In the Absence of Iles

by Bill James

  ‘The shakiness can be more so when the firm has no bonds of family to give at least a steady base, but this isn’t necessarily to your advantage. The reason? Well, such teams are likely to be villains who will join together – will agree to cooperate – for occasional major tasks needing a lot of manpower: e.g, the Great Train Robbers. What I meant by ad hoc. If it goes well, there’ll be a share-out afterwards of the particular loot from that particular job. But, when there’s no large project around, people waiting for the call will do their own crooked things and pocket their own crooked gains. In other words, the firm is not like a straight commercial company where all members at all times are supposed to be contributing by their work to a central accounts book. We can’t compare these criminals with what used to be called “organization men” in legit businesses – people devoted to and looked after by the company – because this organization might only last months, or even weeks. The one-off quality of such outfits makes them difficult from our point of view: they may not be in existence for long enough, first, to identify, and then bluff a way into.’

  She shrugged, as though to say undercover was much less than an all-purpose weapon. Most of her audience would know that. Esther did. Hadn’t she come to Fieldfare to find which purpose, purposes, undercover did suit? B said: ‘However, then there’s another kind of firm, altogether – not focused on the occasional massive heist – a bullion raid, for instance, or the Great Train frolic – but running a continuous trade, such as cargo-takes or illegal drugs supply. Here, there’ll be a need for minor people on the edges, say to watch for one certain super-valuable container from a ship’s hold and get it to a pre-arranged spot on the quay; or pushing at street corner level or at clubs, and couriering stuff from bulk suppliers. Lowlife doing that kind of very prole, small-time assignment will come and go, and will probably be doing their own bits of unrelated law-breaking at the same time.

  ‘It’s obviously through one of these marginal jobs that implanting a spy will be easiest – not easy, but easiest, though some are gender-specific, of course: you can’t put in a lady as dockside labour. But with drug mongers things are different: it’s bisexual, and if your woman or man can offer long-term reliability by sticking around, being efficient, not skimming either cash or substances, there’ll be a chance of moving up. Vital. You won’t want to risk sticking someone undercover to catch two shop doorway dealers and a user. He/she must be able to finger the leadership. We expect, don’t we, the prospect of at least ten years’ lock-up? We have to hack the heads off firms, not just tread on their toes.’ She paused and did another eye-inventory of her listeners. This time, though, it might not be simply to memorize: no, not just memorize, but to check they were mesmerized by her spiel. Esther felt mesmerized.

  B began again: ‘Now, let’s return to the toughest challenge – to firms that are family controlled: dodgy but possible. Several methods exist for getting aboard, but the main and historically most successful is to identify which of the family might feel discriminated against, undervalued, bypassed, and instal our man/woman close to him, on the pretext that she/he admires the runt figure regardless, sees hidden pluses, and can offer help to lessen or end this disrespect. I’ll give you a couple of examples.’ B had come on to the stage holding a Waitrose carrier bag and set this at her feet. Now, she bent down and brought a red ring binder from it and began to read of tricky but ultimately triumphant infiltrations. Naturally, she wouldn’t be mentioning tricky and ultimately disastrous infiltrations.

  Esther’s mind went back, went back to all that while ago, when first half thinking about an attempt to smuggle someone into the Turton Guild – yes, Esther had wondered then, in fact, whether there might be rivalry, and therefore useful hatred, affecting Ambrose Tutte Turton and Nathan Garnet Ivan Palliative Crabtree. One tale around said that during the sudden rolling warfare spat between the Guild and other firms on 17 November 2004 Palliative had deliberately left Ambrose exposed in the Preston Park battle sector, apparently hoping to simplify the succession for himself to Cornelius Max Turton’s supremo post, eventually. Deliberately? This might be the kind of charge difficult for Ambrose or anyone else definitely to prove. And the rumour of a savage enmity looked very dubious, because he and Palliative seemed to have worked all right together since Cornelius went more and more emeritus, as he aged. For instance, Ambrose and Crabtree had almost certainly put together the campaign against Claud Seraph Bayfield as joint commanders. This would have been no pushover. It suggested very effective collaboration. Maybe, if differences had once existed between them, they’d been ditched now, both recognizing that their combined strengths kept the Guild up there, paramount in the city, and acknowledged nationwide, perhaps even beyond.

