First Fix Your Alibi

by Bill James

  ‘Is it presumptuous of me to turn up at your home, Mr Harpur?’ Rose Waverton said. ‘I didn’t dare tell Frank I was coming here.’

  ‘Col expects callers. He’s a sort of supplementary Citizens’ Advice Bureau.’

  ‘You want to know why I was at the gala,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘It … puzzled us,’ she said. Harpur had an idea she almost said ‘frightened us’ but de-dramatized it.

  ‘No need,’ he said. That would cover both words. ‘It’s routine only.’

  ‘Routine to attend a kids’ swimming gala?’ Rose Waverton said.

  ‘I think Col means something of larger scope than that, Rose,’ Denise said. She seemed to have grasped at once that Harpur might need her help and Denise instantly began to give it, and to understand what it should be.

  ‘Routine to take a look at one or two people in the various firms,’ Harpur said.

  ‘To what purpose?’ Rose Waverton asked.

  ‘Under the assistant chief, Mr Iles, we run a unique system here,’ Harpur said.

  ‘The businesses, you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Things have to be kept in balance,’ Harpur said.

  ‘In balance?’ Mrs Waverton said.

  ‘Col will explain, I know,’ Denise said.

  ‘There is a non-interference policy, as formulated by Mr Iles,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Yes, I think I’d deduced that,’ Rose said. It might have been a put-down, but Harpur always ignored put-downs; a technique he’d perfected during conversations with Iles.

  ‘That non-interference is conditional,’ Harpur said. ‘Mr Iles’s policy contains considerable career risk. Not everyone in Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary or at high governmental level believes that policy acceptable. They watch for, hope for, disaster, enabling them to reverse Mr Iles’s initiative, to discredit him, perhaps finish him off.’

  ‘Yes, I think I’d worked that out, too,’ Rose said.

  ‘So, it’s conditional upon peaceful, normal, restrained behaviour by all concerned,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Yes?’ Mrs Waverton said.

  ‘But, obviously, we can’t keep an eye continuously on every member of both principal firms,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Right,’ Mrs Waverton said. She sounded less tense, as if she could see where his explanation was going, and took comfort from it.

  ‘We select one person of significance from either Manse Shale’s or Ralph Ember’s firm and do a kind of quick check on his or her lifestyle. We assume that the person chosen is reasonably typical of people in both the main outfits. It’s our way of assessing the general state of things. Opinion polls work similarly – on a sample. Although our sample is only one, it works. We can assess what the whole business scene here is.’

  ‘You extrapolate from your chosen example,’ Denise said. ‘Create a larger picture from it.’

  ‘Along those lines,’ Harpur replied. ‘Denise can give us the professional, learned term. She has a stack of A levels.’

  ‘You mean it was Frank’s turn?’ Mrs Waverton asked. ‘He was a symbol, a touchstone.’ She smiled, seemed wholly relieved.

  ‘Temporarily,’ Harpur said. ‘Why I said “routine”. Someone else next time.’

  Denise put out a hand and patted Mrs Waverton’s arm comfortingly. ‘Didn’t I tell you Col would explain and calm your anxieties? A family at a swimming gala couldn’t be more normal and peaceable, could it? All that innocent water.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ Rose Waverton said. She and Denise talked a little about Olive, the swimmer, and then Mrs Waverton stood and put her empty cup on the floor, ready to leave. But, as if suddenly hit by an afterthought, she said, ‘Olive told us you followed Frank and me out, Mr Harpur.’ She coloured a little.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he said.

  ‘Forgive what I’m going to say, but Olive thought I seemed to be hurrying to get away from you,’ Rose Waverton said.

  ‘Oh?’ Harpur replied.

  ‘But it wasn’t that, was it?’ Mrs Waverton said.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ Harpur said.

  ‘You’re very tactful, Mr Harpur. Not something one can always rely on from the police.’

  ‘Ah!’ Denise said. She stood, too.

  ‘What?’ Harpur said.

  ‘Tactful?’ Denise replied.

  ‘So?’ Harpur said.

