I Am Gold

by Bill James

  They had one more brandy. And then she’d said: ‘Shall we go now, Manse?’ He could tell at once that this was not a question but a blessed let’s-do-it signal. She put her initials on the bill, no big deal flourish, just a quick jot of the two letters, N.G. He thought some folk in the restaurant who knew her job might wonder if he was a celebrity giving an interview during the meal, but one they couldn’t quite recognize. TV actors had to wear wigs or sunglasses or, in old-type plays, plastic warrior helmets that hid most of their face, and perhaps they’d look quite different having lunch here in a Tirrel and Clay single-breasted.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  2009

  The negotiator’s phone rang as Harpur came back into the command caravan after talking to Adrian Morrison Overdale. ‘Hello, John, how are things with you now, then?’ the negotiator said. Harpur thought the greeting, regreeting, fizzed with emptiness and formula. Naturally it did. It came from the manual – Besieging for Dummies, or something like. And, just as naturally, this boy, this boy ‘John’ in there could recognize smooth-textured bullshit. Very likely these calls would contain nothing but. In fact, perhaps ultimately there’d be so much he would get disorientated by it, half smothered by it, gently and mercilessly chinwagged into collapse and surrender by it. But, maybe he recognized this hazard and left the phone dead for spells while he got his breath back.

  Now he spoke, though. ‘Things are fine, Olly. As they were. But thanks so much for asking.’ The phone was on to Conference, so everyone could hear him.

  ‘“Fine. As they were.” Good,’ the negotiator said.

  ‘How come you repeat everything?’

  ‘You ask, why do I repeat everything?’

  ‘Why do you repeat it when I ask why do you repeat it? That’s not a conversation, it’s an echo. Is it to give you time to think, or to lull, or annoy, or what?’

  ‘To show clearly, “Message received and understood,” John, and that the message is respected, word by acknowledged word. To show we’re pleased things are fine and as they were. I’m glad you called. We’re going to have to talk food and drink soon. Can we make some arrangements for bringing you, and those with you, food and drink?’

  ‘We’re all right.’

  ‘Are you all all right, John?’

  ‘Yes, we’re all all right.’

  ‘We’re happy you’re all all right, John.’

  ‘I can feel the glow of your happiness from here.’

  ‘You’re satirical, but I assure you, John, what I say is true. We want you to be all right, and those with you.’

  ‘Especially those with me.’

  ‘There’s someone particular who’d like to speak to you,’ the negotiator replied.

  ‘Police? I mean, higher police than you?’

  ‘No. Not police. But special, John.’

  ‘Not a priest, or some other sort of holy Joe?’

  ‘No, not a priest or some other sort of holy Joe. That’s not our area.’

  ‘What is your area?’

  ‘What we have here is someone who thinks he might know one of the people with you. That is, the lady who was not already in the shop, but walking by at the time of your arrival there.’

  ‘The one I grabbed?’

  ‘The one who was walking by at the time of your arrival there.’

  ‘Why didn’t you repeat “the one I grabbed”, like you repeat everything else? Are you scared of “grabbed”?’

  ‘The one you grabbed, then. Our visitor thinks he might know the one you grabbed. Have you got a name for the one you grabbed?’

  ‘I haven’t got a name for any of them. Why should I?’

  ‘Why should you? Yes.’

  ‘“Yes.” Always you agree with me, don’t you, Olly? “Repeat what he says, agree with what he says.” This is how you were taught on the negotiator course, is it? What’s the objective? Keep me sweet and harmless – until you decide not to, and come storming, a battalion of you?’

  ‘“Come storming”? That’s the last thing we want, believe me, John.’

  ‘I do believe you, Olly. It’s last, and very dicey all round, but it’s on the list, isn’t it?’

  ‘I would have thought you’d know the names, at least the first names, in case you wanted to give different instructions to one or other of the people in there with you.’

  ‘You’d have thought that, would you?’

  ‘That’s what I would have thought.’

  ‘They all get the same instructions. It’s “Do what I tell you or …”’

  ‘Will you ask whether one of the people with you is called Veronica Susan Cleaver, aged thirty-two? Veronica Susan Cleaver, thirty-two.’

