Vacuum (24 page)

‘Has to accept it. What he's heard about her and her contacts up there lately is cast iron, apparently, irrefutable.'

‘Someone punishing Naomi?'

‘That sort of thing. He's able to feel less guilt about it.'

‘Guilt?'

‘He thought he'd brought the attack on her because she was mistaken for him, but also because she was associated with him and his firm. That self-blame has lifted. He's re-emerging. He'd like to go back to the old arrangement here – the two firms working peacefully alongside each other.'

‘He'll take over the running of his company again?'

‘It sickens him to see the way things have gone. The body found in that Valencia house is one of his people, possibly killed by someone wanting the leadership. Manse sees a kind of chaos and waste. He has to return.'

‘And
can
the old arrangement be resumed? What about the new Chief? Isn't he against tolerance – against the Iles policy? He sent that gang to search the house, didn't he?'

‘Which resulted in nothing, in a fiasco. Of course it did. There was nothing to find.'

‘Did you get a warning, though, that it was coming?'

‘I'm sent intimations from their side sometimes.'

‘Who supplies them? Who exactly?'

‘Manse and I think Iles can turn Upton towards sense,' Ralph replied. ‘He'll convince the Chief that Nature abhors a vacuum, and for reasons which have just become obvious. Shale back at work will fill that emptiness, make peace possible again. And I bet Iles has looked into Upton's life and background and found something he can use to pressure him.'

‘Many would find Iles a disgrace.'

‘Many would. Many do.' Ralph put an arm around her shoulders, as he had the other day. She liked it better now, though. ‘There were times lately when I thought you might take the kids and run again,' he said.

She put her own arm around him. ‘That's crazy. Once is enough.'

‘Once is too many.'

THIRTEEN

H
arpur knew that the Assistant Chief's smart skill at charting other people's motives came as part of a more general, brilliant flair in measuring up character. Iles did some measuring up now and, as ever, had it totally right. For once, though, he was too late. He said: ‘I worry about what this will do to Edison Whitehead, Col.'

‘It's bad,' Harpur said. ‘And there's similar stuff on radio and TV news.'

‘Who gabbed?' Iles said. ‘“Sources” are mentioned here. Which fucking sources?' They were in his office. He wore uniform and looked very commanding but edgy. He had the local morning paper on the desk in front of him.

‘Could be paramedics from the ambulance. And there was a doctor, eventually,' Harpur said.

Iles read from the paper. ‘“The body has been identified as that of Michael Redvers Arlington, aged thirty-one, of Peel Street, Lakeside. Sources say he had been shot twice in the face and was found fully clothed in a pink bath on the first floor of one of the abandoned Victorian properties in Gladstone Square, off Valencia Esplanade. Several inches of rain had accumulated in the bath from gaps in the roof, the drainage outlet and pipe having become clogged with fallen plaster. Sources believe the body had been placed in the bath as some kind of macabre joke, the still-preserved, bright-pinkness of the bath – despite vandalism and wear – contrasting strongly with the dark murkiness of the collected water. Mr Arlington is believed to have had connections with the drug trading that takes place in the district known as the Valencia, and had recently assumed hands-on leadership of one of the major firms.”

‘It's the mention of the bath's pinkness, Col – double mention – the jammed plughole, and the filthy water that will distress Edison. Pink is a sneer. If the bath had been white and had some still-preserved bright whiteness, despite vandalism and wear, somehow it wouldn't be so demeaning for his champ.'

For his caudillo. But Harpur didn't tell the ACC that in Whitehead's initial shock and agony at first seeing the body he had for a moment embraced Arlington's extensive, daft, fascist fantasy. To feed Iles this clinching detail would be an insult to the ACC. He had no need of any extra pointer to the state of Edison's soul. Iles's short conversation with him near the pink bath, plus the Assistant Chief's sharp instincts, told him enough.

Iles stood and checked his appearance in the long cheval mirror. He took his cap from a peg. ‘We should go to him, Col.'

‘Both of us?'

‘This is not something to skimp on, Harpur. He'll blame himself for General Franco's death. Edison is the sort. He failed in his duty to protect.'

‘I've told him it wasn't his fault. Arlington went off alone on a big, mock-up African march in the Valencia.'

‘You won't have satisfied Edison. He'll convict himself of slackness. There's a kind of nobility in him. I sensed it at once in the bathroom.' Iles began to tremble and shout-scream and wave both hands around, using a finger on each of them, turn and turn about, to point at Harpur. ‘Nobility is not a quality I see in you, Harpur, nor in anyone who  . . .'

‘I'll find Edison's address in his dossier, sir.' Harpur got the finger from Iles doubled every time, once actual, once in the mirror, where the left became the right and vice versa. It seemed an attack from a multitude of directions.

‘. . . nor in anyone who targets another man's wife, with no regard for  . . .'

‘And then I'll bring the Mazda.'

‘. . . no regard for normal decency or for the respect and fealty due from you to a superior officer. That's what I mean when I refer to Edison's noble nature. He can't bear to think he betrayed General Franco. And you – were you ever conscious of having betrayed me?'

Harpur drove.

Iles said: ‘Put the screamer on.'

Harpur activated the siren and the flashing blue lights on top of the dashboard. He took the speed up to seventy. ‘They'll see us on the Control Room screens and wonder what it's about. The Chief will be told.'

‘There are many things about the Chief I admire, Col.'

‘Which?'

‘Oh, yes, many.'

