First Fix Your Alibi

  ‘I’ve heard people murmur in awe after meeting you for the first time, sir. “That Mr Iles, such breadth of vision, such depth of insight, such attention to polity. He and polity were made for each other.”’

  ‘The circs, Col?’ Iles replied.

  ‘An all-night party. Or would-be all-night. An incident made that impossible.’

  ‘Yes, I think the stabbing can reasonably be referred to as an incident. It has the qualities of an incident, namely, something happened.’

  ‘Incidents are like that,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Something happens.’

  ‘There’s a novel called Something Happened, Harpur.’

  ‘That’s just the author boasting. Something ought to happen in novels or they’re not novels, they’re pamphlets run to seed.’

  ‘Now you’re in this analytical mood, I wonder if we can take a lesson from the hotel name, Binnacle,’ Iles replied. ‘What does a binnacle mean to you, Harpur?’

  ‘Aboard ship, show me a compass and I’ll show you binnacles.’

  ‘Yes, binnacles house the compass. And what does a compass have to do with?’

  ‘Direction, guidance,’ Harpur said. ‘It tells the captain of a ship to turn left at Africa.’

  ‘And this imagined, binnacled compass; in which direction would it take us, to where does it guide us, as regards the Binnacle Hotel?’

  ‘To the rave scene and some indiscreet behaviour, followed by rage and violence.’

  ‘That’s what I mean, Col, when I say they’ll try to get me for this.’

  ‘Which?’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Which what?’

  ‘Which will they try to get you for – the indiscreet behaviour, the rage, the violence?’

  ‘That indiscretion, that rage, that violence – what caused them, Col?’

  ‘Some people were brain-dead on Ecstasy, weed or coke, or a mix, possibly, even, H.’

  ‘Exactly, Col.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I run a domain where Ralph and Manse are famously allowed to market their recreational products without interference or hindrance. In exchange I demand tranquillity and order: if possible, no blood on the pavement or the floor of an abandoned hotel. Yes, if possible.’

  ‘A friend of mine was talking about order only the other day. Fortinbras. That’s Young Fortinbras, obviously, not his dad. It’s one word, Fortinbras. Not fought in brass, like an early, very weighty flak jacket.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘Oh, yes, a knowledgeable friend on matters such as the Fortinbrases and Marlowe.’

  ‘A friend of which gender?’

  ‘We can all learn from friends,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Your student inamorata, Denise Prior, aged nineteen and evidently with a taste for vastly older men? She’s on Garland’s list of Binnacle witnesses. You don’t mind her going to unbridled sessions of that Binnacle sort without you?’

  ‘Old Fortinbras was dead,’ Harpur replied, ‘and unable to help bring back some order in Denmark.’

  ‘What order was present at the Binnacle, what tranquillity?’

  ‘Those qualities took a beating, no question, sir.’

  ‘My enemies will chortle uncontrollably.’

  ‘Uncontrollably chortle at the savage death of a kid of twenty? What kind of people are they?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your enemies.’

  ‘The death of the kid of twenty they will cite as blatant evidence that my – our – tolerance regime failed. At the Binnacle we had units from both the most distinguished local firms peaceably selling their gear in a well-established, convivial way; a delightful example of our happy, positive practice. Perhaps Ralphy and Shale were there themselves to supervise.’

  ‘We haven’t anything to suggest that.’

  ‘But suddenly this fine tradition becomes of no relevance, doesn’t it? What I’m saying, Harpur, is that despite these splendid, settled conditions, a completely unpredictable, virtually random event at a drugs-related hooley can make it look as if I’ve – we’ve – failed in my – our – attempt to maintain public safety through a bargain with the snort traders.

  ‘The knifing has nothing to do with commercial rivalry. It’s not an aspect of turf war between the companies. They have grown out of such primitive, wasteful battling. No, we’re dealing with a sex sequence. Simply that. And this sex sequence and its murderous result are probably – no, definitely, yes, definitely – fuelled by my – our – permissive drugs formula.

  ‘Now, do you see why I envisage that triumphalist, malevolent chortling? This is chaos theory, Harpur – a seemingly minor event, such as a love squabble among youths, leads to catastrophe of major, appalling dimensions.’

