First Fix Your Alibi

by Bill James

  ‘Ban the banausic! This would be a challenge, sir.’

  ‘It would be and you’d probably make a total fuck-up of it.’

  ‘I might practise thinking width.’

  ‘What Ralph understands is that Waverton and Waverton’s malign, secret associates have failed once,’ Iles replied. ‘This does not mean they will abandon their filthy project. They had everything right except the personnel – not Manse himself but his wife and child. They will want to correct. They will come again. And this time they might do what they meant to do previously, get Manse. Ralph recognizes this. Ralph fears this. It would bring perilous imbalance to the city. It would bring in outside traders who want Manse’s firm and who would not be interested in the kind of mature concordat that exists now between Ralph’s and Shale’s businesses. Having rid the scene of Manse they would almost certainly try to take over Ember’s companies as well. This is why I referred to Ralph as an embodiment of long-term thought.’

  ‘Would that thought have width as well as length?’

  ‘Ralph and Manse will seek to look after each other,’ Iles replied. ‘There are bonds.’

  Harpur, of course, recognized that Iles’s guesses often turned out right, and so Harpur was at the city swimming bath now watching an inter-schools’ gala – or watching the Wavertons watching an inter-schools’ gala – and following them at a tactical distance when they left. He’d thought he could work out from the pattern of their clapping and yelling during the races the child they supported: a girl in her pre-teens, not too graceful in the water, but strong and dogged, a winner in all her crawl events for John Locke Comprehensive School: Olive. Harpur’s daughters preferred judo to swimming and weren’t at the gala tonight.

  Harpur’s belief that Iles could foresee meant that marginally more often than not – say 60 per cent to 40 per cent – if he felt like interpreting a situation he would get it correct, almost regardless of evidence one way or the other. For instance, a pair danced near to Ember and Shale and therefore Iles would say the man must be part responsible for the death of Naomi and Laurent Shale, and could be lining up an attempt on Manse, to correct the earlier botched one. Was this a mad bit of theorizing? If it had come from anyone else Harpur would have thought so and instantly dismissed it. But Iles could prophesy. Harpur had decided to put a discreet spell of surveillance on Waverton. Because he wouldn’t have been able to offer a credible, sane briefing on this operation to any of his detective staff, he’d do it himself.

  He followed them into the baths’ car park. They walked to the Mercedes Harpur had tailed here earlier from their home. Waverton unlocked the doors and they climbed in – climbed into the back. Harpur wondered what the ACC would have divined from this, and from the seeming eagerness of Rose to get to the vehicle. The car park was well lit, and probably had CCTV. Just the same, they were plainly ready to accept the risk. Was Rose depressed and uncertain about something, and in need of an immediate act of reassurance on the state of the relationship with Frank? A back-seat get together might be intended to deliver this reassurance, and to hell with lights and cameras.

  Harpur went to his own car. He didn’t fancy hanging about near the Mercedes. Naturally, he would acknowledge that voyeurism could be regarded as a kind of community celebration, the sharing in a joyful, possibly fruitful carry-on; but he didn’t much go for it, all the same. He thought he would feel excluded, an outsider, and this must be especially so if he were skulking at the window of a high-grade car, such as a newish Mercedes. There’d be a sort of deprived urchin quality to such behaviour. This didn’t necessarily mean that Harpur wanted to be invited in to make up a threesome, just that he had little curiosity about community fondnesses. There were people about who enjoyed being watched and/or watching, in car parks, lay-bys, back lanes. An official term had been invented: dogging. Not to Harpur’s taste, though, or not yet. And he didn’t think the Wavertons’ were motivated like that, either. They’d responded to a sudden need, especially Rose.

  He liked her go-get spirit; the positive reasoning that lay behind this extra-mural love session. She would probably argue that if their marriage had troubles, doubts, disturbing – possibly sinister – puzzles, the best remedy was good sex, regardless of location.

  Iles, if told, would certainly want details that Harpur couldn’t provide: which side of the car was her head; would it be liable to bang against the metal Mercedes shell at crux moments, or crux minutes, possibly concussing her; what, if any, noises – and above all, speech; which garments discarded; any instances of Rose’s feet hitting the hazard switch and setting off alarm lights? Iles had mentioned to Harpur a while ago a novel and film where people who were terribly injured in a car crash got an extra thrill from undelayed sex in the wrecked vehicle.

