Come Clean (1989) (8 page)

‘Ah, Jack,’ Harpur said.

‘Who is it?’ Lamb replied.

‘Last time you had a call from this phone it was heavy breathing.’

After a long pause, Lamb said: ‘Colin?’

‘I’m afraid they’ve got your number, Jack.’

‘You’re at Justin Paynter’s place?’

‘It’ll never get into
Ideal Home
, Jack, you made an error.’

‘What error?’

‘Well, to start with basics, using young Justin. That boy’s got no idea of security. Your number’s only a push button away from anyone who walks in here. He did have the sense
not to write your name down, but that’s his limit.’

There was another pause.

‘Jack, you understand? They don’t have to beat anything out of him, supposing he’s alive. It’s on an electronic plate.’

‘Tell me slowly.’

‘The other error; ringing him, probably. Looks as if they were searching here when that happened. Your call must have taken them to the phone, brought it to their attention, so when
you’d rung off, one of them decided to try its memory bank of numbers. Yours was the only promising one, Jack. That’s what I mean about this lad’s mad carelessness. They
wouldn’t be interested in the other five because they’d probably recognize the names and initials – Benny Loxton, Justin’s mother, his bird, that sort of thing. So, you get
an immediate return call, and the same witty silence.’

‘Jesus.’

‘They didn’t bother searching any more. This room’s in two sections, like an ad for “before and after our cleaning service”. Obviously they were looking for
anything that might tell them who exactly Justin leaked to. Could mean they’d failed to batter it out of him up till then, or perhaps he died too soon. Anyway, there it was, all nicely
automated for them. Did you say your name at any stage during these calls?’

‘You’re joking.’

‘But there’ll be a simple way of finding which number is dialled by the button. Then, a few tenners to some telephone operator and they can work from a number to a name and
address.’

‘Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised.’

Harpur became silent again for a moment, listening. ‘Jack, I don’t want to be hanging about here too long. They might have someone watching. Tell me, have you got an emergency exit
drill? Somewhere nice and distant, preferably abroad, where you can hole up for a little while, say three or four years?’

Lamb had sounded very edgy earlier. Now, though, his traditional cockiness suddenly rolled back, as it always did when Harpur showed worry about him, a full quota of foolhardy, charmed-life
defiance. ‘You know, Col, this isn’t the first time you’ve asked me that.’

‘Might be the last, Jack, if you don’t use it now. These folk are obsessed about secrecy, aren’t they? It’s clear something enormous is hatching. Anyone endangering it is
liable to –’

‘We’ve had these scares so often. And abroad? How do I run my little show from abroad? It might not seem much to you, but it’s all I have and it’s all mine and it’s
taken a lot of devoted building over the years.’

‘Jack –’

‘Don’t fret. Think about that pill box, Col. Think about Britishness. How would it have been if this dear old country had panicked in 1940?’

‘Jack – I wasn’t going to say this, you’ll turn sour, but we’ve had other whispers that something pretty massive is on the cards.’

‘Whispers from where?’

To suggest to Lamb that he was not the only one supplying useful information always confused and enraged him. ‘Where the hell from, these whispers?’ he insisted.

‘I can’t say now. Iles had some intimations. We’ve been sweating over them at his house, as a matter of fact. Trying to make some sense out of very little – hints and
rumours.’

‘Intimations? What sort of ponce word is that, for God’s sake? Does it mean anything?’

‘Not much at present, as I say. We’re trying to puzzle our way through. Iles is worried, and he’s not a worrier. Possibly some kind of gang battle building up?’

‘You’re inventing this lot, aren’t you. Col? All the mystery language, “intimations”, “on the cards”, “hints” – you want to scare me,
yes?’ Jack must be troubled, or he would never have allowed a telephone conversation to continue this long.

‘It’s vague, but something’s going on, Jack. We’re certain. You could be in the middle.’

‘But of what?’

‘Who knows? This is only an antennae reaction, so far. Christ, you understand that sort of thing – a feel that trouble’s around, before you have the facts.’

Lamb did not answer for a while. Then he muttered; ‘Okay, Col. Yes, I know what you mean and I’m going to believe you’re not just teasing. You could be right about taking
cover, and I’ll think it over.’

‘Not for too long.’

‘Helen might not want to go.’ Again he began to sound assertive and sure. ‘She’s very fond of this property, you know. Says it cossets her personality. Cossets is the
word she uses. Nice? The rooms are large and with helpful, springy board floors, so she can practise her entrechats and so on.’

