Undercover (29 page)
Authors: Bill James
He said: âBoth Harpur and I thought that not enough attention had been given to Claud Norman Rice. Her Majesty's Customs and Inland Revenue put him under continuous watch for a while following an observed courier job to Robert Hillcrest Cochrane, age thirty-three, at Emblem Court, but he'd become aware of that, decided on precautions, and therefore offered no further leads. The surveillance was abandoned. Harpur considered this slack, almost perverse.'
Actually, it had been Iles who considered it â
fucking
slack and almost
fucking
perverse', but, again, Harpur let that go.
âAccordingly, we went to see Claud Norman at twenty-seven Delbert Avenue. He lived alone, pending release of his partner from Long Lartin. He was cooperative to a degree. He felt reasonably in the clear.'
Iles had recorded this interview and played the tape now on the lecture room machine. âHarpur speaks first â as ever,' Iles said. Harpur did, but was soon pushed aside by Iles's genius and relentlessness.
Harpur:
âI'd like to talk to you about your visit to Emblem Court.'
Rice:
âYes?'
Harpur:
âYou arrived in a Lexus and had a trolley case.'
Rice:
âIs either of those an offence?'
Harpur:
âWhat was in it on your return?'
Rice:
âA private matter. Not socks.'
Iles:
âExcuse me while I have a muted guffaw. Norm, there's nothing we appreciate more than humour from those wishing â as you do â to give us help. I'll get over it shortly. Now then, I have the feeling you knew you were being observed during this Emblem Court visit. The thorough look-around you performed suggested this, some concentration on the van, at least when you arrived.'
Rice:
âOf course. That crazy Acme stuff.'
Iles:
âYes, such alertness is what one would expect of a veteran professional like you, Norman.'
Rice:
âProfessional what?'
Iles:
âYou're someone who has through skilled functioning acquired a CT hatchback five-door Lexus, a pleasant property in Delbert Avenue and a long-term partner, Cornelius Maximilian Hughes-Temperley, aged twenty-five. We know we are dealing with someone deft, experienced, discerning. But to move o.: I have the feeling, too, that your host, Cochrane /Spence, had spotted the van. He'd be very watchful. This is an almost inescapable deduction. He'd have an eye continually on the road outside.'
âRic.:
âMore “of course”. It's natural to the trade he's in. He was van-wise even before I rang his bell at sixteen.'
Iles:
âRight. To take this a little further, thoug.: I have to tell you, Norm, that it's my belief â my suspicion â that he asked his wife, Fern, also thirty-three, to tail this van. Harpur and I have seen Home Office film of her leaving from the rear of the Emblem Court building. There was a mobile call from him to you saying when she was in place, so you could make the visit to sixteen, and there'd be the means to check the van's travels afterwards.'
Rice:
âPerhaps.'
Iles:
âThe Customs people, in their slipshod style, considered the exit by Fern of no significance â a shopping trip.'
Rice:
âWell, I suppose in one aspect that was true â she was going to shop the van and its driver, wasn't she?'
Iles:
âIt's amazing the ease with which you see humour in many a situation, Norm! This helps give you a very rounded personality, much appreciated by Cornelius, I should think, when not banged up. Getting back to Emblem, though: eventually, there was quite a convoy of vehicles on the way to Tom's home groun.: the van, two Customs cars â an Astra and a Citroën â and Fern in the Land Rover.'
Rice:
âI don't know all sides of it, but Fern went.'
Iles:
âAnd my impression is, my intuition is, that she managed to stick with the van on that fifty or so miles until it reached Wilton Road. Very skilled tracking. She didn't get stymied by the mysterious lay-by stop on the way.'
Rice:
âFern's quite a capable piece.'
Iles:
âShe's at Wilton ahead of the increased Customs influx that would arrive next day, does her own bit of door knocking or other inquiring, and finds out who lives at number eleven. Answer â Tom Mallen, a detective sergeant, who hasn't been seen around his home or the area lately.'
Rice:
âSomething like that, I expect.'
Iles:
âThe information goes from her to Cochrane/Spence, from him to you, obviously, and then, I feel sure, from you to Leo Percival Young, aged forty-two, because you knew you weren't much favoured by him and wanted to win him ove.: you're asking him to forgive and forget the Scray connection. “Here's the gift of hot, very confidential insights, Leo, dear.” You'd probably guess that the van had one of his people in it, one of his people who'd behaved in a worrying, unexplainable way. You're telling him about a betrayal of some sort. This good turn vastly strengthens your position vis-Ã -vis L.P. Young.'
Rice:
âLike that, yes. This was extremely vis-Ã -vis.'
Iles:
âLeo is staggered, appallingly hurt, because he thought he'd personally picked a great lad in Tom Parry, a potential heir. This is super-disloyalty.'
Rice:
âHe was terribly upset and enraged. He said what had happened involved a disgusting insult to the “living integrity” of the van â “the fucking acme of insults” was one phrase.'