  ‘This would be the one I grabbed, would it?’

  ‘Yes, the one you grabbed.’

  ‘Is she special, then?’

  ‘“Is she special?” I expect all the people in there with you are special to someone, John.’

  ‘Touching, Olly.’

  ‘It’s true, though. All the people in there with you must be special to someone, or special to more than one, John.’

  ‘Well, I certainly fucking hope so.’

  ‘You “hope so”?’

  ‘I fucking hope so.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘Hostages wouldn’t be much use if nobody cared about them, would they, Olly? If nobody cared about them they wouldn’t count in any deals, would they, because who’d bother whether they were alive or dead? But maybe you think you don’t have to do deals with me. I’m stuck here, surrounded, outgunned.’

  ‘Ah! They “wouldn’t be much use if nobody cared about them.” I suppose you’re right, John. “They wouldn’t count in any deals, would they, because who’d bother whether they were alive or dead?” I haven’t thought of it like that before.’

  ‘What do you mean, “Ah” – like a revelation? Of course you’ve thought of it like that before. It’s why you and your boys and girls are out there with their guns and dogs. It’s because you care about the hostages. You don’t want dead hostages on your ground, do you? Not nice for your boss-man’s career. You’re too delicate even to call them hostages, aren’t you, Olly?’

  ‘It’s only a matter of terminology.’

  ‘It’s a matter of trying to knock me. It’s a matter of not admitting I’ve got bargaining chips.’

  ‘I find it hard to think of people as bargaining chips, John.’

  ‘Oops, so sorry. Think of them as aces then.’

  ‘“Aces.” There are four aces in a pack. Have you got four people in the shop with you?’

  ‘Oh, Olly, you’re so quick.’

  ‘Have you got four people in the shop with you?’

  ‘Oh, Olly, you’re so quick.’

  ‘And then something else you said, John,’ the negotiator replied. ‘You said, “Maybe you think you don’t have to do deals with me.” This, surely, is not true. Why else do we want to keep this telephone line open? Why do we regret it when you cut that contact?’

  ‘You aim to wear me down.’

  ‘Veronica Susan Cleaver, aged thirty-two,’ the negotiator said. ‘Could you ask, please, John, whether that is the woman you grabbed?’

  ‘I’ll have to think about this.’

  ‘We realize you’ll have to think about it.’

  ‘I’d need to work out what’s behind it, wouldn’t I, Olly?’

  ‘“Need to work out what’s behind it.” In which sense, John? “What’s behind it” in which sense?’

  ‘Yes, work out what’s behind it,’ he replied.

  ‘As I said, John, we have someone here who thinks he might know her. It’s to put his mind at rest.’

  ‘I don’t have to worry about his mind. I’ve got my own stuff to worry about.’

  ‘We realize that, John, but –’

  ‘How will it put his mind at rest if it is her?’

  ‘If it isn’t.’

  ‘But if it is?’

  ‘So you see why we’d like you to ask her
,’ the negotiator said.

  ‘I’d have to think about this – as to what’s behind it.’

  Rockmain sat close to the negotiator, gazing through a one-way window at the charity shop. Harpur thought it was as if Rockmain believed he could control the talk between the shop and the van by his nearness to this end of it, and by massive, thrumming, bulldozing willpower radiating from him, despite his measly body: he seemed clenched in concentration, shoulders bent forward, bony, childlike. He didn’t speak, but occasionally, as he listened to the negotiator and John, looked down from the window and made a note on his pad. He knew how experts were expected to conduct themselves on an operation. Although not Gold, he needed to show he wasn’t clinker, either.

  Dodd had a seat not far from him. There’d been that moment of impatience with the pointless chatter in the van, and Harpur thought he still seemed in a frantic rage, though managing to hold back for now. He’d gasp occasionally at some of John’s statements and replies. Dodd obviously didn’t spot the music and slick patterns in the talk. He’d hear from John only evasion and dangerous nerviness. And from the negotiator he’d hear idiotic and dangerous tolerance, feeble and dangerous dither.

