Hugh Fortune spoke over the lilt. ‘Don’t like it.’
Maybe bluntness came with his flair for calm. ‘That’s bloody rude,’ Ivor Wolsey said.
‘Something not right,’ Hugh replied.
‘With which?’ Ivor Wolsey said. ‘Rilke or Weber or Mart?’
They had turned into Delbert Avenue.
‘The silver Renault Laguna,’ Hugh said.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Ivor said.
‘Blacked rear windows,’ Hugh said.
‘So? Plenty of cars have them,’ Ivor said.
‘But they’re not parked near twenty-seven Delbert Avenue,’ Hugh replied.
Empathy shut down the Webern. The silver Renault stood pretty well opposite number twenty-seven and would have a fine view of it.
‘What did you mean “not right”, Hugh?’ Empathy asked.
‘I thought I saw movement in the rear,’ Hugh said.
‘So?’ Ivor said. ‘This is a car with people in the back? Is that important?’
‘Keep going, Tom,’ Empathy said.
‘Who’d watch Norm?’ Ivor Wolsey said. ‘What for?’
‘Police?’ Empathy said. ‘Customs?’
‘But why Norm?’ Ivor said. ‘He’s a next-to-nothing.’
‘He can lead to someone who isn’t,’ Empathy said.
‘Justin Scray?’ Ivor said.
‘Jamie got the supplier’s address from somewhere, didn’t he?’ Abidan replied. ‘And Tom watched and confirmed Norm’s call there, for a purchase, we assume.’
‘And you’re saying someone else with similar info but from a different source was also outside the dealer’s place, on the watch?’ Ivor asked.
‘How it seems,’ Empathy replied. ‘Customs, most likely,’ Empathy said. ‘You had a squint around this area with Leo, didn’t you, Tom? Is there a rear entrance, a rear exit?’
‘Yes,’ Tom said.
‘Let’s look,’ Empathy said.
They turned out of the Avenue. A man in his thirties, baseball cap, jeans, dark anorak was on his feet beside a parked small Fiat gazing along the full length of the lane. ‘And keep going again, Tom,’ Empathy said.
He sounded tense, half way to a nerves onslaught.
‘They’ll have our reg, dawdling around like this,’ Ivor said.
‘But we haven’t bloody done anything, have we?’ Empathy said.
‘And we’re not going to?’ Hugh said.
‘Dead right,’ Empathy said. ‘Am I supposed to get Leo on his mobile, poncing about in some culture shop, or hotel cocktail bar, and say, “Oh, Leo, that little saunter we had planned has run into a bit of a hazard. The place is swarming with law in at least two vehicles. But would you like us to proceed with the thuggery regardless? Always keen to oblige.” Keep going as ever, Tom. Home.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
BEFORE
If they decided to kill, you had to go along with it. Pack law. Basic. Anyone who went undercover knew this. He had a nine mm Browning, not a weapon he would normally have picked. He liked Heckler and Koch products better: was trained on them. But the training had been police training, of course. The police famously loved HK. Too famously.
Weekend. Leo and Emily had gone to Pembrokeshire again. The alibi factory was back in production. Following the mess-up over Norm, Leo had left orders for Scray to be done direct, Abidan in charge, as previously at Delbert. Leo had considered Empathy’s decision to withdraw from there very much then the right one, very much a wise one. It boosted Leo’s regard for him, and trust in him. Leo hated unnecessary risk. But he seemed to sense that some in the firm might feel Abidan had overdone the caution, chickened. And it was natural for Leo to respond to that by showing his confidence – his increased confidence – in Empathy by giving him not a mere repeat of the Delbert sortie, but a much greater assignment, the wipe out of Scray.
Norm Rice still had snoops around his place, anyway, so couldn’t be got at, in Mart’s, and therefore Leo’s, view. Possibly, Norm had spotted the surveillance – the Laguna and the Fiat, or whatever alternatives turned up since: he appeared to have been behaving very carefully, most probably making no contact with Scray or with the Emblem Court importer. Leo had decided that if he had to abandon a roundabout way of reaching and frightening Justin Scray, it was best to forget this fiddly obliqueness and finish him. Leo was usually very much a gradualist, a plodder, even, but sometimes he would abruptly decide such little-by-little tactics were not getting anywhere, and he’d make a stark change of pace. So, ‘Do Scray.’
