Hitmen I Have Known

by Bill James

  In what Ralph recognized as a weird way, it really pissed him off that these sources of the news obviously never supposed he might have done the job on Waistcoat Favard himself. Neither of them started their report with something like, ‘As you might know, Ralph,’ or ‘Waistcoat deserved it, didn’t he, Ralph? Bravo!’, or when they were talking to others, ‘Ember had enough motive, for God’s sake, didn’t he? Waistcoat had undoubtedly brought violence, destruction, terror to The Monty, at a time when Ralph was ardently trying to fashion a new dignified image for the club in the style of, say, The Athenaeum.’

  Those two who had come to Ralph with the news would not know about such ambitions, but they would certainly know he loved The Monty, and yet did not go after the vandal who tried to wreck it. Did that pair think Ralph was too weak and timorous to see to Waistcoat, and punish him for his foul behaviour? Did they think Ralph was afraid of being attacked by a pool table?

  They probably knew that filthy nickname some gave Ember, ‘Panicking Ralph’. Did they regard it as accurate and justified? Perhaps they each assumed that Ralph didn’t already know at first hand – Ralph’s own – everything about the death because he’d be too yellow himself to make such a revenge attack. Instead, he needed to be briefed on the quiet about it by those who did know at least the central truth: Waistcoat was dead.

  ‘And the defacement,’ Tommy Whale said. He’d been the first to speak to Ralph. ‘So unnecessary, so disgracefully extra. The slaughter might be all very well, a run-of-the-mill kill, but restructuring of features is surely excessive, like delight in butchery.’

  ‘To take time to do all that. It’s macabre,’ Basil (Notable) Maltby said. He’d joined Ralph and Tommy.

  ‘The funeral will be useful,’ Whale said. ‘We should obviously attend to confirm he’s really a goner. He did his rotten best to drag the club down, so we need to show who won that contest. It will be worth dressing up for. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a funeral of someone whose face has been realigned. It wouldn’t be visible, of course. There won’t be a lying-in-state for Waistcoat Favard. But gossip about something like that gets around, especially if we help, and people will be conscious of it.’

  Although in some ways the speed at which things had moved scared and wrong-footed Ralph, he also suddenly felt very powerful and formidable. He had given instructions for the elimination of a pest and that pest had been more or less immediately seen off – no dithering, no funking, when it came to the actual cheerio. Ralph W. Ember had spoken, and when he spoke someone responded at once with the required action.

  As it appeared to Ralph, Mil was probably afraid of him, and knew that once the agreement was finalized he had better carry out what Ralph required. Ralph was someone who stipulated jobs to be done and he expected them to be done immediately. Ralph could sympathize. Mil was not much more than a kid. He would be very aware that he was dealing with someone – Ralph – who had seen and successfully taken an elegant part in so much of business life, and who was also famed for important thinking about the environment, rivers particularly. Mil was bound to experience a degree of awe.

  Virtually all Ralph’s drugs income was cash, and he always had plenty in safes at home and in his Monty office, though most of his outgoings – to suppliers – were cash, too, and cash on a much plumper scale than what he would be handing over to Mil now. He took £20,000 again from one of The Monty safes and distributed the notes around four or five pockets, as he usually did when carrying an amount of currency.

  He deliberately drew more than the agreement required. He didn’t want Mil to think the payment came from some special designated treasure house. He’d like it to look as though he always had a decent sum aboard as part of normal string-along living; like, say, for paying taxi fares and/or a girl, and he’d make it obvious that having filtered off Mil’s share, Ralph wouldn’t be short. Of course he wouldn’t. Outgoings of this kind weren’t negligible, but they were absolutely no strain, either. He wasn’t like a kid emptying the piggy bank. And because the agreement had now definitely come into force, he didn’t have to worry that Jo might increase the demand: he’d made a payment.

