In the Absence of Iles

by Bill James

  Loyally, Esther had often been through this with him and didn’t fancy a rerun now, thanks. Self-pity made a poor mix with those rancid bow-ties. And Gerald might find extra, special things in the Out-loc situation to babble about. Possibly he’d see a paradox. Gerald could more or less get off on paradoxes. If they ever asked him to give the Reith radio lecture he’d do it on paradoxes. In the present case, he’d point out that his personal, agonizing, engulfing troubles sprang from non-recognition, non-acknowledgement, enforced obscurity – each of these acute anguish for an artist. But, on the other hand, and amazingly, Esther’s undercover detective would actually reverse this and calculatedly seek such non-recognition and non-acknowledgement – non-recognition and non-acknowledgement as a police officer. He’d cherish obscurity: lived by such obscurity. What a bizarre and unfeeling world it must be that could put cheek-by-jowl here in one small area such exactly opposed outlooks!

  Gerald would probably develop this notion for a fair period, watching her non-stop. Then he’d be liable to get to the abuse point and ask in snarl register which of these two polarized cases Esther felt more womanly concern for, his or the detective’s: ‘mine or your sodding precious snoop’s’, as he might put it. Plainly, the only sane answer to that was her sodding precious snoop’s. Gerald’s pain came merely from slipping behind in the national and international bassoon stakes, perhaps irrecoverably, though possibly not. In any case, he could always busk. A busker in a bow-tie would be a novelty and might coin it.

  But if things went wrong for the Out-loc officer, his/her pain could be real, maybe prolonged bodily pain, and bodily pain from which there might be no bodily recovery. Compared with Wally’s situation, Gerald’s was piffling. Plainly, Esther could not say this. Gerald would regard it as being spat on. Betrayal. Maybe he’d allege a vile, seething sexual intimacy with the undercover officer, woman or man – on hold, clearly, while the Out-loc detective was Out-loc, but all the juicier and more voracious when he/she returned. Esther might mutter to him a bit about offering different types of sympathy for people in different kinds of tricky spots – for instance, the detective and himself – each type valid. Almost certainly he’d reject this and might turn weepy and more wordy, or clumsily, feebly violent. To Esther, it always seemed uncivilized to armlock Gerald, who had once been an authentic bassoon artist: like the burning of books by Goebbels, or the vandalizing of a Louvre picture. She did not want him humiliated to the point of despair. She feared the possible outcome. And if she inadvertently broke his arm it might have permanent effects on the bassoonery.

  Right after one of these raucous, around-the-room fights he would always urgently need to shag in situ, the immediate situ – crucial, this – especially if one of his ludicrous punches had somehow caught Esther and possibly cut her chin or an eyebrow. Blood on her face excited him as much as paradoxes: there’d be a whole chapter on him if someone did An Anthology of Kinks. As things quietened down, Gerald would lick at the wound/wounds. He had a very active mouth because of woodwind skills. Sometimes, to increase the grief he felt for himself in one of these episodes, he pretended she actually had broken his humerus or dislocated his shoulder and would lie on her with one arm as if useless by his side, to suggest he knew his sex obligations despite suffering and must honour them. She put up with the slobbering ritual. He probably remembered he once had dignity. He needed to get honour from somewhere now, even though make-believe. She regarded it as only right to help restore that dignity, if this could be done.

  Some members of the rescue group were available for general rapid response duties, besides their Wally commitment. The cost of keeping a full party exclusively centred on Martlew would be unacceptable to the Force accountants and the Chief Constable – to the Force accountants and therefore to the Chief. One advantage came from this: if some of the party answered other emergency calls, the variety would be a kind of disguise for the main assignment. But Esther had to be sure that at least a minimum core of officers was always present for this assignment, several armed, and that they included someone carrying the instantly accessible thousand bung; plus the guide material on Dean Martlew as Dean Martlew, with clear Dean Martlew photos.

