Girls

  Of course, what he feared above all was that the bullet or two caught by Scott in some future clash might be a police bullet or bullets. Hazel would never be able to forgive that, either now or later. There had been a few moments yesterday when Harpur, 9 mm Heckler and Koch automatic in his hand, safety catch off, saw a youngster of about Scott’s size and frame, wearing some sort of khaki or beige track suit with the hood up, run from behind bushes in the park and out through the gate towards the main road. Although it was a hopelessly distant and imperfect sighting, Harpur’s immediate thought was, Scott. But had Harpur brought that notion with him, that expectation, because the boy lived near? Had he made the facts fit a crazy premonition? Perhaps. The boy, also, carried a pistol, though Harpur was too far away to identify it. Training shoes. Expensive training shoes? Too far away to know that, either. Harpur had muttered, ‘Thank God,’ meaning ‘Thank God he’s not coming this way.’ Harpur would have been forced to challenge him, maybe to drop him. Someone closer to this running figure did fire three rapid shots, and Harpur assumed that lad to be the target. He seemed unhurt, though, and kept going until he reached the road, then turned left and away out of Harpur’s sight. The poor shooting probably proved it didn’t come from police, though one of the armed response crews had a spot close to that gate. And police wouldn’t shoot someone running away, not threatening them.

  He wondered now as they parked the car and he walked with his daughters into the park whether Hazel actually sensed he’d seen something to make him think Scott might have been here. She said she’d assumed he’d think of Scott just on account of the location, and had forecast to Jill he would. But the ferocity of her denials seemed to go beyond this. The defensiveness had grown shrill, intense. Perhaps because of what Harpur had seen, or thought he’d seen, his anxieties came over more strongly than he knew when talking to the girls. Hazel might pick up this special tone and guess something particular agitated him. Kids could be damn sharp on nuances – or his kids could, anyway. It was an eternal pest. ‘There’s dealing done in the park during daylight and then, when the gates are shut for the night, it moves just outside to Pater Street and Baron Square,’ Harpur said.

  ‘And girls,’ Jill said.

  ‘And girls,’ Harpur said. Naturally, his daughters would know about the park. They had all the city’s gossip from friends.

  ‘These have suddenly become top-grade sites, and so they’re fought over,’ Harpur said. ‘We’ve had problems before, but nothing as bad as yesterday’s.’

  ‘Right, I’m you! I’m you, dad!’ Jill replied. ‘OK? OK. You come into the park and draw your pistol.’ She had on jeans and a T-shirt and reached down as if to pull a gun from her belt. Resolution spread across her face. She narrowed her eyes for aggression. ‘You see, like, activity ahead – I mean, like real warring, sort of all-out, no messing about – and noise, obviously – gunfire, maybe some yelling – and you start to run towards it all.’ She set off ahead of Hazel and him, this slight-to-bony, long-headed, middle-height, light-footed child, masquerading as Harpur, who had been likened to ‘a fair-haired Rocky Marciano’, one-time un-defeated heavyweight boxing champion of the world and with that kind of physique. No, as Hazel said, neither girl looked like Harpur. At least Jill did have the fair hair, though worn in a pony-tail. She held her right hand stiffly down at her side, as if she carried a pistol, pointed at the ground, so far, for safety. She began to yell in her thin, sharp, harmless voice: ‘Armed police! Armed police! Put your weapon on the ground and your hands on your head.’ She tried for a long stride, as an imitation of how Harpur might have run towards the shooting.

  She didn’t go very far but stopped alongside several of those ‘floral tributes’ as she’d called them: three bunches of carnations at the edge of the path, encased in transparent plastic against the weather. ‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it stupid?’

  ‘Someone died there,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Yes, I could of guessed somebody died there, but who brings bought flowers into a park? The park’s full of flowers.’