  Iles would most likely also theorize as Harpur had about the causes of Rose Waverton’s impulse – a crisis search for solace – and see it as additional evidence that Waverton had tried to get Manse killed, and might try again. Harpur wondered about that, too, but not with the same certainty and confidence as Iles.

  No, spying on couples coupling didn’t interest Harpur; or didn’t interest him enough to be caught at it and immortalized on film. He supposed that one of them would go back afterwards to find the triumphant freestyle girl. Harpur would try to get behind the Merc once more when they left. He’d have to decide later whether to give an account of things to Iles. The assistant chief didn’t know Harpur had started the surveillance. He definitely did not want Iles to find out by having some CCTV footage put in front of him showing Harpur snooping on post-gala intimacy.

  EIGHT

  Since the death of his wife, Harpur had brought up their two daughters as a single parent, with occasional help from his girlfriend, Denise, a nineteen-year-old undergraduate at the local university. She was cooking breakfast for the four of them this morning. His daughters loved it when Denise stayed overnight. They felt this restored the family to something like what it should be.

  Denise didn’t live in permanently at Arthur Street, though Harpur and his daughters wished she did. She had a room at Jonson Court, a student accommodation block on campus, and sometimes spent the night there or with friends. In the vacations she’d usually go home to see her mother and father in Stafford for a week or so.

  Denise never smoked while preparing meals nor while eating one of them. She ran her life according to some inflexible rules and always insisted that the breakfast bacon should be lean and not more than two fried eggs each. She was only four years older than Harpur’s daughter, Hazel, and he suspected Denise didn’t greatly like being thought of by the children as a sort of replacement ma. But she never let them see that. She had tact and considerateness. Maybe she remembered from her own fairly recent experience how easily hurt young girls could be. Harpur wondered if she kept the Jonson Court room so as not to become wholly committed to him and Hazel and Jill. That possible reluctance disappointed Harpur, but he understood it, would put up with it. Denise had a life to fashion and she probably didn’t plan on confining it to 126 Arthur Street. Today she wore the short blue dressing gown she stored at Harpur’s house, thick grey hiking socks and suede desert boots.

  Hazel said, ‘He has secrets you know, Denise.’

  ‘Well, of course, he has secrets,’ Jill said. ‘He’s police and therefore some matters are private. They got to be.’

  ‘Have to be,’ Harpur said. He was used to the children and Denise discussing him almost as if he were not present. Chipping in with some grammar might remind them that he was.

  ‘Yes, have to be,’ Jill said.

  ‘But maybe he talks to you, Denise,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Of course he talks to Denise,’ Jill said. ‘Some of it is what’s called “pillow talk”, that being very one-to-one. But it don’t mean he can’t still keep some stuff private, because it’s how a detective got to be, not blabbing everything relating to cases and that.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean,’ Harpur said.

  �
��Exactly,’ Jill said. ‘It doesn’t mean no secrets, owing to some stuff being to do with the job and what’s called “ongoing”. Like I said, it got to be.’

  ‘Has to be,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Yes, has to be,’ Jill replied. ‘That’s what I said, Dad. Do you know, Mohammed Ali made fun of how Frazier talked – just to get him mad. Frazier said “gonna” and Ali told him it should be “going to”. Then Ali said, “Talk intelligent.”’

  ‘Has Dad talked to you, Denise?’ Hazel said.

  ‘Regarding what?’ Denise said.

  ‘This is to do with the swimming gala,’ Hazel said.

  ‘We know one of the kids who was in it. She won all sorts,’ Jill said. ‘She’s in our school. She’s all right. She don’t get boasty or wanting to be like adored owing to her crawl.’

  ‘Doesn’t,’ Harpur said ‘Boastful’.

  ‘Right,’ Jill replied.

  ‘She knows Dad,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Well, not knows in the full meaning knows,’ Jill said. ‘She’s seen him on TV news and she recognized him.’

  ‘At the baths,’ Hazel said.

