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by Bill James

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of recent titles from Severn House by Bill James

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Footnotes

  A Selection of recent titles from Severn House by Bill James

  The Harpur and Iles Series

  VACUUM

  UNDERCOVER

  PLAY DEAD

  DISCLOSURES

  BLAZE AWAY

  FIRST FIX YOUR ALIBI

  CLOSE

  Novels

  BETWEEN LIVES

  DOUBLE JEOPARDY

  MAKING STUFF UP

  LETTERS FROM CARTHAGE

  OFF-STREET PARKING

  FULL OF MONEY

  WORLD WAR TWO WILL NOT TAKE PLACE

  NOOSE

  SNATCHED

  THE PRINCIPALS

  CLOSE

  Bill James

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  This eBook edition first published in 2017 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2017 by Bill James.

  The right of Bill James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8686-6 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-792-0 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-859-9 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  ‘But why always Dorothea? Was her point of view the only possible one?’

  George Eliot, Middlemarch, Chapter 29.

  ONE

  Iles said, pleasantly enough, given that it was Iles, ‘One of the things you’ll have noticed about me, Col, is that I’m strongly aware of connections or links, in the very widest, indeed global sense, such connections, links, not always immediately obvious.’

  ‘I don’t know anyone, sir, who could come near you as to strong awareness of wide, indeed global connections or links, such connections, links, not always immediately obvious,’ Harpur said with terrific sincerity.

  ‘And so an instance before us now,’ Iles replied.

  ‘Undoubtedly, sir. But which?’

  ‘Which what, Harpur?’

  ‘That’s certainly a point, sir.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘I need specifics,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Of course you do, Col. At your rank you can’t be expected to deal in general, overarching factors.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Which specifics, Harpur?’

  ‘This corpse hit by at least three rounds from close. It seems to me extremely specific, sir, especially to the corpse, but to us, also. In the very widest, indeed global sense, what do you see him connected to, linked to?’

  ‘A perfectly understandable, if rough-and-ready, question, Col.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘And there is an answer, Harpur. Be assured.’

  ‘Good.’ Harpur waited for this answer. But Iles went silent for a while. They were standing near a silver Ford Focus in a cul-de-sac on the northern edge of their ground. It was a reasonably sedate area of detached and semi-detached four- or five-bedroomed houses, plus a small block of flats, near a small, well-kept park, though, obviously, the sedateness had been given quite a jolt recently. ‘I certainly wouldn’t want you to rush over-hastily into an explanation, sir,’ Harpur said.

  At once Iles replied, ‘Think Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘Oh, yes, Col.’

  ‘A film?’

  ‘You could put it like that, definitely. Think William Holden.’

  ‘The American film star way back?’

  ‘You could put it like that, yes,’ Iles replied.

  ‘You see a connection, a link, between William Holden and this Caucasian male, apparently executed in a Ford Focus?’

  ‘William Holden in Sunset Boulevard and in the pool,’ Iles said.

  ‘Which pool?’

  ‘We are talking about a considerable Hollywood property, with its own swimming pool.’

  ‘I believe there are, and were, many such pools in that part of the US owing to the constant sunshine and a need to cool off.’

  ‘California,’ Iles replied.

  ‘And William Holden is in this pool?’

  ‘The William Holden character, Joe Gillis, face-down.’

  ‘Not alive?’

  ‘You could put it like that, Col. Now, you’ll say to me, there’s another film and a book where one of the main characters ends up dead in a luxury US property’s pool, though on the other side of the USA, where there might not be so much sunshine and consequent need to cool off.’

  ‘There’s another film and a book where one of the main characters ends up in a luxury US property’s pool, though on the other side of the USA, where there might not be so much sunshine and consequent need to cool off,’ Harpur said.

  Iles smiled very approvingly. ‘You’re so right, Col,’ he said. ‘Bravo! It’s The Great Gatsby, isn’t it?’

  ‘You could put it like that, yes, sir, I think.’

  ‘Such pools are what’s known as symbolic in their various stories. But I don’t want you to panic at a rather unusual word, “symbolic”. To you these bathing pools might appear to be si
mply bathing pools. But that is in the nature of symbols, Col. They have their ordinary existence – what we might call their bathing pool, hole-in-the-ground, water-filled existence – but also they represent something of much larger significance. They indicate that wealth has its dark, dangerous side as well as its enjoyable aspect. Normally in these pools someone with a glass of Tia Maria in one hand would be floating, luxuriating, on an inflatable mattress, probably bright and cheerful in colour, the water brilliantly clean and glistening. Occasionally, though, there comes a marked change of tone and of personnel. We get a message, don’t we, Col, you as a detective chief superintendent, I as an assistant chief constable (operations)? These pools and their unusual contents speak to us and to readers and audiences generally.’

