Come Clean (1989) (37 page)

And then, abruptly, it started, just as Harpur had feared. Pistol fire fractured the silence. For a second, he was not sure exactly what had happened. Harpur had been intent on watching Sarah
and the guard, wondering if he should risk a move, but, when he turned back to look into the bedroom, he saw that Lay-waste had come away from the wall and, standing in the window, was firing down
the escape. From the angle, it was obvious that Benny and his people had not reached the platform yet, and Harpur heard at least two bullets hit the metal and ricochet away. Leo was hanging on to
his son’s arm, apparently trying to hold him back – force him to wait until the targets were nearer. But Lay-waste had never been good on patience and self-control, not a
whites-of-their-eyes man. The shooting was very rapid, and Harpur thought he counted five shots. It was not something he could be certain about, or cared much about, because he had heard something
much closer. Frightened or excited by the sudden noise, the guard jumped up very quickly, but tried to keep the muzzle of the pistol on Sarah’s neck. For a second, he was off balance and
lurched a little to the side, knocking his chair over with his legs, his finger still on the trigger, though. As he tried to right himself he shoved Sarah’s head lower with the pistol, and
for a moment it looked like an execution pose, so that Harpur almost cried out. He knew he had to do something now.

The guard’s chair had toppled toward Harpur and lay near him. With two hands, he grabbed at it and then, in the same movement, swung it at the man’s head, catching him square on the
temple and side of his face before he had recovered from the stumble. Harpur saw the consciousness go out of his eyes at once, and his body start folding. The guard tumbled heavily forward. As he
fell, his gun flew out of his hand and went off. Harpur heard the bullet hum and slam into the wall to the left of Aston. The pistol skidded across the floor towards the bedroom.

Harpur moved after it, but Leo must have given up trying to restrain Lay-waste and, standing near the doorway now, he heard the shot and turned, then stooped swiftly and picked up the gun. For a
second, he looked as if he might fire at Harpur. The two men stood facing each other, stiff, frozen, Leo holding the weapon out in front of him. But then, almost wearily, almost hopelessly, Leo
waved the pistol at Harpur, ordering him to sit again.

‘Sarah?’ Harpur said. ‘Are –’

‘I’m fine.’ She rubbed her neck and grinned again, almost a smile now. ‘Thanks, Colin,’ she said, glancing at the guard on the floor. ‘But they won’t
forgive that.’

‘We’ll be all right,’ he said. Could be. Thank God it was Leo who had picked up the weapon, not one of his babies.

Harpur became aware of shouting and groans from below on the fire escape. Yes, it was too late to hold back Lay-waste; he leaned far out over the sill, obviously searching for a target, ready to
fire again, if he had anything left.

And then Harpur heard two shots, seeming to come from outside, from below, maybe, and Lay-waste half turned and slid back very fast from the window and on to the floor, his head crashing against
the sill as he fell. Leo seemed to sob, then hurried forward and bent down to him. Gerald and Simpson both went to the window now and stared down. ‘They’re pulling out,’ Gerald
shouted. ‘God, we’ve blown it. We’ll never finish them, Anthony’s blown it, the prat.’

‘Get an ambulance,’ Leo said. He was still crouched over Lay-waste, weeping openly now.

‘That dumb fucker,’ Gerald replied, staring down at Lay-waste. ‘He deserves it. We leave him. Get out. They’ll have the bloody SAS here in a minute. We use the front.
Norman’s probably scarpered with the rest.’

He and Simpson ran back into the living room, putting their pistols away. The guard had begun to stir and they pulled him upright. Then, supporting him, they tugged the front door of the flat
open and Harpur heard them rushing down the stairs. Cars started in the road and roared away. Harpur found his legs were all right and walked into the bedroom. Leo was trying to stop blood flowing
from Lay-waste’s neck with part of his own shirt which he had torn off at the front and folded, so that his thin, pale stomach was exposed. Leo’s Browning and the guard’s pistol
lay near the body and Harpur was able to pick up both weapons this time. Lay-waste’s was still in his hand, and he took that too.

When Harpur looked below, he could see a man’s body lying crumpled on the steps near the bottom of the escape, face down and not recognizable at this distance. Sarah and Aston joined
him.

From the floor, Leo said again: ‘Please, an ambulance.’

‘I’ve rung,’ Aston said.

‘Everything will be here in a minute,’ Harpur told Leo. Turning to Aston, he muttered: ‘Get her out of this place.’

‘Right.’

‘Eventually, it’s bound to be known I was here,’ Sarah protested.

‘Yes, eventually,’ Harpur replied. ‘Eventually’s better than now.’

Towards dawn he drove out with Iles from Tempest Street to Benny Loxton’s place on the Loam Estate.

‘Do you know, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find Sarah there when we arrived at Aston’s,’ Iles said.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘There are points in this I don’t understand. How did you get there first like that, and your injury?’

‘Yes, there are baffling elements, sir. It’s the same for all of us. How did Leo know that Tommy Vit had been hired by Benny and would bring all the Loxton outfit into a
trap?’

‘That is a mystery,’ Iles said, ‘a real mystery. I agree.’

‘Yes, sir? As a matter of fact, I wondered if you’d possibly seen him lurking around your place.’

‘You mean did I tell Leo? Christ, you’ve got a bloody nerve, Harpur. Would anyone be likely to spot a pro like Tommy Vit if he was doing an observation?’

‘Well, another pro might, I suppose, sir. And you are on terms with Leo, aren’t you?’

Iles discarded that subject. ‘I wonder if Sarah will lose some taste for this sort of foolish, shady life now? Two people dead. It’s possible, I suppose.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘We’ll have to see.’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘She’s tough. She goes her own way. That’s the trouble. But she’s had some very bad sessions lately. Leo told us – Sarah and me – that some woman turned up at
the Monty just after Ralph took a beating. Judging by her face as he said it, I reckon that was Sarah. She might come to decide she’s had enough of such adventures.’