  ‘Could have guessed,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘These days, it’s just sort of mechanical – the flowers,’ Jill said. ‘Somebody’s dead in an accident or a fight, so get down the service station and buy a few bouquets to stick on the spot. It’s like . . . yes, like mechanical. Does it mean anything? They say it’s all because of that Princess Diana killed in a car crash, and then a great sloppy pile-up of flowers where she lived from people who never knew her, enough plastic to parcel up a palace. But this, this would be some crook dead, anyway, wouldn’t it, dad? Who’d care?’ She bent to read a card. ‘ “Rusty, Goodnight, Love, Marie.” You know him, dad – Rusty? Hey, look, you didn’t do him yourself, personal, did you? Wow? Did he have a piece himself and was going to knock you over?’

  ‘ “Personally”,’ Harpur said.

  ‘You did? You did him personal?’ Jill yelled.

  ‘Personally,’ Harpur replied. ‘The word is “personally”. No, I didn’t do him myself, personally. He was dead when I arrived.’ Yes, the man on the ground near the living flowers – and the only flowers there then – had been carrying a gun, but it must have spilled from his hand when he was shot and lay under him, hidden by the body except for about a centimetre of the barrel. ‘We think it was a two-stage confrontation. Only a couple of people are concerned in the first part. They belong to different firms and argue about a drugs-dealing site. That’s usual enough. But this time, one pulls a gun and pops the other. The word gets around, of course, and both firms smell apocalypse and send reinforcements, to hold the territory.’ He pointed to the packaged flowers. ‘This man was probably killed early. The rest of the fight and the other casualties happened at the opposite end of the park.’

  Jill said: ‘This is the first time you ever talked to us about a crime, dad, and largish words like “confrontation” and “acopal” . . .’

  ‘Apocalypse,’ Harpur said. ‘Chaos.’

  ‘I mean, really talked,’ Jill replied.

  ‘I shouldn’t. But I want you to realize it’s serious,’ Harpur said.

  Hazel stepped away from them and then suddenly came back and pushed her face against the sleeve of Harpur’s jacket. He put his other palm gently on her head. In a moment, she pulled away: ‘All right, it’s serious,’ she said. ‘It’s serious, it’s serious. I don’t need to see where anyone else was killed or hurt. I believe you. I don’t want to hear about the second stage where they’re all at it. I want to go home now.’

  Jill said: ‘OK, dad, you come into the park, you see he’s dead, and you can’t do anything for him so you leave him and go on towards the really dangerous set-to – shooting from all sides. That how it was? You, and the other police, all caught in the middle. You know, you could really of come unstuck.’

  ‘Have come unstuck,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Listen, dad, did you see Scott here?’ Hazel said. ‘Is that why you brought us to the park?’

  ‘I just want you to talk to him and tell him things are bad around here and will get worse,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘If he was in it, he’ll know, won’t he?’ Jill said.

  ‘He wasn’t in it, he wasn’t,’ Hazel screamed.

  ‘If he wasn’t in it, how could dad have seen him?’ Jill said.

  ‘I didn’t say he’d seen him,’ Hazel said.

  ‘You asked dad if he’d seen him,’ Jill said.

  ‘Asked is not said,’ Hazel replied.

  ‘Asked means you thought he might of been,’ Jill said. ‘Does Scott tell you things, Haze?’

  ‘Listen, dad, did you see Scott here?’ Hazel said.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Harpur said. ‘Just talk to him, though. This is about the future, not yesterday.’

  When they returned to Arthur Street, they found that Denise had let herself in and was waiting for them. Until a few months ago, she refused keys to the house, claiming she always lost her own and would be anxious all the time about an e
xtra Yale and mortise. Of course, Harpur saw through this: she feared keys would commit her, make her part of the household. Harpur had kept on at her, though. He wanted her committed and part of the household. The girls would back him. Harpur was good at keeping on at people when after something. Keys did have overtones, symbolism, he recognized this. And so, he’d said: ‘You’re not scared of losing the keys. You see overtones, symbolism in them. That’s nonsense. Keys are just keys, They’re to let you in, not lock you in. Hazel and Jill would like you to have keys so you can surprise them sometimes, just by being here.’ Eventually, she’d capitulated and to date had never lost either.

