Grey emerged into the evening, barely comprehending under Nottingham skies. Around him, the night silent but for traffic hum, were red-brick walls and alleyways and terraces. He stood in the backyard of the once lived-in house and breathed. It was getting on for ten o’clock.
‘The man who called Sullivan is watching another of Carman’s gang,’ resumed Cori as she joined him. ‘They are getting restless after two days with no word from Carman. The field officer is asking for a decision: on whether they try and salvage something from the operation, before what’s left of the network panic and run for the hills.’
Grey’s head had long been hurting at the combination of detail, but now he was baffled,
‘Tuesday,’ he began in summing up. ‘The day of Isi’s phone call, her leaving, and her return. Also the day we now learn that both Thomas Long and Stephen Carman were last seen, their presence last recorded each in the vicinity of the motorway services. I mean... what is this place, the Bermuda Triangle? How many people were swallowed up there that night? And have we found one person who could tell us what went on there?’
Cori, hearing all this was lost for words.
‘You know, I had wondered whether this whole hotel business wouldn’t prove to have been just a sideshow, the latest chapter in Isi’s private life, and nothing at all to do with Carman and his trade. At least, that was, until he vanished from the face of the Earth.’
Grey turned suddenly to find Nash standing at the kitchen door, embarrassed to have the Chief Inspector eavesdropping. He continued,
‘She’s not the first girlfriend of a crook to tire of the life. She’s alone in that flat most evenings, and it must drive her spare. No wonder there’s other men in the frame. But lovers are as furtive as criminals, Inspector, and we can’t leave what could conceivably be a coded call to another dealer’s hotel room uninvestigated.
‘No, of course,’ Grey did his best to answer calmly.
‘Now my team could drive themselves to distraction, working out who knew what and who called who; and it really would be good to get this Southney nonsense wrapped up before it throws everything out of kilter. But we are at a critical point in our investigation – I really wish I could tell you both about it – and so I may have to leave it for you to look into, after you have left here; and all I will ask is that the moment any trace of Stephen Carman’s whereabouts, or any concrete intel of what the pair were up to that night, crops up, you let me know right away. Is that a deal?’
It was a deal, with neither Cori nor Grey wanting to reveal they knew more of Nash’s operation than he imagined. Grey thought that might have wrapped things up, but Nash continued,
‘It is hard to know what went on that night though, when two people are missing, and another is up there in that room, unapproachable. And as for this Mr Smith – well, he could be Lord Lucan for all anyone knows. I’m sure Isobel was at the hotel though. And her being a local too; how would you say it: Southnite, Southnilian, Southpaw?’
‘She’s notorious back home though,’ advised Grey, ‘virtually a public figure; and she’d be spotted the moment she returned. She’s as eager to keep herself hidden as you are, I expect; and Carman for that matter.’
‘Yes, we all have our differing reasons for anonymity,’ conceded Nash. (There was a wistful, regretful air about the man now, noted Grey, while wondering what such a weathervane must be like to work for?) ‘And it is of course pure speculation on my part. So, for the record then, Inspector,’ he seemed to be gathering himself up here, ‘you have no evidence to say Carman was at the services on Tuesday, or any time after?’
‘Not yet,’ answered Grey, ‘but our team are going through the carpark CCTV as we speak...’
‘...and the hotel receptionist will be back soon,‘ continued Cori. ‘We’ll know a lot more about who called Isobel tomorrow morning.’
‘I don’t have until tomorrow morning.’
‘But once we have a description for Smith from the receptionist,’ continued Cori hopefully, ‘then we can look for him in the hotel security footage: see when they checked in, if they met anyone in the foyer, in the bar maybe?’
‘Sergeant,’ the Chief Inspector interrupted her, with what promised to be another of his characteristic soliloquies; however before it was able to get underway, they were interrupted by a disturbance from inside the house.
They arrived upstairs to raised voices, Nash’s steps quickening as he neared the darkened room.
‘I can’t watch this... freak show any longer,’ called Gill Pullman, her voice disembodied in the velvet dark. ‘I became an officer to help people, not to sit and watch them in agony.’
‘Nash, get her out of here,’ called another shapeless form.
‘Leave off, Sullivan,’ Sergeant Pullman shouted back, ‘You don’t outrank me.’ (Grey liked Sergeant Pullman.) ‘But how can you bear it?’ she implored.
‘What is going on in here?’ Nash thundered, silence obviously not a requirement of this particular undercover operation.
‘It’s Isobel,’ answered Sullivan. ‘She’s slipped over and fallen out of the chair.’
‘Well, well,’ began Nash ruefully, ‘this rather brings things to a head.’
‘But what are we going to do?’ Pullman demanded?
‘This does put us in a fix, sir,’ Sullivan chimed in. ‘If she calls an ambulance now...’
‘Is that all you care about? The success of “the operation”?’
Nash silenced the pair of them, ‘Please, please, let me think awhile.’ Then spoke thoughtfully, ‘You are both right. On this occasion the needs of the subject and of the operation intertwine: we cannot leave her like that; nor can we have paramedics and local bobbies all over the flat, finding Carman’s trade samples and replica firearms and God-knows what else.’
The Southney officers had been listening to all this like friends on a double-date with a warring couple. Now Nash addressed them directly, albeit obliquely,
‘What was that line in Shakespeare, about forcing the moment to its crisis?’
‘That was Eliot,’ Grey corrected, his English A-Level serving him well. ‘It was over a woman.’