  ‘You wanted a quick shag in the car, Rose. Is that it?’ Denise asked earnestly. She would be familiar with that kind of pressing need. Harpur saw he had been brilliantly farsighted to want her in on the conference; she could empathize. ‘I don’t know why I say “quick”. Shags shouldn’t be quick, should they? Mussolini thought so, apparently, but look what happened to him: hanged upside down from a lamp post. We’re not rabbits. What I mean is you moved very smartly to get a shag in the car – quick in the approach – but then the actual sweet conjoining properly slow until the final stages, naturally, and entirely satisfactory, I’m sure. Col wouldn’t peep in. Not his way at all. But, of course, it’s a lovely positive part of that profile he needed to build of your hubby at this time. A re-affirmation bonk in a public car park is just the kind of admirable evidence he wanted, isn’t it? Wife has an urgent, hot-pussy yen for sex in more or less situ and hub is there to supply it. A perfect, eloquent moment, “the convergence of the twain”, as old Thomas Hardy, the poet, would put it. What kind of car?’

  ‘A Merc.’

  ‘Great! This was a quality experience in two senses,’ Denise replied. ‘Real leather back seat? So kind to the bare arse.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Harpur asked.

  ‘When you went back in to collect Olive were you looking rather ruffled still, but dewy-eyed and content?’ Denise replied. ‘Col would have been able to report to Ilesy that he’d witnessed a paradigm vignette, wholly reassuring, even inspiring.’

  Mrs Waverton left.

  ‘Homework for me: look up extrapolate, paradigm and vignette,’ Harpur told Denise.

  ‘I’ve got to get dressed and move, Col,’ she said. ‘Seminar at twelve. That was a gallon of eyewash you gave her, wasn’t it? I never thought you’d sink so far into cliché you could say “lifestyle”. Frank Waverton’s in the frame for something big and very bad, is he? It calls for senior dick Colin Harpur’s personal intervention. Poor Rose. I think you’re creating a picture of him, yes, but not for the waffle reasons you gave her. Right?’

  ‘A seminar on what?’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Lawrence. Women In Love.’

  ‘You’ll shine.’

  TEN

  Sitting in a hired Renault Grand Scenic at the civic swimming baths car park, Ralph Ember had done some serious watching a couple of evenings ago. A banner across the front of the building had announced a children’s gala was underway now and he’d guessed that Frank and Rose Waverton had come to cheer on their daughter, Olive. He’d seen a mention of her in a local paper’s list of contestants.

  Ralph needed to build an all-round picture of Frank Waverton. One of the things about Ralph was that he had scruples. He would never mention these scruples to other people in a pious, vain way, but Ralph knew he definitely had considerable scruples, and that these quite often affected his behaviour. He couldn’t carry out his role of the mystery element who would slaughter Frank without proof that he deserved it. He didn’t consider the reasons given him by Manse Shale as anywhere near adequate: not much beyond a powerful hunch. Ralph would admit that Shale’s hunches might often prove right; he’d established a fine, even brilliant firm, and that would have required intelligent gambling and guesswork – hunches, in fact. But Ralph demanded something plainer and more concrete.

  That was difficult, obviously. The whole point of the planning with Manse was that the killer had no motive. Ralph didn’t need a motive, but he did need something to show Waverton was bad and bad enough to die. That badness might not be exercised against Ralph but Ralph should be able identify it. Manse had given him the Waverton family details plus other backg
rounding – the Merc, the hillside jogging, the middling position in Manse’s firm, but Ralph needed a lot extra to this before he would feel comfy with a mission to kill. Manse’s judgement might have been hit askew by the terrible murder of his wife and son. In Ralph’s view that would be entirely natural. But it meant that some of Manse’s ideas and schemes required systematic examination and possible reshaping; maybe, even rejection.

  Ralph didn’t have any armament with him the other night at the baths’ parking ground. This had not been a hunting trip; a reconnaissance trip. He wanted to get familiar with Waverton’s appearance and with the pattern of his life: his whole life, not just business duties and jogging. In this fashion – fragments at a time – he might pick up enough information, enough reliable, specific information, to make Shale’s theorizing credible and fit to be acted on. Ralph had remained outside the baths building. He’d felt he would probably get spotted and recognized if he went in. He didn’t want Waverton alerted to the fact that he was under surveillance as a potential target.

