‘What kind of mission, task?’
‘This would have to be something considerable, something almost definitely hazardous, or it would not fit the bill, would it?’ Wentloog-Jones said. ‘This has to be exchangeable against the very serious, very weighty, problematical aspects, which I don’t know in detail, but which must be very serious and weighty or why is – was – Gordon so scared? They might not be serious and weighty in their own right, but serious and weighty as perceived. That is, as perceived by Adrian and Dean. The BMW parked right outside Gordon’s house, you know. All right, it’s on their way to some castle, a short cut, but just the same you have to wonder.’
It had perturbed Edgehill to hear Udolpho speculate like this. Larry felt a kind of regret, a kind of responsibility, as he’d describe it later to Esther: had he shoved Hodge into something ‘almost definitely hazardous’ by a refusal to intercede – by what Hodge would regard as indifference? And which, in fact, had been indifference, or very close. One drink only: ‘must get along.’ Contemptible? Inhuman? Yellow?
For the first time, he sensed in himself a Whitsun loyalty. Fellow feeling took hold. It linked up somehow with that excess of commitment he sometimes felt towards others, and tried to resist – did resist now and then. All right, cars and garages got savaged on Whit. So did people. All right, a lot of dog shit on the pavements. Cars and garages weren’t everything though, and a degree of personal safety was possible if you kept alert and wily and had up-to-date door furniture. Dog shit could be stepped around, especially in daylight. Community ties existed. This Whit resident had come to another Whit resident for support and he had ignored the plea. Treachery? His relationship with Pellotte was slight to the point of skeletal, but, perhaps, after all, he could have used it to put in a word or two for Hodge. Which word, though, or two? If Hodge had been trying to defraud Pellotte, not much that Edgehill said would count. People like Pellotte ran their own judicial procedures, and Hodge might already have been condemned.
Just the same, Edgehill suffered now the type of guilt Hodge via Wentloog-Jones said he shouldn’t. He hated the idea that when Udolpho and Hodge spoke about these things they excused the failure by referring to his career: to his ‘media executive position’. Mr Larry Morethanmy Jobsworth Edgehill realized he felt not merely a Whit bond with Hodge. This was about something simpler, vaster: the obligation on one man, any man, to help another in distress.
It was around this spot in his morning talk with Udolpho that Edgehill began to think he’d better search for some help himself with things. He’d wondered about contacting Gerald Davidson’s wife, the Detective Chief Super.
Now, in Esther’s office, he didn’t feel sure it was a smart decision. Had he made the dire aspect of what might happen plain enough to her? She listened but didn’t seem gripped. He would have to tell her about the gun soon. That might shake her, get her concentration.
She said: ‘It’s vague, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know the full picture, no, but I sense something potentially very bad.’
‘There’s sometimes sense in sensing. Not always.’
Esther, eager to get out of him whatever he had, acted a bit offhand, schemed to downplay the value of what he said, so as to push him into saying more, force him into exactitude, drama, tactlessness, betrayal of someone, possibly. Force him into what he’d call bravery – a snitch’s bravery. These were routine tactics, well-tried interview ploys. He wouldn’t recognize them, as some old career crook would. ‘When you say you “sense something potentially very bad”, where did the information come from that got you sensing like that?’
‘A good source.’
‘Yes?’
But Edgehill wouldn’t name him. He trusted Udolpho, and owed him confidentiality. This morning, after Wentloog-Jones had done his ten or twelve minutes’ worth, Edgehill should have gone for the train. But he needed to hear whatever else was offered even guesswork. There’d been another break while Udolpho looked after his livelihood and then: ‘Luckily, I can put him in touch with useful folk, Larry.’
‘Ah.’
‘Oh, yes. In an intermediary fashion.’
‘What kind of useful folk?’
‘You know – really useful folk.’
More obliqueness? ‘Really useful in which way?’
‘He’s aware I have contacts. This is one reason he appeared here again. It would seem like just breezing in for an Independent and DIY mags, but there’s more than that. Of course, he did buy an Independent and two DIY mags and he holds these prominent when he goes out to prove he’d only been here for papers. No, he’d been here for what in diplomacy they call “letters of credence” introducing, say, a new ambassador to a foreign government. Of course, I wouldn’t give him letters, nothing written, for God’s sake, but I’d say where to go and to let them know the introduction came from me.’
