In the Absence of Iles

by Bill James

  Dill wore a neat, management-style dark suit and white blouse, the collar up. The dossier had her as 175 cm – five foot nine – and she looked at ease with this height: ungawky, lissom, poised even, plainly unencumbered by anyone like Gerald, so far. Life could take some of the gleam out of engagement rings, though. Driving back, Esther felt very vindicated. Oh, yes, she must ditch Amy Dill. This journey had been a good and essential journey, even, in its way, kindly: it concerned Dill’s welfare and safety, didn’t it? Didn’t it?

  She called Channing in late that afternoon and listed the objections to Dill she thought him entitled to hear, and manufactured some minor material that should stop any difficult, prolonged debate. She thought she’d, so to speak, give body to the ideas she had about Amy’s engagement. Things had to be got under way quickly, and Esther saw how. ‘And then, in addition to all that, there is the present love life element. I went to East Stead, you know.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I felt I should.’

  ‘When did that happen, ma’am? I was speaking on the phone to Bob Lette there just after lunch. He didn’t mention a visit.’

  ‘By chance I saw her with her fiancé,’ Esther replied. ‘Did you notice diamonds when you observed her hand movements? Oh, yes, they’re there. Three nicely shaped rocks. Dill and he looked so content with each other, so happy. Well, the way engaged couples ought to look. The fact is, Richard, having seen them like that, I’m not sure she could take the separation, separation that might run to months. It might unsettle her, rock – rock! – her concentration. Another point, Richard – perhaps a sentimental one: I came to think it would be wrong to risk someone so obviously content and fulfilled in her life. I’d even see it as an abuse of our authority.’

  ‘She’d have a choice. She’d still have to opt for Out-loc if we did decide on her.’

  ‘She’s the kind who would – brave, dutiful, unselfish. She’d put the job first. One can see that much in her. I don’t think she should be asked. It would be improper pressure.’

  ‘Did you talk to her – to them?’

  ‘I fear she’d take a request as an order. Sometimes leadership must give way to human feelings,’ she replied, ‘even among police officers!’ God, Esther knew she should avoid such feeble jokes. They showed nervousness, possibly even hinted at the lying.

  ‘Where were you when you ran into them, ma’am? He’s not police, is he? I don’t imagine it would be in the East Stead nick, especially as Bob Lette didn’t say anything about –’

  ‘It was decisive, that quite brief sight of them together,’ Esther replied. ‘No longer than five minutes. You know how it can be, though, Richard. Sometimes a seemingly small incident or word can suddenly resolve sticky, long-lasting doubts.’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  (ii) Dean Martlew

  ‘This, of course, is Superintendent Channing’s operation – very much so – with myself as not much more than a spectator,’ Esther said, ‘a thrilled and fascinated spectator, but that’s all. Or perhaps I should more correctly say it is your and Superintendent Channing’s operation, Dean. You are the one who will be Out-located and Superintendent Channing will control and liaise. I called it his just now to make clear that my own role – if I have a role in the true sense at all – my own role keeps me at a distance – is to do only with policy and general overseeing. That’s one of rank’s drawbacks. You’ll experience it one day, I’m sure. The fact that we are in my suite means nothing. I’m excluded – justifiably excluded – from the pattern of immediate, urgent decisions. This falls to Superintendent Channing, and I can assure you, Dean, that his are capable hands. But what I wanted to stress, and why I set up this little meeting – yes, I wanted to stress that I endorse absolutely his final choice of you for the Cormax Turton sortie. I call it his “final” choice. Clarification is needed. From the first days of preparation for this project I can say outright now that we both knew, absolutely knew, you would be our ultimate choice. Richard?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely.’

  ‘Yes, absolutely. Naturally, though, we could not at that stage, juncture, simply settle for Detective Sergeant Martlew, no matter how strongly we held that nobody else would do as well. It’s why you featured early in Richard’s interviews. But we had a compulsory procedure to follow. In the police, there will always be a compulsory procedure, won’t there? And let’s not be wholly dismissive of it. I’ve said Superintendent Channing and I were convinced from the start you’d be our man. Fine and simple. But it might not have worked out.