  After about three quarters of an hour he’d seen Frank and his wife come out from the baths and make for their Mercedes. Ralph hadn’t started the Renault engine at once, in case the sound drew attention, but he got ready to move out behind them when they left. Perhaps their daughter would be taken home in the school’s team vehicle. Ralph’s eyes had been focused very closely on Frank and Rose as they walked – seemed to hurry – towards the car, and Ralph didn’t notice at first that Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur emerged from the baths behind them but had stopped near the doors.

  Ralph had realized Harpur, too, was watching the couple. It amazed and baffled Ember that Harpur should be there. Why would he have an interest in the Wavertons? Was it in any way linked to Shale’s theory about Frank, and if so which way, for God’s sake?

  And Ralph’s confusion had grown worse still. The Wavertons reached their car and unlocked it then climbed aboard, Rose first, but into the back, not the driving and passenger seats. Into the back! Both! Frank pulled the door shut. Ralph had been too far away to see what might happen inside, but he would deduce. Hell, had the Wavertons got a dogging arrangement with Harpur – that modish, vehicle-based custom where couples, or more than couples, put on a sex performance for others to view? As Ralph understood it, the word referred to ‘walking the dog’, and stumbling upon people making love. The internet carried plenty of local dogging information. It was clearly a growth industry. Car parks ranked among the favourite venues for these popular, cross-class tableaux. Ralph reckoned that all the sex scandals covered in the media lately showed that unusual sex might affect all sorts. Police could be included, most probably. As a big part of their career, cops were used to spying on people, observing, noting, peeping. Maybe dogging seemed natural to them as an off-duty relaxation.

  Did what seemed to be taking place here suggest an arrangement of some sort between Harpur and the Wavertons, a link, an understanding? They’d have to fix a meeting point: ‘We’ll see you seeing us at the baths car park, Col. We’re looking forward to being looked at.’ Ralph had tried to work out what such a connection would mean. Harpur and Waverton were buddies? How far did such matiness go? Was it more than to do with Mercedes sex? Ralph felt dazed. He’d come to the baths hoping to get some early glimpses of Waverton’s life and style. He would never have expected Harpur to figure at all, let alone in this special, get-an-eyeful role.

  Ralph stayed in the Renault and tried to slip a little lower in the driving seat so as not to be obvious. But Harpur hadn’t gone audiencing at the Mercedes. He’d watched the Wavertons get into their car and then seemed to have no more to do with it. He walked across the yard to an unmarked Ford saloon and drove away. Bemused more than ever, Ralph continued in his post. After about twenty minutes both doors of the Mercedes opened and the couple got out. They closed the doors. Frank opened the driver’s door and climbed in behind the wheel. Rose went into the baths building and in a little while returned with their daughter. She carried a sports bag. The girl got into the passenger seat and Rose went into the back again. Ralph thought she might be enjoying good memories there.

  He’d decided they’d go home and he didn’t follow but drove to the Monty. The club was crowded. Early release schemes in British jails had been extended to free up room inside and Ralph congratulated and shook hands with three members who had reappeared sooner than expected at the Monty. These were the sort he’d kick out and keep out once he had the club improvement programme in operation. For the present, though, he was their host and hosts had to dish out geniality. A barman had poured Ralph his usual Kressmann’s Armagnac and he took it to his first-floor office. He’d sat down and thought about the evening.

  It had been obviously wrong to suspect dogging. He considered, instead, that he had witnessed an impressive, unpostponable, super-tremor act of lovemaking, Rose, perhaps, the initiator; she had almost sprinted on her way to the Mercedes. Ralph had wondered how someone with such deep, authentic needs would be if Frank were wiped out. He didn’t have to wonder for long. She would be desolated. Ralph had found it difficult – more difficult than ever – to think of killing Frank under the you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours-in-due-course contractual formula pinched by Manse Shale from the cinema.

  ELEVEN

  As Harpur had walked towards the unmarked Ford in the swimming bath car park the other evening, he’d noticed Ralph Ember apparently watching the Wavertons. Ralph was in a red Renault Grand Scenic. Harpur hoped he’d given no sign that he’d seen him, but once he was behind the car had taken a glance at the registration number and memorized it. Next day he’d done a check. The car had been hired for a week from a local firm, Easy-Come, Easy-Go in Lavender Street.

