by Bill James
‘You’re brickwalling, are you? Why?’
‘You should get back to bed now we’ve settled everything.’
‘Have we settled everything?’
‘I think so.’
‘Yes, you would. You think something’s settled if you can keep talking without saying anything at all.’
‘We’ve been all around the subject.’
‘Around, around, around, without really getting anywhere.’
‘I think you should get to bed,’ Harpur said. ‘That’s where to get now.’
‘Well, say “Surveillance, as a matter of fact, Denise,” if she wakes up and asks where you’ve been so late.’
‘She won’t wake up.’
‘Or in the morning.’
‘It was surveillance.’
‘But say it, so it’s the same as what we told her, and then it will sound true, totally true, because three people said it.’
‘It is true.’
‘But best say it – “Surveillance.” Then she’ll reply, “Hazel and Jill told me that. Surveillance.” But what if Denise asks, “Surveillance where?” You could cook up some answer for her, couldn’t you? You won’t cook one up for me, but you could cook one up for her, couldn’t you? This might be important. We don’t want her wondering where you’ve really been. Perhaps she’d get upset.’
‘I don’t have to cook up some answer. I went there.’
‘Where?’
‘Get your sleep now,’ he said.
When he climbed into bed with Denise she grunted and muttered ‘Col,’ as if to prove she definitely knew who was sleeping with her tonight and didn’t object. To welcome him, she gave a feeble half wave of her right hand, but without raising her head.
‘Surveillance,’ he said.
‘Ugh?’
‘Surveillance.’
She grunted again and then went silent. He put an arm around her and they slept spoons. Denise liked morning lovemaking and then a cigarette or two to begin the day right. Harpur didn’t smoke but thought the rest of it would be fine. They’d get up to have breakfast with the children before they went to school, then go back to bed for a while, their lips tasting of black pudding at first.
Iles said: ‘Something’s around, Col.’
‘Around?’ This was a Jill word, wasn’t it?
‘No question, around.’
‘In what respect, sir?’ Harpur said.
‘I get that feeling.’
‘Which?’
‘Perhaps you do yourself.’
‘Which feeling?’ Harpur said. Iles could intuit. Iles had unstrangulated genius somewhere within and always liable to break out full of puff and brilliance and concealment. Iles heard things, but also sensed things, foresaw things, stored things. Harpur tried not to tell the Assistant Chief too much, hoping to balance up and give himself a chance. Harpur, of course, realized that one of the things the ACC in his magical fashion most probably sensed was that he (Harpur) held back from telling him (Iles) everything he (Harpur) knew. This meant each of them suspected the other of using the spoken word to cloud and even obstruct understanding rather than assist it. They conscientiously and skilfully struggled to avoid all-out disclosure. Harpur thought that anyone listening to them talk would feel each took his own dedicated route, and that these routes only rarely and briefly criss-crossed.
‘They had one of their Agincourt hooleys last Monday,’ Iles said.
‘Is that right? I don’t diary them any longer.’
‘Why not?’
‘Absolutely routine.’
‘In what respect, Col?’
‘We know who’ll be there. And we know the sort of trimmed stuff they’ll be told. But, yes, they do come around. Is that what you meant – “around”?’
‘Its flavour – I didn’t like its flavour.’
‘You know its flavour, sir.’
‘Something’s around, Col. Something basic, considerable and perilous.’
‘We’ll have to deal with it.’
‘“Deal with it”! So confident! So matter-of-fact! I love your primitive optimism, Col.’ ‘Thank you, sir.’ ‘At my rank, Harpur, one looks for factors beyond the actual matter-of-fact facts. Yes, factors beyond the matterof-fact facts. The matter-of-fact fact in this case is the Agincourt dinner – a matter-of-fact fact in the sense that it happened.’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, it’s a fact it would probably be about time for it to, as you say, sir – come around, as a fact.’ ‘I agree, we don’t take much notice of it any longer – as a fact, that is,’ the ACC said.