Iles:
âResult? Leo ordered the killing. He'd be in touch with his contact, contacts, inside the local force and tell them of the danger â an undercover guy who might know . . . might know a barrel-full. Nobody knew
what
he knew. Actually, it wasn't much, but this they couldn't tell at the time, of course. Leo advises this contact, these contacts, that he's got a trade hunt for Scray lined up and it can be the opportunity to do Tom and conveniently make that appear a Scray act of battle. He'll inform Empathy Abidan, who must have been hellish nervy on the car trip â Tom a passenger with him and doomed. Then, of course, the yelling and screaming at the getaway Volvo. He knows Tom won't be coming. Ever. Jamie Meldon-Luce doesn't know it and so wants to wait. Abidan takes the car and in a semi-fit does all that pavement damage.'
Rice:
âNone of this can I confirm, obviously. You're speculating now, Mr Iles.'
Iles:
âGood speculating?'
Rice:
âSpeculating.'
Iles:
âSpeculating very credibly?'
Rice: âSpeculating. Leo is free, has never been charged. How could he be? Where's the evidence that would stand any chance in court? It's all make-believe and what-ifery. I'm back full scale with his firm now. So's Justin, of course. He decided it was safer. So it is.'
Iles switched off the machine. âMeanwhile,' he said, âas a result of the Customs sweep up near Wilton Road, Harpur imagines this bolshie neighbour ringing the local police to complain about mysterious, allegedly-media people looking for Mallen. And possibly â separately â including Fern Cochrane. She'd have been around asking questions. Someone high there who knows Tom is undercover on the other ground sees the dangers in this and gets in touch with his handler fifty odd miles away. That's Howard Lambert. He would be shocked and furious, and regard the breach of discipline by Tom as irreparable. But possibly there were no arrangements for a meeting with him, or a safe phoning time, for a few days. And, during those few days and nights, the building site offered its facilities. A mess-up of mess-ups â not at all rare in undercover.
âWe talked to Lambert, obviously. He wouldn't admit he'd been told about Tom and the van. I have to be careful what I say here. There are libel laws. But let's put it in general terms: if a handler is told his man has been blown, that handler ought to disregard any previous agreements for meetings or calls and get to the undercover officer somehow, anyhow, and tell him to disappear. Delay should be unthinkable.
âNow, I said that the officer from Tom's home force would, in Harpur's scenario, have got in touch with Lambert. We have to ask how he would get in touch. Phone â landline, mobile? Leaks possible?' Iles gave a small, modest, forgive-me-do wave. âAll this last bit is admittedly a guess. Norm dubbed it “what-ifery”. Or what I called, when talking to Rice, “intuition” â in this part of the narrative, Harpur-type intuition, but very, very feasible, I'd say. My own dogged imaginings about the discovery by Fern, and Harpur's suggestion of the interchange between the two nicks, are what enabled us to take further Maud's belief that the killer might be a police officer, narrowing down the options. There is still a place in detective work for inspired conjecture, thank God.'
There were questions at the end of Iles's address. Another Assistant Chief, hair receding fast, wizened, rasping said: âBut, excuse me, you were sent there, weren't you, to find out why local inquiries were taking so long â were possibly going to take for ever. The target was not just the detective inspector sniper but someone, or maybe more than one, above the inspector, who had decided to see there was no progress on the Mallen/Parry case because all kinds of disclosures might ensue. Those “let's imagine” games from you and Harpur â are of no real significance, are they? The inference I drew was this: the Home Office considered the corruption went higher than Jaminel and was considerably more ingrained and ranging than could be dealt with by conviction of one middle-rank officer. I heard, didn't I, that the Metropolitan's psychologist, Andrew Rockmain, was brought in early? He's hardly one to be involved in anything of low priority, such as mid-rank corruption. With respect, Iles, would you say you'd caught the sprat but not the mackerel?'
âOf course I'd say it, cliché or not, baldy,' Iles replied. âIt's what the fucking tape tells us, isn't it? Weren't you listening, you shagged-out dolt?'
Harpur said: âYes, we couldn't get Jaminel to disclose who had been looking after him, giving him protection â how far up it went, how widespread, what kind of working arrangement with L.P. Young, and which officers were participating. He was more scared of retaliation than of jail. We kept at it, but the confession was as far as he'd go. We failed,' Harpur said.
Iles said: âIn fact, our evidence against Jaminel wasn't all that strong â the shooting accuracy and the false alibi he presented. But Col's remarkably focused, forceful, though fair interrogation destroyed him.'
In fact it had been Iles's ability to outsmart and confuse Jaminel that had done most to destroy him. Once more, though, Harpur let it go. âWe had a little success,' he said. âOn the biggie, we failed.'
âNo, no, you're not one to fail, Col,' Maud cried out. You're not . . . well . . . not built to fail.
âThanks, Maud,' Harpur said. âIt's good to have you on . . .' He'd been going to say âon my side'. He changed it, though, to: âOn our side.'
Perhaps she detected the scurried revamp. Maud gave a small pursing of the lips, a wince, more or less, and turned away in an abrupt move, making her necklace rattle slightly.
âCol sees everything very straight,' Iles said. âIt's a tic of his. This time, he's right.'
SEVEN
1
See
In The Absence Of Iles
2
See
Halo Parade
3
See
Roses, Roses
4
See
Halo Parade
5
See
Roses, Roses