Girls

  He wondered whether what made him value a long view so much was the Pre-Raphaelites. Surely, if you had paintings of that brilliance and era hanging in your drawing room, you must realize life amounted to more than now, now, now and grab, grab, grab. You had to build a firm that would last, even though the fucking Albs, plus some others, stole punters, and even though cocaine had suddenly gone so give-away cheap. What’ll you take, squire, a cappuccino or a line of coke? Same price. Bad market tumbles like this was bound to shake a company. But auburn tresses on girls in Pre-Raphaelite pictures showed a beauty that had lasted a century-plus, and he reckoned would probably go on. Good art often did. Naturally, he saw an example for his business in this. Stability. Endurance. Some paintings went even further back than the Pre-Raphaelites. He often thought of Leonardo da Vinci twisting his body all ways up ladders before metal scaffolding to paint ceilings that you could still see on culture tours. One thing about ceilings, they would not decay like ancient canvas could if it was not looked after right.

  The young girl, the one he thought must be Jill Harpur, came out of the house. She still had on that long coat. It seemed to Shale like she had not took it off when she went in. It had that look – that it had not been took off. She began walking up towards the Focus. He wondered if she had noticed him, or half noticed him, when she went past earlier and had decided to give it a few minutes and then come back out and take another squint to be certain. Quickly, he got off the seat and lay across the drive shaft on the floor of the car, his face down. Manse reckoned it would be very hard to make him out unless she stopped and stuck her eyes against the window. Maybe if she thought she had seen someone earlier she would change her mind and decide it had been a mistake. Or she might imagine whoever had been in there had left the car and was in one of the houses now, so it would be an ordinary visiting or resident’s car, not a snoop. As well as keeping his face nice and unflinching against the rubber mat on the carpet down there, Shale also got his breathing quiet, in case while she stared through the window she also done some listening from close.

  Many would say this was not the kind of position that someone of his commercial rank should be in, but Manse would never consider himself too refined and eminent for any work that had to be done, and this had to be done now. He did not want news about this Focus and himself blurted by the girl in Harpur’s house, or it would be hard to stay unnoticed if he got behind the girl’s older sister on the way to Scott. After about five minutes he raised his head and turned it slightly, so he could look up and see whether Jill Harpur had her face against the side window noting him. That would be awkward if he stared at her while she stared at him. But the window was clear. He stayed down there another thirty seconds then lifted himself and took a place on the rear seat again. Through the windscreen he could see the back of Jill up towards the end of the street. She seemed to have continued walking and had not lurked around the Focus or gone back to the house to report. He felt more or less all right again and brushed the floor muck from his clothes with the back of his hand. He resumed his watch through the rear window.

  The point was that although, definitely, the Pre-Raphaelites would never be called ‘a flash in the pan’, Manse thought he might be a flash in the pan, regardless of his boardroom flair and ability to wipe out all fucking opposition, until now, anyway. Obviously, he knew his work marketing substances would never give him the kind of permanent glory da Vinci gained and deserved because of them ceilings, nor even the kind of fame the Pre-Raphaelites had – which covered a shorter time. But he did want his firm to carry on, get quality, reliability, for a grand while. A lasting presence – that’s what he planned for his company.

  Lasting but not eternal, though. Obviously, this was hardly the sort of firm he as a parent would like to hand over to his children, Laurent and Matilda, the way, say, Mr Rupert Murdoch would hand over TV stations and newspapers to his kids, or Mr McDonald with the eateries for his nephews and nieces. Manse aimed to set the children up through big profits he made during many good years of – let’s be fucking frank, he thought – many good years of dirty commerce, but so they could start a different kind of organization, not drugs. He wanted them out of that business sector. This was why he felt it crucial to stick some kind of clever leverage on Harpur, to prevent the firms – his and Ralphy’s – getting squeezed now, and perhaps snuffed too soon. Them words – stability, endurance. Vital. Manse needed stability and endurance to stack capital so that when Laurent and Matilda grew up and thought about what enterprises to try they’d have enough backing for, say, a chain of fashion shops or a bubble-wrap factory, and wouldn’t get flattened by some enemy or bank, which could be the same, of course. Manse thought girls should have identical chances with boys in a career. He definitely believed in equality for women, even though his wife, Sybil, had gone off like that with some surveyor or pool table salesman to live in Wales.

  One thing that was a plus was, if Jill had seen him and spoke of it, and, as a result, Harpur approached the Focus, he would be able to tell right off from total absence of coat bulge that Manse carried no armament. Well, of course not. Was he likely to bring a gun for this kind of duty – tagging a school kid? Manse would regard that as out of proportion and sick. It was a mission – the word he used to the woman – not a –

  Another girl appeared from Harpur’s house and the sight of her cut into Manse’s thoughts, putting a pause on them due to urgency. This could be the right girl, Hazel – fair-haired, taller, a couple of years older. She wore a denim jacket over a cream blouse or shirt, jeans and trainers. She began to walk quite fast, approaching the Focus. Of course, Shale watched to see whether she took a sly, special look towards him and the Focus, in case she’d had a mobile call from her sister. Being nose down into a fucking mat so there’d be no skin shine off of him as a giveaway, only the back of his jacket, Shale did not know whether the younger kid, Jill, had looked in – a real look in on the second walk past to make sure she had seen what she thought she might of seen like casual on the first walk past. That woman would probably know whether Jill had stopped and looked into the Focus, but this could not help Shale now. If Jill had seen him stretched out down there she would be sure to think it was unusual and she would guess he was hiding or dead and she might mention to the house on her phone what she’d observed. This would clearly make the other girl, Hazel, curious and she would take an eyeful of the Focus now. Oh, God, would he have to get down to the floor again? But what use was that? She might be coming this way especially for a gaze at someone on the floor.