  Iles, like Harpur, was standing. The ACC also watched the shop, through another of the one-way windows. He’d be listening as well, of course. He didn’t make notes. He didn’t need to make notes. After one hearing Iles would be able to quote verbatim the whole chat, including pauses and coughs. He despised this talent, regarded it as possible evidence of a bad lack. What was that astounding memory but a kind of serfdom? Did it make him a prisoner to what others said? Could he only follow, only parrot, not originate?

  Occasionally, when clobbered by one of his loud, long, sobbing moods of self-pity, the Assistant Chief might put these questions to Harpur, and he would consider, and take quite a heavy-going time with his answer, giving proper attention to the many fine points. Then he’d always reply along the lines of, ‘You can come up with some very deep discussion topics, sir, very deep. Nobody would deny that. Nuances – you’re a dab hand at nuances.’

  Rockmain found a fresh sheet of paper in his pad and swiftly wrote something. With no sound he tore this page free and passed it to the negotiator. As it moved between the two, Harpur, looking down, could see that the message seemed to be in capital letters. It began ‘ASK HIM WHETHER HE’S AFRAID TO DISCOVER –’ but Harpur didn’t have time to get whatever came afterwards because the negotiator took the note and his head and body obscured it. The negotiator said: ‘I wondered, John, whether you are afraid to discover the names of the people with you because this would sort of humanize them too much, make them objects of possible pity, weaken your control over them.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, Olly, I already know they’re human. Oh, yes. That shock you? What else would they be?’

  The negotiator glanced at Rockmain. It looked as though the upper-case prompt from him didn’t go beyond that one question. The negotiator seemed confused, at a loss about how to deal with come-backs. His uneasiness perhaps explained why some hostage situation experts demanded that the negotiator should be strictly and totally isolated from all the rest of the siege party. ‘What I meant, John, ‘he said, ‘was –’

  ‘You’re trying to soften me, aren’t you, Olly? Or someone with you there is trying to soften me. You’re saying that, really, under it all, I’m no cold brute, and it’s unnatural for me to be putting the hostages through it like this. You want to plant a sentimental seed in my head, so that, in a while, I’ll turn nice and cooperative, ready for self-sacrifice – in the cause of humanity.’

  Rockmain mouthed: ‘Fuck, fuck, the smartarse fuck.’ Harpur took that to be an admission John read the psychotactics right. Iles leaned over and tapped Rockmain on the arm. When Rockmain turned towards him Iles pantomimed a lavatorial scene, holding his nose with one hand and pulling an imaginary flush chain with the other: his thoughts on Rockmain’s intervention.

  This bit of infantile play-acting must have infuriated Dodd again. He’d obviously decided the siege leadership was flippant and undirected, no leadership at all, just like kids fooling and competing. He stood and moved very fast to the negotiator who seemed still half muddled and off-guard after the reply from John. Dodd grabbed at the telephone receiver. He surprised the negotiator, but not quite enough, not quite enough to take the receiver from him. The negotiator held on. There was a struggle. Dodd, though, had the maddened strength to pull the phone, still in the negotiator’s hand, close to his lips for a few moments. He yelled: ‘John, you bastard, you’ve got my lover in there and I want her out. You hear me? You’ve no right. I want her out. She’s sick and I want her out. I’m coming for her now, you rotten, murdering thug.’

  ‘What? What?’ John screamed through the amplified phone line. ‘Coming here? Are you looking for a bullet, you twat?’

  But Dodd let go of the receiver and stepped to the door of the van, pulled it open and rushed out. Although Rockmain howled a protest, Dodd began running up the road towards the shop. He had no coordination. His legs looked about to buckle. His arms windmilled. When he had covered a few yards Iles left the van and charged after him. Rockmain stood up, and with a kind of lunge, made a useless attempt to stop Iles. The ACC broke Rockmain’s limp grip as if it wasn’t there. Iles still refereed rugby games and probably played himself when younger. He had strength and some speed. Outside, he very quickly gained on Dodd and brought him down heavily on to the tarmac, though not with a classic rugby tackle. He didn’t go for the wobbly legs. Instead, Iles flung himself on to Dodd’s back, arms around his neck and waist, encompassing him, the way a JCB’s grab claws might descend on an outcrop rock. Also, Harpur was reminded of TV safari programmes – a leopard or cheetah leaping on to its prey, enveloping it, halting it, forcing it to totter, then helplessly drop, under the extra weight. In the same way, Iles floored Dodd.

