Vacuum

by Bill James

  Arlington said: ‘All right, I’m just a general now, but we’ll see where I end up when this thing is over. I’ve got international friends you know, Harpur. No names, no complications. But these are people of tremendous status and immense resolve. Perhaps, without indiscretion, I might be allowed to mention a swastika. Two words from me and they’re here in support. Have you heard the title El Caudillo at all, meaning honcho, and undisputed ruler?’

  ‘It’s Spanish, isn’t it?’ Harpur said. ‘Suits the Valencia.’

  ‘Of course it’s fucking Spanish,’ Arlington said. ‘What else would it fucking be in Spain? I’ll march on them and win that lofty post, or my name’s not Francisco Franco, which it definitely and immovably is. Are you with us, Harpur? There’s no ducking out. You’ve got to choose. Forget the failed coup I was part of. This time I’ll triumph. Join us!’

  ‘Coups are tricky, wherever they’re tried,’ Harpur said.

  Edison Whitehead said: ‘Talking of caudillos, we saw yours chatting to one of the young ethnic girls up near Stave Street when we did another small tour earlier today, Mr Harpur.’

  ‘Desmond Iles?’ Harpur asked.

  ‘No, not Mr Iles,’ Whitehead said. ‘Not the Assistant Chief. The Chief himself.’

  ‘Sir Matthew?’ Harpur said. ‘You sure?’

  ‘This is the girl Mr Iles is very fond of, called Honorée, but on this occasion it was Sir Matthew Upton in considerable discussion with her,’ Arlington said.

  ‘He went with her? Sir Matthew?’ Harpur said.

  Arlington moved swiftly around the front of the Mazda, opened the passenger door and climbed in alongside Harpur. He sat down and closed the door. ‘Some confidentiality required at this point,’ he said. ‘In all our interests, Edison can listen in from where I was standing myself, but we don’t want some of these other folk eavesdropping, do we?’

  ‘I’ll disperse them, should they gather,’ Whitehead said. ‘That’s the kind of problem I’m made for. Dispersals, riddings, exclusions – these are my long suits.’

  ‘No, the Chief hadn’t come for the usual kind of service from the girl,’ Arlington said, ‘though she is a stunner, and testament to Mr Iles’s taste and staying power. We wondered if Sir Matt was asking her about Mr Iles – sort of building a dossier against him, listing repeated intimacies with one of these purchasable sweethearts. Some would regard it as not fitting for a married Assistant Chief, even on a patch like this. We heard Sir Matthew thinks Mr Iles has been making a total monkey of him – that pre-warned search up at Ralphy Ember’s shack. Would Upton be out to get him, do you think? We have a clash of two philosophies, don’t we?’

  ‘Sir Matthew is still comparatively new here. It will take him a while to acclimatize,’ Harpur said. ‘Mr Iles would like to help him, in that way he has with Chiefs.’

  ‘He drove the previous one half bonkers, didn’t he?’ Arlington said.

  ‘Iles and Upton are going to be at each other’s throats, aren’t they?’ Whitehead said. ‘This, also, is the kind of specific that interests me, engages my mind – people at each other’s throats. It’s a figure of speech, yes, but throats are so real.’ He put a hand in through the window and touched Harpur’s. ‘There’s a distinct physical nature to throats. Vital, or they wouldn’t be up to swallowing.’

  ‘Upton will try to eliminate the firms, won’t he, Mr Harpur?’ Arlington said. ‘He rejects the ACC’s happy, enlightened theory of cooperation between him and us. Why I spoke of a clash of philosophies. This could be grave. This could be wider than is immediately apparent. We have to ask whether Sir Matthew has been given the Chiefship here by some Home Office mogul specifically to obliterate the trade and its traders.’

  ‘Specifically,’ Whitehead said. ‘Yes, that would be another specific I can understand and attempt to deal with – Upton sent here with particular orders to do a total clean-up. He’s already a knight. He’ll be after a peerage for purification.’

  ‘Starting with the raid on Ralphy,’ Arlington said. ‘They’re looking for something that would pin the Shale murders on to Ember. If they can take him out, the firm goes under.’

