force,’ she said.

  ‘Certain shortcomings might be tolerated because they have taken on a kind of time-blessed status unrelated to their real value. Such complacency can be identified and swept away by the likes of Mr Iles and Detective Chief Superintendent Harpur. For this necessary service we shall be extremely thankful.’

  ‘Extremely,’ the Chief said.

  ‘Ultimately, they will draw a line in the sand and enable us to move on,’ she said. ‘To that end, we shall offer full and positive cooperation with the two officers.’

  ‘One hundred per cent cooperation,’ the Chief said. ‘To put this at its most selfish, it is in our interests to make such an offer, for it will remove the traces of taint and guilt that have quite unwarrantably lingered here too long.’