  The contract – verbal – said this second payment should be made within forty-eight hours of the death’s official confirmation. Ralph didn’t feel certain that words from Tommy Whale and Notable amounted to official statements, but they were two Monty stalwarts he knew well, and he felt they wouldn’t lie about something so meaty. They named no place and no date or time in their news and this did trouble Ralph. It might restart his fears that Tommy and Notable had a common tipster who gave and withheld the same bits of information. Ralph pressed for more detail but they had none, or said they had none. He had to choose, accept what they said, or not.

  He decided to accept. Even if they had things wrong, there’d be no great damage. Ralph would call at the Kingsbury paint shop and hear the truth from Mil himself. He might say, ‘Yes’, it had been done, in which case Ralph would reply, ‘Thank you very much’, pass the money over and go home. If he said, ‘Not yet’, Ralph would let him feel he should finish the assignment soon and he’d hang on to the money until he made the next visit, which should not be delayed.

  He drove to Kingsbury and parked again in the multi-storey. He’d seen no signs that he’d been tracked there last time, so felt reasonably sure he had no company. This easiness of mind left him, though, almost as soon as he entered the shop. Conditions had massively changed. Mil blared a greeting, to Mr Engard, asked at maximum voice about Ralph’s decorating plans, and said they should discuss the refurbishment scheme at leisure out in the yard where they wouldn’t be interrupted.

  And he did mean the yard, rather than the sort of outhouse-studio where they had spoken last time. There was a strip of grass alongside this small building with a rustic bench on it. Mil brought a brochure of some sort with him and they sat down. He spread a couple pages of the brochure on the bench between them. Smiling sweetly, he pointed at an array of variously coloured front doors, giving Ember – Engard Junior – Ralph a range of choices. ‘There’ve been disastrous developments, Ralph,’ he said.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘We’re scared of bugging of the inside areas,’ Mil said. He kept his head low as he talked. Ralph thought this could be to defeat lip-readers. ‘We found yesterday that they’ve got us under continuous scrutiny. They watch us here and are with us wherever we go.’

  ‘My God,’ Ralph said.

  ‘Phone tap as well,’ Mil said. ‘Well, we’ve always been a bit anxious about the phone – why we invented Sidney Engard Junior, with his affection for William Morris. It was Jo who noticed symptoms of interference on the line lately.’

  ‘So how the hell did you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘The job.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Waistcoat Favard, what else?’ Ralph said.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Done?’

  ‘Taken out,’ Ralph said.

  ‘Killed?’

  ‘And carved.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Ralph.’

  ‘Thanks?’

  ‘Someone cuts him about so you think it must be me.’

  ‘Not you?’ Ralph replied.

  ‘Like you said, how could it be? I’ve got a non-stop shadow.’

  ‘I brought the money.’ Ember realized he sounded idiotic and feeble. His hopes for something with Jo had just sunk.

  ‘That’s gorgeous of you, but you’ll have to take it home. I can’t risk being seen accepting great lumps of cash from you, even if you wanted to pay for nothing, as it would be. Go carefully. You might get a shadow yourself.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Iles had one of his chuckles. These were fairly rare and usually had little to do with humour. They seemed sincere, though, and generally signified a victory he’d brought off against someone – or more than one – who’d disgustingly shown dangerous but foolish enmity towards him. If you loo
ked hard and had some minutes available, you might detect an element of pity in the sound rolling out from him, as though he always disliked being so brilliantly right and could sympathize with those he so effortlessly destroyed.

  ‘I believe quite a few thought I’d done it, Col,’ Iles said. ‘They believed – honestly believed – they saw an obvious motive. Very obvious. After all, Waistcoat Favard was campaigning to get a case against me brisked up, revitalized, and not a trivial case – not at all: a double murder case. I mean the You-know-who and Paul Favard deaths in not very charming circumstance. Didn’t they try to bring suspicion on me by creating that foul disturbance at dear Ralphy’s beloved club? And Waistcoat had some apparent success. So we got those three devoted stirrers from the Home Office – Amy et cetera – asking rough questions wherever the breeze took them. Vindictive, Col. All built on slander, Col. Dirty warfare, Col.’