‘We can’t learn much from it.’
‘Behind this fact – the dinner and festivities – is a bigger element, though – what I’ve termed for you – so the idea is not beyond you . . . what I’ve termed for you, a factor.’
‘Is that right, sir?’
‘This dinner has a context both ahead and back.’
‘Ah.’
‘Oh, yes, a factor, a context, Col. Dimensions. Width. That’s what I’m getting at when I say something’s around.’ ‘A factor? A context?’ ‘I have a contact in these dinners,’ Iles said. ‘I get special whispers. You might have given up entirely on the occasions. Not I, not entirely. Abandonment of a project is not my style.’
‘Oh. Are you close to one of the waitresses, sir, close in your style of being close – which might bring special whispers?’
‘I’m given excellent feedback.’
‘Nice.’
‘By means of this contact I have an overview.’
‘I believe some of them are very OK.’
‘Who?’
‘The waitresses. OK in the way you like.’
‘And which way is that, Harpur?’
‘Chirpy. Forthcoming. Game for merrymaking etcetera. They wear greenish Nell Gwyn costumes at the medieval banquets, don’t they?’
‘Nell Gwyn wasn’t medieval, you dull sod.’
‘Her name has come down through the centuries.’
‘My source reports an exceptionally happy and convivial Agincourt dinner.’
‘Ah.’
‘That’s sinister. I’m uneasy, Col.’
‘Ralph and Manse have seen off a lot of competition, mostly East European. Possibly they had rowdiness from their back benchers at previous meetings, including racism, which Ember is quite a bit against and believes should be applied only very selectively. This time, things would all have been serene and pleasant.’
‘Well, of course, you’d have a dull, limited, unimaginative formula explanation for their apparent contentment and good spirits. I have to see beyond that. I want you to think of me as like those youthful locals in South Sea tourist resorts who will dive into the sea and bring up from its considerable depths coins that have been flung in by spectating visitors.’
‘Exactly as I always do think of you, sir.’
‘The surface is an invitation to me. I am not content with it, as its self – mere surface. An invitation to look beneath. I need to see what is hidden.’
‘What is?’
‘As ever, there’s a surface amity between Ralph and Manse Shale. What does it conceal, Col?’
‘You’ll have an answer to that.’
‘I do believe in the standard routines of basic detective work – the kind of thing you so thoroughly, even commendably, represent, Col, in your tidy fashion, but . . . sources, Col.’
‘True.’
‘We are nothing, nowhere, without a source.’
‘Are you satisfying one of the waitresses, sir? And she’s grateful – as she damn well should be – and gives you tipoffs in return? You’re not one to mind being mentioned in the Agincourt kitchens as a lover boy with special requirements. People are very understanding these days about kinks.’
‘What do I
mean by “factors”, Col? By “context, as applied to the Shale–Ember cartel”?’
‘Some people, when they talk to me about you, say, “Mr Iles is one for factors, not mere facts. And context. Hence gold leaf on his cap.”’
‘Which people?’
‘It would add up to more than quite a few, in my opinion.’
‘How many more?’
‘“In depth”. This is another term they’ll use when talking of your approach. Perhaps they’ve spotted your resemblance to the South Seas boy divers. They’ll refer to your “in depth” methods and outlook. I think they mean it well, on the whole. “In depth” links up with “factors” and “context”. The same ballpark.’
‘You discuss me, do you, Harpur?’
‘Many regard you as a considerable topic, sir. They’re used to ordinary folk such as their spouses or newsagents or chartered surveyors and then you come along, and very few would say you’re ordinary in the least. Probably.’
‘Which very fucking few?’
‘Statistically almost negligible.’
‘Do you note the names?’
‘People say things for effect. They hear someone spoken of reverentially and feel driven in a destructive way to counter this. It’s mere mischief.’
‘Reverence I don’t seek, Col.’
‘Although you don’t seek it, it comes, sir.’
