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  Enid had arranged the visit by phone. There were introductions. ‘Anyone who comes to me from Ma is extremely welcome,’ Jack told her. ‘And anyone who comes with somebody who comes to me from my mother is also welcome,’ he said. He was big and hefty, wearing what seemed to me an army officer’s uniform from some foreign country, with two rows of medal ribbons on the chest, several broad golden rank rings on each cuff, and a purple sash worn over one shoulder and fastened to a thick leather midriff belt. His voice echoed in the big, flagstoned hall, the kind of voice that flagstoned halls seemed suitable for, and vice versa.

  He led into a large downstairs room, or what I took to have been at some time two separate rooms now knocked into one. Lamb said, ‘You can see I’m already acting to some degree on mother’s advice. Well, more than advice! Orders! This is normally my gallery, but, look at it now!’ The pale-green emulsioned walls were bare. Here and there, I could make out slight patches of discolouration where pictures might have hung for too long. There was a scatter of unoccupied hooks.

  It seemed to me that I’d had it right, hadn’t I, even before we’d entered Darien: this core area of the house did look appallingly neglected and even abandoned. Without awareness of it, had I developed brilliant powers of intuition, perhaps, in fact, low-level clairvoyance? Now, I felt a kind of guilt at witnessing this miserable come-down. To stare at the sad emptiness and the dismal traces of the scarpered pictures seemed disrespectful and cold. Lamb said, ‘I’m keeping everything secure in the strongroom for at least a little while, until I’m feeling more at ease – and until Mother is feeling more at ease.’

  ‘Yes, this is a good start, Jack. I’m sure Alice will be pleased,’ Enid said.

  ‘I thought of coming out to tell you last night that I’d done at least part of what she wants,’ Lamb said.

  Enid looked puzzled. I probably did, too. ‘Sorry. “Thought of coming out”?’ Enid said.

  ‘To reassure you,’ Lamb said.

  ‘Coming out to reassure us where?’ Enid replied.

  ‘Well, here, obviously,’ Lamb said.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘Nor do I,’ Enid said.

  ‘Ah, here’s Helen,’ Lamb replied.

  A girl of about nineteen or twenty came into the gallery carrying a tray with a bottle of champagne on it and four glasses. She moved fluently despite the load, as though she’d had dance training. She wore a long, black, sleeveless singlet with a picture of a lioness facing left on it, light blue shorts, and knee-length woollen socks striped black and white. Her fair hair was streaked with a matching light blue dye. More introductions. ‘I told them, Helen, that we’d thought of coming out for a chat last night, perhaps to invite them in for the bubbly.’ Lamb said. ‘In fact, I think you did step outside briefly, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, last night! Yes.’ She chuckled. ‘Jack was serious, but he decided your work must be important and we shouldn’t interfere.’

  ‘Work?’ Enid said.

  ‘Activity,’ Helen replied. ‘Important, anyway, whatever we call it.’

  We went into another room where there were easy chairs and settees in brown leather, a big stone fireplace and at one end a minstrels’ gallery in mahogany. We sat down and Helen poured the wine.

  ‘I think I speak for Tom when I say you have us mystified, Helen, Jack,’ Enid said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t understand when you talk of coming out to see us,’ Enid said.

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘Where exactly? What time of day?’ Enid asked.

  ‘Night,’ Lamb said. ‘Have I been tactless? It was supposed to be a secret, was it? And I’ve barged in regardless.’

  ‘What was supposed to be secret?’ Enid asked.

  ‘Down near the gate,’ Jack said.

  ‘But someone did use a torch briefly, swung it high, apparently checking the gate’s usefulness or not as security. So it couldn’t be entirely secret,’ Helen said.

  ‘Mystery on mystery,’ I said.

  ‘We assumed you were doing a bit of a reconnaissance,’ Helen replied.

  ‘Of what?’ Enid said.

  ‘Inspecting the kind of ground you’d have to patrol night and day if you were to look after Darien and Jack as Alice wants,’ Helen said. She went quiet, took a sip of the champagne, gazing over the rim of the flute at Enid. ‘But I’m getting the idea – not a very comfortable idea – that Jack and I have made some seriously wrong assumptions.’