‘Contacts of what sort? Hodge an ambassador?’
‘But my contacts are not the only reason. Nor am I referring to the newspapers and mags. He realizes I’ll be seeing you, doesn’t he, and is keen for me to pass on that he’s fine now, everything sorted, and he bears no grudge, not the slightest? Those kids – they’ll be back at the same school next term, I’m certain.’
‘I’m glad. When he’s next in, tell him I’m glad.’ Just the same, Edgehill was bombarded by fears and worries.
‘In many ways, Gordon’s a gent – not just because his kids are at a boarding school in that town famous for schools, or due to the interior decoration at his residence in Larch Street, but thanks to his core nature,’ Udolpho said. ‘By genes a gent.’
‘I appreciate it.’
‘He insists on paying me.’
‘For his papers and so on? Yes, naturally.’
‘For his papers and a fixer fee.’
‘Fixing what?’
‘The intermediary aspect. I said not to bother. I told him I know these useful, decently stocked folk in the ordinary course of business, and it’s as easy as easy to put him in touch, though I’ve never used them personally as suppliers. I’ve never needed that kind of thing and never will. Wouldn’t know how to handle one, anyway.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘They’ll look after him,’ Wentloog-Jones replied. ‘But he says the labourer is worthy of his hire – again from the Bible, or similar. And he makes it a very elegant fee, I have to say. Not in proportion, actually – the fixer fee nearly half of what he’ll pay for the item itself. But, once more, he won’t be talked out of it. These things have come down in price with a real . . . Joke! . . . I was going to say with a real bang! Have come down in price with an absolute slide. It’s well known. Ammo, too. Still a flow from Eastern Europe, perhaps even more than when the Wall first tumbled.’
‘You’re talking weaponry – handguns?’ Edgehill said.
‘Why I said a mission.’
‘A mission with a handgun?’
‘Oh, yes, as I said – beyond the thinking and ideas stage. He’s readying himself in a systematic, careful fashion. Confident. That’s why I mentioned his morale is up. It’s often the case: get a plan and the world simplifies itself.’
‘He’s preparing to kill someone?’
‘I gave him three, as it were, letters of credence,’ Udolpho replied. ‘He could make his own choice. I’m not going to point him – aim him! – at any particular one, am I? Udolpho is not a controlling person. This is just general information. I don’t want anything coming back on me if there’s a cock-up, do I? I’ve got a business to cherish, a newspaper business. But he says the fact he can mention to any of them – any one of the three – that Wentloog-Jones sent him smooths everything out, and they’ll be careful not to sell him anything a bit faulty and jammable or traceable. That’s why the go-between fee is so meaty.’
‘You know armourers?’ Edgehill replied.
‘A lot of people come in here. I get told what some of them do. All right, it might be rumour only, it might be wrong. I give Hodgy t
he names and where they’re at, and he can check for himself. It’s not like lining up in the army to draw a rifle. That’s why I said three. What we all know, don’t we, is that there are obtainables around on Whitsun and it’s just a matter of finding who’s flogging them and who’s reliable in all the reliabilities required? Price? Not really so important. It’s the reliability people are after. I’m sure there’s nothing worse than being in a dire spot with something in your hand to help, but it can’t or won’t help because it’s jammed.’
Four customers had come in more or less at once. Might one of them be an armourer? Edgehill examined some of those home improvement journal covers on a shelf. Hodge was house proud? The last of the four went. Edgehill said: ‘For clarity now, you’re referring to—?’
‘Look at it like this: the Gladstone Milo Naunton death.’
‘Of course, I’ve heard of that. A territory scrap, wasn’t it? Is – was – Hodge involved?’
‘This is more guesswork by me, Larry.’
‘Involved how?’
‘Suppose he got himself involved.’
‘How? It’s a while ago, surely?’
‘Right. Dead right.’
‘So how—?’
