Girls

by Bill James

  ‘Dismal slackness is hardly a quality anyone would associate with you, sir.’

  Iles sat down in one of the red leather easy chairs. He crossed his legs carefully and had a fond glance at his tan slip-ons which were worth plenty of fond glances for their cost. ‘Shale,’ he said.

  ‘Manse?’

  ‘Those eyes – just right for spying out of a back window.’

  ‘Ferrety.’

  ‘I obviously decided not to interrupt, just observed.’

  ‘This was policing of quite a standard, if I may say, sir.’

  ‘It’s policing. It’s also friendship, Col.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I suppose some would expect me to be at least indifferent and possibly vindictive in view of what you and my wife –’

  ‘What’s he waiting for, though, sir?’ Harpur said.

  ‘Jill comes along and I’d say spots him.’

  ‘She reacts?’

  ‘The child’s too clever for that. Your wife must have given them very good brain power, Harpur.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘No, I think Jill spots him but conceals it absolutely, just continues on, as if unaware. But in a while she comes back out and takes another glance, again without seeming to. Smartness on smartness. I think in any case Manse might have been on the floor this time, doing a cower in case detected and possibly eyes down, unable to tell what Jill saw or didn’t. She continues and goes out of sight. Mobile phone to Hazel? Shale gets back up and the next thing is, Hazel comes out, has a short walk, returns, then reappears with her bike and pedals off in the opposite direction. Manse wants to tail and has to get to the front seat and turn the car. While he’s doing that, a red Clio, two men in it, pulls out ahead and also seems to follow Haze. You’ll think I’d been damn remiss there – concentrating on Shale.’

  ‘It’s natural, sir, since you would recognize him.’

  ‘Kind, Col. But I’d say, fucking remiss.’

  ‘You’re severe with yourself, sir.’

  ‘I am, I am, Col. At Staff College I was sometimes known as Self-Scourging Desmond.’

  ‘You drove behind Shale? There’s a convoy of three vehicles? Did you get a number for the Clio?’

  ‘We go to the bus station. They both park near the café. I can’t risk that. Shale would recognize me. Perhaps the two in the Clio, also. So, I park in one of the bus bays and soon have to tell a coach company inspector to go fuck himself because I’m staying there, a flourish of warrant card.’

  ‘This would be untypical of you – the coarseness and flourish, sir – but necessary in the circumstances.’

  ‘Speaking of coarseness, I see Hazel come out on to the balcony and give the people in the Clio the “Get stuffed” finger. This is a remarkable girl, Col – as I’ve always thought.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘In which sense, sir?’

  ‘Do you know she’s a remarkable girl or do you know that I’ve always thought her a remarkable girl?’

  ‘Both,’ Harpur said. ‘Did you get a number for the Clio?’

  ‘I recall asking you just after Chilton Park about Hazel’s boyfriend and the danger he might get pulled into things,’ Iles replied. ‘I expect you’d considered that anyway but kept quiet about it, in that miserably furtive way of yours. These vehicles – the Clio, Manse’s Focus – are they a pointer somehow to involvement? Track Hazel and they get to the boyfriend. This would be their thinking. Is that why you’re so concerned about the Clio?’

  ‘You have descriptions of the men?’

  ‘Whether she’d also known about Shale behind the Clio I can’t say,’ Iles replied.

  ‘Or you behind Shale.’

  ‘I’m rather an accomplished tail, you know, Harpur. I don’t make much of it. This is a minor skill, and rarely used as an ACC. But it’s there still.’

  ‘Was there a name for you as a tail at Staff College?’ Harpur said.

  ‘And did Hazel speak of any of this when she came home?’ Iles replied.

  ‘She and her pals treated it very lightly. They soon seemed to forget all that and began to rehearse a play for school.’

  ‘Which play?’

  ‘About someone hating his wife because she’s so good-looking and pleasant and doesn’t get ratty about the British class system.’

  ‘Look Back in Anger? Is Hazel in it?’

  ‘The wife.’

  ‘But could anyone hate Hazel?’ Iles said.

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘True, Col. That’s Hazel per se as Hazel. But might some hate Hazel because Haze’s boyfriend is Scott? I’ve wondered about that.’

