Hitmen I Have Known

by Bill James

  ‘Some doctors wouldn’t quibble.’

  Of course, Harpur knew this. He’d wondered. It was as far as he’d go. If she’d wanted him to know she’d tell him. That’s how Hazel was. She too had a right to silence. As he prepared for a prowl around Idylls he thought it strange that Sarah Iles had come to his house in Arthur Street looking for possible information about her husband, and now Harpur wanted a look at her home for possible information about his daughter and the assistant chief.

  They had reached Rougemont Place and not found Hazel. Iles’s house showed no lights. Harpur left the car and did a swift prowl in the garden of Idylls, finishing at the front door. Useless. He had to keep his survey short. Householders in this kind of neighbourhood would be sensitive about a figure apparently casing one of the properties at two a.m. Someone up for a pee might glance from a bedroom window – might, in fact, call the police. Harpur didn’t fancy having to explain to a patrol why he was giving the ACC’s villa the once-over.

  When he returned to the car, Denise said: ‘Colin, I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘I rely on you for that.’ It sounded jokey but wasn’t. He did value her brain. It sometimes helped her dismantle a problem faster than his. And this wasn’t a jokey situation, anyway – a child missing.

  ‘That club Jill was talking about,’ Denise said.

  ‘The Monty.’

  ‘I’d heard the same sort of reports.’

  ‘Which? ‘Harpur said.

  ‘To do with the TV thing, saying more than it seemed to. I wondered whether Hazel might decide there’d be insights on Iles at the club. She’d heard about the TV fracas.’

  ‘Almost everyone has heard of it,’ Harpur said.

  ‘But for her it’s special.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So I mobiled Directory for their number and rang them. They were just closing. I did the lost kid bit and asked the woman who answered whether she’d seen anything of a girl too young for The Monty but asking a lot of questions. She said the club owner – Mr Ember – on one of his outdoor security checks of the building saw a teenager arguing with two of the bouncers and went to find what it was about. The woman didn’t know the outcome except that Mr Ember had sent the girl home with a chaperone by taxi.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Two points from Ralph’s past:

  (a) He knew a couple of hitmen;

  (b) He also knew how difficult and anxious teenage daughters could be.

  He didn’t really like the term, hitmen. It seemed crude and overdramatic. The hitmen he’d met, back a few years now, and well before The Monty era, didn’t regard hits as a vocation, like priesthood or nursing. Hardly ever was it their main career and exclusive income source, only an occasional freelance sideline. They’d return afterwards to their usual steady, day-to-day lawless businesses.

  But for a hearty, one-off fee and a hike to their all-round reputation, the job would be properly contracted and done. That is, they’d see off someone for causing irritation or fright or envy to a major, undainty figure, who’d pay cash up front and out of self-interest keep his or her gob shut when the body was found. Ralph gathered that almost always the selected method was gunfire from very close range (clean), though now and then it could be a machete (spurt-prone) or double-hand strangling (laborious). The people who succeeded in this kind of work were flexible and versatile. For instance, a machete was a very large knife and not easy to conceal when approaching the target and trying to look comradely or even affable. This skill had to be learned and practised. Ralph considered the primitive label ‘hitman’ stupidly unsubtle for such on-tap flair.

  Hazel Harpur’s visit to The Monty at around two a.m. had seemed to Ralph full of meaning and, in a complicated way, turned his memory towards so-called hitmen. She’d been talking to bouncers at The Monty’s main entrance when he first saw her. The street lighting was not bad and he could see that she was fair-haired, broad-faced, slim and athletic-looking, early or mid-teens. She wore a navy jogging suit and scuffed trainers. Of course, he hadn’t known at the time who she was. He had thought the bouncers were correct to stop her going into the club. She looked too young and, in any case, The Monty was about to close for the night.

  Ralph had considered it wrong that a young girl should be out here now, apparently bickering with Monty sentries. Naturally, this didn’t mean he thought there was anything unwholesome about the club, though. The Monty was a prized social asset and would soon push its grand standards higher still. But he’d felt this to be no place for a child so late. He was particularly troubled because the club, despite its established, fine character, had suffered that unsavoury, barbaric, thuggish episode recently. Even before going over to talk to the bouncers and the girl, a so-far unexplainable dread had possessed him in case her arrival had something to do with that disgusting collapse of decorum and order, and also something to do with Assistant Chief Constable (Operations) Desmond Iles.

