by Bill James
‘As I see it, Belinda,’ Harpur said, ‘what you knew after this excursion can be listed as one: your importer/wholesaler target, Cochrane/Spence, did deals with Norman Rice. Two: via Tom, the police might also get to know this eventually, or sooner. Three: Leo Percival Young suspected—’
‘Wangle sly, cajoling closeness to, say, the wife of a higher-placed colleague, much higher-placed – an accredited member of the Association of Chief Police Officers, often shortened to ACPO, as you’ll be aware –’ Iles continued, ‘who used to trust him, and who was willing to tolerate his oddities, clothing and minimal education, and even to regard him—’
‘Three: Leo Percival Young suspected this dealing went on and had sent Tom in the van to check,’ Harpur said. ‘Here we have careful, fair-minded leadership. ‘Four: this suggested that Norman Rice—’
‘Even to regard him, in certain limited respects, obviously, as a friend,’ Iles stated. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, Col. Ingratitude comes instinctively and as of right to you, the way bullshit does to Archbishops. I see a special—’
‘This suggested that Claud Norman Rice was nominally part of Leo’s outfit, but in Emblem Court had been acting privately, underhandedly, treacherously,’ Harpur said. ‘Five: once you discovered Tom was a police officer you would deduce that he—’
‘See a special vindictiveness in his behaviour,’ Iles said.
‘Deduce,’ Harpur replied, ‘that he had achieved a considerable degree of acceptance.’
‘As though to give me appalling emotional pain – cause it to me, personally and uniquely – had become an essential element in his disgusting pleasures,’ Iles said. ‘He was choosy. It had—’
‘A considerable degree of acceptance within the firm,’ Harpur said. ‘He had been entrusted with—’
‘—to be my wife,’ Iles replied. ‘This has become clear, because, although Maud here – quite a passable looking piece, no moustache, of good career and financial standing, commendable arse, able not only to manage the screen controls herself, but to coach you, Belinda, in this skill – yes, although Maud has these qualities and is more or less chucking herself at him, her breath flagrantly fondling his dewlap at one stage, he refuses to be pulled, despite his present single status and untethered girlfriend, plus a generously colluding offer from me for him to neglect his duties in that other region temporarily, so as to have a lovely, unhurried bang session, unhurried bang sessions, with—’
‘And now, Belinda, to list what you did not know, even after your ITAR foray and discoveries,’ Harpur said: ‘One: was Rice acting on his own behalf or as an agent, fetcher-and-carrier, cat’s-paw, for another or other interest/interests? Two: if so, which? Three: what was Mallen’s cover name in the firm – because, of course, nobody in the Wilton Road area would know it, including—?’
‘A lovely, unhurried bang session, unhurried bang sessions, with Maud,’ Iles said, ‘she employing many intriguing, intimate techniques, probably already familiar to Harpur from years of unscrupulous research, but not to be undervalued on that account, for instance, Maud gleefully yet respectfully taking Col’s—’
‘Including his family at number eleven,’ Harpur said. ‘Another unknown. Four: what was Leo Percival Young’s reaction now it had been established by Tom that a firm within his firm did function as had been rumoured and was hijacking very desirable trade?’
‘Belinda, I’d like you to think about that woman,’ Iles said, his voice-timbre suddenly back from its obsessive whine or howl to mere contempt.
‘Which woman? Maud? Your wife?’ she said.
‘Mrs Mallen,’ Iles said. ‘She and Tom tellingly re-ratified their love in that lay-by ceremonial conjoining, and possibly earlier. Perhaps she took some genuine comfort and reassurance from this. She could accept his departure without quite so much anxiety and angst. Then, whoosh! The next day, you and your cohort arrive and knock doors in a widespread, thoroughgoing swarm style, vigorously trawling for information about eleven and Sergeant Tom Mallen, whose name they’d get from neighbours and/or central address records. You say you didn’t go to eleven yourselves. That’s something, I suppose. But, of course, householders who’d had a visit would be curious, perhaps worried – including, probably, the one who might have phoned the local police – and several of them were likely to ask Mrs Mallen what it was all about, ask also whether she knew of this sudden disturbing invasion – sinister invasion. Her happiness, maybe already dodgy and frail since Tom had gone back to undercover duties, would instantly crumble.
