First Fix Your Alibi

by Bill James

  ‘Graham has a way of summing things up,’ Doreen said. ‘It’s what might without overstatement be designated a flair. Many have remarked on it in a favourable, even admiring, manner. He was a carpet-layer for many years concerned with all kinds and sizes of floors and stairs. Show Graham a Stanley knife and he’ll become very reminiscent. There were tricky, tucked away corners to get the carpet into if wall-to-wall. And the necessity that doors could open over the carpet without ruffling it up.’

  ‘One of the reasons I came to Sandicott today was to talk to ordinary people,’ Rose said. ‘But you two are so ordinary it goes beyond the ordinary – all that obvious stuff about hindsight and junctions and the ruptured wall.’

  ‘There’s a film called that,’ Graham replied excitedly. ‘It comes on TV.’

  ‘Called what?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Ordinary People,’ he said. ‘It’s labelled ironic in viewing guides. This indicates that the title should be taken as the opposite of what the film is. You couldn’t have a movie genuinely about ordinary people as it would be so fucking ordinary and dull, making tea or treating the dog’s distemper. No, it’s about ordinary people stuck into events that are not ordinary at all, and the way the supposedly ordinary people deal with these events makes them very different from ordinary and therefore, in the movie, OK for Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland to star as.’

  ‘You think you’re like that, do you?’ Rose said.

  ‘If you were a Hollywood producer you couldn’t go to actors like Moore and Sutherland and ask, “Can you do ordinary?”’ Graham replied. ‘They’d be insulted for one of two reasons: first because you weren’t sure they had the ability; and, second, because you thought they were so bloody wooden that they’d be super-suited to lifeless parts.’

  ‘You’re down here to see if you can discover whether someone you know, someone who might be dear to you, came to Sandicott–Landau to decide if it was a suitable slice of terrain for a killing, aren’t you?’ Doreen said. ‘This purpose radiates from you. The wall and brickwork don’t really grab you as topics, do they? And I very strongly doubt that you were considering the Psalms re the wall. That was merry-making only on my part, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I like the bricks,’ Rose said.

  ‘There’s a rumour around, isn’t there, that someone called Waverton, Frank Waverton, was the one who did the exploration?’ Doreen replied. ‘This came out at the Binnacle ding-dong and in tittle-tattle before that. Possibly he’s your boyfriend or even husband. You look the sort who would have a husband. Sort of perturbed.’

  ‘Is your name Waverton?’ Graham asked.

  ‘I believe you’ve both turned against me since I declined the conventional or iced tea,’ Rose replied. ‘A drastically changed tone. Unfriendly bordering on the antagonistic.’

  ‘You said you had to get along and yet you’re still here,’ Doreen replied. ‘Simply you didn’t want to take tea with Gray and me. Your rejection of the offer was sodding churlish and hurtful, you blasé twat. Graham is a great believer in good manners. This house, our home, would have been put temporarily at your service. A nose was turned up. Yours.’

  ‘Many conversations seem to be about one matter but in truth have a quite different subject,’ he said. ‘Things these days are rarely straight.’

  ‘I’ve told him that among men of his age this is quite normal and there’s no point in spending big money at a cock clinic,’ Doreen said.

  ‘I really will be getting along now,’ Rose replied. ‘I have to pick up a takeaway for lunch.’

  ‘It’s been delightful talking to you,’ Doreen said.

  ‘The bonniest of bon voyages,’ Graham said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Although Harpur’s daughters didn’t think much of the police as a species, Hazel and Jill were often quite kindly and gentle towards him personally and liked to be what they very sincerely considered of assistance in any of his inquiries. Although Jill would admit that some detective work had to be confidential, in general they detested secrecy by Harpur, regarding it as betrayal and as a juvenile wish to know more about some matters than they did. Harpur could see they felt badly snubbed at not hearing about Mrs Waverton’s visit to Arthur Street until days after.