  ‘I’d begun to wonder if you’d wondered about it. And?’

  ‘I’d be inclined to hate anyone who hated Hazel.’

  ‘Yes. And?’

  ‘Well, here’s Hazel and some others now, Col!’ Iles cried. ‘These big windows are grand for gazing out as well as in.’ Harpur looked and saw Hazel, Jill, Scott Grant and Jill’s boyfriend, Darren, on the short front garden path. Hazel let them in with her key and they all came into the sitting room. ‘Here’s a treat,’ Iles cried. ‘We were just talking about the school play, Look Back in Anger. Sometimes I see myself as akin to one of those post-war stage figures, alienated by a world of banality, degrading compromise and selfishness.’

  ‘A neighbour is out in her porch and told us somebody was shouting up at the front bedroom here not long ago like a maniac,’ Darren said.

  ‘It’s that kind of area,’ Iles replied.

  ‘Is Denise here?’ Hazel said. ‘I saw her car.’

  ‘Upstairs,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Oh?’ Hazel said.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re dressed like that, dad,’ Jill said.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting people here,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Is that an answer?’ Jill replied.

  ‘In the sense that I wouldn’t be around with just an overcoat on if I’d known people would turn up,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Didn’t you know Denise would turn up?’ Hazel said.

  Jill said: ‘We got fed up with the judo club. Too crowded. So we came back to watch the athletics on telly.’

  ‘The neighbour told us this loony was throwing coins up at a bedroom window,’ Darren said.

  ‘Streets like this are much more spontaneous than where I live,’ Iles said. ‘In a street like this, I feel a kind of . . . what would I call it? A kind of . . .’

  ‘Realness?’ Harpur said.

  ‘No, no, not realness,’ Iles replied. ‘That would be nonsensical. Any street is real. What else could it be? In a street like this I feel a kind of cheek-by-jowlness.’

  ‘I didn’t know Denise was coming around today,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Yes, she came around,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘I love the conversation here,’ Iles said.

  ‘Now, you’re police, aren’t you, Mr Iles, like Mr Harpur?’ Darren said.

  ‘Not exactly like Mr Harpur but, yes, police.’

  ‘I want to ask you something – you or Mr Harpur,’ Darren said. ‘Scott wouldn’t ask, although it’s about him. He wouldn’t ask because – well, I don’t know why he wouldn’t. I just know he wouldn’t. This is about something his mother said. His mother said she thought somebody had been in their house when they were out and had been searching around. I said she should tell the police but she said no because she doesn’t trust the police.’

  ‘There are people like that,’ Iles said.

  ‘She said it might have been the police,’ Darren replied.

  ‘Might have been the police what?’ Iles asked.

  ‘Searching,’ Darren said.

  ‘For?’ Iles said.

  ‘She didn’t say, just it might have been. That’s her view. Nothing was taken from the house. This is what makes her think like that, I suppose. What I wanted to ask you, Mr Iles, and Mr Harpur, do you think she should tell the police? Was I right?’

&
nbsp; ‘Mrs Grant never liked police,’ Jill said. ‘I don’t know why.’

  ‘What do you say, Scott?’ Iles asked.

  ‘About?’ Scott said. That was how he usually talked to Iles: a snarl, meaning above all, Stay away from Hazel you ACPO jerk. He was as big as Iles, fair hair worn cropped, a bit sharp-nosed and big-chinned, eyes blue and not always friendly or even interested.

  Iles said: ‘One: Do you think someone did a house search? Two: If so, who? Three: Also, if so, should your parents report it?’

  ‘What makes Mrs Grant think someone looked around the house?’ Jill said.

  ‘Like a feeling your mother had, wasn’t it, Scott?’ Darren said. He’d be a couple of years younger than Scott, thin-faced, hair sandy to auburn, as tall as Scott but slighter.

  ‘A feeling’s not much,’ Jill said. She was getting ready to make tea. They all sat around the room. Denise came in from upstairs, nicely made up and dressed again and carrying Harpur’s clothes and shoes.