  For Ralph to avoid using one of his own or his companies’ cars suggested he wanted to stay unobserved. For a moment Harpur wondered whether Ralph had some sort of dogging arrangement with the Wavertons, but he’d doubted whether this was Ember’s kind of thing. So, what was Ralph’s kind of thing? Harpur might have understood it all better if it had been Manse Shale in the Renault. No, it was Ember and Ember alone.

  Had it been Shale instead, Harpur would have supposed he was witnessing the start of a vengeance exercise; vengeance and a plan to stop any further betrayals. Manse had made his attitude to Frank Waverton very evident at the Agincourt. Why was it, then, Ralph doing the dogging, in its other, gumshoe sense, not Shale; and thorough dogging if he needed the Renault for a week?

  Today, Denise was on another overnight and the four of them sat at breakfast again. Harpur said, ‘Haze, you had a film on the movie channel a while ago about two men agreeing to do each other’s murder.’

  ‘Strangers On A Train,’ Jill replied.

  ‘Novel by Patricia Highsmith,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Film directed by Hitchcock,’ Denise said. ‘Why are you interested, Col?’

  Harpur quartered a fried egg.

  ‘I think it might be another one of those secrets,’ Jill said.

  ‘Is it to do with that visit here by Mrs Waverton, Col?’ Denise said.

  ‘Which call here by Mrs Waverton?’ Hazel said.

  ‘She looked in the other day,’ Denise said.

  ‘Why, Dad?’ Hazel said. ‘You didn’t mention it.’

  Harpur busied himself with the egg.

  ‘Yes, another of those secrets,’ Jill said.

  TWELVE

  Ralph Ember returned the hired Renault Grand Scenic to the Easy-Come, Easy-Go premises in Lavender Street. Ralph’s wife, Margaret, was to follow in about ten minutes to chauffeur him back to the Monty. Ralph would pay for the hire by credit card but he had a fifty pound note ready, also. The girl doing the paperwork when he originally hired the Renault had been typically shocked and thrilled by his remarkable likeness to the young Charlton Heston.

  ‘I’d have thought you’d want a chariot, not a dull old Renault saloon,’ she said. Ralph was used to this type of quip, especially from women. It could be ti
resome but he put up with it. She was talking about the film, Ben Hur, and Chuck Heston’s scenes in a brilliantly fast and dangerous chariot race. It reappeared regularly at Easter on television.

  ‘A chariot?’ he’d replied. Almost always Ralph would pretend not to understand such joshing, and would put on a nice, humble show of bafflement. Ralph despised vanity in any form and it would obviously be disgustingly arrogant to act as if he knew he had the magnificent looks of Heston in his prime, although he did know. How could he fail to know when so many people had told him? It could be regarded as perverse to believe himself merely ordinary in appearance. ‘Why a chariot?’ he said.

  ‘Charlton Heston driving one,’ she replied. ‘You’re his double. I mean before he got elderly and mouthing off about the right to own a gun.’

  ‘I’ve definitely heard of him,’ Ember had said.

  ‘And El Cid,’ she replied.

  ‘He’s in that one?’

  ‘Near the end, he’s dead but, just before a battle, they strap him to his favourite horse. His troops will observe him, seeming as warlike and strong as ever, and their morale will stay upbeat. He looked great even when a corpse.’

  ‘That’s true flair,’ Ralph replied. ‘Not many have it.’

  ‘I’m sure you’d have it,’ she’d replied.

  ‘You’re very kind. The horse would have been damn puzzled to get a deado on his back, no thigh pressure or rein-tug. The animal must have known all the battle moves now El Cid no longer directed; like an armoured car driven by a tailor’s dummy.’

  She was about twenty-three or -four, almost pretty and with a tidy arse. Ralph had thought he might keep her in mind. She wore a wedding and engagement ring but he considered these would probably be regarded by her as not too restrictive when she had a chance of attention from a beautifully replicad Heston. Ralph could imagine her calling out triumphantly to friends at some charity function, ‘I fucked Chuck!’