Come Clean (1989) (6 page)

‘At least how to try.’

‘I will if you want to. But I’m not sure you do.’

‘In many ways, Des is a good man. Well, of course he is. I married him, didn’t I? He puts up with a lot. He’s brave, he’s clever, and he’s funny, sometimes. I ought
to –’

‘And, Ian?’

‘Who knows what he’s really like, or even what he really does?’

For a moment, Margot did not speak. Then she said: ‘This event that’s upset you – it’s something that makes you wonder more about Ian?’

‘Yes, and about myself. I have to ask, am I like a stupid girl, turning down a decent, solid man because he can’t reach me, and going instead to somebody I don’t know properly,
can’t know properly, because the mystery and risk of it are attractive?’

‘And what answer do you get?’

‘Answer?’

‘Yes, when you ask yourself this, what do you reply? Do you come clean?’

That was part of Margot’s technique, perhaps part of all counsellors’ techniques: they let you do the work, hardly told you anything at all, persuaded you into deciding for yourself
what you really wanted and into talking about it. What they knew was how to ask questions, and occasionally the procedure annoyed Sarah: she came here looking for guidance, and paying for it, and
was prescribed, instead, self-scrutiny. This was counselling? ‘The point is, would I want Ian if I could go off tomorrow and live with him, not meet him at the odd, pinched moment in a
down-at-heel pool and booze club?’

‘Yes, that’s the question.’

‘Somebody told me just now that I liked the status of my life with Desmond too much ever to give it up for a lover.’

‘Oh? There’s someone else who knows about Ian and you? I hadn’t realized that.’ She sounded ratty for a moment. ‘Tell me, Sarah, is this related – this person
and what he or she said, is it related in any way to the situation that upset you so much?’ She took a drink of the tea but had turned her head and was watching Sarah carefully.

‘Yes, in a way.’ The clarity and speed of Margot’s intuitions must explain how she managed to make a living in this woolly, bull-shitting trade.

Margot waited, and Sarah realized she was giving her the chance to say some more. She did not respond and, in a while, Margot asked: ‘So, is this person right, do you think, the one who
did the diagnosis for you: are you too fond of your privileged style of life to put it on the line?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so, not before this. Now, I’m not so sure. I think I may be a bit of a snob.’

‘And Ian doesn’t fit that social bill, no matter how well he might fit elsewhere?’

Margot liked occasional crudity. It was part of the all-girls-together frankness that she affected.

‘Maybe not,’ Sarah said. She thought for a second. ‘Oh, no, Margot, it’s more than that. I don’t regard Ian as a bit of rough. I don’t need rough, anyway, not
my thing at all. Well, I don’t think so. But, how can I explain? Try this: it’s a tussle between right and wrong. Des is a policeman. He’s law and order. I must have wanted that:
I married law and order. He’s morality. Theoretically at least I’m in favour of morality. All right, I think Des is a policeman who’s pulled some dirty tricks in his time,
exceedingly dirty, I suspect. In fact, often I feel scared even to wonder. But, speaking generally, he’s just about on the side of what we can call good, and he’d say you can’t be
on the side of good effectively any longer without a tidy armoury of dirty tricks. He’s not into fighting with one hand behind his back and the other holding the handbook of the Civil
Liberties movement – that’s his line.’

‘Ian? Is he on the side of good?’

‘Who knows?’

‘Not you?’

‘Not any longer.’

Again Margot paused, obviously waiting for more information. And again Sarah refused to give it. Instead, for the rest of the session she insisted upon talking about her childhood, and Margot
listened but made no credible effort to conceal her disappointment and boredom.

At home, Sarah telephoned Ian’s flat three times, but could get no reply. She tried the Monty and Ralph answered at once. When she asked if Ian was there he said: ‘No, I’m
afraid not, madam, not at this moment, though he certainly is a member of the club. Should I say who called? Would you like to leave your number or a message?’

He must have recognized her voice, yet chose to act as if she were a stranger. She did not understand why, though perhaps there was someone nearby in the bar who might overhear, and he wanted no
mention of Ian’s or her names. ‘I might try again,’ she said.

‘At your service.’