  ‘Undercover is voluntary and, regardless of how we felt, what we could not be convinced of then was that you would take this on. It remained necessary that Superintendent Channing should build a shortlist of other possibles, in case Dean Martlew proved unavailable. You can visualize our delight, Dean, when, first, you showed during a very general and informal interview with Richard that you guessed the face-to-face to be about recruitment for Out-loc; and, second – and much more important, naturally – you repeatedly insisted the job should be yours. Because of procedure and the shortlist Richard could not offer it at that time, though he, alone, had the power to choose. In this kind of operation it’s vital that the controller and detective are one, so to speak. Nobody must interfere with the selection. The due rigmarole had to be gone through, though as no more than a routine following your response so early in the search, Dean.’

  ‘I think I sensed I would get it – but an anxious couple of weeks,’ Martlew said.

  ‘We’re sorry for that, aren’t we, Richard?’

  ‘Inevitable delay.’

  ‘Yes, inevitable,’ Esther said.

  ‘I recall some rumour – quite strong – about a woman detective in the frame,’ Martlew said.

  ‘But one additional benefit came from the irksome compulsory procedures,’ Esther replied. ‘It helped Superintendent Channing create a useful diversion – a smokescreen. People might have guessed at something special when he conducted a one-to-one with you, Dean. That could be dicey. It’s not helpful if a detective is suddenly pulled out of standard duties and disappears after a confidential interview. People naturally speculate. Speculation brings hazard. But because Richard so wisely arranged a very wide trawl – or appeared to – nobody would see our – that is, Richard’s – nobody would see Richard’s interest focused specifically, exclusively, on you. Numbers helpfully confuse the scene. To that end, Superintendent Channing scheduled sessions with young detectives all over the domain. I believe he even went as far as East Stead. A feint, but useful.’

  ‘Right,’ Channing said.

  ‘I heard of that – East Stead,’ Martlew said. ‘I think the rumour might have been about a girl there, as a matter of fact. It was the kind of thing to stoke my worries.’

  ‘This had to be gone through, and gone through in credible, thorough fashion,’ Esther said.

  ‘What especially bothered me was, if Mr Channing wanted someone reasonably unknown to make Out-loc feasible, a young detective working at a remote station like East Stead might be best,’ Martlew said.

  ‘I have heard an argument along those lines,’ Channing said.

  ‘Say an officer fairly new to the Force,’ Martlew said.

  ‘Possibly, but what do we mean by “best”?’ Esther replied. ‘That’s the crux. It’s unlikely that anyone from East Stead would have experience of Out-location in a big urban firm, especially someone not long a detective. Yes, that could have some benefits. But aren’t they outweighed by other considerations? Could Richard reasonably ask someone so untried to do it? He would hesitate at that, and I entirely sympathize with his reluctance to expose a novice. What we have in you, Dean, is a seasoned detective, gun-trained and, I heard, brilliant at it, familiar with the big city, and who, according to the records, has successfully done something akin to undercover while on secondment to another Force, so you’re not known for it here. That’s a grand combination. Not to be equalled.’

&
nbsp; ‘It wasn’t full-scale undercover,’ Martlew said, ‘though I made a lot of noise about it in the selection talk with Mr Channing. I can admit this now the job’s in the bag!’

  ‘We know what it was,’ Esther said. ‘You’d expect us to ask the people who ran that task, wouldn’t you? They said you did remarkably. It’s a beginning, and one very few detectives of your age have. Hilston Manor will see you’re fully up to the mark, won’t it, Richard?’

  ‘Hilston’s pretty good,’ Channing said.