  So far, no alarm messages about Wally had been received, not even false ones. Some of Esther’s tenseness slackened but she continued her visits to the team. She had to help keep them vigilant. Wally Watch occupied a couple of big, connected, ground-floor rooms at headquarters, no distance from the car park and their two Volvo estates and an Omega, pointed towards the gates, unmarked but with sirens and interior blue flash lamps fitted to get them through jams. Channing in early briefings of Esther recorded that, so far, meetings and phone contacts with Martlew went exactly to schedule, and remained unsuspected at Cormax Turton; or at least Martlew saw no sign of suspicion. Channing said Martlew had delivered nothing of much significance yet. That didn’t matter. The priority was to get him safely settled and accepted as enlisted villain. He had to ‘make his bones’, or pretend to: prove his crooked competence. In early contacts, Martlew had told Channing he thought this might be happening. Naturally, he’d never feel at ease in the Guild, but he did feel easier now than at the very start. People seemed less guarded with him. These would be ordinary, run-of-the-mill members of the firm, though. There’d been no closeness for Martlew with any of the policy-making, top Turton–Crabtree family members to date. That would come. Esther and Channing had to hope that would come. A long-term hope.

  Yes, long-term, gradual. But now a very short-term and ungradual situation appeared from nowhere. No, not from nowhere, from Wally, known to some as Dean Martlew and to some others – in Cormax Turton and around the streets and docks – as hyphenated Terence Marshall-Perkins, or, matily, The Quiff, after his hair-do. This was the night Wally began to produce what looked like significant stuff. Significant? A damn pest in some ways. As a matter of fact, Esther had decided to go with Channing to the Wally rendezvous and so heard his information first hand. Yes, in some ways a damn pest. But, of course, they told Martlew he’d been a genius to get it. Leadership, leadership, leadership – always leadership: and leadership demanded they should butter him up. His morale must be tended – morale, morale, morale, always morale: tend his morale, so he’d get more stuff, and, with luck, stuff that might not be such a damn pest as this stuff.

  His morale seemed good, anyway. ‘Mrs Davidson!’ Martlew said, when he first saw her with Channing. ‘I didn’t expect this. I must be important.’

  ‘Did you doubt it?’ she said.

  ‘Doubt it?’ he said.

  ‘That you’re important,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t know how important,’ he said.

  ‘How important do you think you are now, then?’

  ‘Quite,’ he replied.

  ‘I’d say “very”.’

  ‘Didn’t they teach you that at Hilston Manor?’ Channing said. ‘Lectures on the importance of your ego?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose they did. They told us we, the Out-located, were the pinnacle of policing, but a pinnacle for ever hidden in the clouds.’

  ‘Remember, they’re biased and self-serving,’ she said.

  ‘But for an Assistant Chief to turn up like this, back-alleying to see me – sensational!’ he said.

  ‘I’m let out in the dark now and then,’ she said.

  ‘If Mrs Davidson is running an operation, she’ll want to familiarize herself with it at all levels,’ Channing said. ‘Famed for that.’

  ‘But I’m not running this operation,’ she said. ‘It’s yours, Richard. I’m a tolerated observer. ‘

  ‘What I meant, yes,’ Channing said.

  ‘And I’m grateful to be tolerated.’

  ‘Valued.’

  ‘We’ve explained this – about control of the operation – to . . . to Wally,’ Esther said.

  ‘It’s probably senior officer flair,’ Martlew said.

  ‘In what sense?’ Esther said.

  ‘For you to choose tonight t
o come,’ Martlew said.

  ‘It might have been any night,’ she said. ‘Random.’

  ‘It might appear random, but I’d still call it flair,’ Martlew said. ‘I’d call it mystical, inspired.’

  ‘Tonight’s special?’ she asked.

  ‘But how did you know it’s special?’ Martlew said. ‘Feel it was special? That’s a gift, ma’am.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Esther replied.

  ‘Are you telling us something’s on the move in Cormax Turton?’ Channing said. ‘Something major?’

  ‘I think something’s on the move,’ Martlew said. ‘It’ll need more work, but, yes, developments.’