Harpur waited for Jack Lamb near a brick-built, Second World War pill box set into the long, earthwork sea wall on the foreshore, four or five miles up the coast from Valencia
Esplanade. Its concrete-lipped weapon slits looked seawards and in 1940, if the enemy had come, the troops here would have tried gloriously to knock him and his tanks back into the mucky water. At
low tide the view was wide mud flats, desolate and empty except for an occasional solitary, bent-over fisherman digging bait. Patches of frothy, orange industrial effluent were dotted about the mud
today, like a pogrom of ginger cats. Harpur understood that the flat supported uniquely interesting bird life, if you were interested. Fine but heavy rain was being carried in from the sea now, and
underfoot the soil had begun to grow sticky.

Lamb had picked this spot. He loved atmosphere and history, possibly environmental mud as well. What he did not like and would not trust was the telephone, so, if ever he or Harpur wanted to say
something they had to meet, and to meet where they would not be observed. They used car parks and art galleries and crowded auction rooms – where they could speak an urgent word or two before
separating – and occasionally they came here, the fight-them-on-the-beaches battleground that never was. Informants as a breed felt uneasy about telephones, not just Jack; they were aware how
imaginative and crafty people could be at eavesdropping, and how technological, because they were imaginative and crafty at it themselves, and especially Lamb. Harpur had never known a tipster
anything like as productive, so if Jack wanted to rendezvous in the mire, in the mire it had to be.

He approached now, huge and unhurried, wearing what appeared to be a Cossack cape, a black beret and wellingtons, like someone ready to play in a one-man Napoleonic war sketch and represent all
three main armies. Despite his security obsessions about telephones and meeting places, Jack did not go in for being unnoticeable. How could he at his weight and height? Gazing seawards he
murmured: ‘Will they never come?’

‘I love it here; the tide-mark of nappy liners and knotted french letters.’

They stood under the overhang of the pill box roof, leaning against the brickwork. When fixing the meeting, Lamb had hinted that he was gravely worried about the safety of one of his own
occasional sources; these people lived with menace, nonstop, and now and then would come a frenzied cry for help.

But there would be a lot of oblique, general talk before Jack reached this topic. He liked to remind Harpur how indissolubly the two of them were bound together. ‘You’ll have been
concerned, but I’m glad to say the October Stock Exchange dive did me little damage, Colin.’

‘Grand.’

‘Luckily, I’d unloaded a lot of pictures just before. Some were very cherished, not just by me, by Helen, too, at home. You remember Helen, a sunny, punkish child, familiar with
l’art fang
, and so gifted at ballet and cohabitation? We both felt it a wrench to see some of those works go, particularly the Pre-Raphs. But one gets a feel about the way stocks will
behave, and if they do a real plunge it’s not long before all sorts of valuables are touched, too. Oh, yes, the crash has reached the salesrooms, you know. Bad. Painful. Renoirs. Bonnards.
Picassos not getting to their reserves, and having to be bought in. Mind you, serves the buggers right for putting high, grab-all estimates on everything. Those days are gone. That’s what I
say, Col.’

‘If that’s what you say, Jack, that’s what you say.’ Harpur hated hearing about Jack’s commercial life, though he knew as a certainty that fragments of it were
above board.

‘But pardon me. Sometimes I forget and behave as if you are a part of the business with me. Stupid – and impertinent. You show a friendly, helpful interest, deeply helpful, but how
could it be more than that, you an ace lawman? Good God, I’m not here to talk art and profit and loss, am I?’

Harpur waited. He had been through similar introductory formalities many times before and knew his role was only to digest. These rough reminders were meant by Lamb to soften him up; to proclaim
unmistakably, proclaim once more, that the two of them depended on each other and were in each others pockets for ever, one of those unsanctified but brassbound marriages between a copper and his
tipster. Harpur did not need telling. He never forgot. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but one shared by most detectives who used informants or grasses or narks or touts or tipsters –
whatever ugly name one liked to bless them with. And detectives who lacked these informants, trading whispers for a degree of privileged handling, rarely did much useful in the big, enduring,
untidy battle against the darkness. These people inhabited that darkness themselves, either totally or in part, but now and then, for their own purposes and reasons, they might offer to shine a
little light into an important shadowy corner where, without their help, police would never see. Politicians and editors who screamed about the perils and unwholesomeness of police dependence on
informants might well have a point, one they could go screw themselves with.