  ‘I think you have,’ Enid said.

  ‘We weren’t out there flashing,’ I said.

  ‘Who, then?’ Enid said.

  ‘Maybe Ma’s anxieties make more sense than I’d thought,’ Lamb said. ‘We’re a target? A target again?’

  ‘Were we idiots?’ Helen said. ‘This is bad, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s how it looks,’ Enid replied. ‘We’ve got trouble.’

  I liked that – the ‘we’ve’. It meant she’d stick around to help, though the trouble wasn’t at all her trouble. But she had a grand and tireless loyalty to her chum behind bars, Alice Lamb.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Now and then when Harpur returned home to Arthur Street his daughters would be entertaining some visitor who wanted to see him and had been persuaded to wait, as had been the case with Mrs Gaston. The girls were good at persuading callers to wait. They had tenacity and a belief in their charming ability to put people at ease, not always true or even half true. But nobody was going to tell the kids of a detective chief superintendent in their own home to fuck off.

  On the whole, Harpur disliked these unscheduled meetings. Generally, the visitor brought very private, and possibly dangerous, matter to reveal and discuss. Hazel and Jill would know this, of course, and they’d try to get at what exactly it was by doggedly nosy questioning, especially from Jill – also of course. Harpur realized that in a way he’d set himself up for this kind of situation: his address and telephone number were available in all the directories. Sometimes important information would come because people could get in direct touch without having to go through a police station switchboard and being shunted about between departments. As well as this, though, he thought that anybody who needed the kind of help he could give should be able to reach him unhindered and fast. His daughters approved of this and regarded themselves as part of the news gathering and/or effective, kindly support team. Because of Hazel and Jill, Harpur did wonder occasionally whether it was wise to publish his domestic details. Not many of his colleagues disclosed theirs.

  But this evening’s visitor could have found his address officially, anyway, by asking at headquarters. ‘This lady is to do with art,’ Jill said

  ‘Yes, I know her,’ Harpur said. ‘Pamela Venning. Hello, Pam.’

  ‘Jill and I have been talking to Pamela,’ Hazel said. ‘Denise is here, but doing some university stuff on her laptop upstairs.’

  ‘Pamela doesn’t like art, but it’s her job all the same,’ Jill said, as he took a chair with them in the sitting room. ‘She thinks art is unnecessary, that’s the point. Pam says art is an insult to whatever the art is about, such as, say, a bowl of fruit, referred to as “still life”. Pam considers that if the fruit is there, a real item, why sneak up on it with an easel and steal what it looks like, making it not special any longer and 1 of 1, but now only 1 of 2. Frames, she detests, because they put a sort of boundary or fence around things that shouldn’t have a boundary, such as the sea with sailing boats on it, or a puma, not in the zoo, but its right place, the jungle. She believes art is just mankind’s way of getting back at Nature for being so strong and free, with cyclones and killer sharks. Mostly she’s in London but she goes to other places if there’s an art crisis somewhere else. That’s us now – somewhere else.’

  ‘Pam’s with the arts and antiques outfit at the Met,’ Hazel said.

  ‘I needed to speak with you, Colin,’ Pamela said.

  ‘Because she wants to talk to you, Dad, it mean
s there must be an art situation here,’ Jill said. ‘That’s the logic of it. And there definitely was an art situation when Jack Lamb’s mother killed someone up at his big house called Darien – on TV News and in the papers. That was in a private art gallery. There’d be pictures on the walls but they would be there to show what certain things were like, such as the sea or a puma, but the real thing, not in any frame, either, is that pistol knocking a hole in someone and the blood on the gallery floor.’

  Hazel said, ‘What we wondered was whether an art crisis made you late, Dad, when you went out last night. You said an hour, but, no, much longer. When this difference was mentioned you spoke of complications. You did not explain what complications. Perhaps these were to do with Pamela and art. You did not explain what the complications were, although we would have been quite willing to listen and, in fact, interested.’

