Come Clean (1989) (15 page)

‘Which van?’

‘The red, knacker’s-yard vehicle you were sitting in, of course.’

‘I wasn’t in a van. What are you talking about, Sarah?’ Suddenly, he sounded very alarmed. ‘I was on foot, watching you from behind the lorries.’

‘Never in a van?’ She tried to disguise her own fear.

‘No.’

‘It’s right opposite.’ She went to the window and pulled back the curtains a little way. ‘Not there now. Oh well, then, could be nothing at all.’

‘So what did he look like, whoever was in it?’

‘I couldn’t see.’

‘So, how did you know he was watching?’

‘I could see his eyes.’

‘Jesus, Sarah, try –’

‘I couldn’t see anything else.’

‘Why? Hair? Moustache?’

‘He was wearing a bobble hat and had his arm up.’

‘All the time?’

‘Yes.’

‘Deliberately covering his face?’

‘Deliberately? I don’t know.’

‘Sarah, talk sense. You really think it’s nothing at all?’

‘Well, who?’

He seemed about to answer but then decide it was not worth the effort. ‘We’d better not leave together. Don’t hang about.’

‘Ian, how shall I –?’

‘I’ll contact you.’

‘Where can you go?’

‘I’ll contact you.’

‘I think we might be worrying about nothing. Bluntly, what hard evidence have we that something big and troublesome is due to hit us?’ the Chief asked in his
genial, nervous way. Lane was wearing uniform today for a municipal function and looked self-conscious and uncomfortable. Harpur knew how much he hated dressing up, or ‘going for a
soldier’, as he called it.

‘That’s certainly a point of view, sir,’ Iles replied, ‘isn’t it, Col?’

Harpur said to Lane: ‘Let’s hope you’re right, sir. But Mr Iles and I have these –’

‘Bad vibes?’ the Chief asked. ‘Is it really much more than that? Don’t mistake me,’ he went on hurriedly, ‘I certainly wouldn’t undervalue the
instinctive perceptions of people as experienced as Desmond and yourself, but –’

‘You’re too kind, sir,’ Iles said. The meeting was in the Assistant Chief’s room, one of those informal sessions prized by Lane, who seemed to believe, on no good grounds
known to Harpur, that in relaxed conditions Iles would be able to do him less damage. Harpur could just make out, concealed under the latest issue of
Police Review
on Iles’s desk, a
copy of some heavy-looking book called
Middlemarch
, probably a novel. Iles did not like it put about that he was a reader.

‘Yes, what hard evidence? That seems to me the heart of it,’ Lane declared.

‘“The heart of it”,’ Iles repeated slowly. There were occasions when he made a meal of writing down and then underlining certain prime phrases used by Lane, but did not
do that today, only nodded very emphatically a few times, as if acknowledging unique lucidity and grasp. His contempt for the Chief never diminished, and Lane’s ability to cope with him never
grew.

‘I mean, what are we scared of?’ Mark Lane asked, and waved an arm sharply, to rid the room of all ill-based dreads and speculative funk.

‘A very fair question, sir,’ Iles replied. ‘What we’re scared of, I suppose . . . yes, this would be a balanced, considered, totally unpurple way to put it, what
we’re scared of is that some act of inter-gang carnage is being planned which will load our patch with so many corpses, some possibly quite innocent, that we’ll look like Sharpeville
plus the retreat from fucking Moscow.’

Lane said: ‘Yes, but –’

‘How do we know this, sir?’ Iles replied. ‘We don’t. Guesswork, and – what was your term? – “instinctive perceptions”. Yes, I’ll buy that.
The
mots justes
as ever. I’ll admit to you that occasionally I like to get ahead of the villains, rather than merely cater for aftermath. Perhaps it’s an extravagant ambition,
even fanciful, but that’s how I operate, for my sins.’

Feeling it was time for the straight man, Harpur told Lane: ‘There are one or two indicators, sir.’

‘Factual?’ the Chief asked.

‘You’re so truly rigorous, sir, I could think you were at Cambridge, not –’ As always, Iles pretended to forget Lane’s university. ‘Elsewhere.’

‘Half-factual,’ Harpur replied. ‘A lad in Benny Loxton’s outfit, Justin Paynter, seems to have disappeared, we think because he was about to spill something mighty and
had to be stopped.’