  ‘He was watching, but she thinks he wasn’t watching the gala, but was watching her mum and dad who were there supporting,’ Jill said. ‘I don’t know how she can be sure of that because her face would be underwater for a lot of the time in the crawl.’

  ‘Between events,’ Hazel said.

  ‘No, you haven’t spoken about that to me, have you, Colin?’ Denise said.

  ‘Olive Waverton,’ Hazel replied.

  There was a special, large blue teapot the girls brought out when Denise did breakfasts. It had become part of a ritual, like a censer in some church ceremony. The size said ‘family’ to them. Denise gave refills from it now. Harpur felt there should be priests muttering a litany behind the gentle pouring sound.

  ‘We’ve asked Dad – kept on at him, but no good,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Usually, I don’t think we’d ask so strong, not even Hazel, who’s a real one for questions to Dad,’ Jill said, ‘like … like what you call it …?’

  ‘Interrogation?’ Denise said.

  ‘That’s it,’ Jill said.

  ‘So strongly,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Yes, strongly,’ Jill said, ‘like the religious education teacher, real persistent, on who begat who.’

  ‘Really persistent,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Yes, really,’ Jill replied.

  ‘Who begat whom,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Do they have whoms in the Old Testament?’ Jill said. ‘Why we kept asking was because this is to do with us, with Hazel and I.’

  ‘Hazel and me,’ Harpur said.

  ‘No, not you, Dad,’ Jill said.

  ‘Just correcting your creaky English,’ Hazel said.

  ‘The day after the pool, this kid, Olive, younger than us, comes asking in school – Haze first, then me – asking about Dad – why he’s at the gala although his own children – us – are not there, and staring at her mother and father. What this Olive calls “a cop stare, meaning guilty until proved very guilty”.’

  ‘I seem to know the name,’ Denise said.

  ‘Which?’ Hazel asked.

  ‘Waverton,’ Denise said.

  ‘How do you mean, seem to know,’ Hazel said.

  Jill said, ‘This is what I mentioned. Haze has questions all the time.’

  ‘It’s a name I think I’ve heard around,’ Denise replied.

  ‘Around where?’ Hazel said.

  ‘See?’ Jill said.

  ‘Just around,’ Denise said. ‘From friends, perhaps.’

  ‘What do you mean, “perhaps”?’ Hazel replied.

  ‘This kid, Olive, coming up to us and asking about Dad and we can’t answer,’ Jill said. ‘We didn’t even know he was at the gala until this Olive started asking us about it. And she will most likely go to other kids and say he was at the pool and giving a real gaze and we – that’s Haze and me—’

  ‘Haze and I,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Haze and I, Haze and me, whatever, whichever, all of us – that’s Haze and I or Haze and me – looking so stupid, not knowing Dad was at the pool at all, and so, it’s obvious, not knowing why he was there, or why he’s eyeballing Mr and Mrs Waverton. This is bad – a kid younger than us knowing stuff about Dad that we didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, I think I’ve heard the name around,’ Denise said. She was finishing some black pudding and seemed very thoughtful as she chewed. She was tall – about 5’ 9” – with dark hair worn to just above shoulder level, with a small-boned, slight, wiry frame, her face alert and inquisitive, grey-blue eyes, very nicely disposed features. She belonged to a ballet club in the city.

  ‘But Dad hasn’t talked to you about the pool?’ Jill asked.

  ‘This is the law seeming to apply big attention to Olive’s mother and father, so, of course, she’s curious and worried,’ Hazel said. ‘All we can give her is zilch.’

  ‘She said her mum and dad went out before the end of the gala and Dad hurried after them, so we know for sure he must of been interested only in them, not the events,’ Jill said.

  ‘Must have been,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Yes. It’s why he’s there,’ Jill said. ‘Maybe they went out to try to get away from his staring. If you go to a gala, you don’t want to be stared at all the time by police. Then her mother came back in to collect Olive, but by herself. She thinks that when they drove to the gala there might have been another car on their tail, one person in it, a big man. A Ford Focus. Olive couldn’t be sure who it was but does the headquarter’s fleet have Focuses, Dad.’

  ‘Why were you tailing them, Dad? That’s not the kind of job for a detective chief superintendent, anyway,’ Hazel said.