  Ralph had begun to see a kind of depressing message in this string of unpleasant events, as though they signalled the onset of substantial, sickening chaos. Ralph frequently thought he sensed chaos very close. At present this fear had a mysterious, hard grip on him. And so the move of his thoughts towards hitmen he had known and could probably call on for a bit of ad hocery.

  It angered Ralph that someone who’d started that Monty riot might have caused such strange, fretful behaviour from Hazel Harpur. He regarded it as part of the looming chaos that was on its rapid way. He found himself sympathizing with Mansel Shale’s updated survey of the crisis. Perhaps he was right and something should be done about such an odious, dangerous slob. Somewhere he had a number for one of the hitmen.

  Ember had walked over to where the bouncers and girl were talking. It always saddened Ralph that The Monty was the kind of club needing bouncers. Intermittently, though, it did. A couple of them were present on that night of carnage, but he couldn’t say they’d been effective. True, they were outnumbered.

  Tonight, the older bouncer, Felix – white, bald, grey moustached – waved a hand towards Ralph and said to the girl, ‘Here’s Mr Ember now. He’s the owner. I expect he’ll explain why you can’t go in.’ He turned to Ralph. ‘She says she’s Hazel Harpur.’

  ‘Harpur?’ Ralph said.

  ‘Yes, we all recognize that name, don’t we?’ Felix said and laughed.

  ‘You know my dad, do you?’ Hazel said. ‘He’s a cop.’

  ‘Yes, he’s fairly famous,’ the other bouncer, Jerome, replied. Black, shortish, wiry.

  ‘I meet your father now and then,’ Ember had said. ‘Usually in the way of business.’

  ‘It’s because of the club’s business that I came,’ Hazel had said.

  ‘And does your dad know you’re here?’ Jerome said.

  ‘Information,’ Hazel replied. ‘I thought there might be information.’

  ‘What kind of information?’ Ralph said.

  ‘General.’

  ‘General?’

  ‘To do with the trouble at your club,’ she said. ‘That TV programme et cetera.’

  Jerome and Felix had reached the end of their shift and moved away.

  ‘The fighting and destruction I heard about,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Heard where?’ Ralph said.

  ‘The rumour is around,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, rumour. I don’t think you should listen to that sort of rubbish, Hazel,’ Ember replied. Except for the hair shade, he couldn’t see any resemblance in Hazel to her father. Harpur was sometimes described as like a fair-haired Rocky Marciano, the undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion. Hazel’s nose remained immaculate. Not many boxers could match this. Hazel’s was so sweetly shaped that Ralph couldn’t think of it as simply something to sniff with and draw in air. Her nostrils were eloquent. Ralph was always ready to worship a lovely female nose.

  ‘It’s all about two murders,’ she’d said.

  Ember wished the bouncers hadn’t left. He felt exposed and conspicuous talking alon
e to this child in this place at this time and about these topics. While Felix and Jerome were present, it would have seemed to anyone watching merely a debate over whether this youngster should be admitted to the club. Now, it had become deeper and dodgier. He’d avoid going deeper still. Ralph did sometimes back off from going deeper into a situation, and this, tonight, probably rated as a situation. He said: ‘I’ll call a taxi to take you home now, Hazel. Your father will be anxious.’

  ‘He doesn’t know I’m at The Monty,’ she said.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here now, regardless.’

  ‘Oh, regardless, oh, shouldn’t. Who cares about shouldn’t?’

  Ralph did. ‘I’ll get one of the women staff to go with you.’

  Later, as he drove home to Low Pastures after locking up the club, he recalled the kind of problems he’d had with one of his own daughters of about Hazel Harpur’s age. He reckoned that most of these troubles were romantic/sexual. Perhaps that’s what was behind events tonight. Hazel Harpur had said she wanted information, and when he’d asked about what, she’d clammed up. ‘General’ she’d said – general and to do with The Monty roughhouse not long ago. How to do with it? No detail came. ‘General’ told him nothing, and was meant to tell him nothing.