  Iles said: ‘Ah, Denise.’ They’d met occasionally when he called around to Arthur Street. ‘We were just discussing a sort of public–police interconnection matter. Scott’s mother thinks their house was searched. Should she make a to-do through us? That’s the debate, you see. But, bear in mind as to “us”, that Mrs Grant thinks it might be us who did it. If that were so, Mrs Grant would obviously regard it as pointless to bring a complaint to . . . to the same us. Do you remember that scene in the US police film, The Choirboys, where an apartment dweller goes next door to protest about the din and threatens to call the police, and the people making the din say, “We are the police.”?’

  Denise said: ‘Why does Scott’s mother believe the house was searched? What evidence?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Jill said. ‘Ever hear of persecution mania, Darren?’ She left to make the tea. Harpur crossed the room and took his clothes and shoes from Denise. He went into the hall and dressed. Before he’d finished, Iles joined him.

  ‘We take a look at the street, Col. They could have been followed here.’

  ‘I was going to.’

  ‘You went through the Grant house, did you?’ Iles replied.

  ‘Jill is right about Mrs Grant. A great deal of suspicion of police there. She might fantasize.’

  ‘Denise knows you broke in, does she?’

  ‘For instance, Mrs Grant is not happy that Scott has taken up with the daughter of a police officer,’ Harpur said.

  ‘I’m not happy that he has.’

  ‘That’s for a different reason.’

  ‘Is Mrs Grant happy that her son’s running armed with a fucking coke, crack and H gang?’

  ‘We don’t know that, sir.’

  ‘I’d say it’s Tommy the Strong’s outfit.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Like a feeling,’ Iles said. ‘Someone’s going to zap that boy, if he started Chilton Park, and my information is he might have. Someone like this Adrian Cologne that I hear of could feel vengeful about the Park fracas. I’ve got Cologne in mind, anyway.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘For what?’ Harpur asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’ve got him in mind,’ Iles replied. He and Harpur went into Arthur Street and carried out a good survey of the cars. There was no Clio, no Focus. That need not mean much. Cars could be changed. They looked inside every vehicle but didn’t find any observers. ‘We’ve got to talk to him, Col. All this evasiveness and pussyfooting – foolish.’

  ‘I think so.’

  As they walked back to Harpur’s house an elderly, vigilant woman neighbour called from her porch: ‘That one you’re with – the one in the gold leaf jacket.’

  ‘Him?’ Harpur said, pointing with his thumb at Iles.

  ‘Causing a disturbance previously,’ she said.

  ‘He does,’ Harpur said.

  ‘And it’s only a little while ago I heard of indecency in your front room,’ she said. ‘Now this.’

  ‘I heard of that, too,’ Iles said. ‘A high-visibility arse.’

  ‘A street like this has to watch its standards,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve told Harpur. It’s why I came around today. I felt an urgency. And when he wouldn’t open the front door I refused to give up. Obviously, I glanced in through the front window to see whether anything untoward was under way again, but no. Not in that room.’

  Scott and Hazel had left through the back garden to the lane by the time Harpur and Iles returned. The rest were drinking tea and watching athletics on television. Denise said: ‘I don’t think he liked all that about his mother and the house search.’

  ‘Alleged house search,’ Iles replied.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Denise said.

  Hazel came in: ‘Scott’s gone home on the bus,’ she said.

  ‘You saw him get aboard?’ Iles asked.

  Harpur found it quaint to hear the ACC worry about Scott, and show his worries about Scott to Hazel. But Iles had all sorts of quaintnesses, felt all sorts of unshirkable responsibilities. At Staff College he was probably called Desmond the Dutiful.

  * The Girl with the Long Back.

  Chapter Nine

  Manse Shale, waiting in Arthur Street on foot this time, saw Harpur and Iles come out of Harpur’s house and start quite an inspection of parked cars, really giving them eyeball. Shale was in a betting shop doorway and out of sight, but them two would come up this far eventually on their car carry-on and, while they both had heads down giving a Mercedes true scrutiny, he left the doorway and went into a back lane at the top of the street.