  ‘Chaos theory: that’s the one about a moth landing slightly too hard on a basket of laundry in an Amazonian rainforest, causing a chain effect that eventually melts an igloo in Iceland, isn’t it? Moths are a bugger. However, things might not turn out as badly as you think, sir,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘It’s worse than I’ve described, Col. Garland says that talk during a pause in the aggro was about Shale’s guy, Frank Waverton, possibly having provided the road map and route for the slaughter in error of Naomi Shale and the child, Laurent. Waverton is the one who might be able to tell us who set all that up. It’s my priority, Col. And he was there, at the Binnacle, attempting to bring calm, but ultimately ignored because of his bad history; bad possible history. We have one disaster linked to another and all of it taking place on my – our – ground, Harpur.

  ‘When I mention “polity”, this is what I m getting at, Col. I will be hunted, hounded, stalked. Critics will observe and will announce at max volume that my – our – patch is in decline and about to fall. They’ll pronounce that there is something rotten in the bailiwick of Desmond Iles, and they’ll call for a Young Fortinbras figure to take over and put things right – some jumped-up jerk from the Met, most likely.’

  Iles wanted to sit in on the interview/interrogation of the twenty-year-old arrested at the Binnacle. Harpur and the ACC were in a Toyota, Iles driving, on their way to Fonton police station at the northern edge of their ground. To avoid a media siege, it was normal practice to use an undisclosed, outlying, suburban nick for this kind of major inquiry, rather than the headquarters building in the city centre.

  Iles had on a silver-buttoned, thin-lapelled, double-breasted, navy blazer, grey slacks, a country-pursuits yellow, tan and dark-red check shirt and large-knot, grey-black woollen tie. It was an outfit that would impress many, Harpur thought, not just a kid being questioned about a fatal knifing.

  But Harpur also thought that even if Iles hadn’t spoken as he did just now, his fine ensemble couldn’t conceal a bad tumble in his morale and Desilesian, bombastic arrogance. Although his custom-made blazer enfolded him lovingly, the cosy slope of its shoulders impeccably right, Harpur could detect a bit of a slump in the way he sat at the wheel. The blazer did its expensive best to present him as elegantly formidable and intemperate, but today its best was not quite good enough.

  Occasionally, the assistant chief’s Napoleonic confidence and Hitlerite vanity would desert him like this. The reversal always frightened Harpur. The city needed Iles’s profound cockiness and his hinted inclination to hit the shit out of anyone who irritated him, particularly local government officers and vicars. The ACC seemed especially forceful with the gear stick this morning, as if to prove he still had all his powers undimmed, boisterous. Harpur wasn’t fooled, though. He regarded this sort of near breakdown as similar to those moments when the ACC fell into convulsive despair at the cruelty to Madame Butterfly. Iles could strut, Iles could falter. There were times when Harpur discerned unmistakeable signs of humanity in the assistant chief. It was not something Harpur would tell him because almost inevitably he would translate ‘signs of humanity’ as signs of weakness, signs of faltering.

  He said, ‘You’ll remember that line from The
Godfather, Col.’

  ‘Many a line in that film, sir. That’s the thing about films – the actors need lines.’

  ‘“Keep your friends close but your enemies closer”,’ Iles replied. ‘I’m thinking of Shale’s enemies here, not my own, though God knows there are enough of them. Some unsubtle people might find it impossible to understand why Manse retains Waverton in his firm if he suspects dear Frank helped prepare the Sandicott ambush. Reason? “Suspects” is not the same as knowing. Manse has some principles. Perhaps he wouldn’t act without solid evidence.

  ‘Also, there’s The Godfather advice. If Waverton is still in the firm Manse can watch him and spot whether he’s working to create another attack, correcting that first cock-up – now, Manse RIP. Plus, Shale will be constantly aware of where Waverton is, in case one day Manse does want him killed. He’ll be wherever he is then because Manse has put him there. So convenient.