  ‘This would explain the Chief’s rage with Iles who, in his view, sabotaged at Low Pastures the first move in the campaign, by giving Ralph the tip it was due, and, therefore, time to remove anything unhelpful,’ Whitehead said. ‘It’s very obvious.’

  Arlington’s face glowed, and he sat up straighter to invoke militarism. ‘“Campaign” is a word I’m very au fait with,’ he said. ‘Youngest general at thirty-four, not just in Spain but in Europe. It would be neglectful of me not to mention this. Battles in Morocco, next against a miners’ revolt in Asturias, and then the start of this Civil War in ’36. I think I can reasonably claim to be an expert in campaigns, although, as a matter of fact, my dad wanted me to go in the navy!’

  ‘And after Upton had done for Ember’s outfit he would turn on us, thinking we must be weak on account of Mansel’s disappearance,’ Whitehead said.

  Arlington bellowed an exceptionally full, contemptuous laugh. ‘Weakness is hardly a characteristic to be associated with someone who made it to general at that age, I think. How does it strike you, Mr Harpur?’

  ‘Did you get any of the conversation between Upton and the girl?’ Harpur replied.

  ‘The Chief’s not going to ask you to dig out bad information about Mr Iles, is he?’ Arlington said. ‘Sir Matthew would regard C. Harpur as one of the ACC’s cabinet, and as someone who feels penitent and indebted towards him, because of that lengthy lewdness with his wife in various locations, often listed by him. Nor could he reveal to other detectives that he’s trying to destroy his own Assistant Chief. It would look decidedly poor form. So he has to corner the girl himself.’

  ‘Did money pass?’ Harpur said. ‘They don’t like standing around gossiping unpaid. Tricks could be missed.’

  ‘In a way it’s brave of Upton,’ Arlington said. ‘He must be very determined. Still daylight at the time. There are many CCTV cameras. I hope he knows how to keep his face private. As a matter of fact, I took a couple of crafty shots on the mobile myself. For the record.’

  ‘As I’ve said, my own view of the Shale firm’s leadership structure now is Manse as a sort of president-patron, you as the working main man, Michael, then Jason Wensley,’ Harpur replied. ‘That right?’

  ‘I hope Sir Matthew won’t have you banging on my front door one morning at four thirty a.m.,’ Arlington said.

  ‘Is Jason working tonight?’ Harpur said. ‘Both of you doing supervision? Did he have to be, as it were, drafted in?’

  ‘There’s certainly a lot of customer demand to satisfy,’ Arlington said. He opened the passenger door and swung out of the car. ‘You’ve reminded me I should be visiting the rest of the ground. Thanks for that, Mr Harpur.’

  ‘Don’t you divide the overseeing rôle with Jason?’ Harpur said.

  ‘Some would maintain this district has taken a tumble socially,’ Edison Whitehead said. ‘Yet there is a fine liveliness present. We do not need to forget the distinguished maritime history. But it has been succeeded by a change of purpose. It has been inevitably brought up to date. We and you and Mr Iles are commendable parts of that progress, Mr Harpur.’

  They strolled away, Edison taking a standard, two-steps-behind guardian position. El Caudillo had lived and ruled into his eighties and must also have had efficient protection. This pair’s car would be just around the corner from here, in Templar Street. They had an established, well-known procedure for visits to the Valencia. They used three parking spots in turn. They’d leave the car and do a kind of walkabout, checking on their people working that patch, some of them inside one of the clubs or pubs or on the Eton. Then they’d move on by car and stop in Mill Place, and, lastly, Gladstone Square, and do similar foot patrols and visits there – another pub and Morgan’s caff. Apparently, General Franco liked the regularity of this, thought it helped make the firm look reliable and organized, like an arm
y unit. The obviousness didn’t matter, because their trade was tolerated. In fact, he possibly saw the obviousness as a plus – part of that reliability. And nobody would be stupid enough, suicidal enough, to vandalize or nick their car. Now they would go to Testament Place before their last call at Gladstone Square. You could imagine it had all been expertly planned by the team who choreographed royal weddings and the state opening of Parliament.

