Hitmen I Have Known

by Bill James

  Ralph knew that behind one of the very classy pictures hanging in this drawing room, Mansel had at least four handguns and ammunition in a wall safe. Interesting pattern of changes: the church couldn’t afford the rectory and sold it to a considerable businessman at a knock-down auction: Mansel; then Mansel turned one of its main rooms into an armoury. Ralph thought there must be some sort of deepish lesson in that, some sort of wider truth, but he didn’t feel it would be a pleasant or comfortable truth, so he left it alone.

  Mansel fancied art, especially by what was known as the Pre-Raphaelites, in frames of genuine wood, not composite. The picture hiding his safe was a Pre-Raphaelite number, most probably. Mansel liked women’s long tresses and there were plenty of those in Pre-Raphaelite paintings – often gingerish.

  ‘OK, Iles is a bastard, but he got to have some credit on a fair’s-fair basis. I ask, what was he supposed to do in them circs, Ralph?’ Mansel said. ‘What? Tell me what, Ralph.’

  ‘Which?’ Ember replied.

  ‘Which what?’

  ‘Circs.’

  ‘The verdict. That insane mistake by the jury. As I remember it, Ralph, one of Iles’s undercover boys gets killed by a couple of bumrag nobodies who had a smart QC. They’re acquitted, so Iles decides he’d better see to this issue personal, a sort of duty, a sort of what we already spoke about – cleansing, purifying – and does both of them himself. Neat and tidy.

  ‘I don’t know if you get along to hear many sermons these days, Ralph, but I listened to a lot a few months back and there was one about a prophet in what’s called the Old Testament where God wants to send someone on a job and the prophet says, “Here am I, send me.” This was to tell us in the congregation to get out there and do God’s work. But now it makes me think of Iles. He sees there is something to be done about a garrotter, such as garrotting him, but realizes he’s the only one who can handle it, so he says to himself, “Here am I, send me” to get the rotten little shits – garrotter plus one – and because it’s him talking to himself of course he obeys and goes and does it. However, there’s an expansion element: Iles knocks off two of them, although the dead undercover lad was only one.’

  ‘We don’t know as fact any of this, Manse.’

  ‘It’s what they’ll try to prove. They’ll get Desy Iles in the dock and their line will be that he’s a big-headed, arrogant lout who believes he’s such a crucial figure that he is more or less the only one who can look after the reputation of the police. The worrying, tricky thing is that this is very, very near the truth. Iles would be terribly hard to defend, wouldn’t he, Ralph?’

  Ember wondered whether he’d been stupid to come for this chat on tactics. With Mansel these days you never knew what Hunnish ideas he’d fling at you. Moderation? You’d think if Moderation was a person and had a face he’d slice lumps out of it. Ralph found the change in him amazing, but real. It began with that shoot-up of his Jaguar and the two deaths there. He seemed ready at all times now to respond with out-and-out extremism, appalling, crazed extremism.

  Ember said, ‘Manse, it would be wrong for you to go armed, stalking people on the investigation.’

  ‘I don’t see it like that, Ralph. But you’re on your roundabout, yes?’

  ‘They’d be ready for you.’

  ‘I’m ready for them,’ Shale said.

  Ralph saw that this crazy, shoot-first, blissful cockiness was the new Mansel, and the new Mansel might go bustling and careless into big danger, maybe leaving his daughter, Matilda, the sole resident of St James’s former rectory.

  ‘We owes it, Ralph.’

  ‘Owe what?’

  ‘Protection.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘Iles. He’s made things comfy for us. We got to repay.’

  ‘My thinking, Manse, was that if they found enough new evidence to arrest him and put Iles into court, we could send what’s known as “testimonial letters” to the judge saying what a lovely, compassionate and public-spirited man and dad he is, despite the very untypical murders.’

  ‘He’s a total cunt,’ Shale replied.

  ‘Of course he is. But it’s probably best not to highlight that for the judge.’ Ralph thought that if he did write, he’d sign the letter ‘Ralph W. Ember’. This had quite a load of dignity and clout, because it was the form of his name he used when writing to the local press about environmental concerns, especially polluted rivers, of course.