  It wasn’t only a matter of stopping him, though. The ACC’s body lying on top of his would shield Dodd if John panicked and started shooting. As Harpur knew, Iles could be more than a memory man. Iles had declared himself Gold, and Gold brought noblesse oblige responsibilities towards his team and hangers-on, Dodd being one of the hangers-on.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  2007

  Manse felt really glad Naomi was not staying at his house when Egremont Lake, Denzil’s brother, called there. This was an ex-rectory, for God’s sake – well, yes, for God’s sake until the church sold up – but he just rolled in from Hackney wearing a foul, pricey, two-vent sports jacket, no phone call or anything like that to ask if it would be convenient or suitable. He reckoned because he was who he was he would be welcomed all over, even at an ex-rectory. ‘Protocol’ was another word Manse had come across not long ago and greatly liked on account of all them o’s strung out so tidy in a line, though separated, and sweetly cooperating with one another in the changing ‘o’ sounds, but, obviously, that sod Egremont didn’t give a twopenny fuck for protocol.

  It happened like this: Manse heard the sound of a vehicle and when he looked from his den window saw a silver Bentley convertible pulling up on the drive. Manse had the idea that in the old days rectors wrote their reports to the bishop, and sermons and testimonials and that kind of thing in this den, as Manse called it – really, a study. He’d bet no fucking rector ever looked out of the window here and saw someone such as Egremont, with that jaw as big as a sideboard, arrive on the property in, admittedly, first class lace-up black shoes, seen when he walked to the front door, or strutted, more like.

  He would know Manse’s address. Denzil used to have a flat at the top of the house, and was still living there at the time he passed away so unexpected by some, because of them pistols going off simultaneous towards his personal throat. Denz had always been very thorough. He was known for it, respected for it. If you mentioned Denz’s name among commerce people anywhere in Britain, including Cotswold villages, and even abroad, on the French Riviera, for instance, someone would remark, �
�So thorough, Denzil,’ or the same in the language of the other country. Manse thought it might of been tricky explaining to Naomi who Egremont Lake was, especially in that jacket. It could of meant telling her, also, about Egremont’s late brother. A while ago, it had seemed wise for Denz, as Manse’s driver and bodyguard then, to be handy, accommodated on the premises. He had changed into a traitorous sod, the traitorous sod. But when he first took the flat, Manse had trusted him totally more or less, regardless of what he looked like.

  Although Naomi had spent quite a few spells at the rectory in the last couple of weeks, she’d said she had to pop back to London yesterday for some work matter with the celebrity sheet, and Manse didn’t see no reason not to believe this was the true reason. Consultants had to be there to be consulted now and then. It looked like Egremont drove from London hisself, or at least the last part of it. A heavy had the passenger seat. The man stayed in the car. But Egremont left the Bentley and came over to ring the front door bell, arms swinging, head up, a bit of a smile on, staring around at the house and gardens. Anyone watching him would think he had a complete right to visit, the brassy-necked bastard. That’s how people from London could be – full of theirselves, no idea of decorum or protocol. You’d think the strength needed to move his jaw for the smile, even a small smile, would exhaust him, like weight-lifting or mouth-breathing in a cross-Channel swim, but, no, he seemed nimble.

  The jacket was basically earth brown, though with yellow, red, green and mauve flecks in it. Most likely someone in London had told him squires in the counties wore this kind of sick gear with a flap at the back to go over the saddle when cantering across acres, known as hacking. Perhaps he wanted to merge, although not on horseback. Maybe squires did go out dressed like that in defiance, not caring a fish’s tit in a squirely way what ordinary people thought about the rotten mess of colours. It was a change from that nearly-OK dark suit at the funeral. The heavy did have one of them on, though – ‘Regalia’, as some called it, because Reggie Kray used to dress very formal like that. Obviously, Manse couldn’t tell yet whether Egremont owned the Bentley or had hired it for status show. Shale could of had a Bentley or more than one, but who wanted to seem flash, like some football star?