‘Persuasion, Jack. Tell her it’s your skin, and there’s so much of it to be disarranged.’

‘And how do you function as the golden boy detective if I’m not here to feed you?

Now it was Harpur who did not answer.

‘Floored you, Col?’

‘Everything we’re getting now, Benny – information. I mean about wiping out Leo Tacette and both his bloody sons – everything confirms what we had at
the beginning. It’s beautiful,’ Macey said. ‘What we’re seeing is just a grand testament to your careful planning. We all believe, unanimous, that what you deserve, Benny,
is congratulations.’

‘Congratulations, Benny,’ the rest said.

‘We’re not there yet,’ Loxton replied. ‘Nowhere near. But it could be shaping, yes.’

‘Hear that?’ Macey said, chortling. ‘Only shaping! What I say again is this shooting party will be beautiful. The only word.’

Loxton, seated in his favourite old bulging and listing armchair, had on full, white-tie evening dress, with a royal blue cummerbund and a yellow carnation in his buttonhole. ‘Show me,
then, Phil, on the model. We still got that?’

Macey went to his briefcase and brought out a crudely made three-ply representation of what looked like a theatre stage. He stood it on the table. They were in the long, comfortable lounge of
Loxton’s house on the Loam private estate, almost out into the country.

‘Make it quick,’ Loxton said. ‘Alma’s going to be down in a minute, ready for this bloody ball. I don’t want her seeing that.’

‘Understood, Benny.’

‘And don’t call me Benny when she’s here. I told you, she don’t care for it. Just a nickname I picked up in the Navy, being tall. Big Ben, like the clock?’

‘And always right,’ Macey added.

‘Possibly. Anyway, I was christened Theodore.’

‘Okay, Benny.’ Macey now brought from the briefcase three miniature plastic human figures and carefully arranged them on the wooden stage, in a close group, making sure each was
placed correctly. ‘That’s how we was told original Leo and his sons would be standing, and that’s how it still is, Benny, so it’s great the planning’s right on the
nail. That’s important, in view of the fire-point arrangements we had to make. I mean, these three are from a kid’s farmyard set, so when I say Leo and Gerald and Lay-waste will be like
this, they’re not going to be carrying this big whip, or wearing purple riding boots, that’s obvious, but these was the best I could get quick.’

‘Which is which?’ Loxton asked.

‘Well, like I said original, the whole thing is going to be run by Gerald, and he’ll be here, in the middle, with the microphone.’ Macey took a pin from his lapel and stuck it
into the model platform between the three figures. ‘That microphone is the key to it all. They’ve got to gather around it in a nice, tight group. So, all of them smack in the rifle
sights, extremely neat, extremely open. Gerald will make the main speech from the platform, say what great folks his mother and Leo are, and how it’s their silver anniversary, and many of
them, the usual heartfelt, family stuff. Gerald can talk. He had education and used to go to the library, it’s true, I seen him once myself going in there. But he’s only making the
speech. The other boy, Anthony – well, Tony, Lay-waste Tony – he’s going to do the presentations, one the family’s and another from all the friends, what they call friends,
the people who run with them, that means. Tony’s going to be standing here, behind Gerald while he’s making the speech, and the parcels by him on a little table. The present from the
family is what’s called a censer, made of jade? Very religious. Antique. Oriental, or down that way. It’s for burning incense in. Leo and Daphne do much of that? Not that I heard
of.’

‘The presents don’t matter, Phil,’ Loxton said.

‘No. Well, Gerald says these great things about Leo and Daphne, and all the guests are sitting at the tables clapping and saying ‘Hear, hear”, and “Give us a song”,
a seven-course dinner, pheasant, none of your bubble-stuffed frozen turkey, Leo’s paying. But, all right, Benny, that don’t matter, either.’

‘Alma will be here any time, Phil, that’s all.’