  ‘And they’ll be impressed by your shooting. I did undercover once myself, you know, Dean,’ Esther said. ‘I think it’s given me an instinct for what will work and what won’t – who’s right for it, and who isn’t. Though, obviously, the actual selection has to be – can only be – Superintendent Channing’s. I’m the rubber stamp, and very content to be so.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Out-location of DS Dean Martlew: Esther’s narrative

  2. Operational Method

  As Esther would have expected, Richard Channing actually did look up Walter de la Mare’s poem about the horseman at the door. He said he’d enjoyed it. He gave the verse three or four readings, ‘from the start right through to finish, no skipping, line by line every time, a veritable experience with a capital E’. If Channing promised to do something, even in what seemed a casual aside, he’d have a real go. Esther reckoned this kind of sweet behaviour might help him move higher in the police, or not. He told her he especially liked the sentence, ‘Never the least stir made the listeners.’ Channing recited this in a voice full of acclaim and recognition, and gave ‘Never’ true, timeless boom. That was how undercover had to be, he said: the art of not unsettling anybody in a target firm – not causing them to ‘stir’ to any special, dangerous alertness; and then the accompanying art of quiet, concentrated listening, of hearing everything. In fact, he said he’d decided during his final thrilled reading of the poem line by line that Dean Martlew’s code name while Out-located should be ‘Wally’, as a confidential, affectionate, in-house tribute to ‘The Listeners’ and its author. For security, every undercover detective had a headquarters code name throughout an operation. Only a few top officers would know his/her real details.

  Channing said he’d toyed with ‘de la Mare’ as the code but eventually dropped this because too flowery and possibly difficult for some to remember. In any case, it sounded like a code based on the first two, and first three, letters of ‘Dean Martlew:’ possibly a give-away, by accident. Although Channing recognized that in modern British speech ‘Wally’ could occasionally suggest someone stupid and inept, e.g. ‘the manager’s a right Wally’, he considered this did not matter, or, in fact, contributed an extra element to the disguise, because nobody picked by Esther for a job as deeply perilous as undercover in Cormax Turton could be stupid or inept.

  ‘Pardon – not picked by me, not at all, Richard. Not my role. That would be interference. I simply and wholeheartedly endorsed the inevitable choice,’ Esther replied.

  ‘Yes, certainly. What I meant.’

  Esther could accept ‘Wally’ as the Martlew cipher. Of course, within Cormax Turton, he must use another false name, his gang alias. Martlew could choose for himself on this. He said he fancied something hyphenated. The middle classes were more into crime these days and he’d come across a lot of crooked hyphens. Again, Esther remembered Officer B at Fieldfare discussing the need to get the right ‘working’ handle. For undercover, identity came in multi-packs.

  As follow-up to another of Esther’s idiotic poetry tips, Channing had also done some internet research on John Keats and his writing gospel, but couldn’t fully understand the ‘negative capability’ she’d recalled from lessons at school and mentioned to him. However, he thought he did see how negative capability might resemble vital undercover qualities. The point was, wasn’t it, that for Keats, negative equalled positive, Channing said, making Keats very different from electricity. Negative capability helped Keats create some of his best poems, and you couldn’t get more positive than that, could you? Similarly, an undercover officer must try for negative capability, in the sense that he/she mustn’t stand out, or get especially noticed, and this was how eventually to turn positive by piling up evidence that sent villains to jail, ‘or, oddly enough, “stir”, as it’s sometimes called,’ Channing said.

  ‘There’s a Keats sonnet called “Why did I laugh tonight?”’ Esther replied at once.

  ‘Is that really right, ma’am?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure.’

  ‘Well, there you are.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He regrets drawing attention to himself by mirth, instead of staying void and negative and keeping an eye.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten why he did laugh.’

  ‘Probably not just a trip to a well-known early nineteenth-century ale-house comic. No, it could be a sort of hysteria, a break-out from self-suppression, if he’s been switching his capability on to negative for a long spell for the sake of more poems. It’s bound to get wearing. That’s another resemblance to Out-loc: occasionally, a detective isolated, corralled, very vulnerable, in a firm will crack mentally. It’s classic. Noisy, mad laughter could be part of this, the cause soon forgotten, if there was a cause, as such.’

  ‘Stir crazy.’

  ‘A tumble into mad, noticeable, dangerous behaviour by the over-stressed officer. Keats understood this scene as much as de la Mare. You were entirely right to see parallels, ma’am.’