  There was another visitor now, though, who’d arrived while only the girls were at home. He sensed there’d been a fairly thorough question- and answer-exchange before he returned to the house. Sometimes Harpur wondered whether it was wise to have his name, address and number in the directory. But he knew that police stations – and especially police headquarters – frightened some people: the formality, the bureaucracy, the likely lack of privacy. A chat at 126 Arthur Street could be confidential and one-to-one – unless, that is, Hazel and Jill got to the caller first. It happened only rarely: today, for instance.

  ‘Here’s something extremely strange, Dad,’ Jill said. ‘Denise told us Mrs Rose Waverton came to see you not long ago, didn’t she, and now this lady wants to talk to you about someone she thinks was Mrs Rose Waverton? Not sure, but most likely. Things that don’t seem to be connected at all suddenly turn out to have important links. This house has become a kind of hub.’

  ‘A nexus,’ Hazel said.

  ‘A what?’ Jill replied.

  ‘Nexus,’ Hazel said. ‘A drawing together of strands.’

  ‘Of course, I know this lady,’ Harpur said. He’d just come in and joined them in the big sitting room. He loved this room now the shelving had been taken down and all Megan’s books got rid of except a couple that Jill wanted – The Sweet Science, about boxing, and the Diaries of someone who she said wrote funny plays and got murdered, Joe Orton. She kept them handy on a mahogany coffee table.

  ‘Yes, of course, of course, you know this lady, Dad,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Most probably you could of met her and talked to her after the shooting at Sandicott,’ Jill said. ‘That’s where she lives. Just by the junction with Landau: Mrs Doreen Howells.’

  ‘I wanted to be in touch with Mr Iles,’ Doreen Howells said. ‘He was so helpful regarding the wall. I thought it would be nice to show our gratitude by bringing some info.’

  ‘Mrs Howells has spoken to us about the wall,’ Jill said. ‘I told her I feel certain Mr Iles would be very swift and urgent in such wall matters. This would be one of the reasons he reached the rank of assistant chief. “Very good at walls” should be on his Personnel Department file.’

  ‘He’s like that – decisive,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Haze is biased,’ Jill said.

  ‘Biased?’ Doreen Howells said.

  ‘He used to have a thing about Hazel,’ Jill said. ‘Sort of romancing?’

  ‘Cow-viper,’ Hazel replied.

  ‘He’d come here with a vermilion scarf on to make himself look dashing and younger. We did a poem in school about the young Lord Lochinvar. I think that’s who Ilesy fancied himself as – “so faithful in love, so dauntless in war” – faithful to Haze not his wife. Dad worried,’ Jill said. ‘Haze was only a teenager but Ilesy is forties, grey-haired, married with a kid called Fanny. When she grows up she won’t think that very clever. But Des Iles stopped sniffing around Haze when he found she had a special boyfriend near her own age, Scott Grant.’

  ‘Rat progeny,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Ilesy can be quite decent now and then,’ Jill replied. ‘Well, by skill and blah he got Scott out of running with a real turdy gang and after that he didn’t pester Hazel no more, although maybe she liked the pestering.’

  ‘Pus queen,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Could have met,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Yes, could have,’ Jill said.

  ‘Really turdy,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Yes, really turdy,’ Jill said.

  ‘Any more,’ Harpur said.

  ‘It was like he gave Scott back to her OK, and he thought it would be crazy after this to do anything that might hurt Scott, such as flashing his vermilion scarf at Haze.’ 1

  ‘As I mentioned, because Mr Il
es was so good to us regarding the wall, or at least, half wall, I wanted to make some gesture of repayment,’ Doreen Howells said. ‘But my husband, Graham, advised not to go to the nick because it would get passed to someone minor on his staff, not to him as an individual, and it was his very individual attention to the broken wall that we wished to reward, not the whole police force as a profession. If at the reception desk I said I wanted to talk to Mr Iles about a wall, or half wall, the officer on duty would not realize the significance, especially if it was only a half wall, and give the matter to some constable. However, we could not find Mr Iles in the telephone book, and my husband said officers with that kind of material for their uniform would be ex-directory. So, if I wanted to persist with it I ought to try for that right-hand man’s name instead, being you, if I may say, Mr Harpur, who might pass a message to Mr Iles, or tell us his address.’

