Play Dead

by Bill James

  ‘Why do you say that, Veronica?’ Iles replied.

  ‘The non-reference to it between the two of you, as if it’s an embarrassment, because you’re supposed to outrank him, yet you’ve taken a rather picturesque degradation,’ Veronica explained.

  ‘That’s what Harpur would passionately like it to be, but it isn’t, can’t be, can it?’ Iles remarked.’My core remains my core, intact, robust.’

  ‘Isn’t it this disagreement that puts any discussion off-limits, censors it, redacts it?’ Veronica said. ‘There’s a very gentlemanly, unspoken treaty to avoid talking of it.’

  ‘I don’t see Mr Iles as a gentleman,’ Harpur said at once.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t want to be herded into that shit flock, ta very much,’ Iles replied. ‘Curtailed. Restricted. I’m fiercely interested in Harpur’s coat. It has a massive bearing on the Mallen case and subsequently, such as now.’

  ‘My jacket to do with all that?’ Harpur asked. ‘In which respect, sir?’

  Veronica said: ‘The main part of your evening was at the theatre, yes, Mr Iles? Virtually an afterthought brought you to the Elms. You wouldn’t want any delay in your search. Sight of the coat helped speed things for you. It directed you to the desired spot.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s not what I mean,’ Iles said. ‘Likewise the discussion of the wound and the concept of gentlemanliness. These are very significant. Incidentally, on the matter of gentlemanliness and class generally, Harpur’s family is in Berks’ Steerage.’

  ‘You’re telling us that all this is relevant to the Mallen case?’ Veronica said with a small laugh. ‘Soon, you’ll claim the play was relevant, too!’

  ‘In a way, yes,’ Iles said.

  ‘Which?’ Harpur said.

  ‘Which what, Col?’ Iles replied.

  ‘Way.’

  ‘The Revenger’s Tragedy,’ Veronica said. ‘That’s ages old. Jacobean? By Tourneur with two U’s, or Middleton?’

  ‘Mr Iles has already told me that,’ Harpur said. ‘My name’s with one U, not er at the end.’

  ‘And yet the play’s not totally ancient and passé,’ Veronica said. ‘A friend of mine who worked for the BBC said that when they were adapting a drama called House of Cards for TV the writer was told to “think Jacobean”, meaning, I suppose, evil as humour and nods and winks to the audience, to help out the dialogue.’

  ‘But that’s not what I’m getting at. Not at all,’ Iles said.

  ‘Oh?’ Veronica sounded snubbed.

  ‘I’m thinking of time,’ the ACC replied.

  ‘Which time?’ Veronica said.

  ‘The time it’s taking us to get back to the path,’ Iles said. ‘We’ve been able to discuss my injury, gentlemanliness, the Jacobean period, the BBC, and Harpur’s coat. That coat has sorted itself out, as you promised it would, Veronica.’

  ‘Well, yes, but so what?’ Veronica asked. ‘Leather does that.’

  ‘So you instructed us,’ Iles said. ‘It’s fascinating to see it happen, though, given adequate time. It makes me realize how far off the path we must have come. And how far Mallen must have come. That would seem to indicate he’d had a real fright of some sort on the path. Considerable avoidance tactics. Harpur and I tried to mock-up the events of the death night, but we became distracted by some mutual, extremely lively hatred, and had to leave before we’d learned very much.’

  ‘We knew he’d come off the path,’ Harpur said.

  ‘But I hadn’t realized the full distance, the massive urgency,’ Iles said. ‘Stupid of me.’

  ‘It could be important, yes,’ Harpur said.

  ‘You were on to it already, were you, you selfish, dissembling sod?’ the ACC replied.

  ‘He saw two police officers ahead,’ Harpur said. ‘Helmets. They’re unidentified.’

  ‘I’d suspected this, hadn’t I?’ Iles asked.

  ‘I haven’t finished my inquiries into that side of things,’ Harpur said. ‘I couldn’t confirm.’

  ‘Why you came down here tonight?’ Iles asked.

  ‘Yes. Veronica has confirmed, but it was good fortune, not pre-planned.’

  ‘So, I can be told at last, can I, Harpur, because I got halfway there myself, by noticing how long the chat took and the leather progress?’ Iles said.

  ‘True, it has substance now,’ Harpur said. ‘I wouldn’t bring you something merely speculative, would I, sir? No names for the officers on the path yet.’