  ‘I believe in “Why did I laugh tonight?” he speaks to his heart and says, “Thou and I are here sad and alone.” That’s just Keats and his heart.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Channing said. ‘This could match the beginnings of the Stockholm Syndrome in an undercover cop, couldn’t it? He, or more likely she, gets to need friendship and perhaps love, and seeks it from the people at hand, although the only people at hand now are the criminals she/he is supposed to shop. It’s an attempted escape from that sadness and loneliness.’

  Well, up yours, Channing, you macho lout. Esther fumed at his assumption that women would be more likely to go over than men, but she stayed quiet. She had to: she’d quoted Stockholm Syndrome as one reason to block Amy Dill from the Cormax Turton jaunt and prefer a male.

  Once Dean Martlew had been installed, the team on stand-by in case he needed to be retrieved from undercover in a crisis came to be known as ‘Wally Watch’, though Esther guessed they’d miss the de la Mare reference. She didn’t mind the title. Dark jokiness was a tradition in the police and armed services, and the more dangerous the situation the more flippant the language, as if to reduce menace and fear. That lampoon session between her and Channing about poets and poetry had been in part a mickey-taking, joke-driven game, of course. Yes, part comedy, part frighteningly serious. But – also, of course – a rescue team would need to get beyond the ‘Wally’ label should things turn bad and orders come to find Martlew fast and bring him back, if possible, intact and still recognizable. A sealed package containing photographs of Martlew, plus his real name, his accepted name at the crook firm, and a full physical description, was passed between leaders of the salvage party at shift change, along with the £1000 for possible greased lightning greasing. The package would be opened only if the party were sent to intervene. It notified them, also, where to intervene: Cormax Turton. But CT operated from a range of locations. The information pack probably wouldn’t be able to specify. And so, the absolute requirement for life-and-death speed when locating him. And so, the absolute requirement for the life-and-death, up-front, direction-finding £K.

  Esther called in on the wait-around aid contingent now and then. It could not be too often or they would suspect she distrusted them for readiness and thought surprise checks necessary. They’d feel huffy about that, and Esther wanted to cause no distractions. She did trust them for readiness pretty well. But she needed the occasional contact of a visit. It could feel briefly like a kind of indirect communion with Dean Martlew himsel
f, though her mind would correct that addled notion almost at once: Martlew remained unreachably, terrifyingly solo, except for those occasional meetings or phone links with Channing. And it was she – solo, autocratic and devious – who had placed him unreachably, terrifyingly solo. The responsibility roughed her up continually, and once in a while she’d concede to herself that she deserved it.

  Esther had two hopes for Wally Watch: (a) obviously, that it would never be called on to bring Martlew out of a possibly terminal pickle; and (b) if it were called, that she would be visiting the group at the time and could get a place in one of the cars.

  Esther wished she had someone to talk to about her anxieties, but realized she must maintain a confident show with the recovery teams and a relaxed, playful show with Channing. Didn’t a high-ranking British army officer walk around with an umbrella up during some ferocious battle in the Second World War, claiming it would shelter him from German gunfire? Leadership. Gaiety. Sangfroid. This blatant craziness was meant to boost morale, a duty for all commanders. The boss had to believe in what the boss decided to do, or seem to believe in it, anyway.

  If she had spoken at home to Gerald about her special job stresses, no question he would initially sympathize, in his half-baked, frowsty-breathed, mostly well-meant, fleeting fashion. He did not lack sensitivity or sense even now, and was sure to glimpse the risk and the gravity, and notice her chronic nervousness. He owed her some gratitude, and knew it: hadn’t she gone through the bother of moving from her job with the South Wales Force to here, much nearer London, so he’d be handier for work in the capital, closer to agents and impresarios? It hadn’t made much difference yet, though, and now, because of Gerald’s vast, likewise chronic, ever-expanding, egomaniac worries, he would usually commandeer any serious conversation, then direct it towards (a) his career problems; and (b) his contempt for all notably successful musicians – repeat, all notably successful musicians, not just notably successful bassoonists – and the system, and/or Fate, and/or God, and/or diseased public taste, that favoured them.