  ‘Art is quite a wide topic,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Pam knows Des Iles as well,’ Jill said. ‘She has known him for years, as a matter of fact, but it’s you she’s come to see, so it must be something unusual. Many feel it’s much easier talking to Dad than to Des Iles, Pamela. Des Iles likes to go off on his own ideas and they’re not always to do with what he’s supposed to be talking about. He used to come here quite a lot because he fancied Haze, although she was well under age.’

  ‘Slug bitch,’ Hazel replied.

  ‘But then he did something pretty good and noble for someone like Des Iles and saved her own-age regular boyfriend, Scott, from running with a drugs gang and its wars – real peril – and after that he left Haze alone. I don’t know whether she’s pleased or sorry, but I think Dad is pleased. Des had a crimson scarf. He wore it sort of loose, not tucked in, what’s known as “swashbuckling”.’

  ‘Ulcer,’ Hazel replied.

  ‘What I don’t understand is how you and Pamela know each other, Dad,’ Jill said. ‘Pamela told us she worked with Des Iles in London, but you were never in the London police. Haze said you might of been late coming back because it was something to do with Pamela.’

  ‘Might have been,’ Harpur said.

  ‘You say it might have been, but, if it was, you would know. It wouldn’t be might,’ Jill said.

  ‘He was correcting you grammar, again, idiot,’ Hazel said. ‘Not might of been, but might have been.’

  ‘So, was the lateness to do with it?’ Jill said. ‘When he came back late Denise was here. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Denise, but she’s really lovely and never asks him why he’s been out late, which, if she did, could be to do with jealousy. She trusts him. She lives here quite a lot, but she’s a student and has a room in the university buildings called “Jonson Court” without an “h”. There’s a Johnson with an “h” in English Literature who wrote a dictionary and a Jonson without an “h” who wrote plays and called Shakespeare the “sweet swan of Avon”. Sometimes Denise sleeps there, and Dad trusts her, too. But when we ask why he was late, it isn’t because we think there might be things going on. It’s only because we would like to be clear on certain subjects, such as was this when he met you, as a simple yes or no. That would be as a matter of police work, nothing else. Denise is upstairs now, doing an essay or something but when she comes down she wouldn’t even think to ask about when you met Dad, because she trusts him and she believes in being very tactful.’

  ‘I think you and Hazel should take her up a cup of tea now and then you can do one a bit later for Pamela and me, but don’t hurry,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Oh, it’s like that, is it? Confidential police stuff,’ Hazel said.

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ Harpur said. ‘Pamela hasn’t had a chance to tell me.’

  ‘Yes, it’s to do with a development or two,’ Pamela said.

  ‘What sort of development?’ Jill said.

  ‘Denise won’t mind your interrupting her,’ Harpur replied. ‘She most probably needs a break.’

  ‘It’s not what she needs, is it, Dad?’ Hazel said. ‘It’s so you can be private with Pamela.’

  ‘But only because you want to be alone with Pam so you can talk about certain things that have to be just for the two of you, isn’t it, Dad?’ Jill said. ‘Things to do with work, not with … with what-you-call.’

  ‘Which what-you-call?’ Hazel replied.

  ‘Not what’s referred to as “intimate” things.’

  ‘Depends what you mean by “intimate”,’ Hazel said. ‘In any case, why do these things between them, whatever they are, why do have to be just for the two of them?’

  ‘Why don’t they tell us why they can’t tell us?’

  ‘If Dad or Pamela told us why they can’t tell us it would be like telling us what it is they can’t tell us,’ Jill said.

  ‘So?’ Hazel said. ‘What about the Freedom of Information Act?’

  ‘What about it?’ Jill said.

  ‘Why haven’t we got it?’ Hazel said.

  ‘It’s only some information that’s free,’ Jill said.

  ‘Who decides which?’ Hazel replied.

  ‘Well, Dad or Pam,’ Jill said.

  ‘It’s not free, then, is it?’ Hazel said.

  ‘The bits that are free are free, not the other bits,’ Jill said.

  ‘Oh, great,’ Hazel said. ‘Does she make sense to you, Dad?’