‘Well, isn’t this?’ Nash mused, as Cori dodged past him in the doorway and back to her viewing post. ‘I wonder if we aren’t approaching our own moment of crisis? Carman hasn’t come back; and Isobel is getting no better. Perhaps the situation is resolving itself, a way of action becoming clear?’
Nevertheless, they remained in paralysed silence; before Cori came back into the hallway, addressing Grey, ‘Sir, she’s in a bad way. She’s half on the floor, and doesn’t look as though she can get up.’
None answered; and as the silence on the landing continued, so Cori’s moral incomprehension was reaching new levels. She spoke again, quietly and calmly, her words directed solely to her Inspector. ‘Sir, do I have permission to go and take Isobel to hospital?’
The whole room waited on his answer.
‘I should have let you go half an hour ago.’
The moment the first sounds left his lips several things occurred concurrently: Cori striding purposefully for the stairs, with Grey instinctively moving after her to cover her path, as Nash’s instinct led him in that direction also. Sergeants Pullman and Sullivan also appeared on the landing then, drawn from the viewing room by the commotion. This left Grey an inch away from falling backwards down the steep stairwell, and facing the three Nottingham officers. They stood like this for only a few moments, but long enough for Cori to have exited the house, and be finding her way now through the yards and alleyways leading back onto the narrow street.
Nash backed away first, Grey not having anywhere to back away to, bar a reverse attempt at the darkened stairs. As the Chief turned, for the first time in Grey’s presence, he produced a soft pack of cigarettes and offered one.
‘I won’t, thank you,’ said Grey, refusing the offer while appreciating the gesture.
‘Very sensible,’ said Nash calmly as he lit up and enjoyed the
first drags. ‘These fellows don’t either,’ he gestured to his team. ‘I think we bring kids up too healthily these days. Everyone needs one vice, don’t you think, Inspector? Best it be something not too noxious. I wonder what yours may be?’
Grey scanned this for irony or insult, but in the end decided it was merely an honest question. But by that time Nash was thinking aloud again,
‘Stuart,’ he began, addressing Sullivan, ‘I wonder if you couldn’t get back on to Central. Suggest six a.m. tomorrow. I think they should be able to have everybody in place by then?’
‘I should think so, sir’ he said leaving for the darkened bedroom, casting one last indecipherable look in Grey’s direction.
‘He blames you for all this,’ explained Nash after Sullivan had gone, ‘because Carman vanished in your town. He fears he has got away. While at the same time, like all of us, the prospect of action after months of restraint does vivify the soul. I expect,’ he smiled ruefully, ‘that you are detective enough to guess from the instruction I just gave, that we plan to roll up the rest of the network, or what is left of it?’
‘A clean break, sir.’ This was Sergeant Pullman, still stood by them.
‘Yes, Gill. It will be good to have it over with.’ Grey noticed genuine weariness as Nash said this.
‘And best to get Isi out of the way before it all starts.’
‘Quite right,’ Nash agreed. ‘Better all around.’
‘A shame to miss out on Carman though,’ she added.
‘You really didn’t like him, did you,’ asked her boss rhetorically. ‘You’ve had to swallow a lot, coming straight from the beat, to having to sit on your hands and watch those two slug it out up there.’
‘I hope he turns up dead.’
Grey was startled by this, but Nash took it in his stride,
‘Still, I have a good feeling. If we can mobilise tomorrow morning, then we will have acted quickly. Carman always was a ducker and a diver – it will have taken a couple of days for his cronies to be getting worried by his absence. There was always more to this operation than watching this one flat, this one man. There are other players involved; and Scar was always punching above his weight, straining at the limits of influence, trying to convince them he could be a major player too.
‘To have left it any longer though,’ he cautioned, ‘even one more day, and some very serious figures might have gone ghost; leaving us watching a string of empty flats and vacated rooms.’
At which point Sullivan reappeared, he and Nash soon talking in the corner of the landing, lost in muttered discussions of people and places and targets.
‘I guess it’s on then,’ Gill Pullman observed as Grey turned to leave.
‘He called us back here to take Isobel off his hands,’ reasoned the Inspector, ‘to make the decision for him.’
‘Maybe,’ she agreed. ‘I’m just glad she’s going to be safe. Look after her.’
Wishing each other well he left, only for Nash to follow after him as he walked down the stairs, and saying as they reached the back yard,
‘If you ever catch up with him, Inspector, remember this: the only person Stephen Carman hates more than the police is himself, for letting himself get caught those two times when he was younger. Even though he got off with possession each time, I think having his collar felt, his photo taken, fed his famous paranoia; which was already there way before he had any run-ins with us. It makes him harder to trace as he covers his tracks so well, and leaves him prone to flee at the first sign of trouble, imagined or otherwise.
‘But of course, you’ll be more worried about Isobel right at this moment. Well, she’s your baby now,’ concluded Nash. ‘She’s what you came for, so take her. Get her home to her mother, it’s the best thing for her.’
‘She never got on with her mother.’
‘Then just get her cleaned up, and out of town, tonight... Oh, and Inspector, keep watching the news won’t you – and when you see the pictures of our men taking down doors and bringing out Carman’s associates with their faces blurred – well, then you and the rest of the world will see what all of this was for.’
As with that Nash turned and walked into the house; Grey turning the other way and walking from the yard.
Chapter 20 – The Intervention