Tom did wonder about Empathy. He had seemed too near to breakdown at Delbert. But: if they decided to kill you had to go along with it. And if the chief decided Mart should run things, you had to go along with that, too.
Jamie Meldon-Luce was available this time and drove the Volvo. His cardigan intrigued Tom. Because of its chunkiness and plentiful swathes of excellent wool – Shetland through-and-through, most likely – it did hide Meldon-Luce’s Browning automatic very well. OK, so the cardigan could be regarded as a piece of equipment, like body armour or knuckle irons, and therefore a plus. But Jamie spoke of it as an attractive, chic part of some general fashion rediscovery of cardigans, and not just for the ancient; no, for smart men of every age, including getaway drivers maybe still in their twenties. What with the cardigan and Mary Magdalene, Jamie had to be regarded as an original.
Above all other plus factors, though, Meldon-Luce had an absolutely glittering reputation as Mr Wheels. That might be vital. Tom didn’t want to be done by bullets from a police rapid response vehicle, even if it would be friendly fire for him; not for Jamie, Empathy Abidan and Ivor Wolsey, though, suppose everyone made it back to the Volvo after knocking off Justin Scray. The rapid response crew wouldn’t realize the Volvo contained a fellow cop, only in the Volvo at all to convince local villains he was not a cop, but one of them. If they decided to kill, you had to go along with it. Pack law. Basic. Rapid response marksmen worked to a different pack law, though.
Tom, immediately behind Meldon-Luce as they drove to the Scray territories in Arabella, could examine the top back bit of the cardigan, on M-L’s neck. This was a new garment, and a current, strong statement about the desirability of such gear. Jamie’s had none of those wispy tendrils that can hang from even the best wool if it has seen wear. The pale greenness bordered on turquoise, and looked very fresh and undandruffed. Its colour didn’t really go with the pink of the back of Jamie’s neck, but he probably hadn’t considered this, and the people who sold him the cardigan wouldn’t mention it in case that pissed him off and broke the deal. But a green cardigan probably wouldn’t go with the skin on anyone’s neck.
Alongside Tom in the back of the Volvo, Empathy Adiban seemed uninterested in singing today. He talked football for a while, then brought out a Walther automatic and checked the chamber, just as if this was as natural a thing to do in a Volvo as talk about the art of curling corner-kicks. But Tom had watched him check the Walther already, just before they all took their places in the Volvo. This encore wasn’t sang froid but a bit of a twitch. Would he be able to hit Scray if they did find him? The Walther might be a very accurate piece, but not if the gunman had the shakes. Maybe Mart had been just as jumpy on the way to Norm Rice at Delbert Avenue. Tom hadn’t noticed, though. There’d certainly been terminal jumpiness at the sight of the Laguna and Fiat. In any case, the Scray excursion was to do with his death, not merely a duffing up.
Perhaps Empathy would rely on Ivor Wolsey and his brilliant gun-craft to do the actual job. Tom also wanted to rely on Ivor Wolsey and his brilliant gun-craft. Probably even Leo relied on it for this kind of chase, although he’d give Ivor some snarl and contempt now and then. A slump-stricken building site lay on either of the routes Tom must take from the mall to Empathy or Ivor if a summons came, and he thought he might be able to loiter there for a minute or two in the hope that Wolsey would have put effective holes in Scray before Tom arrived. If they decided to kill, you had to go along w
ith it. (But dodge close involvement if you can.) He thought a slight delay crossing an unlit building site would be credible. Although vandal kids had flattened or half-flattened security fencing, to negotiate the gaps in the dark would still be tricky.
Wolsey: he just sat there alongside Jamie in the front, staring towards the future, apparently focused utterly on the job. Tom decided there were only two people in the car badly troubled by nerves: Empathy and himself. Abidan’s tension showed in his messing about with the Walther, re-messing about. Tom realized the stress might be special for Mart Adiban: he’d been told finally to see off another member of the firm, possibly even a friend until now. He knew the reason, of course, and would accept it, but might also feel regret and some confusion.