  ‘It could be, couldn’t it, Col, that Manse sent him to the Binnacle because the stoned, swirling, splintering crowd and the din might make it an ideal background for slaughter? Maybe, unfortunately for Manse, another, unforeseeable slaughter changed the nature of things and made destruction of Waverton at that juncture too difficult. He’ll have been looking for obscur-ity among the crowd, but all at once there’d be no obscurity, a swarm of cops and paramedics.

  ‘What I have to consider constantly, Harpur, is that enemies – mine this time – see us as incapable of getting the boss-man or woman behind the two Sandicott murders, and seemingly content that we finished off the nobody who actually did the shoot: a fall-guy. We look smug, Col, we look slack and torpid, ready to settle for too little in exchange for a quiet life. We might even look corrupt – paid by someone not to push inquiries too hard and too high. And then, to magnify their case against me – us – we get this shambolic fight and knifing at a drug-drenched do which I – we – helped set up by letting Manse and, or Ralph Ember stock it with their produce. That could be spun by enemies as not just blind-eyeing but assisting.’

  They had reached the Fonton district on the border of their realm.

  Harpur said, ‘But you told me all sorts of important voices support your line on drugs, sir.’

  ‘On faute de mieux legalizing? Of course they do, Col. The heavyweight magazine, the Economist, the Advisory Council On Drugs, some top doctors and health profs. But they are not the law. The law says something different. The law forbids. We are the law, Harpur. It’s in our hands.’

  ‘Someone historic said these should be “good hands”.’

  ‘George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, seventeenth century. I didn’t know you did deep reading, Col. Denise has been giving you seminars, has she, as well as the standard comforts? What does the word mean, Col?

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Good. The “good” in “in good hands”?’

  ‘Lawful,’ Harpur said.

  ‘That’s the kind of proposition you and most of the press can understand, isn’t it, Col?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That the law should be lawful. I’ll admit it would be hard to argue against that. Myself, Harpur, being who I am, and of the status and responsibility I hold, I have to look beyond that simple-minded exercise in repetition, in tautology. I have to ask, and go on asking, have they chosen rightly in deciding what is lawful and what is not? Should trading in the commodities be regarded as criminal? Now, you’ll no doubt respond with, What does “rightly” mean in that statement: “have they chosen rightly?”?’

  ‘What does “rightly” mean in that statement: “have they chosen rightly?”, sir?’

  ‘This, clearly, is the supreme and abiding question, Harpur,’ Iles replied.

  ‘And the answer is, is it, sir, does it do rightly by – i.e. is it fair to – Ralphy Ember and Manse Shale and their hearty affection for the coke and mainline industry, which, of course, currently at least, is unlawful throughout GB?’

  Iles drove the Toyota into the Fonton nick’s underground parking.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Harpur saw at once that the ACC didn’t have much interest in the opening part of the interrogation. Despite the death, he’d regard it as routine, chickenfeed crime. In line with his habit when bored, he spent a lot of the time stroking his Adam’s apple. This was not because he felt fond of it, or got turned on by it. He hated it, despised it and was probably hoping that one day, when he put his hand on it like this, he’d find it had somehow become not quite so sinewy, knobbly and jutting. He wanted a smooth, perfect line between his chin and his chest. Although, of course, he knew that Adam’s apples were predominantly a male feature, he said that he didn’t want his masculinity to depend on this jagged bundle.

  He was bound to accept that the interrogation must deal with early material, but he’d be waiting for Waverton’s arrival in the Binnacle story. As Iles had said, he was focused on Waverton and, above all, where Waverton might lead. Did he set up Sandicott Terrace and, if so, where did the orders come from? Whoever gave them was probably still around somewhere, just as Waverton was still around here. This might mean danger continued; danger on the assistant chief’s own cherished territory once more and aimed this time at a local figure whom Iles had a satisfactory, delicate business arrangement with: Manse Shale.

  These amassed circumstances were sure to infuriate Iles. He would fiercely concentrate on stopping any further threats to the city’s precious serenity and healthy, shady commerce. Yes, focus. He would focus. And when Iles focused, he focused hard. His attention to his Adam’s apple entailed a kind of focus, but this could be displaced by other, urgent topics. The Adam’s apple would always be there for him to come back to. That was the fucking trouble.