‘He goes retrospective, maybe. It’s a while ago, as you point out, and nobody on Temperate knocked over for it. Nor any attempt, to my knowledge.’
‘Maybe Pellotte has come to see vengeance as foolish.’
‘He’s not entitled to.’
‘Not entitled?’
‘He’s part of a culture. Head of a culture. There are expectations. Extremely undodgable. Think of the Queen. She has to read that speech every year saying what the government will do. She’s the head of state and top of the pile, but, because of this, she’s got no option about turning up.’
‘The death is unpunished?’
‘So we ask, who’s looking slow and weak because of that?’
‘The police?’ Edgehill replied. ‘A street murder, with firearms.’
‘The police! Do the police care which bit of lowlife shoots another bit of lowlife? They cheer. They shout, “Congrats!” They’d issue AK-47s if they could, as long as they knew the weapons wouldn’t be turned on them. A killing wipes out a nuisance for the police. And then, if there’s a tit-for-tat op – what’s known in the community as a “requital sortie”, meaning answer-back slaughter – if there’s a requital sortie, perhaps another nuisance gets removed, or more than one. Officers lay on a champagne celebration party. Next thing will be they recommend gang leaders for knighthoods.’
‘You’re saying Pellotte should have acted?’
‘You heard of noblesse oblige at all? Yes, such as the Pope: if you’re boss you’ve got duties as well as perks. You know the Bible parable of the ninety and nine that were safely laid in the shelter of the fold? But one was missing, and the Good Shepherd had to search for who terminated that one, and wipe the fucker out.’
‘Pellotte and Dean have dawdled?’
‘Are they too busy poncing about at literature conferences? A lot of comment gets muttered around Whit. Hodgy would be aware of it. Estate commitments, company commitments, should get main attention from a leader like Adrian Pellotte, not fucking books. One of those commitments we’ve just discussed: Gladstone Milo Naunton. Forgotten about? Ignored? Back-burnered after the crem? Then there’s Dean Feston and the girl Cornish, half accused of doing a reporter who wanted to know about the trade and the warfare and Naunton. Those two got released, yes, but was Adrian doing enough to keep the heat off them in the first place? Sloppy? Sleepy? Oh, sure, Gladstone had a great subsidized funeral, and Bert Marsh, his live-in, sweetly pensioned, to date. Those are only basics though. Where are the Temperate corpses? All right, it’s too late to get Whit retaliation in first, but it looks to many as if it’s not going to be got in at all. And, talking of Temperate, there’s another topic. Is Adrian Pellotte so worried about his daughter’s love life, as well as literature, he can’t be bothered with the firm’s day-to-day health and duties, such as the Gladstone situation and home-patch blame for the dead journalist situation? Dione? We’ve discussed it, you and I – she being on the rebound to one of your people who lives on Temperate, isn’t she – Rupe Bale? Pellotte’s focused on that, and only that, except for the books? This is the mutter that goes around. It’s not friendly.’
‘And Hodge will see to all this for them?’ Edgehill replied.
‘Gordon’s always been great at spotting niche opportunities.’
‘Is he . . . is he familiar with that kind of work? Would he be putting himself at crazy risk?’
‘The thing is, he thinks he’s at risk anyway, doesn’t he? They might have been slow going after who did Gladstone Naunton, but maybe they’d act faster against Gordon. Why he came desperate to you.’
‘Misguidedly.’
‘He’ll accept that, I believe. Don’t make yourself suffer. He’s not going to broadcast you let him down. Like I say, a gent.’
But Edgehill did suffer and felt he’d been shifty, unlike himself. He wanted to put this to rights by protecting Hodge now – a bit late admittedly. So, he’d come to share the problem with Esther Davidson, perhaps shift the problem to Esther Davidson. That’s what police were for, wasn’t it – to give protection?
He said: ‘Look, to get specific, I think Hodge is going to look for and slaughter – attempt to – someone on Temperate suspected of killing a Whitsun trooper, Gladstone Milo Naunton, during a frontier spat, and possibly the journalist, Tasker, as well. This would be Hodge doing a payback to Adrian and Dean for trying to siphon some business profits. People on Whit wonder why the firm hasn’t answered in style for Naunton. Hodge will see to it for him, restore his reputation and grandeur. Perhaps they’ll put a whisper around that whomever Hodge targets was the journalist’s killer also, and you’ll be able to close that file, give up harassing Adrian’s outfit.’
