Come Clean (1989)

by Bill James

  Harpur jumped into the room. Lay-waste came in after him but then turned and stared back down to the yard, searching.

  ‘I’m alone,’ Harpur said.

  ‘You’re in this with Benny?’ Leo asked, his voice disbelieving. ‘You take from Benny? You police taking from Benny? But I thought –’

  ‘I told you you couldn’t trust the bastards, and that one bastard above all. Christ, you people, you police, you want a bit of everything,’ Lay-waste said. He was bigger than Leo, taller and bulkier, with thick hands, a pointed nose and thin, and sallow, sick-looking skin. He was wearing a navy flak jacket.

  ‘So where is he? Which way are they coming?’ Leo asked. Harpur saw he was trembling and had trouble getting his words out.

  ‘Where?’ Lay-waste demanded again in a sort of shrieked, scared whisper and, through the darkness, Harpur could make out his arm raised with the pistol in it, as if about to deliver a blow. Then he seemed to change his mind and brought the gun down to his side.

  Slowly, his mind still half-baffled and dazed by shock, Harpur had begun to work out what was happening. ‘You’ve got an ambush, with Aston as bait?’ Harpur said. ‘You’d heard about Tommy Vit and knew Sarah would lead him here, and he’d bring Loxton. Now, you wait for Benny. So, how did you hear about Tommy?’

  The door of the bedroom was pushed open and light from beyond reached in. Leo’s other boy, Gerald, stood there and stared at Harpur. ‘Christ, you with them?’ He turned to Leo and spoke very fast. The two of them were thin and small and big-nosed and bald and might have been brothers, rather than father and son. ‘The rest are here, in the street. Four; Benny, Macey, Norman and the new one – the telescopic sight. They’re kitted out. Well, you’d expect. Two handguns, two sawn-offs.’

  In the adjoining room behind Gerald, Harpur could see Aston and Sarah sitting upright and stiff, both looking mystified and very afraid. Maybe she had known she would get caught in something like this one day if she went on looking for the risks and the shadows. Yet, although the fear certainly lay there for all to see in her face, pulling her skin tight and making her eyes shine too much, it was not panic. She looked bad, but she also looked as if she could cope. She was still Sarah Iles.

  ‘How are they coming in? Leo asked Harpur urgently. ‘Are they following you, up the escape? You’re the way ahead, supposed to let them in?’

  ‘I’m alone,’ Harpur told him again.

  ‘Alone? Oh, Christ, come on,’ Gerald said.

  ‘So, alone wanting what?’ Lay-waste asked. They were all whispering now.

  ‘Wanting to look after Sarah Iles,’ Harpur told him.

  Again Lay-waste raised the pistol, a 9 mm Browning, and this time cracked the barrel down on the side of Harpur’s head. He staggered but did not fall. Blood began to run down his face and on to his collar. ‘Stop pissing me about,’ Lay-waste said.

  ‘Leave it,’ Leo told him. ‘There are other things.’

  ‘He knows how many people, where they are,’ Lay-waste said. ‘We have to make him tell us, and what he’s doing here, really what he’s doing here.’

  ‘It’s too late. We deal with it, whatever it is,’ Leo told him. ‘Harpur, we’re defending ourselves here, understand? No option.’ He spoke as if foreseeing some court case where Harpur would give evidence, and he hoped this was right, particularly the idea that he might survive.

  ‘Colin,’ Sarah said. ‘Are you okay? Come and sit down.’ She was about to stand and bring him across the room, but Lay-waste swore and told her to remain still.

  ‘Yes, sit down,’ Leo told Harpur. ‘Stay out of this. You mean it, there are no other police? All we’re dealing with is Benny and his crew.’ Harpur pinpointed a slight tremor of hope in his voice.

  Another two of Leo’s people appeared in the room, both carrying handguns. Harpur recognized Ashley Simpson, the one they called In-off, but did not know the other: younger, plumper, and with the sort of face made to look through bars.

  ‘They’re coming up the escape,’ Simpson said. ‘And one waiting at the front door – Norman.’

  ‘We’re being hunted, Harpur. You see that? We offered friendship, and we’re being hunted, instead,’ Leo said. Sweat shone on the round, bald head and along the ridge of his jutting nose. Again he appeared to be anticipating a reckoning, and preparing ways to make the best of it. But, no, they weren’t hunted. They had set a trap.