  ‘But Ford Focus man is not in a pool, sir, he’s in a modest car, its front-side windows shattered. Yet you still see connections, links – connections, links to both pools?’

  ‘The deployment of the pools in those two tales is not the same, though, is it, Col?’

  ‘Deployment?’

  ‘Ask yourself, Col, where does the pool actually come in each of those stories.’

  ‘Where does the pool actually come in each of those stories?’

  ‘Sharp, Col. Very sharp. You’ve put your finger on it,’ the ACC said.

  ‘I’m glad. As I see things, sir, that’s my main role.’

  ‘What is, Col?’

  ‘To put my finger on it, whatever it is.’

  ‘We are surely bound to notice, aren’t we, Harpur, that in The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is found dead in his pool and this comes near the end of the book or film, so we know about the series of events and errors leading to this situation? He doesn’t have to explain. We have followed the narrative.’

  ‘He can’t explain, can he, sir, because he’s dead?’

  ‘Whereas, Gillis, the William Holden figure in Sunset Boulevard, although dead from the very beginning, is going to be the voice that takes us through all the incidents and tensions moving forward to, or rather, moving back to, his appearance dead in the water, as the phrase goes, literally in this case. This dead man actually creates the tale, Harpur.’

  ‘When you said, “Think Sunset Boulevard, think William Holden” this was what you meant, was it, sir?’

  ‘Excellent, Col.’

  ‘You see a connection, a link, owing to the very great, indeed, global, width of your vision when dealing with connections and links, such connections and links not always immediately obvious?’

  ‘Exactly, Col.’

  ‘You believe that this cadaver here, although not in a pool, will, when we look at his history in exceptional depth, tell us how he happens to be discovered with parts of his face and forehead carried away by what must have been bullets of some substantial calibre.’

  ‘That’s what I was getting at, Col – the connection, the link, to a notable precedent, viz, William Holden. And that’s what I was getting at when I spoke of width and fixed on the term “global”. My mind will range and explore, seeking these connections and links. It’s a brilliantly positive, unflagging restlessness. I’m not one to be tethered, Harpur.’

  ‘I’ve heard people say you are the least tethered person they have ever come across, putting them in mind of an unbroken-in mustang, proud, free, dangerous, its muzzle spit-flecked.’

  ‘If the world is out there, Col – and out there is where it undeniably is or where else, for God’s sake? – one must trek through it, take from it willy-nilly, conjoin its many outpourings and modes. To neglect such opportunities is a kind of dereliction, a kind of unforgivable indolence.’

  ‘But, surely, sir, this is routine. Whenever we come across a murdered male or female, the priority is to discover her/his history and background. He/she can’t help us, because she/he’s dead. This one’s the same.’

  ‘Joe Gillis helped. More: he told the whole lot to us, the audience, Harpur, and the cameras took his dictation. You’ll have heard of that chant that goes up in some American jails when a prisoner is being escorted to the electric chair.’

  ‘“Dead man walking”?’

  ‘Good, Col. Here, though, we have dead man talking. If you Google you’ll find that quite a few writers have used this amended version as the title for their books and/or films if the yarn is being told by someone no longer alive.’

  ‘The man in the car is not Joe Gillis, though, is he? Well, obviously, there’s no actual Joe Gillis. He’s a figment, sir, created by scriptwriters. But the man in the Focus we know to be Thomas Wells Hart, early twenties, a private investigator on our ground and real. I’ve met him occasionally when he was investigating some case that interested us, as well.’

  ‘Chandler’s private eye, Philip Marlowe, was always running into local cops and making them look stupid,’ Iles said. ‘But that doesn’t necessarily mean the same for you, Col. You don’t need such help.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. And there were those anon letters about him that came to us alleging under-age sex. They turned out to be wrong because he wasn’t.’

  ‘Wasn’t what?’

  ‘Under-age. The letters claimed he was the victim – had been seduced as a schoolboy by a teacher.’

  Iles paused for a second. He would jab his astonishing memory into performance. He said, ‘The teacher female? Do I get her name right – Judith Vasonne?’