Iles nodded, but a fairly minor nod. ‘Ralph led a kind of gush testimonial to Shale. This is sickening, worrying, Col.’
‘Manse is getting remarried.’
‘Yes. Dangerous. Someone he met through art.’
‘Is that right, sir? Manse does a lot of appreciation. Apparently, it’s a tonic to see him gaze at canvases. Empathy’s his chief relaxation. He’s very keen on one sort of stuff – auburn hair and long purple dresses. It’s his other side from the trade. He wants to be thought of as an all-rounder. Some pictures in his collection at the old rectory are quite possibly not forged, I’m told.’
‘Who told you?’ Iles was in one of his double-breasted navy blazers that enveloped him like a tribute.
‘You know, sir, I like to think of Manse Shale as an art fan,’ Harpur replied. ‘It proves he still has bits of uncorrupted soul.’
‘Well, we all possess some of them, Col.’
‘Is that right?’
‘On the whole, police should have more bits of uncorrupted soul than villains. It’s tidier that way. It’s expected. And it helps mark a difference. This is a difference one favours.’
‘I can see the point.’
‘Oh, yes, bits of uncorrupted soul are universal, or we’re into heresy. It would mean God made evil. At the Agincourt, Ralph led a rendering of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.’
‘About God?’
‘With resounding, mawkish repetitions of the chorus, and pointing at Manse in case of doubt. For he’s a jolly good fellow.’ Iles could do quiet irony, but this was more like out-and-out baying. ‘What’s behind something as disgusting as that?’
‘In which respect, sir?’
‘That evidence of grand heartiness between Ralph and Manse and magnificently authentic respect – even affection. What are they disguising? What are they compensating for? Shit will fly.’
‘Was this at the liqueurs stage?’
‘Why?’
‘Well, they kick the waitresses out just before that, for confidentiality. If one of those is your source I’m wondering how she’d know so much. Do your whispers come from a waitress you’re giving it to, sir?’ Or did they come from someone who spotted Ralph and Brown in the hotel car park and hid and watched? Harpur could not ask that, though, as Harpur was not officially there.
‘In the past we’ve invited ourselves impromptu to their Agincourt dinners now and then near the cheese or liqueurs juncture, haven’t we, Col?’
‘To show interest. In your friendly, positive way, sir, you thought Ralphy and Manse deserved that.’
‘Now, neither of us bothers. Why is this?’
‘No, neither of us. Nothing much ever came from our visits.’
‘And you’d rather be at home, sporting with the lovely undergrad.’
‘I might drift down and have a look at the Agincourt from a distance at the next one.’
They talked now in Harpur’s room. Harpur had an armchair. Iles paced. He liked pacing, cultivated inborn pacing skills. He was nimble, slight, less than six feet tall, his grey hair back to normal length after a period when he went close-cropped after seeing an old Jean Gabin film. Iles looked the sort sure to hate the singing of ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’, no matter who led it, or who was the supposed jolly good fellow. Iles wouldn’t really believe there could actually be such a thing as a jolly good fellow, only a song about a jolly good fellow. And this had to get those singing it to bellow and rebellow ‘so say all of us’, because in fact most considered the jolly good fellow a turd.
Iles said: ‘Of course, my source thought it all very lovely, the choral aspect and general harmony of the evening. One listens to a source. One doesn’t always accept altogether what’s said. A source feeds material in. It is I who must decide its worth.’
‘Like Tony Blair used to say. Your source can’t be a waitress if he/she was present for the singing and the formal speech. Have you got someone grassing to you from Ralph’s lot, sir? Or Shale’s?’
‘And then I gather Ralph’s to be Mansel’s best man.’
‘Ember will look great in the full ceremonial clobber, his jaw scar vivid above a very white shirt.’
‘What kind of a ploy is that, Col – Ralphy best-manning?’
‘They’re long-time mates.’
‘I won’t have gunfire in a fucking church, Harpur. This is going to be a proper C of E place, I’m told.’