Tom reckoned his own jitteriness produced this daft mini-obsession with Jamie’s cardigan. For fuck’s sake, a cardigan was a cardigan. It did the required jobs: clothed Jamie’s top and concealed the Browning pistol in his shoulder holster. After all, nobody was going to ask Tom to do an article for the Style supplement of some Sunday paper on the fashion prospects, or non-prospects, of cardies for blokes. He had needed to buttress himself. Admiration for the quality of Meldon-Luce’s woolly soothed Tom, made him feel for a moment here and there that things would be OK and helped get his mind off the horror at being on a slaughter jaunt. Whereas Empathy might be upset because he had to organize the killing of a mate, or at least one-time mate, Tom was upset, and more than upset, that he had to be a kind of accomplice to any killing.
No jaunt. Tom realized he’d picked the flippant word to try to downgrade the gravity of what was happening; what was planned to happen. And the planning had been very precise and detailed – that is, very precise and detailed up till the required moment when one of them found Scray. It couldn’t be precise and detailed about that because nobody knew in advance where exactly he’d be, what degree of body-guarding he’d have with him, whether he’d be in a car or on foot, and whether he’d be expecting a cheerio-Justin visit. But of course he’d be expecting a cheerio-Justin visit after all the warnings about hole-and-corner private trading. Tom had met him two or three times, and Justin wasn’t dim. No firm could put up with someone doing very personal deals. He’d know that. He’d be aware he had taken on special risk.
Jamie pulled in on a double-yellowed, recessed pavement bus stop, as the schedule ordered. Tom had wondered whether this might make the Volvo noticeable. Although the car would stay there only long enough for him, Ivor and Empathy to get out and walk up Monthermer Street to their dispersal point, people could get very ratty about seeming defiance of the road regs. They regarded it as symptom of a general growth of lawlessness and of imminent social collapse and chaos. Tom saw a middle-aged woman pedestrian staring at the car with full-scale disgust. If she’d had an AK 47 she’d have used it on them for the sake of civic decency. Abidan gave her an apologetic smile. Another sign of how he got the ‘Empathy’ nickname. He, Tom and Ivor walked across the road towards Monthermer Street. Jamie took the car out into the traffic again. He’d drive to the Mitre Park area, wait for them to return after the cleansing, and get the three away fast.
Tom had to store all the main facts of the day in his memory. The Hilston Manor course repeatedly declared note-taking disallowed, whether on to paper or a machine. Police were, of course, into the habit of making notes, so, to counter this, the Manor had to keep on about the absolute ban undercover. Because judges went queasy and negative about undercover evidence, Tom knew he might never have to give his stuff in court; but the information he’d bring might still guide and prop a prosecution. Why take the risks of undercover if not?
They walked three-abreast up Monthermer. Tom thought that at moments they might look like the gang in the Reservoir Dogs film, setting out on their villainy at the start of the picture, though the Monthermer group were only three and the pack in the movie a lot more. Also, now and then, Abidan exercised his special flair for courtesy and stood deferentially aside to let through people coming from the other direction. The kind of swagger shown by the Reservoir Dogs contingent was very absent when Abidan did his gallantry. Tom watched him for any further signs of pressure after that business with the Walther, but Empathy seemed serene and self-controlled now.
At the top of Monthermer they paused for a moment, grunted goodbyes and then took their individual routes. There was no more briefing. Everything had been said and re-said at the planning sessions earlier. No briefing could have taken care of Tom’s chief worry and direst problem, anyway: what should he do if he found Scray first, selling, or supervising selling, around the Rinton mall? Tom was supposed to call Ivor and Empathy at once and, when they arrived, start the onslaught.
That is, he must initiate the murder. This would be different from merely being present – and passive – at a killing. He’d have to carry a big slab of the responsibility, of the guilt, in fact. In a way, he’d be the main man of the death squad. What would a judge make of that if there were a trial? Tom an agent provocateur? Or worse. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that of the three possible locations for Scray, the Rinton mall seemed least likely. During the weeks leading up to today’s hunt, talk in the firm had almost always been about Scray’s activities in the arcades or Guild Square. Tom had the idea that because he was still fairly new to the outfit and untested in turf fights here he’d been given Rinton. Leo’s gradualism hadn’t completely disappeared, perhaps. Thoroughness dictated the area had to be searched, but it would almost certainly prove null. Pray God, yes.