  She surprised the girls and Harpur himself by arriving today. It was a pleasure for them all, but especially good for Hazel in her present state. Denise had made herself a cup of tea and picked up Jill’s boxing book from the settee while waiting. ‘I’ve been reading about a title fight between Marciano and Walcott in 1952,’ she said. ‘Marciano’s the one you’re supposed to look like, isn’t he, Col, except hair colour?’

  ‘A lot thought him crude,’ Jill said.

  ‘Who?’ Denise said.

  ‘Marciano.’

  ‘What do you mean, who?’ Harpur said.

  ‘But Marciano took Walcott with a beautiful short right in the thirteenth that wasn’t crude at all,’ Jill said. ‘The only boxer ever to knock out Marciano died the other day. When he was an amateur, though. That other boxer played Joe Louis in a film.’

  ‘There are no pictures of Marciano here’, Denise said.

  ‘Big jaw, big nose punched wonky, thick neck,’ Jill replied.

  ‘Right,’ Denise said.

  ‘Are you staying?’ Jill asked her. The girls liked it when Denise was there to do breakfast. They said it felt like family. And Harpur, also, liked it when Denise could spend the night.

  ‘Dad’s kind, not crude,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Someone could be kind and crude,’ Jill said.

  ‘He took us out to the park, Denise,’ Hazel said. ‘The killing park. He thinks maybe Scott was there.’

  ‘He said he didn’t think Scott was there,’ Jill said.

  ‘That’s what I mean – kind, not crude. He thinks Scott might have been there and wants me to know Scott might have been there, but he wouldn’t just crudely say it. He’d say the opposite, from kindness,’ Hazel replied. To Harpur, she sounded defeated by the kindness, if it was that.

  ‘Yes, I can stay tonight,’ Denise said. ‘No early classes tomorrow, or none I wouldn’t skip.’

  ‘Oh, good, good,’ Hazel said, and began to buck up.

  In bed, Denise said: ‘And was it the boyfriend at the park?’

  ‘It might have been,’ Harpur said. ‘Only might. Very only. Very might.’

  ‘But a worry.’

  ‘Yes, a worry. At least he was smart enough to get clear.’

  ‘This time. Should you speak to him?’

  ‘Perhaps I should. Hazel will be furious – see it as meddling. Especially as I could be wrong with the identification. Well, it’s not an identification. An impression. It can happen. And Iles had spoken about him.’

  ‘Iles? That’s weird, isn’t it?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, Iles, and the daft play he makes for Hazel.’

  ‘Yes, daft. A game.’

  ‘Might he want Scott caught up in something at Morton Cross, perhaps taken out of the reckoning?’

  ‘Killed? That’s ludicrous. Iles is not like that.’

  ‘What is he like?’

  ‘I’ve nothing that could be called evidence showing the boy there,’ Harpur replied. ‘I’d better think a while. There’s an investigation still under way, of course. That might produce something.’

  ‘I’m glad I came tonight. It seemed to help.’

  ‘They need you, you see, Denise.’

  ‘How about vou?’

  ‘Oh, yes, they need me as well.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I meant the other way around.’

  ‘What, this way?’

  ‘You’re so crude.’

  ‘But also kind,’ he said.

  ‘Do you need me is what I meant – as you bloody well know I did?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I need you – as you bloody well know I do.’

  * Roses, Roses.

  Chapter Three

  That latest violence at Morton Cross really troubled Ralph Ember. For one thing, his daughters’ big-fee school, Corton College, stood in this district. Obviously, he did not want his children in some fucking uncultured, catch-as-catch-can comprehensive, although he thought the idea of equal-chance comprehensives for all youngsters great. There were quite a few people about who thought the idea of comprehensives for all youngsters great, but not for their own youngsters. Some of these people were in the Government.

  One reason he’d picked Corton was its decent surroundings. But then came the Tirana death nearby and now warfare. Although he’d guessed something would follow Tirana’s execution, the scale of this latest fighting and the number of killings definitely got to Ralph and depressed him badly. Often Ember thought about the decline of Britain and to date didn’t know how he could stop it. He had power in his firms and the Monty, but something wider than this would be necessary to turn the country around.