  Harpur, himself, took another slow drive through the Valencia, this time looking for not only Jason and Karen, but possibly Upton and Honorée, as well. He saw none of them. He phoned Karen’s and Jason’s home again and got the recording once more. He found himself gripped by that useless urge to see their street and house, not simply make mobile calls, and in a while he returned to Carteret Drive and parked at a distance from the semi. It was still in darkness. He decided to wait. He couldn’t have explained why, and resented the slip back into automatism.

  TEN

  As she’d promised herself, Margaret Ember finished the Keep Fit session half an hour early. She showered and dressed, then set out for the house of Karen Lister and Jason Wensley in Carteret Drive. She’d driven them there that night after they’d had too much at a Monty do. Her clothes were more formal than she’d usually wear for her Keep Fit visits. She had on full-heel black patent shoes, a dark suit and crimson blouse under an all-wool, black, knee-length winter coat. She wanted Karen to realize that this was an important, special call. She wouldn’t mention she’d tacked it on to the curtailed gym trip. It would sound like an afterthought. She’d like Karen to feel flattered that Margaret had taken obvious care with her turnout for this meeting. It might help things along.

  To arrive unannounced at their semi was a gamble. She hoped Karen would be there alone. Most street and club trading went on in the evenings, and Jason should be out marshalling the sales people. Margaret knew she’d have to get very delicate with her questions if Jason should be at home. Well, not questions, plural – one central question: was a hit-back attack on Ralph and his family planned by the reshaped Shale company? He might refuse to answer. He might laugh the question away as outrageous and barmy. Or he might answer with lies. How would she know what was the truth? Did it seem conceivable that a member of one firm would disclose the outfit’s plans to the wife of another firm’s head?

  Margaret believed Karen would be more sympathetic, more likely to feel moved by possible danger to the children. Perhaps she had picked up hints of what the company’s attitude was towards the Shale deaths. Possibly, she could offer some reassurance – supposing, that is, there was reason for reassurance. If not, Margaret would have to think again about making a run from Ralph with the two girls. The insult and insolence of that police raid on Low Pastures had made her determined to side with him and abandon any thought of quitting. What was that corny song – ‘Stand by Your Man’? She’d felt it a necessity then. But now concern for their daughters came to dominate her thinking again. The responsibility gripped her. She found she couldn’t believe in the competence of Ralph and his people to guard them. How could they be efficiently guarded when they had to go on with their normal lives? Only absence could properly guarantee their safety – and her own, though this did not rank as a major item with her.

  The house in Carteret Drive seemed completely dark, but she parked and walked through the small front garden and rang the bell. Did she sense someone move in the front room of the neighbouring house, move furtively, sticking to the shadows, in case of being noticed? The curtains there were not closed, and the lights out. She had no response to the bell and rang again. She waited. She heard a door open in the house next door. An elderly woman, burly, round-faced, good-tempered looking behind slightly ornate spectacles, appeared in the porch there. She said: ‘Excuse me, but they’re not at home. I hope I’m not interfering, but there’s been quite a bit of what has to be termed “activity” there tonight, so we’ve been keeping an eye. Not nosing, you understand – we hate that kind of behaviour – but it’s unusual for them to have so many visitors, of very various kinds. Frank and I wondered whether there’s anything wrong. We’re very fond of Karen. And then there’s Jason, also. A nice quiet couple, usually. I’d be sad if anything had happened to Karen. Anything unfortunate, that is.’

  ‘No, nothing wrong. I’m a friend. I thought I’d drop in. What kind of activity?’

  A man joined the neighbour in their doorway. He’d be about her age, mid-seventies, a little stooped, bald, thin, with a meagre grey moustache, watery but cheerful eyes.

  ‘I’ve been telling this lady there’s been rather a lot of activity next door tonight, Frank.’

  ‘Activity is the word!’ he said.

  ‘Yes, activity,’ Beryl said.

  ‘We both came upon that term to describe things, quite separately from each other. Beryl said to me, “Such a lot of activity next door, Frank.” And I had been going to say more or less the same to her, such as, “There seems to be ongoing activity next door tonight, Beryl.” I don’t mean noisy or troublesome in other ways—’

  ‘Not at all,’ Beryl said.

  ‘But activity. Noticeable activity. I don’t want you to think we’re peering from the front windows all the time, prying,’ Frank said. He gazed both ways along Carteret Drive.

