Come Clean (1989)

by Bill James

  At home, Sarah telephoned Ian’s flat three times, but could get no reply. She tried the Monty and Ralph answered at once. When she asked if Ian was there he said: ‘No, I’m afraid not, madam, not at this moment, though he certainly is a member of the club. Should I say who called? Would you like to leave your number or a message?’

  He must have recognized her voice, yet chose to act as if she were a stranger. She did not understand why, though perhaps there was someone nearby in the bar who might overhear, and he wanted no mention of Ian’s or her names. ‘I might try again,’ she said.

  ‘At your service.’

  Chapter Three

  Harpur waited for Jack Lamb near a brick-built, Second World War pill box set into the long, earthwork sea wall on the foreshore, four or five miles up the coast from Valencia Esplanade. Its concrete-lipped weapon slits looked seawards and in 1940, if the enemy had come, the troops here would have tried gloriously to knock him and his tanks back into the mucky water. At low tide the view was wide mud flats, desolate and empty except for an occasional solitary, bent-over fisherman digging bait. Patches of frothy, orange industrial effluent were dotted about the mud today, like a pogrom of ginger cats. Harpur understood that the flat supported uniquely interesting bird life, if you were interested. Fine but heavy rain was being carried in from the sea now, and underfoot the soil had begun to grow sticky.

  Lamb had picked this spot. He loved atmosphere and history, possibly environmental mud as well. What he did not like and would not trust was the telephone, so, if ever he or Harpur wanted to say something they had to meet, and to meet where they would not be observed. They used car parks and art galleries and crowded auction rooms – where they could speak an urgent word or two before separating – and occasionally they came here, the fight-them-on-the-beaches battleground that never was. Informants as a breed felt uneasy about telephones, not just Jack; they were aware how imaginative and crafty people could be at eavesdropping, and how technological, because they were imaginative and crafty at it themselves, and especially Lamb. Harpur had never known a tipster anything like as productive, so if Jack wanted to rendezvous in the mire, in the mire it had to be.

  He approached now, huge and unhurried, wearing what appeared to be a Cossack cape, a black beret and wellingtons, like someone ready to play in a one-man Napoleonic war sketch and represent all three main armies. Despite his security obsessions about telephones and meeting places, Jack did not go in for being unnoticeable. How could he at his weight and height? Gazing seawards he murmured: ‘Will they never come?’

  ‘I love it here; the tide-mark of nappy liners and knotted french letters.’

  They stood under the overhang of the pill box roof, leaning against the brickwork. When fixing the meeting, Lamb had hinted that he was gravely worried about the safety of one of his own occasional sources; these people lived with menace, nonstop, and now and then would come a frenzied cry for help.

  But there would be a lot of oblique, general talk before Jack reached this topic. He liked to remind Harpur how indissolubly the two of them were bound together. ‘You’ll have been concerned, but I’m glad to say the October Stock Exchange dive did me little damage, Colin.’

  ‘Grand.’

  ‘Luckily, I’d unloaded a lot of pictures just before. Some were very cherished, not just by me, by Helen, too, at home. You remember Helen, a sunny, punkish child, familiar with l’art fang, and so gifted at ballet and cohabitation? We both felt it a wrench to see some of those works go, particularly the Pre-Raphs. But one gets a feel about the way stocks will behave, and if they do a real plunge it’s not long before all sorts of valuables are touched, too. Oh, yes, the crash has reached the salesrooms, you know. Bad. Painful. Renoirs. Bonnards. Picassos not getting to their reserves, and having to be bought in. Mind you, serves the buggers right for putting high, grab-all estimates on everything. Those days are gone. That’s what I say, Col.’

  ‘If that’s what you say, Jack, that’s what you say.’ Harpur hated hearing about Jack’s commercial life, though he knew as a certainty that fragments of it were above board.

  ‘But pardon me. Sometimes I forget and behave as if you are a part of the business with me. Stupid – and impertinent. You show a friendly, helpful interest, deeply helpful, but how could it be more than that, you an ace lawman? Good God, I’m not here to talk art and profit and loss, am I?’