‘Colin, do you understand how things work, I wonder – the gathering of facts and rumours and hints? Look, I talk to you, but before that can happen there have to be people who talk
to me. I don’t originate. Well, it’s obvious. Do I continue to bore you?’

Oh, God, Harpur thought, so I read things right; someone else wanted protection or a favour, or a bit of special affection and feather-bedding, one of Lamb’s mates. He said; ‘Jack, I
look after you. That’s as far as I can go. It’s dangerous enough already. What you do about your own informants is not my province.’

Lamb held up an enormous, red-mittened hand to stop him. ‘Of course that’s up to me. Would I expect you to involve yourself with dirty nobodies, you a public figure, loaded with
insignia and kudos? Col, I’m hurt, offended. Give me credit for some knowledge of protocol, will you, please? Please.’ A couple walking with a dog despite the rain approached along the
sea wall. Lamb watched them carefully, and was silent until they passed.

Then he said; ‘This source, the one I’d like to talk about, suddenly isn’t around any more. Overnight, gone. Total disappearance. He rang a few days ago and we fixed to meet,
but he never shows. So I phone and somebody lifts the receiver and listens but says nothing. Very quiet breather, too. I don’t know for certain, obviously, but I’d say this was not my
man. He doesn’t fool about. Then, almost as soon as I put the phone down, it rings. Naturally, I’m not a listed number, so another mystery. Again nobody speaks. The same master of
understatement? Who knows? I’ve been to have a look at where my source lives but no sign of life. I can’t go asking around there. That wouldn’t be any good for him or me. So, I
don’t know what.’

‘Are you going to tell me who it is?’

‘He could be fine, I realize that. Maybe gone on a quick job somewhere, one he didn’t know was coming up, or having a break.’

‘But you don’t think so.’

‘No. He was always reliable. I mean, he’s a villain, so when I say reliable it’s a bit relative. But it was obvious from his call he had worries. Something was happening that
he didn’t like, or was going to. He wanted it stopped. So, he would talk to me, expecting I might talk to someone like you. Obviously, he didn’t know the name of my contact.’

‘Thanks.’

‘What do you mean, thanks, for Christ’s sake? That’s only basic, keeping your identity quiet.’

‘Thanks, all the same.’

Jack adjusted his cape. ‘Yes, if I want you to look for him, I’ve got to give you his name, haven’t I?’

‘You want me to look for him?’

‘Col, he knows something, and it will be big. Always in the past, it’s been important stuff, accurate stuff. We need to know, I mean,
you
need to know. I haven’t a clue
what it was.’

Evidently, here was another one who did not talk beyond the basics by telephone.

‘And the extra thing; they could have roughed him about,’ Lamb said, ‘I would like to discover whether he’s coughed my name. That could be a hazard.’

‘Which they?’

‘He runs with Benny Loxton’s squadron. Newish recruit. As I understand it, Benny’s taken on two people lately – this one, and a boy called Lentle. Robert?’

‘So, do I know the missing one?’

‘I doubt it. He’s small-time, so far. Small-time crook, big-time informant. He’s got no record.’

‘He
says
he’s got no record.’

‘I’ve done a check. Obviously. His name’s Justin Paynter.’

‘Christ, have the Justin generation reached the age of mature villainy? Remember when crooks were called Bert?’ And Jack. ‘You’re right. I don’t know
him.’

‘Kid about twenty-four. Slight, pale, dark hair falling across his forehead. Dandified, rather. Tailored suits.’

‘No.’

‘Gifted with cars, and Benny’s started letting him do his accounts. He sees a lot. Did. Hear that?’

‘What?’

‘Curlew. Lovely cry.’

‘You really know how a curlew sounds, Jack?’

‘Could have been a woodpecker, I suppose, ratty about all the mud and no trees to get stuck into. Or a flamingo, off course?’

The rain had eased and they came out from under the roof projection. A few feelers from the early evening sun penetrated the clouds and caught the sea far out, so it gleamed murky red. The tide
was on the way in and Harpur could hear small waves breaking and pushing up slowly, dark and greasy with sewage, towards the wall. ‘An address?’