As part of the drive to appear casual, Lane was seated on a window sill, legs comfortably apart in front of him, shoes not too clean and his socks crumpled. Lately, he had begun to grow plump on
public lunches and dinners and his uniform bulged at the waist and top of his arms. He could have ordered a new one, but seemed to want scruffiness, so as never to look even faintly military.
Today, because of the uniform and the strain of talking to Desmond Iles, his round, sallow face was tense, whereas normally he appeared cheerful and good-natured, full of kindliness. Iles sometimes
referred to him as Mother Teresa, sometimes as Meals on Wheels. For some reason, which could not be tolerance, he seemed to have given up calling Lane, a Catholic, the Mick.

The Chief looked unimpressed by what Harpur had said: ‘I don’t really see the connection, Colin, Someone disappears and we assume he was going to reveal an outrage? Why?’

‘He’s a known source.’

‘Known to us?’

‘Not directly, sir,’ Harpur replied.

‘What does that mean?’

Harpur said: ‘Well, sir –’

‘Oh, don’t tell me: this is a source that feeds one of your sources, whom you can’t tell us about, of course, so we’re about fifteen steps from the actual truth. God, I
hate sources, narks, informants – all that kind of dangerous morass.’

Iles, who was in shirt-sleeves, with his feet on the desk, said: ‘That kind of dangerous morass is called detection, sir.’ Although he sounded almost as arrogant and imperturbable as
ever, Harpur suddenly had the feeling that something might be wrong, as if the ACC were coping with a deeply painful, private trouble. None of the usual relish was evident as he baited Lane.

Bravely, the Chief stuck at it. ‘All right, so let’s accept that he had something sensitive to reveal, this obscure, far-back nark. How do we know it was a possible gang-war
incident?’

‘We don’t,’ Iles replied. ‘I’m sorry if I repeat myself. We have no certain knowledge, but it’s how things feel to Colin, and also to his
informant.’

‘Feel?’

Harpur said: ‘We might be able to take it a bit further than that today, sir. My tipster thinks the missing man was possibly involved in some sort of recent unpleasantness at or near
Panicking Ralph’s club, the Monty.’

‘What sort of unpleasantness?’

‘That we’re not clear about,’ Harpur replied. ‘I’m going to call on him today, see where we get.’

‘Violence?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Have we had any report of that nature?’

‘No, sir,’ Harpur said.

Lane shrugged and stood, preparing to leave. ‘Well, it can’t be very much, can it, Colin?’

Wearily, Iles said: ‘We’re talking about the Monty club, sir, not Lambeth Palace. Monty’s is sometimes known as The Collection, because so many customers have records. Ralphy
gets a very mixed clientele and does not seek a police presence, no matter what goes on there. Neither do his members. They settle things privately.’

‘We’ve checked hospitals?’ Lane replied.

‘He might not have reached a hospital,’ Iles said. ‘Benny has people who are first-aid enthusiasts.’

Lane brushed himself down, achieving an unnoticeable improvement in appearance. He looked like a St John Ambulance man after pushing through a British soccer crowd to treat somebody.
‘Benny: what’s he doing out of jail, anyway?’

‘My wife made the same point this morning, sir, and I couldn’t answer then, either.’

‘And how is she?’ Lane asked, evidently glad to grab a way into routine affability.

‘Sarah’s very active, sir, very zappy.’

‘Yes.’ He stepped towards the door. ‘We have a lot of workaday crime to deal with apart from the rumour of this future battle and, obviously, what I don’t want is a great
expenditure of time and ingenuity on something that could turn out to be pursuit of a, well, a chimera.’

He almost whispered the word, probably sensing how much Iles would love it.

‘Ah,’ Iles said. ‘A long time since I’ve pursued one of those. Tidy turn of speed.’

Harpur said: ‘Everything else is going normally, sir. Nothing neglected because of this.’

When the Chief had gone, Iles said: ‘Change and decay. What remorseless devastation a job brings when it’s too much for the holder. Think of Tamburlaine.’

‘Who?’

‘Christ, Harpur, what’s wrong with you? Tamburlaine.’

‘Should I know him?’

‘Know him? C.L.J. Tamburlaine. The cardboard box and Christmas novelty firm. That’s what I mean, you see: forgotten already.’

‘The Chief’s not so bad, sir.’

‘Fine voice – amateur operatics. Fiery yet mellifluous in
The Desert Song
, I’m told. Sad, I feel about him, more than triumphant or vindictive.’ Iles’s tone
changed abruptly, and Harpur went on guard, sensing he had been right to suspect the ACC had some personal pain. ‘And, as to everything going normally, Col, I gather we’ve been doing
observations for thefts from the lorry park at Osborn Triangle.’

‘Sir?’ What the hell was this about?

‘Erogynous Jones came to see me on the quiet earlier with some rather bruising disclosures.’