  He’d seen that lout cop, Harpur, afterwards on TV describing things and trying to reassure, but, in fact, Ember had heard of the shootings hours before this, and while they were still under way. The news flashed about as soon as the battle started. People telephoned him at home in Low Pastures, including Mansel Shale. He had apparently been informed by someone he knew living right alongside Chilton Park, who obviously had a gift for casualty reports.

  ‘Ralph, what we said would come has come.’ That’s how Shale opened the call. It sounded almost like something from the New Testament referring to the prophets. Shale liked a bit of resonance now and then.

  ‘What, Manse?’

  ‘Up Morton Cross and Chilton Park.’

  ‘What, a further incident thereabouts?’ Of course, he meant further following Tirana’s death, but Ralph had built this habit of smart phone vagueness for sensitive matters. He never liked being too exact and knowledgeable. All right, this was a landline call, his end at least, and maybe more secure than on two mobiles, but dicey just the same. Although police were supposed to follow special procedures for authority to phone tap, Iles would most likely say, ‘Fuck procedures,’ and do it.

  Ember must show no link to the Tirana business. Ralph liked ample distance between himself and such episodes. True, he had certainly not been implicated in killing Tirana. Could he prove that, though, suppose someone like Iles, or someone like Harpur, decided it would be convenient if Ralph was implicated: that is, made to look implicated by adjusting evidence? But you were actually seen running towards the BMW, Ralph, then pausing there. Those two knew plenty about making people look implicated. Naturally Ember realized he could have been noted spending time near Tirana’s car, telling the pathetic babe floozy to scram. Dangerous. Later, Ember felt puzzled by his behaviour that night. He acknowledged Shale probably had it right and they should have withdrawn immediately they discovered Tirana was dead. Ralph knew many would actually expect this from him. Behind his back, didn’t they call him Panicking Ralph? He’d found out about that. On the quiet, even Shale might refer to him as Panicking and must have been shocked when Ember went to help the child, regardless. Looking back, Ember eventually decided he’d acted as he did because, as he’d told Manse, one of his own daughters, Venetia, would be around the age of this lost, exploited kid. That touched him and brought a kind of duty: he’d found he could not leave someone so young alongside a degenerate, extremely foreign deado, the girl almost certainly without papers and in a mess if the police found her.

  ‘You call it “a further incident thereabouts”,’ Shale had said on the phone. He went chuckly for a while, some high merriment, definitely of a mocking type at Ember’s code talk. Manse could b
e like that occasionally. ‘Yes, you could call it a further incident thereabouts. In fact, a lot of fucking further incidents thereabouts. It’s brilliant, Ralph. It’s all we ever prayed for. There’s two finished for definite and another en fucking route, with what looks like most of his nose and top jaw gone from something heavy calibre, even a .45. That’s my info at this moment in time, and ongoing a treat. A real, beautiful, fucking outbreak, Ralph. In daylight. Lunch time. They don’t care. You remember that town in Iraq?’

  ‘Which, Manse?’

  ‘The one onslaughted and onslaughted by planes and the US Marines.’

  ‘Fallujah?’

  ‘It’s like that up Chilton Park current. I mean, as we’re talking now. I’m bringing it to you Live, like the BBC say, meaning some deads. That’s the picture I get. They’ll all destroy one another. This is barrages. Fire-power barrages. It’s a blessing to us, Ralph. Competition finished. My source – he don’t know who’s who and can’t identify, only do descriptions. He’s not in our kind of enterprise, so don’t know personnel no matter how major, but he says some big, thuggy-looking lad, terrible suit, H and K, arrives a bit late, on a call-out, that’s obvious, and does a bend over one of the deads, then gets on fast through the park. I’d say Harpur. Not Iles. Iles is not thuggy-looking, only thuggy, plus his gorgeous garments, always handmade by some possibly unpissed tailor. And my source says a kid around the scene.’

  ‘What kid?’

  ‘He’s part of it.’

  ‘Of the fighting?’ Ember said.

  ‘This is a kid, male, maybe sixteen or seventeen. Trainers. He got a piece. He might of started it all, blasting off. You know what they’re like for armament, kids that age. If God asked what they wanted, a big cock or a big gun, they’d pick the gun.’