Vacuum

by Bill James

  ‘There are many things about the Chief I admire, Col.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Oh, yes, many.’

  The bath in Edison Whitehead’s red-brick town-house, also at Lakeside, was white, and had not been knocked about by vandals or wear. The dossier said he lived alone after a split from his partner, Graham Lee-Tremayne, a year ago. Iles and Harpur couldn’t get any answer when Iles rang the bell. Harpur had some good keys with him and opened the door. Iles called Edison’s name in a coaxing, pacifying, very unfrightening tone. After that, the house stayed quiet.

  Harpur said: ‘Someone might have phoned him about the newspaper reports and he’s gone to get a copy in the supermarket.’

  ‘Yes, someone might,’ Iles said, ‘but we’d better look in the bathroom, I think, don’t you, Harpur?’

  They went upstairs, Iles calling out Edison’s name again, softly. He was in the bath, wearing quite a decent suit and a blue tie with silver stripes. The bath contained about the same amount of water as Arlington had been sitting in at Gladstone Square. This water was red, though. There was blood on the lino-covered floor. One of his arms hung out of the bath, a vein or artery severed. His other arm and hand were in the water, probably with the same sort of damage.

  ‘He’s seen Godfather Two,’ Iles said. ‘Franky the fink does himself like that. It’s how the Romans used to take themselves off if things got too tough. I told you Edison had a noble core.’

  Harpur often heard about the Godfather and even the Godmother from his daughters. Now Iles.

  The ACC reached into the water and recovered a sizeable kitchen knife. They had closed the front door. The bell rang twice. Harpur went downstairs to open up. Mansel Shale stood on the doorstep, staring past Harpur and up the stairs at Iles, who had the knife in his right hand. ‘Manse!’ Iles called. ‘You’ve been reading the papers, watching the telly, have you?’

  ‘I had to come round,’ Manse said. ‘I knew Edison would be quite upset.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Iles said.

  Harpur stood to one side, and Shale came in and climbed the stairs. He had on a pinstripe, lawyerly suit of superb but old cloth and cut. Manse was known to buy traditional gear from Oxfam because for him they radiated class and history. Iles stood to one side, also, so Manse could enter the bathroom. Iles held the knife pointing downwards at his side and dripping mostly water.

  ‘This sort of thing hardly ever happened when you were running your outfit, Manse,’ Iles said. ‘I mean really running it, not just figure-heading. I know I would have remembered if we’d had two deads in different baths on succeeding days. Col, do you recall anything like that when Manse had the reins?’

  ‘I took Matilda to school and then came straight here,’ Shale replied.

  ‘In the Jaguar?’ Iles said.

  ‘I’ve been thinking of taking over again myself,’ Shale said. ‘It’s terrible to see a firm falling to pieces like this.’

  ‘Nature abhors a vacuum,’ Iles said. He sat down on the side of the bath at the feet end of Edison. ‘Someone else might want to grab the power. Well, someone else might have seen off Arlington.’

  ‘My mother used to say, “A word is enough for the wise,”’ Shale said.

  ‘Mothers can come out with all sorts of stuff, can’t they, Manse?’ Iles said.

  ‘I’ll have a word if necessary.’

  ‘With, say, Jason Ivan Claud Wensley?’ Iles asked.

  ‘That kind of thing, yes,’ Shale said. ‘I think he’ll see my way is best.’

  ‘He has chums,’ Harpur said.

  ‘They’ll see it, too,’ Shale said.

  Upton called a mini-conference that afternoon. In the corridor, on their way to it, Iles said: ‘I don’t think I’ll need the camera material, Col. It would degrade me.’

  ‘Degrade you how?’

  ‘This would be an Assistant Chief more or less putting the blackmail screws on a Chief.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it would be based on a misreading of what he was up to. He only wanted to quiz Honorée, not hire her. It would be unfair to him. Also, I wouldn’t want it suggested anywhere that he’d moved in on a girl of mine.’

  ‘She’s not yours. She was with Neville last time I saw her.’

  ‘That’s different from Sir Matthew.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re not one for fine points, Harpur. “Decorum” is a mystery word to you.’

  ‘He wanted to quiz her so as to damage you.’

  ‘But he’s the Chief, Harpur. That’s what Chiefs are like – what helps make them Chiefs.’

  The three of them sat in armchairs in Upton’s suite. He said: ‘Perhaps we’ve been going at this thing too fast, too head-on.’

  ‘Excuse me, which thing, sir?’ Iles inquired.

  ‘The substances trade. These deaths – Arlington, now Whitehead. I didn’t expect that sort of result.’

  ‘Very unfortunate,’ Iles said.

  ‘And nothing came of the Low Pastures search,’ Upton said.

  ‘No, sir,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Perhaps there’s something to be gained from a more gradual approach,’ Upton said, ‘though with the same ultimate aim.’

  ‘It’s odd, sir, but Col Harpur and I were just saying the same on our way here.’

  ‘Yes, I expect so,’ Upton said.

  In the evening, Karen Lister called at Harpur’s house. His vision of her dead face with the teeth on show was a mistake, then. There’d been two deaths, but neither hers: Franco and Edison instead. Jill opened the door when Karen rang. She wouldn’t come in, though, but spoke on the doorstep once Harpur appeared in the hall to greet her. He sent Jill back into the living room and closed that door.

  ‘What’s going to happen to Jason?’ she said.

  ‘We’re looking at a whole lot of angles,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Yes, but what will happen to him?’

  ‘We’re looking at a whole lot of angles,’ Harpur said.

  She turned and walked fast away.

  When Harpur returned to the living room, Jill said: ‘Is she going to be calling at the house often? Denise might have been here, you know. She said she’ll come at about half past seven.’

  ‘Yes, I do know,’ Harpur said. ‘Great.’