  Or . . . or, it could be that the comradeliness amounted to nothing more than a truce, and the old loathings still lurked, still waited. Esther had realized that, if this were so, her undercover plant might create an alliance with one of them and provoke him into an attack on the other, or at least on the other’s woman/women and/or children. That, on its own, could increase splits and damage the Guild. Any prosecutions would be extra. She had never reached a point in her planning, her half-planning, where she decided which of them – Ambrose or Palliative – would be the most promising to fix on. Some said a general, suppressed hostility had always existed between the Turton and Crabtree sides of the family, anyway, and that this was notably sharpened by the Times obituary of Brent, because Cornelius could not be sure he, also, would get one, even down the page.

  Cornelius apparently put it about that Brent would never have qualified for that kind of post-mortem treatment if it hadn’t been for the showy, horrifying way he got himself killed; and Cornelius would undoubtedly not want to go like that. They said Cornelius had heard of the obituary on the morning of publication and sent people to every newsagent within a couple of miles’ radius to buy all copies of The Times and secretly burn them. Several of Cornelius’s men wanted to break up the shops as penalty for even putting The Times on sale that day. Cornelius forbade this, perhaps afraid The Times would hold it against him and then certainly refuse him an obit. Apparently, Cornelius liked the way The Times did obituaries: just the name in full across the top and then, possibly, a single head and shoulders shot, unless it was an obit of a goalkeeper, when there might be a picture of him crouched in front of the woodwork and netting; or a famous gardener with some kind of decent hedge behind him. People said Cornelius understood the principle that, if you had done genuine great work in life, all you needed as memorial would be an unadorned statement of that work, not some glaring projection of it. Cornelius’s hatred of gaudiness was famous. Of course, he would probably have recognized that some sensationalism in the obituary of Brent Holywell Crabtree had been necessary because of the terrible death, and that filthy or comical episode in Morocco, depending on where you were coming from.

  B finished describing her examples and said: ‘As we see, then, to slip into a family firm via a disaffected member can be one way to reach the pinnacle people. Clearly, though, there are special dangers. Family enmities are generally more vicious than any others. Think of the punch-ups and knifings at typical weddings, christening parties and funerals. Think of Cain and Abel. If you put in undercover to achieve special contact with one brother or cousin or grandson or uncle or grandfather, some of the others are likely to resent this alliance, suspect this alliance. They might see it as an insult to blood, as well as a grubby bit of deviousness.’ She nodded hard a couple of times. ‘Almost inevitably,’ she said. ‘I’ve witnessed that more than once. It can be very hairy.’ She went silent, reminiscing, then having a mind-change forced on her by whatever it was she thought of. ‘Yes. Very. Forgive me, I’m jumping about rather today, but, look, I think that at this point I must switch from a plod job of categorizing crook firms and revert to the crucial, more urgent question of what the planted officer should do if things turn bad, and what you should do, and should have done before planting her/him, in ca
se they turn bad.’ She paused again, passed a hand over her face, as though checking for tears. Although she wouldn’t talk much about failures, it seemed she couldn’t altogether ignore or forget them.

  In a while she said: ‘Above everything, you’ll need to make sure your Out-located man/woman within a targeted firm gets briefed on how to read the signs that her cover – I’ll talk female throughout because I am one, but take it as for both sexes – yes, she must, must, be taught how to spot that her cover has been suddenly blown.’ She frowned, wagged the same hand, to indicate second thoughts. ‘ I say “suddenly”, because that’s dramatic and I want to keep you awake, but, really, it’s more likely to be a gradual thing. If the cover collapses all at once it will be because of some glaring mistake or bit of diabolically poor luck. Obviously, these should not occur, as long as the preparation has been efficient. The one good factor about such a crisis is that the undercover officer will be instantly aware it has happened and she should leave everything and sprint down the fire escape.