  ‘Not at all,’ Beryl said. ‘I’ve explained that.’

  ‘But we couldn’t help noticing when a car arrived,’ Frank said. ‘I happened to have stepped into the front room and was about to put the light on when I heard and saw the car pull up. The curtains were not closed. We don’t use the front room very much. I had gone there looking for the atlas, to do with Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, which our grandchild, Amy, is doing a sponsored climb on, one of its peaks being the highest in Africa, its snows the subject of a film with Ava Gardner. Amy’s a tough one, will have a go at—’

  ‘Who was in the car?’ Margaret said.

  ‘I didn’t switch the lights on,’ Frank said. ‘I thought at first the vehicle had stopped outside our house. I was curious, as I think you’ll agree is natural, but didn’t want to seem to be staring, which would have been the case if I went to the window with the lights on behind me. So, I didn’t bother about the atlas for the moment but moved into the middle of the room and looked at the car.’

  ‘Oh, and before this,’ Beryl said, ‘I had seen Karen drive off in her blue Mini, which was quite usual on some evenings, when she goes to Tesco for the shopping. She leaves her car outside, but his is an expensive job and kept in their garage. Then, later, I wondered what Frank was doing, spending so long looking for the atlas, but no lights on, which would have shone into the hall, and I’d have been aware of, so I went into the front room, and he said about the car. We both watched, because this didn’t seem usual in the way Karen going to Tesco was usual. Often she’ll ask me if she can get anything for us there. She’s so helpful. This type of kindness is not always shown by young people these days.’

  ‘Who was in the car?’ Margaret replied.

  ‘Two men at first,’ Frank said.

  ‘They went to the front door and rang the bell,’ Beryl said. ‘There were lights on in the house, so we knew Jason must be there, most likely.’

  ‘Excuse me asking, but are you to do with the men in the car?’ Frank said. ‘We don’t mean to be hounding you with questions, but there does seem to be something . . . something, well, unusual about such a string of people coming to their house tonight.’

  ‘A string?’ Margaret replied.

  ‘This car and the men were only the first. That’s why I referred to “ongoing”,’ Frank said. ‘And then there might be someone hanging about outside, not necessarily coming to the house on this occasion, but interested in the house.’

  ‘Oh?’ Beryl said. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Watching?’ Margaret said.

  ‘That’s how it seems,’ Frank said.

  ‘Did you recognize the men in the car, I wonder?’ Margaret said.

  ‘Strangers
,’ Beryl said. ‘That’s one reason it all seemed so . . . well, unusual. We didn’t refer to it at that time as “activity” because so far this was the solitary unusual aspect, and not very unusual, anyway. It was only two men in a car calling on them. Obviously, they might just be friends of Jason. I considered it would be over-egging to call it activity.’

  ‘Or ordinary household business, such as measuring up for fitted carpets or double glazing, which might have required two people,’ Frank said. ‘Yes, it would have been an exaggeration at that stage – at that stage – to refer to the car and the men as activity.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ Margaret said.

  Frank had a lengthy chuckle. She felt his lungs seemed well up to it.

  ‘What?’ Beryl said.

  ‘Well, this lady is herself part of the activity now, isn’t she?’ Frank said. ‘We’re discussing the activity with somebody who is a part of that activity! This makes it quite a remarkable development, in my view. Sort of circular.’

  ‘What were they like, the two men?’ Margaret said.

  ‘It was dark, of course,’ Frank said.

  ‘But even so, you’d get some impression,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Frank thought late twenties both,’ Beryl said. ‘I’d say one late twenties, the other older, perhaps thirty-two, even thirty-five. Jason is most probably in that age group – say between twenty-eight and thirty-three or four, so it could have been mates calling for him. We didn’t discuss this at the time because things seemed quite ordinary, as we said. But later, when we began to think of it all as activity, we tried to remember what the men were like. This was to do with searching for an explanation for the activity, but only later when we’d come to the conclusion that what was going on had to be described as “activity”.’

  ‘They got out of the car and went up to the front door, just like you did,’ Frank said.

  ‘Could you get a look at the faces when they were nearer, in the front garden?’ Margaret said.