  ‘Letters are OK and you know them pretty well, but maybe something else would be needed earlier than that, Ralph, such as handguns. It’s to do with honour, and honour is something we both value above everything else, I know. Where would we be without honour?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Ember said.

  SEVEN

  ‘Well, yes,’ wasn’t really an answer, but Ralph wanted to close down that kind of bullshit topic before it got properly started. Honour? It had never come up before as a subject between Shale and him. Of course it hadn’t. It was a wool word. They’d talked trade, the quality and supply of substances, street-level prices, bulk prices, mixers, profits, security, women, filthy competition from medically approved legal highs, import methods and tricks, their children’s fat-fee schooling. There was no call for big-mouth, dangerous notions like honour. Ralph could OK the commandment, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’, but he didn’t think honour came into life much beyond that.

  Mansel seemed to find Ralph’s reply fine, though. He nodded three or four times as if to emphasize their strong shared esteem for honour. A mix of excitement and determination flooded that ramshackle face. He said: ‘What we got to do, Ralph, is go and have a bit of a useful squint at it tonight.’

  ‘At what, Manse?’

  ‘Where it happened.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The deaths – the shooting, the garrotting. They’d like to prove Iles did both, wouldn’t they? That means they’ll need to look at the location. Yes, it’s been gone over and gone over and gone over before, of course, as a double murder site, but they’ll have to examine it all from the beginning again. So, what does this tell us, Ralph?’

  ‘Well, that …’

  ‘It tells us exactly where to find them when they’re doing it. They’re going to be beautifully exposed. We can deal with them then and there, can’t we, Ralph? We got that debt I mentioned to pay off, haven’t we? Iles takes care of our interests, Ralph, and we got to take care of him as a special “Thank you, Desmond.” Obviously, Ralph, this is not something we could say face to face. He would never admit he had anything to thank us for. So, we do it our own way. We can still hate the strutting, vile sod but he’s necessary. And to keep him safe from these outsiders we get rid of them, don’t we, Ralph? I can’t see no other solution. Can you? No, because there isn’t one. As a help with that plan, we got to know the layout of the death house in detail – windows, doors, walls, gates, hedges and, so important, somewhere we can lie waiting for them, somewhere with a perfect field of fire, Ralph, somewhere snug and spot-on.’

  Oh, God, was this more of the new blowtorch Mansel? Oh, God, was this visit a disaster and shouldn’t Ralph have known it would be and not come? He stayed silent for a good half-minute, trying to work out how to bring Mansel back to sense.

  ‘Urgency,’ Mansel said. ‘Priority. What’s that famous saying, Ralph? You’re good at sayings, due to undoubted education.’

  ‘Which saying?’

  ‘In the military,’ Manse replied.

  ‘What in the military?’

  ‘About … oh, you know … what-they-call-it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Recce …’

  ‘You mean, “Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted”?’

  ‘That’s it!’ Mansel replied. ‘Military, yes, but it’s also got a point for you and me, Ralph, in the commercial area, which, of course, includes the Des Iles area.’ He stood and crossed the room to one of the paintings – a red-haired girl in a long, off-white billowing dress – lifted it off its hook and p
laced it upright on the ground, leaning against the wall. ‘Arthur Hughes,’ he said. ‘Always puts plenty of material in the frocks and robes so he can get a sort of swirling effect. Known for them swirlings, Ralph. Say Arthur Hughes to some fan of paintings and he or she will reply at once, “swirlings”. Most of what are called Pre-Raphaelites liked garments with plenty of stuff in them. Plenty of stuffing, too. They were all at each other.’

  Mansel opened a blue-doored combination safe that usually lay behind the Arthur Hughes and said, ‘Heckler and Koch for you as well, Ralph? There are a couple already loaded here. High-grade weapons but choice of a gun is a very personal thing and I want you to feel free to pick. Maybe you’d rather the Walther. This will be only the recce we spoke about but we’d better go ready, I know you’ll agree with that.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re ready for gun choice and so on yet, Manse. There should probably be more detailed talk, more step-by-step planning.’