‘You’re afraid Hodge will get killed, instead of killing?’ Esther asked. Would Hodge go after Joel Jeremy North? Was the word around that she’d accosted and quizzed North herself? Was the word around that Tasker had met him also?
Edgehill said: ‘I don’t know whether he’s capable of this kind of operation.’
‘Nobody can know.’
‘But it’s got to be stopped, anyway, hasn’t it?’
‘If what you’ve “sensed” is true.’
‘He’s bought a gun.’
‘How would you know that?’
‘He has,’ Edgehill replied.
‘I’ll have a look around Temperate. It’s difficult. He’s committed no offence, except possible possession of a firearm.’
‘The idea is to stop him committing an offence, or having an offence committed against him, isn’t it? Police don’t actually want these people eliminating one another, do they? Do they?’
‘I’ll certainly have a look around Temperate,’ Esther replied, ‘and put some extra people on.’
And she did. As a result Esther missed the live showing of Gerald’s performance on A Week in Review, though when she watched the film of it later she thought he came over as quite sane and nice-natured, regardless. She had gone again with him to the studios as support, but in the hospitality suite pre-broadcast was called away on her phone by one of the extra officers patrolling Temperate to the scene of that new, appalling death. She drove there at once. ‘I have to leave,’ she told Gerald, ‘you’ll probably need to get a taxi home.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ he said.
‘It’s important.’
‘More important than my debut appearance on this television show, I suppose.’
‘I can catch up on it later.’
‘More important than my debut appearance on this television show, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ Esther said, ‘much more important, you daft prick.’
Gerald had been talking to the woman from News, Nellie Poignard, in Hospitality for another of her free drinks. Sacheverell Biggs had just topped her up.
r /> ‘What is it?’ she asked Esther.
‘Something she’s fucking manufactured because she hates to see me spotlighted,’ Gerald said. ‘She tells some minion to ring her here, create a stir, a diversion from me, something to prove she’s the distinguished, indispensable chief of detectives. It’s her standard ego aggression and cruelty.’
‘Where?’ Poignard said. She put her full glass on to a window sill. ‘One of the estates? Which?’
Esther also put her glass down.
Nellie Poignard spoke briefly into her mobile.
‘Best of luck, Gerald,’ Esther said, blowing him a kiss. ‘You’ll be great.’
‘As if you fucking cared,’ he said. He was yelling. The room became silent for a minute. Perhaps his behaviour soured the evening, and prepared a route to the absurd fist fight between Bale and a panellist, Rex Ince. Esther heard about it later – Ince, a don from one of the Cambridge colleges, screaming that Bale had been offered a new programme series only because he was backed by his fucking girlfriend’s gangster father, who’d fixed the fucking culture show of the year award and terrorized the television company bosses. Both Bale and Ince had to be smothered in make-up powder so their injuries would not be visible on camera. Less visible. Esther could see them well enough when she ran the tape. But Gerald seemed jaunty enough and was able to work in one of his jokes. They were discussing a revival of John Osborne’s drama, Luther, which suggested the great reformer’s personality was much affected by constipation. ‘The play should have been called An Immoveable Feast,’ Gerald said.
On her way to Temperate, Esther thought she might have a Volkswagen on her tail. The Poignard woman? Had she alerted a camera crew? Newshounds! They wouldn’t, couldn’t, rest. Or not until what happened to Tasker happened.
Eighteen
ON TV LAST NIGHT
by Morning Express critic, Tim Gold-Bravo
Pre-publicity for Nellie Poignard’s documentary, Powder Kegs, about the two London estates, Whitsun Festival and Temperate Park Acres, said many months had gone into preparation of this film. Never can time have been better spent. This was a brilliant, thorough and thoroughly disturbing portrait of an enormous concentration of the capital’s municipal housing and flats. And perhaps what the programme showed is typical of many other large cities here and abroad.