  Harpur waited. He had been through similar introductory formalities many times before and knew his role was only to digest. These rough reminders were meant by Lamb to soften him up; to proclaim unmistakably, proclaim once more, that the two of them depended on each other and were in each others pockets for ever, one of those unsanctified but brassbound marriages between a copper and his tipster. Harpur did not need telling. He never forgot. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but one shared by most detectives who used informants or grasses or narks or touts or tipsters – whatever ugly name one liked to bless them with. And detectives who lacked these informants, trading whispers for a degree of privileged handling, rarely did much useful in the big, enduring, untidy battle against the darkness. These people inhabited that darkness themselves, either totally or in part, but now and then, for their own purposes and reasons, they might offer to shine a little light into an important shadowy corner where, without their help, police would never see. Politicians and editors who screamed about the perils and unwholesomeness of police dependence on informants might well have a point, one they could go screw themselves with.

  ‘Colin, do you understand how things work, I wonder – the gathering of facts and rumours and hints? Look, I talk to you, but before that can happen there have to be people who talk to me. I don’t originate. Well, it’s obvious. Do I continue to bore you?’

  Oh, God, Harpur thought, so I read things right; someone else wanted protection or a favour, or a bit of special affection and feather-bedding, one of Lamb’s mates. He said; ‘Jack, I look after you. That’s as far as I can go. It’s dangerous enough already. What you do about your own informants is not my province.’

  Lamb held up an enormous, red-mittened hand to stop him. ‘Of course that’s up to me. Would I expect you to involve yourself with dirty nobodies, you a public figure, loaded with insignia and kudos? Col, I’m hurt, offended. Give me credit for some knowledge of protocol, will you, please? Please.’ A couple walking with a dog despite the rain approached along the sea wall. Lamb watched them carefully, and was silent until they passed.

  Then he said; ‘This source, the one I’d like to talk about, suddenly isn’t around any more. Overnight, gone. Total disappearance. He rang a few days ago and we fixed to meet, but he never shows. So I phone and somebody lifts the receiver and listens but says nothing. Very quiet breather, too. I don’t know for certain, obviously, but I’d say this was not my man. He doesn’t fool about. Then, almost as soon as I put the phone down, it rings. Naturally, I’m not a listed number, so another mystery. Again nobody speaks. The same master of understatement? Who knows? I’ve been to have a look at where my source lives but no sign of life. I can’t go asking around there. That wouldn’t be any good for him or me. So, I don’t know what.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me who it is?’

  ‘He could be fine, I realize that. Maybe gone on a quick job somewhere, one he didn’t know was coming up, or having a break.’

  ‘But you don’t think so.’

  ‘No. He was always reliable. I mean, he’s a villain, so when I say reliable it’s a bit relative. But it was obvious from his call he had worries. Something was happening that he didn’t like, or was going to. He wanted it stopped. So, he would talk to me, expecting I might talk to someone like you. Obviously, he didn’t know the name of my contact.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What do you mean, thanks, for Christ’s sake? That’s only basic, keeping your identity quiet.’

  ‘Thanks, all the same.’

  Jack adjusted his cape. ‘Yes, if I want you to look for him, I’ve go
t to give you his name, haven’t I?’

  ‘You want me to look for him?’

  ‘Col, he knows something, and it will be big. Always in the past, it’s been important stuff, accurate stuff. We need to know, I mean, you need to know. I haven’t a clue what it was.’

  Evidently, here was another one who did not talk beyond the basics by telephone.

  ‘And the extra thing; they could have roughed him about,’ Lamb said, ‘I would like to discover whether he’s coughed my name. That could be a hazard.’

  ‘Which they?’

  ‘He runs with Benny Loxton’s squadron. Newish recruit. As I understand it, Benny’s taken on two people lately – this one, and a boy called Lentle. Robert?’

  ‘So, do I know the missing one?’

  ‘I doubt it. He’s small-time, so far. Small-time crook, big-time informant. He’s got no record.’

  ‘He says he’s got no record.’

  ‘I’ve done a check. Obviously. His name’s Justin Paynter.’