  EIGHT

  At home, Harpur stood up quickly, but not quickly enough, and was going to answer the front-door bell but Jill, his younger daughter, gave him a little ‘Don’t even think about it, Dad’ wave and went ahead. She usually did get to the door first if she was in the house. She’d scamper towards it fast, her slight body bent in a crouch, as if to make things tough for snipers.

  Quite a mixture of people used to turn up at Harpur’s home in Arthur Street. He reckoned he should be easily available to anyone hit by crisis and kept his name and address in the directories. Some people disliked police stations and never willingly entered one. They’d rather go to an ordinary house in an ordinary, long street, like Harpur’s. Iles regarded it as disgracefully slapdash to bring up daughters in such a poor setting and often mentioned this to Harpur among a spray of other slurs.

  Almost invariably the callers came because something and/or someone in their lives scared them, perhaps badly scared them, perhaps had been badly scaring them for a long while: the trip to 126 Arthur Street showed ultimate despair. Jill would always want to find out what this deep, frightening trouble was. She knew how to ask questions and how to listen to answers, and she’d often invite the stranger in for a chat and tea.

  Harpur might have preferred to deal with this first contact himself but there were times – like now – when he didn’t get a chance. His older daughter, Hazel, described her sister as ‘an eternally, shamelessly, repulsively nosy little cow.’

  He, Denise and the two girls had been looking through holiday brochures of Italy in the big sitting room at Arthur Street. Some inexhaustible rap music on, though the sound was low. Jill had left the sitting room door open and he could hear some of the conversation between her and the visitor, a woman.

  Harpur recognized the caller’s voice, of course. It startled him. He must have missed the first of the doorstep words, though. Jill said: ‘Yes, he’s here. Excuse me, but you called him Colin, his correct first name. This being so, it sounds like you know my dad, owing to what could be described as the familiarity of the name.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know him.’

  ‘For a long time? Or, perhaps, less?’

  ‘A while. It’s why I’m here now.’

  ‘But I don’t believe you have ever called here before,’ Jill said. ‘I would definitely remember someone so smart.’

  ‘Thank you. No, indeed, never before.’

  ‘Excuse me, but I don’t know why you say “indeed”. That seems to mean it was not possible for you to come here. Why should it be impossible previously? If you wanted to come, what could stop you as long as you knew the address? This question is bound to arise, isn’t it?’

  ‘You must be Jill.’

  ‘Dad told you about us, did he?’

  ‘And you have a sister.’

  ‘Older. Hazel.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Usually, when people come here, it’s a personal matter. But it could also be what’s known as a business matter.’

  ‘I suppose it could be termed a business matter, yes.’

  ‘What else could it be called?’

  ‘Ah, here’s your dad now.’

  Harpur followed Jill out into the hall. He’d decided he must join them and offer an escape from the third degree.

  ‘It seems an age since I saw you last, Colin,’ she said.

  He tried to work out the tone of this. Jill would be doing the same. It was slightly more than matter-of-fact and conversational, but only slightly. ‘Yes, a while,’ he replied, a fraction up from offhand.

  ‘Forgive me. This is something of an imposition, I’m afraid,’ she said.

  ‘Not at all,’ Harpur replied. ‘We’d always be glad to see you.’

  ‘We have a lot of callers,’ Jill said. ‘Dad likes that. He thinks it keeps him in touch, which is important in his kind of work – in-touchness is one of his specialities.’

  ‘I wanted to talk about one or two matters,’ the woman replied.

  ‘That’s how it is for a lot of the people who come here,’ Jill said. ‘If he’s not in, Haze and I don’t mind listening to their stuff. It’s important to calm them down and that kind of thing. If they blurt things at us we don’t mind because we’re used to it. Quite often, someone who comes here with a problem has been sitting on it for a long time and when they eventually decide to speak it will often come in a terrific rush, like escaping from within.’

  ‘Yes, I wondered if I could have a word with you, Colin, about the situation.’

  ‘Usually when people come here it’s about a situation,’ Jill said. ‘There are all sorts of situations, obviously, but by now Dad has seen most of them, so he can often help.’

  ‘And then, perhaps, I could watch the TV thing about it that’s due on this evening.’

  ‘“The Forgotten Murders”,’ Jill said.