  Of course, he wondered whether Hill-Brandon could have done better with a description of the two but was holding back for his own, hidden reason.

  ‘Harpur aims to keep ahead by any Jesuitical trick and sophistry possible, Veronica,’ the Assistant Chief said.

  ‘But he would never comment on that disgusting cheek hole, no matter how prominent,’ Veronica said. ‘He has deep consideration for you.’

  ‘He has fucking what?’ Iles said.

  ‘He’d be ashamed to serve you incomplete info,’ she said.

  ‘We need to go through all the job assignments and rosters for that evening,’ Harpur said.

  ‘We do, we do,’ Iles said.

  ‘There you are, you see,’ Veronica cried delightedly. ‘It all works out harmoniously regardless.’

  ‘Regardless of what?’ Iles replied.

  ‘Regardless in a general sense, yet also very specific,’ Harpur said.

  FIFTEEN

  Most of the time, Emily Young felt like one of Bin Laden’s wives, or Diane Keaton, as the fictional Kay, married to Michael Corleone in The Godfather: they suspected, of course, that their husbands’ careers had mysterious, even dodgy, aspects. These were intelligent women, hardly stooges. They’d learned not to get obstreperously inquisitive, though. Tactfully preserved fog hung about. Kay Corleone lived - lived well - on the proceeds of Mike’s mysterious, even dodgy, occupation, and this tended to inhibit curiosity about the source of the considerable family money. It wasn’t so much mercenary as an acceptance of the seemingly normal: their household ran like this and had run like it for a long while. Kay took it as natural. And, as one of Bin Laden’s wives said, some of his activities were Bin’s concern, not hers, and she didn’t interfere. Quite. Emily had heard Leo, her husband, praise a Mrs Bin Laden for that wise demarcation.

  Just the same, Emily Young had lately begun to feel an exceptional unease about Leo’s income and overall business status. As she understood it - as she required herself to understand it - this overall business game centred on profitable investing which was not a loll-back-and-enjoy-it position, but needed positive, day-to-day, hands-on nurturing. Leo had to be out and about, directing things. Occasionally he spoke of hedge funds, takeovers and salvage potential, which she assumed meant asset stripping of tottering companies bought cut-price; not a very wholesome way to profit but entirely legal and genuinely entrepreneurial. There would be business folk who did operate like this - make a living like this - though she didn’t feel totally sure Leo must be one of them. Was there something else?

  Occasionally, she’d become aware of distaste for Leo among her acquaintances, but she’d schooled herself to put up with that, especially as many successful, seemingly respectable business roles had their dubious, even shady, aspects. Some of her colleagues on the city’s museum committee were seriously Socialist anyway, and talked like that caricature Leftie, Dave Spart, in the satirical magazine Private Eye. They took a hostile, suspicious view of all private enterprise, particularly successful private enterprise, which she’d heard them equate with theft: Marx? Emily had the chair of the committee for a two-year spell.

  Naturally, the killing of the undercover detective, Tom Mallen or Parry, had brought real darkness. He’d worked his way into Leo’s firm, masquerading as an ordinary would-be staffer and had, in fact, strongly impressed Leo; had also, though, fooled him thoroughly. Tom was a guest at their house, Midhurst, several times. Emily got on well with him. One obvious question nagged her. Why had the spy targeted Leo and his business? Who’d decided th
e firm should be infiltrated, and to what purpose? Although these certainly remained deeply troublesome questions, the ultimate point was, wasn’t it, that Mallen had been executed by another police officer in what appeared to be a skilfully planned attack? The gunman was caught and jailed. Naturally, the police had interviewed Leo, because of the undercover detective’s role as a supposed member of the firm. Nothing had ever been proved against Leo or his companies, though. Inevitably, he was deeply shaken by what he saw as a betrayal, but any head of a business would feel like that about being spied on. The conviction of the officer, Courtenay Jaminel, had seemed to end matters, even if Emily never heard a satisfactory explanation of why one police officer should kill another. She had been intent - half intent - on letting the mystery of that death stay a mystery.