  ‘When Mrs Howells says “persist with it” she means not just about a wall,’ Jill said. ‘This is to do with Mrs Rose Waverton, probably.’

  ‘Pacing about there, obviously intent on something,’ Mrs Howells said.

  ‘Mrs Waverton?’ Hazel asked.

  ‘That was my impression,’ Mrs Howells said, ‘confirmed by my hubby.’

  ‘Pacing about to what purpose?’ Hazel said. ‘Intent on what?’

  ‘I told her she had the spot correct,’ Mrs Howells replied. She wore tan corduroy trousers, and a hip-length green top coat over a brown V-necked sweater, no hat, low-heeled brown shoes.

  The children had already made tea in the large pot and Hazel went to pour for Harpur. They were using the genuine, thin, china cups. She brought him as well two digestives from the biscuit barrel they’d placed on a small table alongside the teapot and Jill’s pair of books. Mrs Howells was in a red leather armchair. Harpur took a matching chair opposite. The girls sat each end of a chesterfield, also leather covered, but dark blue.

  Mrs Howells said, ‘Naturally, this excellent cup of tea puts me in mind of the meeting with … no, I was going to say with Mrs Waverton, but I suppose I’d better settle for the lady I thought to be Mrs Waverton, and still do. There was a sort of distance to her, a sort of brazen detachment. Graham asked her if she’d like to come into our home for refreshment, actually naming conventional tea, as he phrased it, or iced tea, but she declined. It was as if she had a task, a commitment, and couldn’t be bothered with normal politeness.’

  ‘What task?’ Jill said.

  ‘You mean looking at the features of the Sandicott–Landau junction, as mentioned at the time of the tragedy in the media?’ Hazel said.

  ‘Looking at them features not because she was thinking of another ambush but because she wanted to see whether if someone in the past had come searching for a nice spot for a trap this would do perfect – the buildings, the roads and whatever,’ Jill said.

  Harpur decided not to pounce on the bad grammar. His daughter was bravely trying to explain some very complicated strategy, as she saw it, and it would be disrespectful to answer with miserable, measly niggles.

  ‘I’m afraid it annoyed us that she wouldn’t accept our invitation, just wanted to get on with the job she’d obviously given herself. When she so discourteously rejected our hospitality she said she didn’t have time but needed to be “getting along”. That was her phrase, “getting along”. So casual, so indifferent to our efforts, as though what she would be getting along to was of much higher priority than us. Yet, not everyone would come out on to their lawn and talk to a stranger in helpful fashion, then offer a choice of sup-ups. Her reaction could be seen only as impudent. And the point is, she didn’t get along. She stayed asking questions. These were questions that could have been asked in the house while partaking in friendly, responsible style. But, no, she wouldn’t allow her snotty self that gracious move. It made the rudeness much, much worse, I think you’ll agree. What we felt was we were being used. All this woman was interested in was not us, or our home, but what we might have seen at the junction on a certain date. Her aims were very clear and very specific. They allowed no consideration for others’ feelings, such as ours.’

  ‘People can be like that,’ Jill said. ‘At school we had to consider an ancient, famous remark, “Manners maykth man”, with a different spelling from now. It would include women most likely. This is genuine history from a thinker in the church far, far back, but also over the door in a university somewhere even at present.’

  ‘New College, Oxford,’ Hazel said.

  ‘But although they maykth man they are often forgot about in this day and age,’ Jill said. ‘One kid in my class said, “Manners maykth man and man maykth the pigsty.”’

  ‘What you’re getting at is she might have been trying to guess whether her husband could have come to the junction and recognize it would be great for an attack, like those yobs at the Binnacle suggested,’ Hazel said.

  ‘We thought it was something Mr Iles should know about,’ Mrs Howells replied. ‘We realized it might have a certain bearing on that terrible day the wall got half demolished.’

  ‘Dad sometimes does tell Mr Iles things,’ Hazel said.