  ‘Christ, have the Justin generation reached the age of mature villainy? Remember when crooks were called Bert?’ And Jack. ‘You’re right. I don’t know him.’

  ‘Kid about twenty-four. Slight, pale, dark hair falling across his forehead. Dandified, rather. Tailored suits.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Gifted with cars, and Benny’s started letting him do his accounts. He sees a lot. Did. Hear that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Curlew. Lovely cry.’

  ‘You really know how a curlew sounds, Jack?’

  ‘Could have been a woodpecker, I suppose, ratty about all the mud and no trees to get stuck into. Or a flamingo, off course?’

  The rain had eased and they came out from under the roof projection. A few feelers from the early evening sun penetrated the clouds and caught the sea far out, so it gleamed murky red. The tide was on the way in and Harpur could hear small waves breaking and pushing up slowly, dark and greasy with sewage, towards the wall. ‘An address?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve written it down for you. But we might have a better starting point. There’s a tale around, I don’t know if you heard it, some street incident up near the Monty a couple of nights ago.’

  ‘Ralphy Ember’s place?’

  ‘Near it. Maybe in it, too. I don’t know.’

  ‘God, remember the old Monty? Top-drawer membership. Now, Ralphy in charge. What incident?’

  ‘I haven’t sorted it out properly, not properly at all. The trouble is, this is another place I can’t ask any questions on the spot. Well, obviously, Col.’

  ‘What incident?’

  Lamb looked out to sea. ‘In its bare, uncompromising way, this bit of coast has a kind of beauty, you know. I’ve always thought so.’ Nimbly, he climbed on to the top of the pill box and gazed out towards the horizon, one hand shading his eyes. ‘Remember that poem from school, Col, about stout Cortez, happening on the Pacific and gazing at it eagle-like from a peak in Darien?’

  ‘Yes, you are getting a bit of a gut. Eagle? The mittens are not right.’

  ‘All his men in a wild surmise, a really wild surmise. Understandable. You don’t find a Pacific every day.’ He climbed down. ‘This information begins, I gather, with an old lady, sleepless, who looked out of her window late the other night and saw some sort of very serious chase in the street, a young man in what she called “a good serge suit” running from three or maybe four older men, one wearing a leather jacket, one with thinning grey hair. A car was trying to hold the young bloke in its headlights. She doesn’t know cars but she said a big old black thing. A couple of the men on foot caught him and started giving real treatment, she thought maybe even a knife, but he broke away and ran again, over towards Shield Terrace, where the Monty is. He looked hurt at this stage, maybe limping and bleeding, the suit stained. They went out of sight then, and that’s as much as she knows. Col, it’s possible nobody’s going to find this lad in time for him to say anything. But worth a try.’

  ‘So what tells you this is your boy?’

  ‘Not all that much, I’ve got to admit it. Just, he’s not about and it’s the right age and build, and the smart suit. On top, one of Benny’s other lads, a part-timer called Steve Stevens, uses a black Humber Hawk, it’s his trademark.’

  ‘A woman sees a knifing and does nothing, asks for no help?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s sure, Col. And, besides, they hate getting into anything, don’t they? So scared of being called as witnesses, and having threatening visits in their prized, door-chained little nests from God knows who, to shut them up.’

  ‘Christ, we can look after people, people who give us information.’

  They began walking towards their car. Lamb said: ‘I’d be the first to confirm it, you know that. Could I be better looked after? But these people, especially if they’re old, Col, they don’t seem so sure. What they want is to stay untroubled, and they get very tenacious of life. Although most admire the police, they aren’t convinced you can really protect them. Well, they read the papers, I suppose. Their bones are delicate and they have nasty foot problems, so if things did get perilous they can’t make a dash. Their answer is to stay under cover. The old really love life but they can’t risk seeing much of it, one of those touching paradoxes. I’ve only heard this myself because she told a neighbour and the neighbour spoke to an acquaintance of mine. Well, you know how information comes. Roundabout, not by the Post Office.’

  ‘Any pictures of this lad, Justin?’