  There’d been a mention of the television show. Did she mean information about that – information on viewers’ reactions to it? In a crafty, devious way, the programme featured Iles, didn’t it, Iles disguised but very recognizable? Was the information she wanted centred on him, and centred on what people thought of him? Good God, a link between Iles and Hazel Harpur? The notion rocked him. Confusion still savaged his mind, but not quite so much now. Did Iles have a thing about girls’ noses, too?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Iles called at Harpur’s home next morning while he, Denise and his daughters were just finishing breakfast in the kitchen. Iles had a very, very brief way of ringing the door bell, as though a joyous and massive welcome was guaranteed and so formalities were hardly needed.

  Hazel looked sleep-deprived, but Harpur and Denise had decided not to mention what went on in the night. If Hazel wanted to talk about it, she would. She was entitled to some privacy. Although Harpur spent half his life trying to dig out other people’s secrets, he didn’t include his children’s. Anyway, Harpur knew he and Denise were only part of the story. By the time they reached The Monty after Denise rang, it was shut down, the name-plate unlit and measly looking. They saw nobody.

  The girls loved it when Denise stayed overnight and cooked eggs, bacon and beans. Her stopovers were only intermittent: quite often she returned to her room at Jonson Court. Hazel and Jill felt breakfast with her and Harpur at Arthur Street was like family. Harpur thought this might not delight Denise, that she wouldn’t want a role as mother-figure to kids not much younger than herself. But she never objected.

  Today, Iles was in civvy clothes – a navy, wide-lapelled blazer and lightweight beige trousers, check shirt, silver striped blue tie, no scarf, glinting brown lace-up shoes. He reminded Harpur of a door-to-door salesman who’d persuaded his mother to buy on instalments the eight volumes of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia, to his father’s fury.

  One of the notable things about the ACC was that he had a great range of voice tones, running effortlessly from boundless, blaring contempt for the person he was in conversation with, to sweetly smooth, bull-shitting chumminess. He said now in a cuddly register he used sometimes to lull people, ‘Saw you doing a bit of a scour around Idylls during the night, Col. I didn’t want to interrupt at the time, but I do wonder what it was about. Seemed purposeful. Well, how could it be other than purposeful? My impression was you were urgently looking for something or somebody. The urgency goes without saying, really – a search at that hour, and at the property of a very senior Operations officer. In case there had been some sort of incident, I rang the Control Room, but no. A puzzle. I reasoned it must be personal, and best dealt with here. I’m always looking for an excuse to visit, aren’t I?’

  ‘Around Idylls?’ Hazel said. It sounded as though she had expected something startling from Iles, but not quite this. She’d looked shocked when he arrived and more shocked now.

  ‘I should think he was looking for Haze,’ Jill said.

  ‘Shut it, louse,’ Hazel said.

  ‘I felt pretty certain it was you, Col,’ Iles said. ‘That haircut and the yokel style of walk … Was Hazel missing?’ Iles said. Harpur brought him a chair from another room.

  ‘She came back in a car, maybe a taxi,’ Jill said. ‘I pretended to be blotto.’ Harpur knew he should have guessed Jill might not choose silence, even if he and Denise did. She believed in disclosure and sharp blab.

  ‘Came back in a taxi from where?’ Iles said.

  ‘You could ask her,’ Jill replied. ‘And then another car – Dad’s I expect,’ Jill replied. ‘Lights on in the house. I could see the gleam under my bedroom door.’

  ‘How long were they away, Denise and your dad?’ Iles said.

  ‘Idylls would be one of the first places he’d think of if Haze had disappeared,’ Jill replied.

  ‘Why?’ Iles said.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ Jill said.

  ‘Do I?’ Iles said.

  ‘Don’t play dumb. You’re not,’ Jill said. ‘Dad would be very worried. But I can tell Haze is very worried, too, although she wouldn’t say. She’s a bit like that.’

  ‘Worried about what?’ Iles said.

  ‘You, most likely,’ Jill said. ‘She’s loyal.’

  ‘I?’ Iles replied.

  Hazel rattled a spoon in her cup. The others turned towards her. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘we’re all messing about here, aren’t we?’