  Manse stayed where he was, watching the older girl’s face, her eyes. It did not seem to him that she was what you could call focused on the Focus but, again, you had to remember this was Harpur’s daughter and he could of taught her all kinds of fucking sly procedures, such as pretending you was not interested in something when you really could not be more interested in it. She had the jauntiness and freshness of skin that girls around this age generally had, and he could see why Iles would want to cling to something like this just before he went into his scrap-heap time. It was well known Iles worried about what people thought of his Adam’s apple, but he might think a girl as young as this would not of paid attention to all that many Adam’s apples in the general population and so wouldn’t see his was a such a giggle.

  Shale wondered whether he should just sit up normal in the back of the car and if she looked in he would look out at her with true politeness and give a smile or a nod, like he was waiting for the driver to come back from a call at one of the houses, which was why he, Manse, was in the back not the front. Of course, she might remember him from this, and it would make things dodgy if he wanted to follow her later, looking for Scott. Shale could not see what else to do, though. He would just have to wish she was really not interested in the Focus and would not even notice him. So, that was the strategy. He got himself into a proper sitting situation, looking ahead, not squinting out of the back, and became like someone just sitting in the re
ar of a car while the driver did an errand. It might of been better after all if he had been in the Jaguar because then it might of looked like it was the chauffeur who had gone somewhere, and Manse being in the back would not be unusual, being the boss. Not many with a Focus would have a chauffeur.

  But the girl, Hazel, did not reach Manse and the car. Of course, because he was looking towards the windscreen and ahead, not watching through the back, he could not see her, and just had to wait until she drew alongside. She failed to come though. He thought she should of been there after about a couple of minutes. When that did not happen, he swivelled a bit for a quick look through the back window again and saw she had returned to the house and was just letting herself in with a key. He thought she must of forgotten something and would appear again very soon, but she did not. He felt almost sure she had not been close enough to see him in the Focus, so he felt really puzzled, and stayed puzzled. What did it mean, them two girls in and out like that? Did they think it was a bit of a joke to mess him about? This angered Shale. After five minutes, though, he decided he had no chance of sorting out these things and he let his mind go back to how he had been thinking before she appeared.

  Guns were the topic in his mind then, and Manse had been accounting to himself why he would not carry a weapon on what was a mission, not a hunt, for God’s sake. He believed Harpur would most likely appreciate this tact in him. But Harpur had not come out of the house, might not even be at home. It had been the girl who came out, and as far as Manse could see, this did not really alter things at all, whatever they was up to, the pair. He settled himself to watch from the rear window again, and considered them wider matters once more, such as the art and so on, where he felt more comfortable. The point was them two girls might think they could fool with him, but he was still Mansel, or Manse, Shale with his own rectory and pictures. And when he studied them painted tresses at home he dwelt with wonder and joy on such an unfading glow in the colours, and he knew it would of been the same if he looked at the da Vinci church ceilings, although he would not be able to get so close. From them tresses, his mind naturally went to the big need for his organization, and possibly Panicking Ralphy’s, to live on in their own unfading glow, though, yes, a different sort. And, also naturally, he then sketched in his head how Harpur and Iles could help get this happy steadiness for him and Ralphy, despite all the law shit certain to fly after that Chilton Park outrage, plus the fucking worldwide coke slump because them greedy, we-want-it-now Colombians was doing too much bloody supply, a fucking glut, shortsighted, no restraint.

  Restraint – so vital, so worthwhile. Manse definitely believed in restraint. And so, all his weaponry stayed properly locked up in the rectory wall safe behind an Arthur Hughes painting unless a situation came which could not be handled right without guns. Exceptional. Rare. Very rare. Now and then Manse did worry that it might show a crude opinion of art to use it to cover Heckler and Koch 9 mms instead of just having the picture up to be delighted by, like in a gallery. Decorum. Manse had an enormous belief in that also, and from way back – he thought his mother might of spoken of this, as well as the word to the wise. A year or two ago, Patricia, one of the girls he’d allow longish guest terms at the rectory, mentioned in a light way what she called the ‘distinguished, diabolical deviousness’ of this fine picture placed over an armament safe as mask. All right, all right. Manse would never hit any woman for a dim joke in big words starting with the same letter. And he certainly did not even consider getting back at the cow by cutting the standard outlay on Patricia’s fashion garments and skin moisteners while she remained at the rectory for her spell. That would of been weak and spiteful. One point was, he did often have a true and special fondness for Patricia, who had absolutely never tried to talk to him about marriage or getting into the rectory permanent. But for an unusually long while after her coarse remark about the painting he did not invite her to stay again, although he heard she hadn’t moved in with someone else on anything more than one-nighters. He thought she’d understand how she’d angered him. Patricia had a mind, no question. Naturally. Almost never would Manse shag a dumbo woman even if a looker, and he would definitely not invite any absolutely stupid bird into the rectory for a spell of up to quite a few weeks, like Patricia and the others. Oh, undoubted Patricia would realize her mouth should go more careful. If she was so fucking jokey she better see how much she could make as a stand-up.