‘She’d be terrified, and so would anyone given such reports. The situation is worse than before his return home.’ Iles began to do present tense, for increased impact – like Wolsey did in the long interview. ‘She has guessed the kind of work Tom is at elsewhere. She’ll realize he perilously imagines himself secret and secure. Now she’s confronted by the fact that strangers have been around the place hunting him and anything about him in what will look like a very organized and determined pattern, speaking snippets into pocket recorders using unlocal accents to record their findings. She’ll want to warn Tom, won’t she, and fast? But she doesn’t know where he is and has no phone number for him. These are standard, basic, undercover precautions. Families and lovers must not have the power to initiate contact. Calls might come at awkward times, and lead to dangerous nosiness among members of the firm. They’d speculate that these calls are not from the background he has spun them. Communication can be only single direction – from Tom to her when he thinks he’s got some secluded, unbugged minutes, not her to him. She has to wait for a bell. She’d probably have sensed that the phone number on the van was a fiction. She might not even have made a note of it. And, if she had, and dialled, she’d find it to be what she expected, a dud, a nothing, a mask, confirmation of a cul de sac. Meanwhile, she knows Tom’s got big jeopardy and might not be conscious of this.’
‘Text? Voicemail?’ Belinda said.
‘Both regarded as totally insecure for undercover,’ Iles said.
‘It’s alarmist speculation,’ Belinda said. ‘Your analysis is full of what-ifs – “possibly”, “perhaps”, “probably”, “likely”, “might”, “maybe”.’
‘There are no certainties in undercover,’ Iles replied. ‘We have to deal with the possiblies, the perhapses, the probablies, the likelies, the mights, the maybes. It’s known as foresight. It’s known as preparedness. It’s labelled “worst case scenario”. Hardly anything’s secure in undercover. It relies on good luck, and good luck’s no twenty-four/seven ally. Even when it seems to be going OK, undercover is always only a metre ahead of peril.’
‘You’re saying I helped bring the peril nearer in Tom’s case by following up the van lead?’ she asked.
‘No, it was you who said that,’ Iles replied.
‘I found myself driven by a logical imperative,’ Belinda replied.
‘You did, did you?’ Iles said.
‘The operation at Wilton Road left some questions, as Mr Harpur has said. How, then, to deal with these? I decided we must put Claud Norman Rice under continuous watch. This would help us discover whether he had been acting on his own behalf at Emblem Court or in concert with someone else. As far as ITAR and Customs generally were concerned this would be crucial data. If a someone else existed, the surveillance would probably reveal who. These are the chief uncertainties listed by Mr Harpur. Of course, we know the answers now, but at the time we still had plenty to learn.
‘Because our case remained very incomplete, I felt ITAR should proceed alone for a spell, without looking for police help in our activities. I wanted a fully documented report on the circs before I made that move, particularly the names of associates, and super-particularly the identity of who might be overlording this satellite firm. To invite earlier participation by the police would have been sloppy, in my view.’
‘Yes?’ Iles replied. ‘You wanted the glory, the collar.’
‘In any case, I realized Tom would probably repo
rt to his handler about Rice at Emblem Court, but that meeting might not happen for a while. We would concentrate on Rice, at least until then.’
‘And, as you pointed out, we know the result now,’ Iles said.
‘I did not feel I had a choice,’ Belinda said.
‘You’d created conditions where you didn’t, in the best traditions of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, now spelt with a c not a k,’ Iles replied. But he spoke almost sympathetically. That didn’t faze Harpur. He had seen and heard Iles become almost kindly once or twice before within the last few years. Quite possibly twice.