TWENTY-EIGHT
WELL AFTER
Harpur’s schoolgirl daughters, Hazel and Jill, liked to bring Denise and him an early morning cup of tea when Denise had slept over. He knew why. They wanted to make the arrangement between Denise and him seem normal, not wrongful, not disreputable – seem like family, in fact – more than only the body side of things. Usually, one of the girls would knock the door and wait for an answer before they came into the bedroom each fluting a hearty, unstinting, ‘Good morning, both!’ though this was not a totally invariable rule. Probably, they’d decide on some days that to knock on the door suggested Denise and Harpur needed lovers’ privacy, needed time to get themselves back into decent positions, adjacent in the bed and not more than that; their breathing level, no gasping, their faces unreddened by passion and activity. This impression of cautiousness they dearly wanted to get rid of. A family should be at ease with itself, the members accustomed to walking in and out on one another with no warning. So, occasionally, they’d just walk in.
He’d talked to them a few times about sex. It seemed the right thing for a single parent to do. But he could tell that while he blathered on with carefully imprecise, generalizing language they were translating it into the specifics between him and Denise. Usually, Hazel would kill off this kind of conversation. ‘Yes, yes,’ she’d say. ‘OK, Dad, we get the essentials.’
Denise wasn’t family but an undergraduate at the university up the road, not very much older than Hazel, and very much younger than Harpur. Although she had a student room on campus she often spent the night with him. For some time, since his wife was murdered in the local station car park, he ran this one-parent household.5 Hazel and Jill obviously felt – earnestly wanted to feel – that the tea and a four-sided chat in the bedroom, before breakfast together downstairs later, part restored things to how they used to be when their mother still lived here.
Denise had helped Harpur’s sister look after the girls while he was away with Iles on that investigation for Maud and the Home Office months ago; but he knew his absence had disturbed the girls and made them even more keen now on keeping things strong and settled at home in Arthur Street. He’d be going away again with Iles today but back this evening. Just the same, he could tell his daughters felt tense, vulnerable, anxious.
‘Where?’ Jill said.
‘Hilston Manor,’ Harpur said.
‘What is it?’ Jill said.
‘Like a college,’ Har
pur said.
‘Such as Denise goes to,’ Jill said, ‘learning French poetry about what happened to the snow that was here not long ago?’
‘No, it’s not the same is it?’ Hazel said. ‘Denise’s type of college doesn’t have that kind of name. They’re called after the city or county they’re in, or “Imperial” or “Such and such Metropolitan”. I should think this one Dad’s going to is a special police college. They’d like to have a posh, historical name for it – Manor. In the old days there’d be a squire or something like that, for instance a royal courtier, or Admiral of the Fleet, in a manor house. Of course, police refer to their ground as their “manor”. It’s one of those words that has slumped a bit, the same as “Parliament” and “intercourse”. A manor house would have a boot-scraper in the porch for after strolls over turf acres, and I don’t know how many bedrooms for guests and servants and views out on to the estate with deer and a maze and a plashy fountain. Now, I should think, all the bedrooms have been turned into rooms for lectures and general police jabber about “the community”, and how to knock members of it about with that special long truncheon.’
‘Yes, that sort of thing,’ Harpur said.
‘To do what?’ Denise said. She was sitting up alongside Harpur in the bed, nightdress on. She lit a cigarette from the previous one. He had never seen more powerful or more symmetrical nose jets of smoke than Denise’s. Obviously, they came from wonderfully deep inside her and had worked up this headlong pace by the time they got to her nostrils and double exit. They always excited Harpur, and he loved the acrid tobacco taste on her lips and teeth, but his daughter were present now, so he had to make do with the damn tea. Hazel and Jill would get on at Denise sometimes about her fags, but she’d deaf-ear them, the way undergraduates of her age could deaf-ear anything they didn’t want to hear and concentrate on what they did want to hear – moronic rock music. ‘The cost of smokes!’ Jill would say.