  But now rumour said that the two outside investigators who nailed Jaminel were back, apparently in an attempt, blessed by the Home Office - perhaps even demanded by the Home Office - to discover who had masterminded him, detailed him to make the hit. The government involvement scared her, made things look ominous and very major. Gossip said Jaminel was picked for his excellent shooting. Who did the picking? Who did that skilful planning? And the suggestion was that a conspiracy had existed between certain local police and certain eminent and protected local criminals, barons in the drugs hierarchy. So, Emily felt disturbed, and sensed that some folk wondered about her husband. So, Emily felt disturbed and wondered about her husband.

  Or perhaps she didn’t have to sense others’ reactions. People sort of accused by cod-commiserating, such as bitch-gob Noreen at the museum committee: ‘This must be a bore for you again, Emily.’ A bore in Noreen’s kind of underplayed, upper-crust vocab meant something between a slight nuisance and paralysing fright.

  ‘So kind of you to worry, Noreen, but of no concern to us,’ Emily said, in a splendidly casual voice. ‘Naturally I heard those same two Paul-prys have returned, but this doesn’t really touch me, touch Leo and me. How could it, for heaven’s sake? Everything was gone into so thoroughly last time, to nil purpose, nil effect. As far as Leo and I are concerned, that is. Obviously there were dire effects elsewhere - for Jaminel and his family.’

  ‘Well, yes, thoroughly, but someone has decided not thoroughly e-bloody-nough,’ Noreen said.

  ‘Busybodying.’

  ‘Brave of you to take things so calmly.’

  ‘I really don’t know how else I should take things.’ But Emily thought she observed in Leo an unusual jumpiness, plus a kind of resignation, as though he’d guessed, feared, dreaded all along that the Jaminel sentence might be only a start, a stage, in the Mallen postscript. Leo had an ability to look far ahead. A leader needed this. It could make for discomfort, though.

  Noreen said: ‘That whole building site death sequence seems to me to carry a much greater impact than we’d realized. This is not a mere self-contained incident.’

  ‘We mustn’t get obsessive about it, surely, Noreen. That’s all a long while ago now.’

  ‘But, actually, I’m talking about the present. Oh, very much so. Do you know, Emily, some friends of mine short-cutting on the path the other night, thought they saw a woman - young, late twenties, say - this woman crouched down and talking through a gap in the boarding to someone inside. Apparently, her posture put them in mind of a religious ritual, like someone consulting the Delphic oracle. They didn’t leave the path, so were at some distance, but they think they got it right. Not the Jaminel house, but close - two or three away. There might have been a light on in there, a moving beam. A torch? They believe she climbed in. Emily, it’s as though that estate has become sort of totemic in some way.’

  ‘Oh, Noreen, please.’ But at home, in what Leo liked to call the drawing room of Midhurst, their big, converted Victorian farmhouse, Emily said: ‘I was talking to Noreen, whom you know, Leo - and know what she’s like - and she thinks the Elms properties have become sort of totemic - that’s her phrase, “sort of totemic”.’

  ‘Sort of what?’

  ‘Totemic.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Leo said.

  ‘Significant.’

  He laughed. It sounded put on, bogus. ‘Well, obviously it don’t need a genius to see the Elms was significant, love. A killing there.’

  ‘Is significant now?’ Emily asked.

  ‘How?’

  ‘She says people were in one of the houses the other night.’

  ‘Squatters?’

  ‘That’s what I thought. But, inevitably, Noreen being Noreen, sees drama.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘These people investigating again.’

  ‘How’s that to do with the Elms and Noreen?’

  ‘I don’t know. But is it bad, Leo?’

  ‘Is what bad?’

  ‘Have we got a new situation here?’ Emily said. She saw a startled look hare across his small-featured face. He smiled and for a moment seemed pleased, grateful, comforted. Then the startled reaction came back. It would be that word ‘we’. It meant, didn’t it, that she considered herself with him in his troubles, whatever they might be: would stand by him and strengthen him as ever? An ally, as ever. As far as she could, she’d help him cope, help him survive, even against the Home Office, the government. But, at the same time, or almost, he clearly felt shocked and alarmed that she should know anything at all about those troubles. The holy and convenient convention was that she stayed blind to some of Leo’s business activities, particularly those that might bring, re-bring, the police here; activities possibly linking to a murder, or to a couple of murders now.

  And, true, she didn’t actually know about current stresses, but could make some sort of guess, for a moment could stop kidding herself; could switch from happy, dopey faith in Leo’s commercial purity and instead . . . instead, what? She imagined Noreen saying to some other member of the museum committee: ‘Poor Emily. She married her bit of rich, anti-grammatical, pinheaded rough, and now the pain really begins for both of them. But she had it coming, didn’t she?’