  ‘She moved away.’

  ‘I don’t think we ever identified anon, did we, Col?’

  Harpur said …

  TWO

  But why always Harpur? Was his point of view the only possible one? What would Ford Focus man say if he ran this tale?

  THREE

  You’ll possibly expect something wry and vain from me about the indignity of being found shot dead in such an ordinary car as a Ford Focus, and in an unspectacular suburban street, unspectacular because it’s a cul-de-sac going nowhere and going there after only the frontage width of eight detached and semi-detached houses, numbers 1 to 15 on the north side and 2 to 16 on the south, plus a minor block of flats. This is certainly not the death situation I would have chosen. But it’s hard to imagine a situation I would have chosen.

  The location is not really the important factor here. The important factor, or factors, is/are the three bullets now at rest inside me, two in the face-head area, one in the upper chest, missing the heart, though not by much, and, in any case, virtually redundant because each skull and brain injury could have killed. My impression is of soft-nosed dumdum rounds designed to spread and splinter on major impact causing extensive internal damage to the target. And, because of the loss of penetrative sleekness when it broadens like that, liable to stay spent in the hit body and not speed hungrily through it, and out again, perhaps endangering others. People who sweepingly condemn dumdums as barbaric usually do so without realizing there is this beneficial, humane side to their use. Salvoes and that kind of thing can be dangerous not just for the person they’re aimed at, but for anyone in the immediate area. Reduction of that peril is clearly a plus, though, in view of what’s happened many folk might find it odd that I should plead for a more balanced view of dumdums.

  Also, there is, in fact, quite a lot to be said in favour of the Ford Focus for my type of work. I’m slightly reluctant to refer to myself as a ‘private investigator’. To me this is an American term covering characters like Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, a great guy, but a great guy at a distant time and at a distant place – Bay City (actually, Santa Monica), California. Yet a private investigator is what I am, was. This is why I say the Ford Focus seemed just right for my professional needs and therefore, of course, appropriate for me to get shot in if I’m going to get shot at all. Suppose Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe had ended up killed in his car, it would most probably have been the equivalent type of inconspicuous vehicle – though not actually a Ford Focus because they weren’t around then in Bay City – or Britain.

  But it’s the ‘inconspicuous’ element that is crucial, here or in the
US. Some refer to the Ford Focus as a ‘teacher’s car’, and it’s true you’ll see plenty of them parked in school yards. I’ll admit it’s a rather patronizing description, meaning a car bought mainly for getting to and from work, affordable out of a limited salary, unpretentious and so not liable to get its wheel nuts loosened by jokey pupils. The Focus is, and was during my time as a detective, a fine, stolid model. It didn’t stand out, wasn’t especially noticeable, despite its title, Focus, seeming to demand close examination. And, obviously, these qualities made it very suitable for tailing and for covert surveillance; and for moving a client, or clients, secretly to a different, possibly safer base. A private investigator would be unwise to run a Porsche or Maserati. Unwise for two reasons: extreme, inconvenient notability; extravagance – clients might feel they were buying the investigator a very high life.

  No, the Ford Focus and a couple of other similar motors were ideal for my occupation, but could not offer total, perfect invisibility and protection, obviously.

  FOUR

  I sort of drifted into this game. I can’t say I drifted out of it, though. That had an abrupt, point-blank, finale nature. To be fair, it was, in fact, a very tidily organized bit of onslaughting, every possibility of mistake (theirs) or escape (mine) cut to the minimum. Obviously, their first and chief success was – unknown to them – my belief I’d find something satisfactory at number 12B Cairn Close. Something necessary? This meant big help, maybe conclusive help, with the hellishly tricky corruption investigation I’d been floundering about in for months.

  Of course, I knew who had asked me as a favour to do a quick check on Cairn Close: a friendly, very temporary colleague who’d been working with me on that formidable investigation I’ve just spoken of. We’d thought we were closing in on major truths, and some major people. These major people would not have carried out the killing personally, though. This formal duty could have been farmed out to jobbers impressively experienced in seeing off some nominated target or targets in a suburban cul-de-sac. It would be a fairly rare and therefore expensive kind of skill to hire; but possibly regarded as justified if the commission were nicely carried out with no pointers to the ultimate originator, originators, of the gun-play. There might be suspicion, intelligent, logical suspicion, but suspicion only: plenty of that around always, though most of it never came to anything.