TWENTY-SIX
BEFORE
They had a singalong while driving towards Claud Norman Rice’s place at twenty-seven Delbert Avenue to bring him some censure on behalf of Leo, following that A-hole-observed Emblem Court commerce. Mainly, the intention was fists and boots/shoes only, though Ivor Wolsey had a short piece of rubber-coated lead piping in his right sock. Leo had stressed he’d like Norm to survive, not necessarily unmarked but breathing independently. The object was merely to offer a sort of serious reproof, which could be interpreted by Justin Scray for what it was – a last oblique but plain warning. Leo had got hold of the word ‘proportionality’ from somewhere. He wanted Norm’s punishment to be in proportion to his fairly measly status and the degree of offence.
Empathy Abidan liked German lieder, especially some by Robert Schumann and by Anton Webern. Obviously, he had to do these more or less totally solo because the others in the car didn’t really know the pieces, although they might have heard Abidan giving them a belt elsewhere previously, perhaps more than once. At the wheel, Tom did try to hum a few passages as accompaniment, but he felt that, though lieder certainly had definite traces of a tune to them here and there, they were not the sort of tunes that stayed in your head, unless you were Empathy, and most probably even he’d had to work at it. You never knew which way the compositions would go, again unless you were Empathy. He did trill each number with terrific confidence, daft energy and enthusiasm, as if there could not be any doubt at all about what came next as to the notes. The words were German, but this didn’t give Empathy trouble. He must have decided that if you fancied lieder you had to make an effort and learn some of the lingo: Empathy liked to be reasonable and positive, although he could sometimes get non-reasonable, anti-reasonable, funk-led.
There was a procedure for the music. Abidan would never just start crooning one of the lyrics without an introduction. He’d told Tom he wanted to establish a context and always spoke the title first, usually translated, and mentioned the composer – Schumann, Webern, sometimes Mahler. He had the right kind of voice for lieder: tenor, his tone melancholic and deeply inconsolable when a lover’s rejection was the theme; but bustling and pert if about silvery fish in limpid Alpine streams. Most folk could stomach Empathy’s sodding hullabaloo as long as it didn’t go over, say, the ten-minute mark. A knack for snuffing out encores was to have something else poised ready as Empathy brought one of his blares to an end, speed essential. Today, Tom got in with ‘Clementine’ and Hugh Fortune with ‘Yellow Submarine’. No matter if not everyone had the words verbatim: la-la-la-ing these old numbers was easy because the melodies had such strength and simplicity.
And, to Martin Abidan’s credit, he joined in. Tom thought this willingness to adapt would be one of the reasons he was called Empathy – he valued comradely, two-way mental contact with others. With some others. He wouldn’t seek it with Norm Rice who’d shown arrant disregard for loyalty to Leo. There’d be a different kind of contact for Norman. Now, alongside Tom in the firm’s Audi, Mart used full, soaring volume on ‘Clementine’ and got harmonious, good-natured amusement into the lines about her feet size.
It had been Empathy’s suggestion to Leo that Hugh Fortune should take the fourth place in the car and help with the Norm setback. Tom hadn’t met Fortune before this trip. Apparently, he’d had some training as a boxer when young and knew where to put a punch that would bring pain but not do dangerous damage. He had never unarguably caused a death. One of his most brilliant assets was radiant calmness, regardless of disturbances and threatening outbreaks around him. Leo had been pleased with Abidan’s recommendation. ‘Despite possible rush and some urgency at the end, Hugh’s the type who’ll remember to inform Norm somehow that, if he’s put out of things for a while through injury, I’ll look after Cornelius, his partner, at least until he’s released and can set about organizing himself again,’ Leo said. ‘I don’t want either of them – Cornelius or Norman – fretting about Cornelius’s well-being. The attack on Norm is simply a matter of business hygiene. It is confined to him – and, of course, by percolation, to Justin Scray. Most companies have to correct wayward tendencies in their staff now and then. It can be unpleasant but is crucial.’ Because Abidan himself would occasionally get a bit overheated and wild, he might have deliberately gone for someone like Hugh as a standby counter-influence.