  ‘Desmond has gone out, deliberately, I think, to avoid it. I’d like some company. My mother’s babysitting. I expect you’re going to watch it.’

  ‘I asked if it was a business matter, Dad, but the answer wasn’t really very clear.’

  ‘Borderlines can be vague,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Which borderlines?’ Jill said.

  ‘Between various areas,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Which areas?’ Jill said.

  ‘Like whether it’s business or not,’ Harpur replied.

  Jill said: ‘In The Godfather, one of the Corleone mob is a traitor and says “it was only business” when he’s found out. They shoot him just the same.’

  ‘I hear a lot about The Godfather from Jill,’ Harpur said, turning to the guest. He was grateful for the small distraction, so he could get his thoughts straight after a rough shock. Obviously, it was true that Sarah had never come to 126 Arthur Street before. It would have been inappropriate – or, something stronger than that: to quote Jill, ‘not possible’. Harpur’s home was absolutely off-limits for her. They’d had their meeting spots, but never here. Things between Sarah and him had finished way back, though, and she’d obviously decided discretion was not needed now. Perhaps she really had come about ‘business’. Yes, borderlines were sometimes vague. Harpur could make a guess at what the ‘business’ would be. He said: ‘We’re being rather inhospitable. I think we should ask Sarah in, don’t you, Jill?’

  ‘Sarah?’ Jill said.

  ‘Mrs Iles,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Oh,’ Jill said. ‘You call Mrs Iles Sarah and she calls you Colin?’

  ‘Best not be too formal,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Is that all right?’ Sarah Iles said.

  ‘Well, yes, of course,’ Jill said.

  But Harpur could tell she felt mystified and uneasy. In a way that was only normal. Their mother had been killed2 and Jill and Hazel tried now to make sure Harpur’s love life followed what they considered to be the right sort of path, and only the right sort. His daughters considered Denise was entirely the right sort of path. They loved Denise and would hate to lose her. They worried constantly about her smoking. Also, they grew acutel
y anxious when women they didn’t know about seemed to have a closeness to Harpur – ‘Colin’ – especially beautiful women, naturally. Sarah Iles was very beautiful.

  Jill did the introductions. ‘Denise, Hazel, this is Mrs Sarah Iles, the wife of Assistant Chief Constable (Operations) Desmond Iles. Mrs Iles, this is my sister that we spoke about, and this is Denise who lives here part of the year, but also sometimes in her room for students at the university building, Jonson Court, Jonson without an h because it’s named after a poet and writer of plays, Ben Jonson, not Dr Johnson who did a dictionary and has an h.’

  ‘And as well as all that I sometimes make the tea,’ Denise said and went out to the kitchen.

  Naturally, Harpur could see a complicated sexual tangle in Jill’s little commentary. She might be conscious of some of it, but her voice stayed very matter-of-fact. There had, of course, been Sarah Iles and him, for a while. There was now Harpur and Denise. And Mrs Iles’s husband, the ACC, used to undertake a strong chat-up campaign for Hazel, though she was only fifteen. Last winter, to look glamorous and racy, and to curtain off his Adam’s apple, he would wear a crimson scarf loosely around his neck and shoulders if he came to 126 Arthur Street in civilian clothes. And he’d turned up at the house quite often, because of Hazel, though he’d pretend it was to do with work. But he seemed to have stopped targeting Hazel when he found she had a steady boyfriend nearer her own age. Even Iles might tumble into decency now and then. Harpur couldn’t make out whether she was disappointed or relieved. He was relieved, though.

  Jill said: ‘I think you might be puzzled about Denise, Mrs Iles. I don’t think she’ll mind if I tell you about her while she’s getting the tea. Most probably you’ll be wondering is she just a student with lodgings here? The answer to this is, no. If it was only about having a room she would stay at Jonson Court. It’s what’s known as the long vacation, but the room would still be there for her if she said she wanted to do research in the library. What we would like – that’s Hazel and me – what we would like is for her and Dad to marry, although she’s only twenty and he is not so young. And I believe Dad wants that, too, not just sleeping together, which is part of it naturally, but much more than that. It’s true, isn’t it, Haze?’