‘Yes, we had him down there keeping surveillance from a van. Not much success.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘Sir?’

‘Col, he tells me he saw Sarah in the drivers’ caff opposite. Truckers’ Den is it called?’

Harpur would have greatly liked to leave. ‘It’s all right, sir. Rough but clean. She’d come to no harm.’

‘Jones told me she was there for hours.’

‘Big meals. Drivers doing long hauls.’

‘Eventually, she met a man,’ Iles said. ‘Or, a man came in and met her.’

‘What, a trucker? Tried to pick her up, you mean?’

‘Jones had the idea they knew each other well, and that she was very pleased to see him, when he finally showed up. She was obviously waiting for him. Jones couldn’t see too clearly
at the end because he had to get out of the van and find another viewpoint. He thought Sarah had spotted him.’

‘So, is he sure it’s her? Erogynous is a great observation man, I know, almost as good as on interrogations, but –’

‘He’s met her a few times at Force shindigs. No mistake.’

Harpur watched Iles carefully. The Assistant Chief had grown a little paler as he spoke, and his voice was becoming slightly metallic. Otherwise, he seemed reasonably in control, as much as
ever.

‘– It’s odd we should have been talking to Lane about the Monty.’

‘Sir?’

‘For fuck sake don’t keep doing that. You sound like West Point.’

‘Why odd?’

‘Erogynous says he thinks the man she met is someone called Aston – Ian Aston, on the edge of petty villainy, though maybe no more than on the edge.’

‘Yes.’

‘Know him?’

‘Seen him.’

‘He uses the Monty, Jones reckons.’

‘Could be.’

‘Yes.’ Iles mumbled the next words. ‘The Truckers’ Den has rooms.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Didn’t know? Not on your own circuit? They stayed, of course. There appeared to be some sort of row or recriminations, they made it up, and then upstairs to put all to rights. Tell
me, is this embarrassing you?’

‘Maybe Erogynous –’

‘Should have kept it to himself ? No, I’m grateful. Col, I think I’ve been deliberately shutting my eyes. If one’s wife is putting it on a plate for somebody, it’s
better to recognize the fact, wouldn’t you say?’

Although Harpur knew Iles liked answers to all his questions he did not give one to that. ‘I’ll see Jones never breathes a syllable of it.’

Iles smiled. ‘He’s promised me. But an ACC’s wife taking it from a minor crook in a roadies’ diner? Makes a ripe yarn, wouldn’t you say? He’s likely to stay
silent?’ Iles stood behind the desk and reached for his coat. ‘If you’re going to see Panicking Ralph I think I’ll come with you. You don’t mind?’

Oh, Christ. ‘No, of course not.’

In the car, Iles, who was driving, said: ‘I found where Aston lives and went up there earlier on. Mind, I want to stress I had no intention of doing anything out of the way, nothing
extreme.’

‘No, that’s hardly worth saying, sir.’

Iles had begun to shake and he gripped the wheel fiercely to keep himself steady. He let the speed drop to about ten miles an hour. ‘I’ll be great in a minute,’ he
muttered.

‘Of course, sir.’

After a while, he seemed to improve and his driving became normal again. ‘Aston wasn’t there when I called and, apparently, hasn’t been there much at all lately. The place has
been broken into, as if people were looking for him. I gather from neighbours nothing was taken. No damage. They said a woman has been sniffing about. It sounds like Sarah: good shoes, beautiful,
highly strung, some fucking and blinding. Now, what do I make of that? She’s been up there at his flat, so I have to ask, is this a long-term, deep thing, not just a couple of
joie-de-vivre
jumps? Am I going to have to deal with this lad in a very serious way?’

‘It must be trying for you, sir.’

‘The best you can do, you half-baked arsehole? We’re talking about losing a wife, not belonging to the Labour Party.’

‘Heartbreaking for you.’

‘Of course, you’re adulterizing Mrs Cotton, so I suppose you might have a different view.’ Iles kept his eyes rigidly in front. ‘I want Sarah, Col.’

‘Of course, sir. She’s a great girl.’

‘Not of course. She does distribute herself a bit and for my own part I’ve wandered now and then, as you know. A mistake. To a degree, forced on me, but still a mistake. I’ll
keep Sarah. Nobody must take her away, Col.’ He spoke without much emphasis, but as if it were unarguable. Maybe he feared setting off his frenzy again.

‘Women these days, they like to branch out once in a while,’ Harpur said. ‘It’s not just Sarah. They want to live right up to their impulses. We have to adjust.
It’s only right.’