Leo was away in Wales. Empathy said these days Leo never went on this kind of thump outing. He’d outgrown such operations, outranked them, now. He and Emily loved Pembrokeshire. Gaunt, abandoned old industrial workings on the coast at Porthgain ‘always gave Emily a thrill’, Leo had told Tom, ‘the past being very much her chosen area, and, of course, the past is extensive’. Empathy said that on this kind of jaunt, they’d book in at a hotel and possibly buy a watercolour or two from a gallery in St David’s, dithering about which ones so Leo could get himself remembered and alibied, just in case Norm did slip under during the visit, despite moderation. The local drugs squad would be aware that Norm worked for Leo, and this connection might bring difficulties. Empathy said Leo didn’t know much about watercolours but he did know about alibis.
His absentee arrangement required exact coordination, and so the call at Delbert Avenue had to be on a particular Thursday; the Thursday, as it happened, when Jamie Meldon-Luce’s daughter was Mary Magdalene in the church play. As a result, and because, also, Leo saw a decorum objection to using Jamie for this brand of unholy crusade near the Magdalene date, Tom was asked to do the driving. ‘Emily’s appointments diary is so crowded that there are few weekdays when she can be absent from the museum,’ Leo had said.
And Tom knew Norm might not be home on a Saturday or Sunday. That apparently depended on when he visited Cornelius at Long Lartin, often staying over in a B&B near the jail. Leo ruled out dealing with him up there partly out of civilized, almost sentimental, respect for Norm’s and Cornelius’s affections; also because to get at Rice effectively in such a place would be tough. ‘Other guests and staff around,’ Leo said. ‘I worry about the party walls in Delbert Avenue carrying sound, but in some of those boarding houses it could be worse. Rooms have been split up to make more accommodation, and it’s only plastered breeze block dividing.’ Leo considered that sort of risk unnecessary as Norm could be quite effectively done at home, given accurate timetabling and suitable locations in the property. These were very clearly shown on the ring-binder plans.
Of course. Tom wondered whether all these special timing conditions were a sham, concocted so Jamie wouldn’t be available as Wheels and Tom could be drafted as replacement. It might be Leo’s polite way of getting new boy Tom gradually involved in the rough end of the firm’s work. Leo did believe in careful, subtle management. That was why he wanted Norm only gravely knocked about, not killed. In the same sort of way, Leo might intend to bring Tom by nicely graded stages into violence situations. A Wheels did not leave the vehicle during an operation. On the reconnoitre with Leo they had discussed parking for the Norm project, not the details of what would happen inside the house.
If there’d been a manual for Wheels it would state the driver should bring the personnel to the right spot – a house, a bank, a building society – and then wait for them to return. The front line people would probably aim to quit the scene very fast. It could complicate things if one of them had to get into the front, start the vehicle and cope with traffic. Injuries might m
ake that difficult or even impossible, anyway. But a Wheels would be there already, prepared and eager behind the wheel – that’s one reason he or she was called Wheels, after all! – three doors possibly open for quick access, most likely with the engine running from the moment he first glimpsed one of the attack party coming back. Or perhaps the Wheels had, in fact, kept the engine idling from the moment he put the action group down. That was definitely how some Wheels operated, scared the ignition might pick a crisis moment to fail. Answer? Make ignition – re-ignition – unnecessary.
Tom wouldn’t be at the actual meeting with Norman, but, of course, he realized he could be regarded as an accessory to what went on – an accessory before the events as well as after. If any of it ever came to court, he knew the judge would not think much of an undercover operation where a police sergeant assisted a grievous bodily harm assault, or worse, because he had to maintain his disguise as a fully committed member of the gang. Judges saw crook gangs as the enemy, and anyone who helped them, even in an allegedly fine and ultimately non-criminal cause, was also an enemy, and might get a bollocking in the summing up, his evidence ruled inadmissible, and told the Bench would be recommending prosecution. Ultimately was too ultimate and too uncertain. Thank you, My Lord. Tom had thought quite a bit about the shady morality of undercover and during these recital minutes as the Audi approached Delbert Avenue the shadiness grew shadier. A quiet couple of seconds occurred. Empathy jumped in smartish with what he announced as an R.M. Rilke poem brilliantly liederized by Webern. So, now, all together in the chorus!