  ‘We’ll see you and Denise very shortly,’ Harpur replied.

  The girls went into the kitchen, Hazel snarling, but quietly. Pamela said, ‘Up to a point they’re right.’

  ‘They’re often right. Kids – all kids, not just Haze and Jill. They chew away at things and ask the big daft questions that turn out not to be so daft. “Except you become like little children.” The New Testament had it correct.’

  ‘They see it’s strange that I pick you to talk to you, not Des Iles.’

  ‘You’ll have your reasons,’ Harpur said.

  ‘He tends to take over. That happened several times to me in the Met. If he gets interested in what you tell him he’ll say, “Ah, yes, we should obviously handle this thus-wise and thus-wise, I think. You’ll agree, I know.”’

  ‘Yes, he’ll try. He’s got the rank to do it. ACC (Ops.). But if he does take over he’ll almost always finish whatever it is well, probably better than you or I alone.’

  ‘I know, I know. That’s why I don’t like it!’ she said. ‘And then there was the sexual side of things.’

  ‘I didn’t know about that.’

  ‘Months. Over now, obviously, but I didn’t want to put at risk what was a very good relationship because of disputes about the job. He probably thinks I’d still kowtow. No. I wouldn’t like to outright defy him though, even now. Embarrassing. A bit of a tangle,’ she said.

  ‘You resented the way he used what you’d told him about, say, an investigation, or tip-off, to get ahead of you?’

  ‘Ah, you understand! And do you deliberately hold stuff back from him sometimes?’

  ‘What is it that troubles you, Pam?’ Harpur replied. ‘The children and Denise will be here shortly.’

  She looked angry for a couple of moments at Harpur’s switch of conversation. But then she held up both hands in a surrender signal. ‘I’m interested in a house and its inhabitants and visitors – perhaps especially its visitors – over near Rastelle Major. The property’s called Failsafe – some kind of chic joke, I imagine. The owner is called Keith Vasonne, wife Olive. Neither has any police record. I – we – think that a considerable money laundering business has become centred there based on picture and sculpt trading. It began small and we think with something of a failure. Keith Vasonne, who ran a high-class interior design firm – still does – got persuaded into this more profitable game – we’re talking millions, Colin, if not billions. Apparently, he tried something for one of these new type clients on that dodgy art dealer, Jack Lamb, whose house on your ground we were looking at the other night. Darien.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Harpur said. ‘The house is named after something in a poem.’

/>   ‘Possibly. But although this attempt at swapping tainted cash for some of Lamb’s collection didn’t come off, several of Vasonne’s new contacts liked the idea of working laundering activities through a nice, detached provincial suburban villa with a cooperative owner, and decided things would be organized very well through Failsafe. Lamb’s refusal didn’t seem relevant any longer. We think the business is becoming, or has become already, nationwide, and possible Euro, dollar, yen and rouble wide. Big money comes to Failsafe, and classical pictures come, too, and leave with their new culture-seeking, crooked, kidnappers, crack merchants, protection providers, people traders. There can be a lot of money – and I mean cash – there can be a lot of it and a lot of high value art, probably genuine, in that house at any time. We think the operation is run by a woman, Charlotte Ruth Medim, aged twenty-nine of Hampstead, London. She might have taken part in the original attempt at a negotiated deal with Lamb. Keith Vasonne made the actual failed contact, but she oversaw the arrangements.’

  Harpur said …

  But why always Harpur?

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Let me have a word, OK? I think I had a rickety conversation with this Charlotte Ruth Medim in a layby not far from Darien. She drove an Audi.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Pamela said, ‘Medim and her associates are naturally very security conscious. At some periods the house is stuffed with this enormous wealth – lucre and/or art trove. She and her people employ four heavies, probably armed, to do sentry shifts covering all day and all night. Obviously, we want to move against Failsafe when the potential catch is at its maximum: people and treasure. That will entail neutralizing the guards somehow. It’s under discussion. Why I’ve come to talk to you, Colin, is that because of the inevitable busyness and comings and goings at the house a neighbourhood cop or simply neighbours might begin to wonder what was happening. And they might try to find out.