  In fact, the meeting place was no back alley. He’d exaggerated the grubbiness. Esther saw he wanted to highlight his pride that she – an Assistant Chief – would come here to talk to him. And, yes, all right it could be considered unusual for someone of Esther’s rank to attend a secret debriefing session. Assistant Chiefs and Chiefs generally stayed well back, directing the show overall, but not getting into spots that might one day force them to do a witness turn in court and face cross-examination. No Assistant Chief had arrived to chat with Esther when she did undercover years ago. But now Esther found she needed to see and hear Martlew/Wally/Terence (The Quiff) for herself, not at the tactical one remove, via Channing, nor fancifully imagined from occasional contact with the rescue party. She couldn’t have convincingly explained the impulse. Womanliness? Perhaps womanliness combined with a helping of guilt that she had fiddled things to favour Martlew in the job selection. She needed direct, personal reassurance that he seemed OK. Plus, there was, she knew, a touch of control hunger. She had to have it, no matter how hard she pretended the opposite. She knew she should fight it, and really might one day. ‘I’d like to come with you next time,’ she’d told Channing.

  ‘Come with me?’

  ‘To a rendezvous.’

  ‘Oh. Is that –’

  ‘It will be fine,’ she replied.

  ‘But in this kind of –’

  ‘What’s your procedure?’

  ‘Procedure?’

  ‘The way it’s done.’

  ‘A set timetable, so any failure to turn up signals trouble. Likewise for phone calls.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. I fixed the waiting limits, didn’t I? But the meetings? Where?’

  ‘In cars.’

  ‘Right. Whose?’

  ‘Always mine.’

  ‘He comes to yours and sits where?’

  ‘Passenger. I’m in the driver’s.’

  ‘This is invariable?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘You go alone?’

  ‘Yes. Nobody else knows the arrangement.’

  ‘We hope.’

  ‘I think it’s secure.’

  ‘What kind of location?’

  ‘Somewhere very public and reasonably crowded with vehicles that are constantly changing.’

  ‘Tesco’s?’

  ‘Possibly too public. Too big a social mix. Cormax Turton have to shop, and so do little people with big eyes who sell them info. CT have a very capable intelligence unit – and I don’t mean negatively capable.’

  ‘Under Sarah Lily Dane still?’

  ‘She’s a clever old piece. And a fine listener.’

  ‘So, you meet Wally in a hotel car park?’ Esther said. ‘Right?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes a hotel – preferably a hotel with a special, advertised public function on for the night, so there are a lot of once-only vehicles to mix with and get shrouded by. Wall-facing for the motor, if possible. Only the back of our heads visible. Varied car, of course, from the pool, which he’s told the make, colour and registration of at the previous meet. Memorized, no notes. He’s good on memory. The dossier’s correct about that.’

  ‘But his car’s always the same?’

  ‘Unavoidable.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘He’s been taught anti-tail drills here and at Hilston.’

  ‘Sometimes they work.’

  ‘The dossier says he’s competent at it.’

  ‘I’m sure. I’d like him to be better than competent.’

  ‘It’s his shooting that’s much better than competent. And his memory.’

  ‘Well, I suppose he could be too competent at shedding a tail,’ she said.

  ‘In what sense, ma’am?’

  ‘If he does a successful shake-off routine will that prove he’s on something secret and doesn’t want Cormax Turton chaperones, because, obviously, the something secret is unfriendly revelations about Cormax Turton?’

  ‘Success equals disaster?’

  ‘Does the ability to lose a tail indicate police training? And would the extra time taken on ditching the surveillance vehicle or vehicles mean the alarm is activated and our rescue unit needlessly goes in, so the whole Out-loc operation is kiboshed?’

  ‘If he came on foot he’s just as likely to be noticed. And if he hired a different vehicle each time or called a taxi that would get noticeable, too. Besides which, people in car hire firms and taxi drivers talk. OK, his car is a risk. We’re into risks, though, aren’t we? I try to minimize. If we want inside stuff on Cormax Turton –’

  ‘Yes, we’re into risk.’