‘Right. So, Gerald turns for the big moment of the night, and he calls his dad and mum to come on to the stage for the gifts. Then they climb a couple of steps here, look, and
they’re on the stage, and they walk a few paces till they’re near Lay-waste to take the gifts and say something very elevating and reminiscent into the mike about being married
twenty-five years.’ Macey put a finger on the head of the pin. ‘That’s why they’ll be so close together, like offering theirselves deliberate as targets. It’s
handsome, inspired. I don’t know if Lay-waste ever give anything away in his life before, so maybe he been having training special. He’s great on hold-ups and grabbing, and going wild
with a handgun, but this got to be geniality. So the four of them, the whole poison family, in such a very neat cluster around Lay-waste, that’s Leo, Gerald, Anthony.’ Now, he touched
each of the farmyard personnel. ‘No bodyguards on the stage, just the four of them. Bodyguards would look total bad form, an unforgivable reflection, this being a family affair, family and
staff, all trusted. Would Leo show he can’t even rely on his own people? No. He’ve got to be relaxed, you understand, none of the usual muscleshield or he’s giving foul offence.
They’re on a plate.’

‘One missing?’ Loxton pointed at the toy people.

Macey went over the identifications again; ‘Leo with the whip; then, the purple riding boots, Lay-waste; and the one nursing the piglets, Gerald. I haven’t got Daphne because
we’re not interested in her, are we, Benny? The men are the firm. She’s spare. Pity she has to be there at all, really, we don’t have no quarrel with Daphne, but in silver
weddings, you see, Benny, the wife always turns up. It’s marriage, isn’t it – they’re part of it, too? Of course, she could get hit, I can’t say different. This is
what upset Justin, the idea to kill a woman, and made him act so stupid, trying to leak. There’s going to be a lot of bullets, that’s bound to be, if we’re trying to knock down
decisive three people at once, and shooting from a distance.’

Macey pushed over the three farm workers slowly and one at a time and left them lying on the stage. ‘We have to take them right out, obvious. Injuries could be all right, if we knew for
sure it meant wheelchairs for the rest of their time, or cabbaging their brains, so they’re never going to be able to do more evil against us for their firm, but you can’t tell with
wounds. Doctors have come on such a lot since they let Lord Nelson slip away like that. Our boys won’t have time to worry about Daphne, no denying it. They’ve got to put a real, Quality
Street fusillade in there, something irresistible. But that don’t give Justin excuse for wanting to grass. It’s a pity, but we had to sort him out, no choice.’

‘Too right,’ Loxton said. ‘I’m sad about it, though.’ He gazed at the deep green William Morris wallpaper and shook his head slowly in regret.

‘Yes, I know, Benny. Well, one of your lads, isn’t it?’ Macey replied. ‘You worry about all of us.’

‘That boy, he had such gifts.’

‘Sure. But it’s done now. Look on the bright side, Benny. Think of this evening, God, but you’re going to be the belle of this ball in that gear. What I’d say you
resemble is His Excellency somewhere, one of them colonies, in the old days, yes, His Britannic Excellency waiting for his rickshaw to take him to the club, but staying so cool even in the
cuff-links and waistcoat, and all the maddening heat. Your missus is right. Benny wouldn’t do for what you look like tonight. It got to be Theodore, Benny. You need a name with
dimensions.’

‘Must put on a show. They’ll all be there. Mayors and big business, MPs, swagger-stick cops and medieval pussy from the Women’s Voluntary Charity is a big call, gets everybody
dressing up. Quite right, too. This is what’s known as a good cause. I’m definitely in favour.’

‘What charity, Benny?’ Macey asked.

‘What?’

‘What charity ball specific you going to?’

‘You know, one of them charities – collecting to save something, £60 a double ticket, before the rip-off booze and parking. Me and Alma went last year. She gets very concerned
about . . . what’s it called? – them needy, yes, that’s it, them needy. Or could be whales. Well, a whale got feelings, quite probable. I’m very happy to help. I don’t
mind turning out in these tiddly clothes, and the smiling at everybody and bent raffles, as long as no chamber of trade jerk turns witty and aloof, you know, smart arse, snide remarks about my
business interests, where the money comes from, all that, like they was so spotless, all looking after each other, turning blind eyes. Historians will tell you three-quarters of the House of Lords
was bandits or pimps a couple of centuries ago. Only time have given them the nice accents and prize rhododendrons in their grounds. But it upsets Alma if these pricks get uncivil, I can tell you.
Is that humane, to load rough pain on to someone as sensitive as Alma?’

‘Diabolical. But you can handle it, I know, Benny. What you give them is that gentle but biting repartee? It seems gentle but when they have a think really it’s biting. Everybody
says these sort feel that more than smashing their nose with a head-butt. Known as sophisticated.’