  ‘We believe very much in manners,’ Jill said. ‘For instance, we might of told you today, Mrs Howells, that Dad wasn’t here and not welcomed you in. But we remembered that saying, “Manners makyth man” (and women and girls in brackets) and we asked you to join us regardless, like, and had tea, biscuits and some charming talks.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Iles said, ‘As demanded by that tidy-minded, indefatigably trawling way of mine, Col, I’ve had some inquiries made into the family of the lad killed at the Binnacle.’ Harpur knew that this tidy-minded, indefatigably trawling way of his must have paid off or the assistant chief wouldn’t be talking about it now. Those tidy-minded, indefatigably trawling ways of his very often did pay off. If they hadn’t, Iles would have discarded those tidy-minded indefatigably trawling ways because they would no longer have been indefatigable. He liked pluses to come from his tidy-minded indefatigably trawling ways.

  The ACC had called in at Harpur’s headquarters room and was standing at the window gazing fixedly out at the street as if expecting to see sparkling results from his current tidy-minded, indefatigable trawling pretty soon. He wore one of his grey suits, but single-breasted only and unbuttoned. Harpur wondered whether that was to give his body plenty of freedom for the trawling and bringing the catch aboard.

  ‘The dead undergrad, Wyn Normanton Vaughan,’ Harpur said. ‘Assumed at this stage. We keep an open mind as the formula, non-commital police phrase goes.’

  ‘Yes, assumed and even double assumed at this stage.’ Iles paused and glanced back at Harpur over his shoulder. ‘But you’ll probably ask why I speak of “double”, Col.’

  ‘Why do you speak of “double”, sir? I don’t understand. I meant not officially identified so far. We’re still waiting for the parents to get back from Oz.’

  ‘Certainly that’s one identification formality we wait for and, in the meantime, we make our assumptions based on information from his friends and the college. But I’m thinking of something shall we say wider, Col.’

  ‘Often you’re thinking of something wider, sir. I believe it to be part of your tidy-minded, indefatigably trawling nature. This trawling often takes place in very deep, very extensive waters. Truly wide waters.’

  ‘The inquiries I put in hand began quite satisfactorily,’ the ACC said.

  ‘Satisfactorily in which particular, sir?’

  ‘This particular, Harpur: there is, indeed, a family called Vaughan who live where Francis Garland has been told by the university they live. It’s in Brecon, Powys, Wales. I wanted to look rather beyond that, though.’

  ‘This is typical of you, sir. Horizons seem to beckon you. Would it be fantasy to say they recognize your noble purpose and count it a privilege to assist?’

  ‘And I got fucking stopped, Harpur.’ He whispered this, possibly weakened by the affront he felt. The words, though, bounced
back off the window as though fucking stopped themselves, and were completely audible to Harpur; possibly more effectively than if they had come to him direct. This was a message that had met an obstruction – the window – but managed all the same to battle through and get delivered.

  ‘Stopped? Fucking stopped? But how, sir?’ Harpur replied. For once it sounded as though a tidy-minded, indefatigable Ilesian trawl had not produced what it should have: very little positive, unless a negative could be regarded as a positive.

  ‘The material dried up,’ Iles said.

  ‘Which material?’

  ‘The Vaughan material.’

  ‘Difficult to trace?’ Harpur said. ‘Some genealogical investigations of this kind can meet formidable snags – documentation missing, or faulty.’

  ‘Impossible to trace.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It doesn’t exist.’

  ‘But Wyn Normanton Vaughan exists, surely, sir, or existed. He was a student of the classics, a bright kid, most probably. He’ll be on nominal roles at the university and school. He’ll have a stock of special, personal features. For instance, he’d know about that godly shagging swan. Incidentally, sir, I think the myth-maker pinched this tale from that famous old joke.’

  ‘Which famous old joke would that be, then, Harpur?’ the ACC asked, his tone radiantly void of interest.

  ‘A god comes down on a forty-eight-hour pass looking for some rumpy-pumpy and afterwards, when he’s leaving for heaven, realizes he’s been impolite, hasn’t introduced himself. “I’m Thor,” he says. “Tho am I,” the girl replies. “But I’m thatithfied”.’

  ‘Did you ever see a film called The Day Of The Jackal, Harpur?’ Iles replied. ‘Detectives trawling through certificates and records to find a name? The task I commissioned is like that, but the opposite. The film detectives thought they’d found what they were after, eventually.’