  Midhurst was on the side of Cold Hill and looked out over a gravelled yard toward the city and then the sea. There were restored outbuildings at the side of the main house. They sat with a glass of white wine each in brown leather easy chairs, Leo as almost always with a fine, custom-made three-piece, dark suit on, Emily wearing jeans and a crimson V-necked sweater. ‘Might they have some new information, Leo?’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This pair - Iles, Harpur: the names were often in the media back during the first investigation.’

  ‘What new information?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. But do you hear anything?’

  ‘How would I hear anything, Em? Whatever they’re here for it don’t affect us. Why should it? How could it?’ Bluster: that’s how she’d have described Leo’s tone. But then he sharpened, and this worried her more. ‘Which house was she talking about?’

  ‘Noreen?’

  ‘The house the sniper fired from?’

  ‘No. Near it. Is that important?’

  ‘Did she see this herself - some woman in her twenties messing about at one of the houses?’

  ‘No, friends told her. They said it was like someone quizzing an oracle.’

  ‘What oracle, for God’s sake? What’s this about?’

  ‘Delphos.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The classics.’

  ‘Oh, that. Them.’

  ‘Apollo looks all over the world for a place to put his oracle.’

  ‘And the Elms wins?’ he replied. ‘Which friends of Noreen saw all this?’

  ‘She didn’t say, Leo.’

  ‘They reliable?’

  ‘Noreen seemed to accept what they said.’

  ‘But like you mentioned, she’s fond of a bit of drama.’

  ‘This was just a description of what they saw. They wouldn’t make a mistake over something so plain.’

  ‘Plain? What about the oracle? Flimflam. Come on, Em. Where were they?’r />
  ‘Who?’

  ‘The friends.’

  ‘On the path.’

  ‘That’s quite a way from the houses, I think.’

  ‘Not too far for them to see, apparently.’

  ‘Apparently, yes.’

  ‘You believe they’d get it wrong?’

  ‘Why did she tell you, Em? Why you? Why did she think you’d be interested in something like that?

  ‘It was just conversation.’

  ‘It’ll be squatters, that’s all. Definitely. And nothing to do with us, anyway, is it?’

  What she’d just now identified as bluster had returned. A thought she recognized as unkind and disloyal came to her. It was that bluster registered in his small face very nicely. Emily had noticed before how full-scale anger wouldn’t work properly there; seemed out of proportion to the mini setting. But the frowns, reddening patches and the twitches that came with bluster looked OK and natural to Leo: made-to-measure, the measure being quite limited. That ‘definitely’, that ‘nothing to do with us’, sounded like blatant efforts by him to close the subject, dismiss it as not worth discussing. ‘Flimflam.’ His lips got around those f’s very capably, giving them excellent, wipe-out power. Most probably Leo would have liked to extend the alliteration to ‘fucking flimflam’. However, he rarely swore in Emily’s presence. ‘Flimflam’ did a good job on its own.

  Yet there was an intensity to Leo’s queries that neutered any effort to rubbish Noreen’s account: exactly which house had been concerned, Jaminel’s or another; how reliable were the people who watched; who were they; how well placed or not were they to see the woman and her performance; why did Noreen think Emily would want to hear about this odd behaviour on the Elms? He’d expected serious answers, perhaps above all to that final question. Did he suspect that Noreen saw a link between Emily and the building site, and with the murder there: the link, of course, via Leo, her husband?

  Also in her head, and despite herself, Emily found she was fixated on Noreen’s word ‘totemic’. It was an outlandish idea - such an extravagant and silly term, such a fanciful Noreen-type term. But, just the same, perhaps those half-done properties did hold valuable answers to a few very chewy, very enduring problems. She felt a weird and possibly senseless urge to see at first hand those half-done Elms houses, see them in place and actual, not merely as media photographs. Perhaps they’d say something to her. What? She had no answer. As a secondary aim, though, she might be able to demystify the Elms houses, bring them back to a kind of ordinariness, not items able to put Leo into a panic; and set off some of Noreen’s deluxe hocus-pocus and gibberish. Emily decided she’d nip down to Elms alone one night when she had a chance and get her notion of these jinxed and maybe doomed bits of property back into matter-of-fact, sane, possibly informative shape.