  ‘I’m trying.’ He paused. ‘Tell me, Col, do you and yours keep an eye at the Monty?’

  ‘Off and on.’

  Lamb went silent again. Harpur said: ‘You’re bothered about Sarah Iles? Yes, I know she shows up there sometimes, poor lost kid.’

  ‘Is that what she is?’

  ‘Along those lines.’

  ‘I can see it makes things sensitive.’

  ‘I know about her and so do some others. But not Iles himself. At least, I don’t think so. Who’s sure what that bugger knows? Was she in the club when this happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. And I told you, I can’t say whether the chase actually got into the Monty. I believe lover boy, Ian Aston, was there. Believe. That wouldn’t signify, anyway. He’s in the club most nights. As far as I can make out, she just rolls up there to see him when she can.’

  ‘Yes, I think that’s the arrangement.’

  ‘Is she –?’

  ‘It’s sad, but things aren’t right at home. Haven’t been for a long while. You know the sort of picture.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’

  ‘Yes, well – She’s a delightful girl, full of grace and vim. We’re all bothered about Sarah. I wouldn’t want her landing herself in anything dark.’

  ‘Your Francis Garland used to . . . have a stake, didn’t he? It looked a very happy thing.’

  ‘Francis? Only room for one ego long-term there, I’m afraid. But she’s a grand girl, Jack.’

  ‘I can believe it. Listen, this Aston –?’

  ‘Nothing known – like your Justin,’ Harpur said. ‘We’ve never been able to work out how he lives. He’s not short of money, has some style. He takes a job now and then, either selling, or a bit of exterior decorating. Pays his taxes, rarely draws dole. But he couldn’t dress the way he does or drive what he does on his earnings.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll make an inquiry or two,’ Lamb said.

  Harpur shrugged. ‘If you like. Be careful. Do you suppose that somebody suspected Justin was talking to you, and that’s why he’s been taken out?’

  ‘Could be. Could easily be.’

  More bird cries came from the flats. ‘What’s that one, Jack?’

  He looked out over the mud again. ‘Oyster-catchers. Easy: they fly in dozens.’

  After dark that evening, Harpur drove up to the address Lamb had given him for Justin Paynter. When Jack said something, you’d better believe it, even if the tip seemed all instinct and guess, because his instincts and gues
ses usually turned out more spot-on than supposed hard fact from minor league narks. For a time, Harpur sat in his car and watched the house, a small, old, pretty, stone-built place with a minute front garden, in a grubby, long road, not far from where Harpur lived himself. No lights showed and all the curtains seemed to be across. He gave it an hour, keeping an eye on the street around him, as well as the cottage. In that time, there were no callers and all rooms remained unlit. As far as he could make out, nobody else had observation on the place though plenty of other parked cars stood near, and in the darkness he could not be sure none was occupied. He certainly would not have bet big money on it. Leaving his old Viva, he walked to the end of the terrace and down a lane, to look at the house from the rear. It backed on to a railway line and had a decaying wooden fence at the end of another small yard or garden. He could see no light in the house from here, either.

  Forcing apart a couple of planks in the fence he pushed into the garden and stood still, watching and listening. A palsied-looking brown cat yawed away from near two bulging, black plastic refuse bags, one of which had split and dribbled cheerless items on to the rough grass, where rotting cardboard boxes and a scatter of empty beer cans lay. Christ, wasn’t this the life, though? To think he might have been wasting his time at home with his feet up, or in bed with Ruth Cotton. Instead, here he was, stalking – stalking what? A grass’s grass, or someone who answered the phone, but didn’t. Thin stuff? He would concede that.

  As he picked his way through the garden to what he guessed would be the kitchen window, a sprinter train charged past behind him, obviously sauced by its own publicity. A roller blind was down but age must have weakened it near the cord and there were a couple of gaping tears. He had no light with him and the room beyond was dark, but he peered through the holes and thought he could make out, scattered on the floor, broken crockery, a frying pan and some other utensils, as though shelves or a cupboard had been cleared in a rapid, crude search. Perhaps Jack Lamb’s telephone call to here had come while it was happening.