  ‘What are you doing here, Colin?’ Sarah said. She sounded as she looked, very frightened, very defeated. ‘How?’ He could see that what she wanted to ask was whether Iles knew, even whether Iles was here, too.

  But she did not ask, and he made no attempt to answer. ‘We’ll be all right,’ Harpur replied. ‘Keep still.’

  ‘Yes, listen to what he says,’ Gerald told her and Aston. ‘Just stay out of it.’

  Because they had the door open to this living room, there would be light showing from the window over the escape now. Unless they hid themselves carefully the light would show up anyone waiting in the bedroom, and they could not count on the sort of surprise Leo had when he confronted Harpur. Four of them went into the bedroom: Leo, Lay-waste, Gerald and Simpson. The other man stayed with Harpur, Sarah and Aston. Harpur had not heard Aston speak yet, but now he said: ‘They made me do this. Made me get Sarah to lead them here. She didn’t know.’

  ‘Did you tell Leo about Tommy Vit?’

  ‘I didn’t know he was involved. Leo says Vit was spotted outside Sarah’s house.’

  ‘Spotted? Who by?’

  Aston glanced at Sarah. ‘Someone who wanted me out of the way. That’s where Leo’s tip came from.’

  Harpur left it there, and did not press for Iles’s name. Christ, though, if Leo was being tipped by Iles and thought police cooperation had been sweetly arranged, no wonder he sounded sick to find Harpur here, apparently footsoldiering for Benny. Routine treachery Leo would always cater for – that was life – but this must look like the darkest sell ever, even for Iles. So, when Lay-waste talked about ‘that one bastard’ he had meant the ACC.

  Harpur could see the four men in the bedroom, all with pistols in their hands, standing flat against the wall on each side of the window, so they would be invisible for at least the first few key seconds when Benny and his people arrived on the platform. Lay-waste was to the side of the drawn-back curtains and must be able to see part of the way down the escape. The others watched him, trying to read the signs in his face and body.

  The man on guard had produced a pistol and turned it towards them. ‘No noise,’ he whispered, ‘No warnings. You understand?’

  Harpur nodded, and a small shower of blood fell from his head on to his trouser leg. ‘Don’t worry.’

  All the same, the guard pulled a straight-backed chair around behind Sarah’s for himself and sat with the muzzle of the pistol resting on her shoulder and pointed into her neck.

  ‘We understand,’ Harpur said. ‘You needn’t do that.’

  ‘I’ll say what I fucking need.’

  She gave a very small, stiff grin at Harpur, trying to tell him not to worry. He worried.

  It grew very quiet. Harpur strove to hear the sound of footsteps on the escape, but detected nothing. In the bedroom, Leo and his people kept motionless and seemed hardly to be breathing, making no noise. Lay-waste was tilted slightly forward, surveying as much as he could of the escape. Were Benny and his lads already on the way up? Harpur had no way of knowing. The rest of them in the bedroom still studied Lay-waste, using him as eyes.

  The danger was that this terrifying silence would stretch and stretch, loading the strain on to everyone’s nerves, and then there might come a sudden end when the firing and the yelling and the cursing and, maybe, the screaming began. What was his control like, the bloody tub nobody with the pistol on Sarah’s neck? His finger was hooked around the trigger, and his eyes spent part of their time anxiously watching the bedroom group for signs of what was happening, then would switch back and stare at Harpur and Aston and s
ay without more words that if either of them shifted Sarah would die. He looked about thirty, fair, jail pale, dim, jumpy, out of his depth and probably not someone who learned at Sandhurst how to make a safe job of handling small-arms.