  ‘Are we?’ Iles said.

  ‘I get a feeling,’ Hazel said. Harpur saw she might like secrecy, but not if she sensed that others might know more than she did.

  ‘Feeling?’ Jill said.

  ‘This is a feeling that Dad and maybe Denise know where I went in the night,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Idylls,’ Jill replied.

  ‘That’s what they seem to have thought first of all,’ Hazel said, ‘but afterwards.’

  ‘There was an afterwards?’ Iles asked.

  ‘Yes. I came home from it in the taxi with an escort, didn’t I?’

  ‘Well, Jill thought a taxi,’ Iles said.

  ‘And on the way, the escort gets a message on her mobile to say there’d been someone asking if a missing girl had turned up there. Me. Or I, as you’d say.’

  ‘A taxi from where?’ Iles said.

  ‘The Monty club,’ Hazel said. ‘I think it was Denise and Dad asking about the girl, but by the time they got to the club we’d all left. I was in the taxi, paid for by Mr Ember.’

  ‘Yes, Denise guessed that’s where you’d be,’ Harpur said.

  ‘But why The Monty?’ Iles said.

  ‘She worries about you,’ Jill said. ‘She still thinks about you often, and she’s scared you might get done for those terrible crimes, like in the TV play. Some people think you should be. She was looking for anyone who might know stuff about all that, weren’t you, Haze? There’s a lot of talk in school. Arguments. Nastiness. Accusations. Haze wants the truth, as long as it’s the right truth, her truth, saying no you didn’t do it. Tricky.’

  Denise had to get away to a university lecture and Hazel and Jill to school. Hazel said nothing more. Harpur would wash up. He poured Iles a cup of tea.

  ‘That’s a real compliment, Col,’ Iles said.

  ‘What is, sir?’

  ‘Your daughter was missing, so you thought of me.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to think.’

  ‘But Denise – very acute. I can see you’d need someone like that. And true greatness from Ralph, wasn’t there, Col? A saint. However, didn’t we always know that among drugs tycoons he’s unique? The taxi, the chaperone. Oh, well done, well done, Ralphy! This is also the same Ralph W. Ember who has weighty letters in the local press about river p
ollution and the environment.’

  ‘Yes, kind,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Plus some shame.’

  ‘Shame?’

  ‘Shame because the violence at his revered club the other night should have so upset a young girl like Hazel that she had to see the site of it, perhaps find people who could tell her first-hand about it. Denise spotted this link, didn’t she?’

  ‘And then there’s the other link, isn’t there, sir?’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Which, Col?’

  ‘The link to you. The ructions started because someone said you’d got away with murder – murders.’

  ‘Yes, I gather someone did,’ Iles said.

  ‘Hazel wouldn’t like to hear such things about you,’ Harpur said.

  ‘I don’t like them either,’ Iles replied.

  ‘I don’t suppose so,’ Harpur said.

  ‘That sod hurting Hazel, poor kid. I can’t have this.’

  ‘How it is, though,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘A lovely kid given bad pain. No, I can’t have this, Col.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Inscribed plaques lined a wall at headquarters that led into a reception area commemorating officers killed on duty. The plaques gave simply the name and date his or her life was ended. A non-religious service of remembrance open to the families and friends of each officer was held on the death anniversary. These little ceremonies had breezily become known as halo parades.

  There was naturally a plaque for the undercover detective Raymond Cordovan Street, murdered while on an assignment for Iles and Harpur, though mainly for Iles. An assistant chief wouldn’t normally get so close to the details of an operation, even though he was Operations, but the risks in this kind of work had always gravely fretted Iles and he gave every undercover project his full focus, ready to withdraw the spy at any sign of discovery. Just the same, he wasn’t always quick enough. Obviously. This he didn’t forgive himself for.

  Amy Rouse Zole, a middling-to-upper-middling Home Office staffer, came down this year from London with a couple of well-groomed dogsbodies, specifically to talk to Iles about the Raymond Cordovan Street plaque. It must have been decided that this was too sensitive a subject to be dealt with by phone or email. Although Harpur attended the meetings, they were directed mainly and, as if respectfully, at the ACC.