  ‘Chief Inspector Francis Garland is investigating the Naunton Favard murder, sir,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Of course he is. Francis is a very talented officer.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘He knows he mustn’t give any weight to these absurd, evil rumours about myself. They are bound to lead to fret and floundering. Top legal brains at the Home Office have now decided that any further moves against me would be oppressive and malicious. Such investigation on any front is now officially deemed to be not in the public interest.’

  ‘I think the public would be very interested,’ Harpur said.

  A postscript chuckle came from Iles. They were talking in Harpur’s suite at headquarters, Iles moving about in full glossy gear for some formal civic luncheon he had to attend later. He still received invitations to these functions, despite having occasionally given huge offence by his words and behaviour at similar gatherings. Organizers must fear that if they dropped him he’d come anyway and cause even more thorough distress.

  Iles said: ‘I’m Operations, so naturally Francis keeps me informed, and this does seem a tricky one, Colin. Such reprehensible extras.’

  ‘To the face, you mean?’ Harpur said.

  ‘Rearrangement. Wilful and unnecessary. Gaudy.’

  ‘True,’ Harpur said.

  ‘I’m delighted Nature came to my aid. Could there be a better alibi?’ Iles said.

  ‘Hard to think of one, sir,’ Harpur said. ‘I hope Sarah is well.’

  ‘I being at the birth of my second child and first son,’ Iles replied. ‘The medics put the death time for Waistcoat at the more or less identical moment as arrival of the baby. I expect you’ll see after your dreamy fashion a kind of profound commentary on Life itself, Col – the death of Waistcoat countered, as it were, by the delivery of Leopold Helicon to Sarah: a well-warranted death gloriously upstaged by a splendid new child. It has a virtually religious flavour, doesn’t it – sin, salvation?’

  ‘Great, sir,’ Harpur said.

  ‘And you, definitely not present at the birth or the conception, Harpur. I expect in your small-minded, mischievous way you’d like to remind me I had the snip. In turn, Harpur, I would remind you that I also had the reconnect.’

  ‘Grand, sir.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Iles decided that the commemorative ceremony marking the anniversary of Ray Street’s death could go ahead as usual. The assistant chief used a number of ways to help offset his pain and self-blame for sending Street on that catastrophic mission. This was one. Harpur knew Iles could never reconcile himself fully to that loss, though. His grief wasn’t specific to Street. It would have been the same for anyone – anyone he had responsibility for. Sentimental? A leadership flaw? Softness? He could be disabled now and then by memory of a death. Perhaps the halo parade occasions affected everyone like that, but Iles more than others. His obvious vulnerability might be why he stayed stuck at Assssissstant. Yes, Ssssoftnesssss.

  Melanie Younger, Street’s one-time girlfriend, didn’t turn up for the Street ceremony. ‘Regrettable,’ Iles said, ‘understandable. She looks to the future. She has a fiancé to appease. We also look to the future, and draw strength to help us from our past.’

  Mansel Shale did show. He had on a fine three-piece suit, a crimson, large-winged bow-tie, and a folded azure silk handkerchief billowing out of his top pocket. Harpur could tell care had gone into choice of this ensemble, the aim deep respect. That handkerchief was an adornment, a tribute. No snot would get blown into it.

  Harpur thought this was the first time Shale had ever attended one of the anniversary functions. He had come through a lot of grief and suffering, but seemed stronger and more positive today than Harpur had noticed for months – ebullient, almost. Some particular achievement or victory appeared to have restored his old confidence and spirit. It was as if not just this local triumph, whatever it might be, had made things close by looking rosier, but he seemed to radiate a worldwide delight in all of life wherever.

  ‘Manse!’ Harpur said when the meeting broke up. ‘Lovely to see you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Harpur.’ Shale’s voice had a touch of heartiness and grandeur.

  ‘You look well.’

  ‘Things have been returned to normal.’

  ‘Except that Waistcoat’s death remains a mystery,’ Harpur said.

  ‘We’re used to deaths that remain a mystery, aren’t we, Mr Harpur? In some cases it’s better like that.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Shale replied, ‘much better.’

  FOOTNOTES

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1 See Halo Parade

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  2 See Roses, Roses