  Shale shifted again on the Focus back seat but did not break his observation on the door of 126. He thought he’d keep his watch here for another half-hour. It obviously could not be non-stop. He had to look after other aspects of the firm. Since Denzil went like that, Mansel had been forced to handle a lot more tasks himself, minor, Denzil-type things, but they took time. He must have a drift around the Valencia district, for example, in case of signs that people who’d been working the Morton Cross turf had already begun a switch to there because of the police swarm up the Park. This could be bad. This could mean more battling eventually, more gunfire, though on different ground. Manse and Ember might get involved in that. Well, definitely. If people started elbowing into your territory you had to resist. That’s what they should of done to Hitler much earlier. Manse would need to visit the wall safe. He hated having to consider this. Clearly, Shale knew the importance of guns, but he would never let them dominate his plans. They were in reserve, hidden, and he wanted them to stay like that.

  The point was, by concentrating on the tumbling, crinkly auburnness in them Pre-Raphaelite portraits in his drawing room, and the great blues and scarlets of the frocks, and especially the blues, Manse could forget almost totally about the handguns, holsters and bullets nestling behind. At these moments they did not matter. Glorious art took over, deserving and getting complete fucking priority, as it should. Manse would even call it reverence. Then, when the handguns might unfortunately be needed, as, say, down the Valencia soon, he’d carefully lift the Hughes off of its hook without spending gaze time on the tresses and frocks now, and just open up, load the magazine or magazines, strap on a holster or two and arm himself, close the safe, spin the combo out of code, replace the picture, again without no stare period. Manse reckoned he had arranged things so there was two different parts of his life, the art and the guns, and he knew how to keep them nice and separate. Same with women: he tried to keep them nice and separate from one another out of consideration for their feelings, though there could be noisy, even public, slip-ups. But such slip-ups never happened as to art and guns which, clearly, not being alive in the ordinary sense, only in the art sense, didn’t have the unpredictable side of women, and their clumsiness sometimes, as with Patricia. Also, while the weapons stayed in the safe behind the painting he kept them nice and separate from the ammo. That was also in the safe, but properly boxed, so you could almost think the Heckler and Kochs were not guns at all, clearly being unable to shoot unloaded.

  Hazel came out from Harpur’s house again, but pushing a bicycle, this time. Manse went even lower in the Focus, trying to keep his head right down and not noticeable in case she had decided to have a look at the Focus after all, by bike this time. Once more he wondered whether she’d had a message from her sister. Possibly Hazel would be real nervous and uncertain what to do following the way Harpur talked to her on one of the death spots in the park and so on, and this could explain why she had turned back from the Focus a little while ago. Even if Shale hadn’t had the briefing from Ralph, he would of picked out Hazel now and before as a comprehensive school kid. She was not wearing the comp uniform, no, but you could tell she never had deportment lessons like Matilda did, no extra fee. All right, deportment could be tricky with the bike, but just the same to Manse she seemed short of it, probably in the blood from her father. In any case, girls who did deportment would not come from houses where they kept bikes in one of the rooms or the hall, like factory workers in 1920, for God’s sake. Maybe at comprehensive schools they did not have many deportment lessons because too much time wa
s took frisking kids for flick knives.

  Again he thought she did not even glance at the Focus. Although under it all she might be nervous, she still seemed to possess some of that jauntiness he’d noticed earlier and looked cheerful. This would be another difference from children at the school Matilda and Laurent went to. Them kids always looked like they would be cheeky or sullen to you any minute because they considered you shit. The Harpur girls had never had a chance to be taught to look at other people like this, most probably. Manse pitied Harpur’s children and wanted to make up for what she’d missed at least to this one, Hazel. Perhaps Iles, sniffing around in that Assistant Chief way he had, didn’t care about girls’ deportment, but you could tell from just a few steps when he wore one of his suits he really fancied hisself as a lovely mover, it coming to him by nature, though, not deportment lessons.

  Hazel did not ride towards the Focus but in the other direction. It was not exactly a racer – a sports bike. She sat bent over the handlebars, yet relaxed, her hair, also fair like the younger girl’s, blowing about as though she felt carefree, even after Chilton Park. He had seen a TV programme about one of them old-type universities with architecture where nearly all students went on bikes, and the girl students rode like that, fast, cheerful, sure of their-selves because they had done all the homework and would be off to play netball or croquet later. But they called homework ‘prep’, meaning preparation. Perhaps Hazel Harpur was preparing for when she went to university.