  What was fucking obvious, wasn’t it, was they had a tip about the house getting watched from a car lately? That’s why this search started now. That’s how police always thought. If something happened one way once they expected it to happen that way again, like what they said about generals – always fighting the last war. Maybe that younger kid of Harpur’s had seen him in the Focus and reported to her father. Maybe she had seen the Clio, also. Manse had not been able to observe that kid continuous because he had his face down to the floor of the Focus some while, but when he was looking at her she did not seem to of noticed. This kid was a cop’s kid, though, and Manse had realized at the time she might of been doing an act all ignorant and innocent. You could expect kids brought up in a police family to be sly and false, even a kid as young as this – it was in what was known as their genes, like, say, George W. Bush wanting to be President after his father, or, if you was talking about acting, all them Red-graves and Liza Minnelli.

  Or perhaps Harpur and Iles knew some other way about the car watch from the street, though Manse could not understand what other way that could be. Information – it leaked around everywhere, no controlling it, although all sort tried, such as the Government with that radio journalist Gilligan who said too much – or said what the Government thought was too much – about the Iraq war and so he lost his job, to shut him up.

  It annoyed Shale that these two, Harpur and Iles, could imagine he was so stupid he would do the same kind of watch here as before, that is by car. Didn’t they understand Mansel Shale had sense and experience? He believed in always being ahead, and this meant always changing the way you done things. His car was not even in this street, nor the next. He wanted it right out of the picture. He had parked and walked. He reckoned he would stay much less obvious like that. A car could always be a give-away, especially a parked car with someone in it. All right, he had realized this on his last visit and tried to hide things a bit by getting into the back. But, of course, police knew that trick. Most probably they made it up theirselves. Even a cop’s kid might know it, them genes again.

  Obviously, it was not only the people in Harpur’s house Manse had to worry about. Them two Clio people could be here. They might not be in the Clio but they could be here in a different vehicle or like hisself on foot. The thought of that pair troubled him and at the rectory he had unhooked the Arthur Hughes painting and taken one of the 9 mm pistols from the safe, loaded it fully
and strapped it on in a shoulder holster before closing up and putting the Hughes back.

  From the end of the lane, Manse could go on watching, just squinting down the street, keeping his head half back. Iles and Harpur came as far as double yellows opposite the betting shop and then turned around. They had done every vehicle, both sides. They found nothing, not even the Clio people. When Iles and Harpur came near his house on the way back, some oldish woman from a porch near started yelling at them. Manse could not hear all the words, but it was rage. She kept pointing to Harpur’s house upstairs and downstairs. She seemed to speak about a disturbance and indecency. Iles wore some sort of custard colour jacket and a ponce pale blue shirt. He had a conversation with her, all fucking charm and lies, most probably, although Shale thought Iles spoke of ‘a high-visibility arse’. What this concerned he could not tell.

  Shale had grown sure the boy, Scott, was in Harpur’s house. Manse could not do a non-stop watch on Arthur Street. He had a company to look after. But a few minutes after he’d walked into the street this afternoon, he’d seen four youngsters enter 126, Harpur’s two daughters and two lads, one, well-built, about seventeen or eighteen, the other a couple of years less and slighter. These would be the two boyfriends. Manse had calculated he’d get a good chance of confronting the older boy when he left to go home. Shale felt triumphant. In his view, it remained vital to get a talk with him in private, tell him to get out of whatever firm he was in, most likely Tommy the Strong’s, and hope Scott would tell Hazel Harpur, or even Harpur himself, that he was quitting because of wisdom from Mansel Shale, who knew the commercial scene here so well.

  The original plan had been Ember and Manse would do this kindly chat together, to help their firms along via Harpur and possibly Iles. But Ember didn’t seem so determined on it as Manse, and had not been available for discussions lately at all. Shale had even heard a rumour Ember was picked up by police for kerb crawling and banging a tart in Easy Lay lay-by, not far from Morton Cross and Inton. God, Manse hated that kind of behaviour. But it would be like Ember. He’d go after it anywhere, although married. Iles, the same. This sort of cock compulsion was equal for louts like Ralph and for police, even very senior police. Cocks got active regardless. Iles’s girl was ethnic, called Honorée, and a tale said she might be run these days by one of them new commercial intruders who dealt girls as well as the commodities, Adrian Cologne. A tale also said Cologne had given her some beatings for being too choosy. Iles might turn a bit fresh about that. Shale preferred getting a woman into the rectory on a decently planned and settled basis for really considerable spells. He particularly liked having someone there for Christmas and New Year and other bank holidays. He believed times of celebration should be shared for a while.