The bath in Edison Whitehead's red-brick town-house, also at Lakeside, was white, and had not been knocked about by vandals or wear. The dossier said he lived alone after a split from his partner, Graham Lee-Tremayne, a year ago. Iles and Harpur couldn't get any answer when Iles rang the bell. Harpur had some good keys with him and opened the door. Iles called Edison's name in a coaxing, pacifying, very unfrightening tone. After that, the house stayed quiet.

Harpur said: ‘Someone might have phoned him about the newspaper reports and he's gone to get a copy in the supermarket.'

‘Yes, someone might,' Iles said, ‘but we'd better look in the bathroom, I think, don't you, Harpur?'

They went upstairs, Iles calling out Edison's name again, softly. He was in the bath, wearing quite a decent suit and a blue tie with silver stripes. The bath contained about the same amount of water as Arlington had been sitting in at Gladstone Square. This water was red, though. There was blood on the lino-covered floor. One of his arms hung out of the bath, a vein or artery severed. His other arm and hand were in the water, probably with the same sort of damage.

‘He's seen
Godfather Two
,' Iles said. ‘Franky the fink does himself like that. It's how the Romans used to take themselves off if things got too tough. I told you Edison had a noble core.'

Harpur often heard about the
Godfather
and even the God
mother
from his daughters. Now Iles.

The ACC reached into the water and recovered a sizeable kitchen knife. They had closed the front door. The bell rang twice. Harpur went downstairs to open up. Mansel Shale stood on the doorstep, staring past Harpur and up the stairs at Iles, who had the knife in his right hand. ‘Manse!' Iles called. ‘You've been reading the papers, watching the telly, have you?'

‘I had to come round,' Manse said. ‘I knew Edison would be quite upset.'

‘Well, yes,' Iles said.

Harpur stood to one side, and Shale came in and climbed the stairs. He had on a pinstripe, lawyerly suit of superb but old cloth and cut. Manse was known to buy traditional gear from Oxfam because for him they radiated class and history. Iles stood to one side, also, so Manse could enter the bathroom. Iles held the knife pointing downwards at his side and dripping mostly water.

‘This sort of thing hardly ever happened when you were running your outfit, Manse,' Iles said. ‘I mean really running it, not just figure-heading. I know I would have remembered if we'd had two deads in different baths on succeeding days. Col, do you recall anything like that when Manse had the reins?'

‘I took Matilda to school and then came straight here,' Shale replied.

‘In the Jaguar?' Iles said.

‘I've been thinking of taking over again myself,' Shale said. ‘It's terrible to see a firm falling to pieces like this.'

‘Nature abhors a vacuum,' Iles said. He sat down on the side of the bath at the feet end of Edison. ‘Someone else might want to grab the power. Well, someone else might have seen off Arlington.'

‘My mother used to say, “A word is enough for the wise,”' Shale said.

‘Mothers can come out with all sorts of stuff, can't they, Manse?' Iles said.

‘I'll have a word if necessary.'

‘With, say, Jason Ivan Claud Wensley?' Iles asked.

‘That kind of thing, yes,' Shale said. ‘I think he'll see my way is best.'

‘He has chums,' Harpur said.

‘They'll see it, too,' Shale said.

Upton called a mini-conference that afternoon. In the corridor, on their way to it, Iles said: ‘I don't think I'll need the camera material, Col. It would degrade me.'

‘Degrade you how?'

‘This would be an Assistant Chief more or less putting the blackmail screws on a Chief.'

‘Yes.'

‘And it would be based on a misreading of what he was up to. He only wanted to quiz Honorée, not hire her. It would be unfair to him. Also, I wouldn't want it suggested anywhere that he'd moved in on a girl of mine.'

‘She's not yours. She was with Neville last time I saw her.'

‘That's different from Sir Matthew.'

‘How?'

‘You're not one for fine points, Harpur. “Decorum” is a mystery word to you.'

‘He wanted to quiz her so as to damage you.'

‘But he's the Chief, Harpur. That's what Chiefs are like – what helps
make
them Chiefs.'

The three of them sat in armchairs in Upton's suite. He said: ‘Perhaps we've been going at this thing too fast, too head-on.'

‘Excuse me, which thing, sir?' Iles inquired.

‘The substances trade. These deaths – Arlington, now Whitehead. I didn't expect that sort of result.'

‘Very unfortunate,' Iles said.

‘And nothing came of the Low Pastures search,' Upton said.

‘No, sir,' Harpur said.

‘Perhaps there's something to be gained from a more gradual approach,' Upton said, ‘though with the same ultimate aim.'

‘It's odd, sir, but Col Harpur and I were just saying the same on our way here.'

‘Yes, I expect so,' Upton said.

In the evening, Karen Lister called at Harpur's house. His vision of her dead face with the teeth on show was a mistake, then. There'd been two deaths, but neither hers: Franco and Edison instead. Jill opened the door when Karen rang. She wouldn't come in, though, but spoke on the doorstep once Harpur appeared in the hall to greet her. He sent Jill back into the living room and closed that door.

‘What's going to happen to Jason?' she said.

‘We're looking at a whole lot of angles,' Harpur said.

‘Yes, but what will happen to him?'

‘We're looking at a whole lot of angles,' Harpur said.

She turned and walked fast away.

When Harpur returned to the living room, Jill said: ‘Is she going to be calling at the house often? Denise might have been here, you know. She said she'll come at about half past seven.'

‘Yes, I do know,' Harpur said. ‘Great.'