  ‘That’s why I queried your . . . your . . . Excuse me, ma’am, but do you think it’s . . . it’s, well, all right for you to come on a –’

  ‘I’d better go in the back of yours,’ Esther replied. ‘Important to stick with the procedure. He’d get confused otherwise. I imagine he’s already tensed up when you meet.’

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but I don’t know it’s sticking with the procedure for an ACC to –’

  ‘This is part of an operation, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, I’m ACC (Operations).’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘Which hotel?’

  ‘The Millicent.’

  ‘Ah, they have live music tea dances there. I’ve tried to get them to take on a bassoonist. It’s a nice, soothing sound, fine with tea.’

  The Millicent management might feel pissed off if they’d heard how Dean Martlew described their car park. Channing would never pick a back alley for such a get-together, and nor would anyone who understood even a fragment about Out-loc liaison. Back alleys looked dubious and those who loitered in them looked very dubious – drew special attention because they looked very dubious. Back alleys were for cats, knee-tremblers and old chow mein cartons tumbling and yellowed, carried by the wind. Channing could arrange things better. Outside the Millicent tonight, their two vehicles stood in bays a little distance from each other. Martlew left his Renault and joined Channing in the unmarked Rover. Martlew failed to notice Esther behind until he opened the car. Then, his surprise. ‘Mrs Davidson! I didn’t expect this.’ It was genuine shock. It disturbed her – angered her – that it was genuine shock, and she’d wanted to tell him a capable undercover cop on a rendezvous would never get into a car without knowing exactly how many people it contained and who they were, even if the situation seemed, on the face of it, exactly as planned, and friendly.

  So far, Martlew who was called Wally, and Terence (The Quiff), lacked that wise, all-round, non-stop, possibly life-preserving caution of the complete undercover cop. But Esther let it go. She didn’t want to sound like a fusspot mother talking to a kid. This kid remained a kid in the undercover trade and needed to learn. And needed encouragement. Therefore, she told him how important he was. He wouldn’t be if he ever got into the wrong car, though. Remember that passenger side garrotting by Clemenza in The Godfather, the victim’s shoes bursting through the windscreen in his death throes?

  A placard outside the Millicent tonight announced an evening seminar in its Xavier Suite on ‘Inheritance Tax And How To Avoid It’. Esther agreed they’d be all right here. There were naturally some very classy cars of the loaded in other bays, but probably none belonging to Cormax Turton, or to people who associated with Cormax T
urton. Possibly Cornelius did think pretty often about who would inherit what when he went, but he would not be asking for advice from finance wizards in the Xavier Suite, nor telling anyone what he added up to and how he came to add up to it. He would be expert in avoiding experts on Inheritance Tax And How To Avoid It. Tax? He’d have his own way of dealing with that, dead or alive. Of not dealing with it, more likely.

  ‘So what’s up among your new friends, Wally?’ Channing said. ‘Mrs Davidson and I – we’re very much the listeners. Bang on our door, will you?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Martlew said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Esther decided she had better be present on Monday for the last session of the judge’s summing-up in the Ambrose Tutte Turton trial. Diplomacy, humanity, ordinary decency demanded this. Occasionally they overlapped. For now, she’d drop the visits to East Stead and the Dill situation.

  At home, Gerald obviously picked up the signs of big nerviness nibbling Esther and said he would come with her to the court and give his personal backing. Some grandeur thickened his voice and he brought resolve into his eyes. Often his first reactions to Esther’s troubles were astonishingly warm sympathy and good support. Wreckage bits of what in the past had been a fair relationship would bob to the surface now and then, like stuff from a sunk freighter.

  But a tricky one, this – a sensitive one. Obviously, she did not want him there. Want him there? In the court? God, some brutal joke! Admittedly – reversing things – it was probably true that, if Gerald ever managed to return to concert performing, in a principal or even backbench role, she would make sure she went with him and sat in the audience for at least one session, smiling her congratulations from a spot where he could see her. Yes, she’d attend, despite detesting most of the fly-in-a-bottle eighteenth-century works he especially liked to blow. Never mind, he needed her to be there signalling groupie-style admiration, and she’d go.