‘Who by, sir?’
‘Not some non-Con shack.’
‘St James’s.’
‘I’d hate it if such a congregation had to scurry.’
‘In what respect, sir?’
‘Away from bullets. Manse’s people will know exactly where Ralph is going to be, all morning-suited and smiley. This might be rapid fire, spray weaponry. There are fine stained glass windows at St James’s and fonts and screens. Terrible to hear of a font chipped by gunfire. Think, Col: it would be very poor form to wear a flak jacket over wedding duds, plus buttonhole carnation, and in such a joyous, kosher – as it were – setting.’
‘You think Manse is going to –?’
‘I wouldn’t mind if we could guarantee they’d blast each other, preferably a double death, of course, but mutual serious disabling OK. We’d have a tabula rasa. If there’s one thing right up my street it’s a tabula rasa, Col.’
‘I’ve definitely heard somewhere of one of those. Or maybe more.’
‘Tabulae rasae. A clean sheet, or sheets,’ Iles said.
Harpur wished he hadn’t pushed Iles into that explanation. The words ‘sheet’, ‘sheets’ and/or ‘bed’ and/or ‘back seat driver’ could activate him. The ACC said: ‘Of course, you wouldn’t know tabulae rasae, but perhaps you know the meaning of clean sheets. However, and very damn however, I wonder if the sheets stayed immaculate when you were exploring my wife in your comradely, heated, sneaky way, Harpur.’ Iles began to scream, always a very recognizable, Iles-type, agonized scream, regardless of the particular words it carried at different times. Some spittle fell on to the right lapel of the blazer and lay there glistening, set off by the splendid, dark blue material, like dew on lavender. But Harpur knew that blazers were not special to the ACC’s jealousy squalls. In the past, Harpur had seen spit cascade on to both a grey and a navy suit when Iles grew reminiscent in this painful way. Harpur stood and moved across the room, as was standard for him during an Iles spasm. He made sure the door had been properly closed. People at headquarters hung about in the corr
idor hoping to eavesdrop if they knew the ACC was spending some time privately with Harpur and might go into a hate fit.
There had been a time when Harpur tried to work out the state of the ACC’s mind from the clothes he picked for the day. All the civilian garments Iles put on were high grade, custom-made and costly, but Harpur had attempted to tie each outfit to a mood, and so forecast a brilliant and/or amiable or deranged or even neutral spell from the Assistant Chief. Harpur devised a multi-coloured wall-chart in his room to display the relationship of outfits to behaviour, suppose one existed. He had disguised the chart as a breaking-and-entering graphic, and he coded as major warehouse robberies occasions when Iles actually had notable froth on his lips in an outburst – something more than a couple of droplets. Harpur kept the chart going for three months and at the end had to accept that Iles’s brain and temper operated without regard to particular gear. (Obviously, Harpur excluded Iles’s uniform from the survey because he wore this only when due at ceremonies and functions, and it was not a matter of choice.) The chart showed that Iles could be benign and/or constructive in a blazer and malignant and/or doolally in a blazer. It was wrong – unjust and naive – to suppose that when getting dressed for work he’d look at his wardrobe and deliberately choose something to flag up and increase, say, his viciousness and frenzy for the next eight hours or so.
‘What reaction by Manse, sir?’ Harpur said.
‘To what?’
‘To the “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.’
‘What do her parents think of it?’ Iles replied.
‘Whose?’
‘The undergraduate’s. For instance, you’re about twice her age, aren’t you, quite apart from no-nos such as your clothes and back-street barbering?’ ‘You see the likelihood of an attack by Manse on Ralph, do you, sir, not the other way about?’ ‘People marrying above themselves get strange compulsions, Col. They try to up their personal status.’
‘Is he marrying above himself?’
‘It’s a fair bet, isn’t it, given who Manse is?’
‘Who?’
‘Manse.’
‘I sometimes think he has a kind of dignity, a kind of crooked dignity.’