  Harpur had picked his best interviewer for this rave knifing job, Inspector Caroline Elms. She was a plump, chummy-seeming, round-faced, jolly-looking, thirty-year-old, today in black cord trousers, a blue roll-neck sweater and large, pink-framed, Dame Edna type glasses. She might have been an optician advertising a new, playful style by wearing it. The glasses gave her a jokey, harmless appearance. Caroline could make her voice gossipy, mild, seemingly off-hand. Those she interrogated felt relaxed, and she knew how to cash in on this. Caroline had a brain and memory not much short of the assistant chief’s. No need for soft-cop, hard-cop tactics. Her warm, matey-cop approach usually worked OK solo.

  She got the mathematics boy from Berwick-on-Tweed, Lance Williamson Dite, to describe his relationship with the disputed girl. He said it had been on-off for nearly a year. That was how relationships tended to fluctuate at his age, she said. It had been the same for her when younger, she told him. Harpur didn’t know whether that was right or just a reassuring ploy. Caroline asked about Dite’s drugs intake on the night. Answer: grass only.

  ‘One thing puzzles me, Lance: how come you had a knife?’ Why had he brought it to a music do?

  Because music dos could sometimes turn nasty, he said.

  ‘Yes, I suppose not all music soothes the savage breast,’ Caroline said. ‘Some of it turned people savage. Think of the Nazis’ love of Wagner. You brought the knife for protection, did you, Lance?’

  ‘Yes, for protection,’ he said.

  ‘I think we have to try to work out how this purpose – protection, self-defence – became an attack instead?’ she replied.

  A solicitor had been drafted in to take care of Dite and he objected to this. Harpur expected it. Caroline probably did, too. It was a try-on, a leading question. Perhaps in 50 per cent of cases she’d get away with such venerable trickery. But perhaps the lawyer was familiar with her methods. He said the question assumed Dite’s action was an attack, whereas he might have been trying only to safeguard himself. That would be consistent with what he had just said.

  ‘But the stabbed man, Wyn Normanton Vaughan, was unarmed,’ Caroline said gently, and with a puzzled, homely smile.

  ‘My client would not be sure of that at the time,’ Kopner, the solicitor, said. ‘He has told us he knew this type of even
ing could turn nasty. “Nasty” might mean knives.’

  Harpur saw that Caroline was fishing for evidence of preparation, of calculation, of intent: the mens rea – guilty mind – as the Latin-loving law manuals for police trainees would put it. Not a pushover. There was no known connection between Dite and Vaughan before the Binnacle night.

  Caroline asked now about what she called ‘the preliminary skirmish’. Iles became more tense, more ‘focused’ on what was being said, rather than his neck. Harpur could understand why: something preliminary meant there must be something subsequent, didn’t it? This development would be why Iles had felt compelled to come to a distant fragment of his empire and sit with Harpur on straight-backed, kitchen-type chairs near the door of number 2A Interview, Recording and Video Room. He could have stayed at headquarters and viewed proceedings on a screen. But, clearly, Iles wanted to be bodily present; and possibly to put some questions to Dite himself. The ACC liked participation; and so those attempts to take over funerals, for instance. Talking with Harpur not long ago, Iles had mentioned that ‘pro-active’ was his second name.

  Caroline guided Dite through the moments when he first realized his girlfriend, Avril, had disappeared, her return with Vaughan, and then the shouting, cursing, pushing, incompetent punching, and the split into two opposed factions. Dite was short, thin, his dark hair already showing strands of grey. He wore a denim jacket over a black vest, jeans, scuffed black shoes.

  ‘No knife at this stage,’ Caroline said. ‘How did you conceal it, Lance?’

  Kopner stirred again and seemed about to protest. This question took for granted Dite’s possession of a knife. But the lawyer must have decided there was no sane reason to query it and he stayed silent. The defence was going to be not that Dite had no knife, and therefore couldn’t have stabbed anyone, but that he’d brought it in case he had to look after himself. He’d believed he was doing that when he killed Vaughan. Or so he’d be advised to claim.