‘Certainly, sir.’

‘Ah, you don’t think so? No, you’re too bloody right. Why can’t I hold her, Colin?’

They rang the bell of Loxton’s house and after a long while Alma appeared in a dressing-gown. Game as ever, she affected delight at seeing Iles. ‘But do come in, gentlemen,’
she cried. ‘You wish to see Theodore? I’m afraid he’s away on a business trip. Yes. You poor people, working such hours. It must be urgent.’

She took them into the big lounge. Nobody who was roused at this hour looked too great, and Alma certainly did not. The time of day, like the time of life, could be a bugger, and occasionally
they combined to be a supreme bugger.

‘Will you sit down, love,’ Iles asked. She looked startled at being addressed like that, and at being offered the hospitality of her own furniture. But she did what the ACC had
suggested, and he and Harpur also took chairs.

‘Can one offer drinks so early?’ she asked, laughing briefly. Harpur saw that she had started to suspect things were not good. Attempting to read their faces, she looked earnestly
back and forth at each of them.

‘Alma, we had an incident tonight. A dark incident,’ Iles said. ‘I’m very much afraid two people were killed, a youngster called Anthony Tacette.’ He lowered his
head, and might genuinely have been upset. ‘And, I regret to say, Theodore.’

‘That fucking Lay-waste?’ Alma cried. ‘He killed Benny?’

Harpur felt astonished at her reaction; the swearing, the shrillness of her grief, and, above all, the apparent familiarity with Loxton’s rough world. ‘It does look like that,’
Harpur said. ‘So, did you know about all these things, Alma – Lay-waste, the gang battles?’ He tried to keep the surprise out of his voice, not eager to sound terminally
naïve.

She stared at Harpur, without much warmth. ‘Knew about it? I married it, didn’t I? I loved Benny, wanted him, and all the rest came as part of the deal. That was the life I took on
board with him, so I had to make the best of it. Occasionally I might feel sickened, but I knew I wasn’t entitled to. So, I tried to know only as much as I couldn’t help knowing,
didn’t I, and just got on with the washing up and the charities? Do you think I’m some sort of fool? Do you think I believe the Save the Whale movement makes the world go round? But
what I knew I didn’t make a display of. I would have preferred things to be different and I tried to pretend they really were. Now and then, though, would come a moment when that was
impossible. Same sort of thing happens to everybody, I suppose. We all kid ourselves until we can’t. “Moment of truth.” You’ve heard of it? Very rough, that can be. Ask the
bullfighter with his balls hooked on a horn. But I still had to stick to my
grande dame
act in public. Perhaps Benny and I fought about these things privately. Perhaps I tried to get him to
change. I didn’t stand a chance. If you live on the proceeds how can you quibble about where they come from?’ She wiped her eyes, though Harpur saw no tears. ‘And who killed
Lay-waste?’ she asked.

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘But could it have been Benny?’ she persisted.

‘It’s possible,’ Harpur said. It was hardly possible at all, in fact, because everything suggested Loxton died first. One of the others had blazed up at Lay-waste, as a parting
shot, and had a big piece of luck. Or it might have been one of their marksmen with a rifle. They had no forensic on the bullet yet. But he knew that this was the reply Alma needed just now, so why
not?

‘Thank Christ,’ she muttered.

‘Why do you call him Benny, not Theodore, now he’s dead, Alma?’ Iles asked.

‘Did I? It seems right. I’ll miss him like hell, and when I miss him I’ll be thinking of him as Benny. Theodore? Oh, that was part of the public relations.’

‘We’re very sorry about it all, Alma,’ Iles said.

‘I suppose you wish there’d been more. They could have wiped one another out – both outfits?’

‘Indeed not,’ Iles replied. ‘This is a tragedy, and we are only thankful it is not a greater one.’

‘We’ll be locking some of them up, anyway,’ Harpur said. ‘There’s another killing, and lesser things.’

Alma stood, still dry-eyed and in command. ‘His principal interest in life lately was the kind of charities I’ve mentioned – not just Save the Whale, but famine and so on. All
major needs.’

‘He’s a loss,’ Iles replied. ‘Yes.’

A dead loss.

‘Shall I see him?’ Alma asked.

‘In due course, certainly,’ Iles said.

She went with them to the front door. ‘Yes, patch Benny up and make him look presentable, would you? I couldn’t bear to see him all –’ For a second she seemed about to
cave in and weep properly. Then her body stiffened and she snapped her head back, like a drill sergeant. ‘He was a stickler about appearance. The Navy, you know.’

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By Bill James

in the Harpur and Iles series

You’d Better Believe It

The Lolita Man

Halo Parade

Protection

Come Clean

Take

Club

Astride a Grave

Gospel

Roses, Roses

In Good Hands

The Detective is Dead

Top Banana

Panicking Ralph

Lovely Mover

Eton Crop

Kill Me

Pay Days

Naked at the Window

The Girl with the Long Back

Easy Streets

Wolves of Memory

Girls

Pix

In the Absence of Iles

Hotbed

I Am Gold

Bill James (1929–)

Bill James is the author of numerous thrillers and crime novels as well as a critical work on Anthony Powell. In 2006 he was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’
Association’s prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger award for the year’s best crime novel for
Wolves of Memory
. His work is much loved and critically acclaimed; the
Sunday Telegraph
describes him as ‘bruisingly good’ and
The Times
as ‘subtle and riveting to the last page’. He lives in his native South Wales.

An Orion ebook

Copyright © Bill James 1989

The right of Bill James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook first published in Great Britain in 2012