  And then, abruptly, it started, just as Harpur had feared. Pistol fire fractured the silence. For a second, he was not sure exactly what had happened. Harpur had been intent on watching Sarah and the guard, wondering if he should risk a move, but, when he turned back to look into the bedroom, he saw that Lay-waste had come away from the wall and, standing in the window, was firing down the escape. From the angle, it was obvious that Benny and his people had not reached the platform yet, and Harpur heard at least two bullets hit the metal and ricochet away. Leo was hanging on to his son’s arm, apparently trying to hold him back – force him to wait until the targets were nearer. But Lay-waste had never been good on patience and self-control, not a whites-of-their-eyes man. The shooting was very rapid, and Harpur thought he counted five shots. It was not something he could be certain about, or cared much about, because he had heard something much closer. Frightened or excited by the sudden noise, the guard jumped up very quickly, but tried to keep the muzzle of the pistol on Sarah’s neck. For a second, he was off balance and lurched a little to the side, knocking his chair over with his legs, his finger still on the trigger, though. As he tried to right himself he shoved Sarah’s head lower with the pistol, and for a moment it looked like an execution pose, so that Harpur almost cried out. He knew he had to do something now.

  The guard’s chair had toppled toward Harpur and lay near him. With two hands, he grabbed at it and then, in the same movement, swung it at the man’s head, catching him square on the temple and side of his face before he had recovered from the stumble. Harpur saw the consciousness go out of his eyes at once, and his body start folding. The guard tumbled heavily forward. As he fell, his gun flew out of his hand and went off. Harpur heard the bullet hum and slam into the wall to the left of Aston. The pistol skidded across the floor towards the bedroom.

  Harpur moved after it, but Leo must have given up trying to restrain Lay-waste and, standing near the doorway now, he heard the shot and turned, then stooped swiftly and picked up the gun. For a second, he looked as if he might fire at Harpur. The two men stood facing each other, stiff, frozen, Leo holding the weapon out in front of him. But then, almost wearily, almost hopelessly, Leo waved the pistol at Harpur, ordering him to sit again.

  ‘Sarah?’ Harpur said. ‘Are –’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She rubbed her neck and grinned again, almost a smile now. ‘Thanks, Colin,’ she said, glancing at the guard on the floor. ‘But they won’t forgive that.’

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ he said. Could be. Thank God it was Leo who had picked up the weapon, not one of his babies.

  Harpur became aware of shouting and groans from below on the fire escape. Yes, it was too late to hold back Lay-waste; he leaned far out over the sill, obviously searching for a target, ready to fire again, if he had anything left.

  And then Harpur heard two shots, seeming to come from outside, from below, maybe, and Lay-waste half turned and slid back very fast from the window and on to the floor, his head crashing against the sill as he fell. Leo seemed to sob, then hurried forward and bent down to him. Gerald and Simpson both went to the window now and stared down. ‘They’re pulling out,’ Gerald shouted. ‘God, we’ve blown it. We’ll never finish them, Anthony’s blown it, the prat.’

  ‘Get an ambulance,’ Leo said. He was still crouched over Lay-waste, weeping openly now.

  ‘That dumb fucker,’ Gerald replied, staring down at Lay-waste. ‘He deserves it. We leave him. Get out. They’ll have the bloody SAS here in a minute. We use the front. Norman’s probably scarpered with the rest.’

  He and Simpson ran back into the living room, putting their pistols away. The guard had begun to stir and they pulled him upright. Then, supporting him, they tugged the front door of the flat open and Harpur heard them rushing down the stairs. Cars started in the road and roared away. Harpur found his legs were all right and walked into the bedroom. Leo was trying to stop blood flowing from Lay-waste’s neck with part of his own shirt which he had torn off at the front and folded, so that his thin, pale stomach was exposed. Leo’s Browning and the guard’s pistol lay near the body and Harpur was able to pick up both weapons this time. Lay-waste’s was still in his hand, and he took that too.

  When Harpur looked below, he could see a man’s body lying crumpled on the steps near the bottom of the escape, face down and not recognizable at this distance. Sarah and Aston joined him.

  From the floor, Leo said again: ‘Please, an ambulance.’

  ‘I’ve rung,’ Aston said.

  ‘Everything will be here in a minute,’ Harpur told Leo. Turning to Aston, he muttered: ‘Get her out of this place.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Eventually, it’s bound to be known I was here,’ Sarah protested.

  ‘Yes, eventually,’ Harpur replied. ‘Eventually’s better than now.’

  Towards dawn he drove out with Iles from Tempest Street to Benny Loxton’s place on the Loam Estate.

  ‘Do you know, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find Sarah there when we arrived at Aston’s,’ Iles said.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘There are points in this I don’t understand. How did you get there first like that, and your injury?’