  ‘I told you, there got to be secrets sometimes in copdom. Dad might of wanted to do this tracking on a confidential basis, confidential even from other detectives.’

  ‘Might have wanted,’ Harpur said

  ‘There’s a Bond film called For Your Eyes Only,’ Jill said.

  ‘So?’ Hazel replied.

  ‘It shows that even inside a department, such as, for instance, the detective department, there might be jobs that only one person knows about, which is Dad when he’s behind the Wavertons.’

  The children left for school. Denise and Harpur washed up and then went back to bed. Denise had nothing at the university until midday and Harpur could fictionalize a few hours doing checks around the borough. Denise lay on the duvet in her clothes and boots for a while, smoking her first cigarette of the day. She said, ‘I didn’t tell Hazel and Jill but when I hear the name Waverton it’s from users at uni, students and staff. He’s mid-rank in one of the main firms, isn’t he, Col, marshalling pushers? Manse Shale’s outfit – the one whose wife and son got shot? Are you hitting the drugs game? But why? I thought Mr Iles wanted a quiet life for the city and, as long as he got it, would ignore the trading. But, then, you’re not Mr Iles, are you? Was it about sales of stuff at a children’s gala? Does even Mr Iles draw the line at that?’

  ‘This is not the kind of pillow-talk I’m interested in now,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Who needs any kind of talk?’ she said, taking one final, almighty drag on the cigarette, then standing to stub out the remaining fragment and undressing slowly in a bump n’ grind striptease send-up. ‘One of the things I love about you, Colin, is that you don’t mind if my mouth tastes like an ashtray.’

  ‘What are the other things?’

  ‘Oh, I expect we’ll work through the list now, won’t we?’

  NINE

  It was one of those central things about Denise, like the insistence on lean breakfast bacon and the primly enforced limit of two fried eggs, that the love affair with Harpur should be open, undisguised, unfurtive; as she used to say, ‘not hole in the corner, and I don’t speak as the corner’. So, when someone rang the front door bell, she said, ‘I’ll go, Col, You need a rest.’ She swung out of the bed, put on the blue dressing gown and
went barefoot downstairs. Harpur felt delighted with this. She behaved as if she were a normal part of the household and naturally took on routine duties such as answering the door regardless of what she had on or didn’t, halfway through the morning. In a while she called out, ‘It’s a Mrs Waverton, Col.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

  ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ Denise said.

  Harpur dressed. He took the bit of debris from the cigarette and put it down the lavatory. Then he joined the two of them in the big sitting room. Denise had brought coffees from the kitchen. ‘I found your address in the telephone book, Mr Harpur,’ Mrs Waverton said.

  ‘Col thinks he should be available,’ Denise replied. ‘He won’t go ex-directory. He claims his nickname is “24/7”.’

  ‘It’s about the gala,’ Rose Waverton said.

  ‘Ah, I’ve heard something of that,’ Denise said. ‘Your daughter did very well, I gather.’

  ‘It’s not so much about her,’ Rose Waverton said.

  ‘If there’s something bugging you you’re very wise to come here. Colin will do everything he can to help,’ Denise said.

  Harpur thought she most probably did believe this. She might help Mrs Waverton believe it, or half believe it, too. He felt glad Denise was here and, unless Mrs Waverton objected, he would like Denise to stay, although this would be police business and, as Jill had insisted, some of that should be secret.

  ‘I’m Denise,’ she said. ‘I know this family very well.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Rose.’

  The two women, sitting alongside each other on a settee, cup in hand, might have been at a sedate coffee morning somewhere, though Denise was young for that brand of socializing, and not suitably dressed. Rose Waverton, he’d guess, must be at least fifteen years older. Tall – about 5’ 9,” like Denise – she had mousy-to-blonde hair showing no grey yet. She was blue-eyed, slim, with good, fair skin, her face round, cheerful and friendly when he had seen her at the dancing in the Agincourt; but drawn and troubled now. Women in her sort of marriage often had special troubles. Did they know they were hitching up to a possible villain, but took him just the same? Love is blind? Love is not only blind but stupid? Harpur had never been able to get a proper answer to this. She wore light blue trousers and a crimson top under a white, woollen cardigan.