  ‘Yes, there are baffling elements, sir. It’s the same for all of us. How did Leo know that Tommy Vit had been hired by Benny and would bring all the Loxton outfit into a trap?’

  ‘That is a mystery,’ Iles said, ‘a real mystery. I agree.’

  ‘Yes, sir? As a matter of fact, I wondered if you’d possibly seen him lurking around your place.’

  ‘You mean did I tell Leo? Christ, you’ve got a bloody nerve, Harpur. Would anyone be likely to spot a pro like Tommy Vit if he was doing an observation?’

  ‘Well, another pro might, I suppose, sir. And you are on terms with Leo, aren’t you?’

  Iles discarded that subject. ‘I wonder if Sarah will lose some taste for this sort of foolish, shady life now? Two people dead. It’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘We’ll have to see.’

  ‘I think so, sir.’

  ‘She’s tough. She goes her own way. That’s the trouble. But she’s had some very bad sessions lately. Leo told us – Sarah and me – that some woman turned up at the Monty just after Ralph took a beating. Judging by her face as he said it, I reckon that was Sarah. She might come to decide she’s had enough of such adventures.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘Ah, you don’t think so? No, you’re too bloody right. Why can’t I hold her, Colin?’

  They rang the bell of Loxton’s house and after a long while Alma appeared in a dressing-gown. Game as ever, she affected delight at seeing Iles. ‘But do come in, gentlemen,’ she cried. ‘You wish to see Theodore? I’m afraid he’s away on a business trip. Yes. You poor people, working such hours. It must be urgent.’

  She took them into the big lounge. Nobody who was roused at this hour looked too great, and Alma certainly did not. The time of day, like the time of life, could be a bugger, and occasionally they combined to be a supreme bugger.

  ‘Will you sit down, love,’ Iles asked. She looked startled at being addressed like that, and at being offered the hospitality of her own furniture. But she did what the ACC had suggested, and he and Harpur also took chairs.

  ‘Can one offer drinks so early?’ she asked, laughing briefly. Harpur saw that she had started to suspect things were not good. Attempting to read their faces, she looked earnestly back and forth at each of them.

  ‘Alma, we had an incident tonight. A dark incident,’ Iles said. ‘I’m very much afraid two people were killed, a youngster called Anthony Tacette.’ He lowered his head, and might genuinely have been upset. ‘And, I regret to say, Theodore.’

  ‘That fucking
Lay-waste?’ Alma cried. ‘He killed Benny?’

  Harpur felt astonished at her reaction; the swearing, the shrillness of her grief, and, above all, the apparent familiarity with Loxton’s rough world. ‘It does look like that,’ Harpur said. ‘So, did you know about all these things, Alma – Lay-waste, the gang battles?’ He tried to keep the surprise out of his voice, not eager to sound terminally naïve.

  She stared at Harpur, without much warmth. ‘Knew about it? I married it, didn’t I? I loved Benny, wanted him, and all the rest came as part of the deal. That was the life I took on board with him, so I had to make the best of it. Occasionally I might feel sickened, but I knew I wasn’t entitled to. So, I tried to know only as much as I couldn’t help knowing, didn’t I, and just got on with the washing up and the charities? Do you think I’m some sort of fool? Do you think I believe the Save the Whale movement makes the world go round? But what I knew I didn’t make a display of. I would have preferred things to be different and I tried to pretend they really were. Now and then, though, would come a moment when that was impossible. Same sort of thing happens to everybody, I suppose. We all kid ourselves until we can’t. “Moment of truth.” You’ve heard of it? Very rough, that can be. Ask the bullfighter with his balls hooked on a horn. But I still had to stick to my grande dame act in public. Perhaps Benny and I fought about these things privately. Perhaps I tried to get him to change. I didn’t stand a chance. If you live on the proceeds how can you quibble about where they come from?’ She wiped her eyes, though Harpur saw no tears. ‘And who killed Lay-waste?’ she asked.

  ‘We don’t know yet.’

  ‘But could it have been Benny?’ she persisted.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Harpur said. It was hardly possible at all, in fact, because everything suggested Loxton died first. One of the others had blazed up at Lay-waste, as a parting shot, and had a big piece of luck. Or it might have been one of their marksmen with a rifle. They had no forensic on the bullet yet. But he knew that this was the reply Alma needed just now, so why not?