  ‘But when the cover breakdown is bit by bit, things can be difficult and much more dangerous. Why? Well, the officer might not feel totally sure it’s taking place. She’ll be non-stop tense in any case – you can’t be undercover and not tense – and so she’ll possibly tell herself that, because of the stress, she’s imagining symptoms of suspicion in the colleague villains around her when, in fact, none exist. Is she getting scared of shadows? She’ll want to believe everything is fine. This is her show. Undercover has almost always to be solo. It can become an ego thing. She’d be ashamed to cave in to simple jitters. And so she stays too long, leaves it too late to alert the on-call rescue party. In a mo I’ll list some of the symptoms to be watched for. And, of course, I’ll detail now the kind of exit and aid structure you must – again must – must have in place before any officer is committed to an undercover spell. Perhaps we all know of cases that have brought tragedy.’ Again she touched her face just below the eyes. ‘Right then, you will, please, always provide:

  1. A posse on continuous readiness to go in and get the officer out, by force if necessary.

  2. A communications system that is negation sensitive. That is, there will be set times for the undercover officer to get in touch with base and if one of these fails by more than an agreed duration the posse moves to recover.

  3. Gun carriers in the rescue unit.

  4. First aiders in the rescue unit.

  5. Fat cash with the aid unit in case our officer has been freighted away for execution somewhere and a bribe is crucial to locate her in time. At least a thousand and in old bills no higher than twenties. Preferably tens. Definitely not fucking fifties – excusezmoi. People in the firms don’t like fifties. They’re conspicuous when spent, and might, in any case, include forgeries. Twenties OKish, but producing a lot of them in the shop can be noticeable, too. Rubber-band the wad with no doubling over of the notes, repeat, no doubling over of the notes, so the recipient can flip-check at once to see it’s real right through not just a token bit of currency on top and the rest blank paper, sometimes a jolly trick used by villains and us. The speed of the deal could be crucial.’

  A West Country accent? Maybe, but so slight as to be from anywhere between Gloucester and Land’s End. Put on? Definitely not Hull or Liverpool or Cockneydom. Yes, B liked lists and getting things ordered. Esther had that correct. She was surprised, though, by B’s abrupt move from high confidence to a calamity script, and felt disturbed. When B spoke of tragedy, she would almost certainly mean the Iles tale. Did he neglect the exit structure for his implanted detective?

  ‘Somehow, you have to devise emergency support that is always on hand and close but never obvious – the eternal, agonizing undercover quandary, ‘ B said. ‘You are all of Chief Police Officer level, and will no doubt delegate the actual management of any undercover operation to one of your senior staff. But the overall strategy and responsibility has to be yours, which is why the Fieldfare invitations for this conference are confined to ACPO ranks.’

  Certainly, Esther would delegate. As B said, Assistant Chiefs did delegate. They’d climbed above the nitty-gritty and into what B called the strategic. Delegation was not a simple game. At that discussion with her two top detectives about the Cormax Turton Guild, a long time before Fieldfare, Esther wondered which of the pair she’d tell to control the undercover job, if she did decide to give it a whirl. She’d failed to make the selection then, and still couldn’t get her brain to settle who’d do it best. Perhaps the Fieldfare contributions from A and/or B, and/or whoever else took part over the couple of days, would eventually help.

  B said: ‘A name. I’m going to talk to you about a name. My name. I don’t mean my real name, obviously. I mean the name I might take to go undercover. As you’re all aware, my real name is . . . well, is B. That’s to say, B conceals my real name because my real real name is a protected species known only to my mother, the armoury and the Pay Office. But, when I’m doing my crooked role in a firm, I need a working name, and I must become totally the person represented by that name. So, let’s say I pick the name Dawn. It’s got to be a name that sounds as though it could be right. I’m among people who have begun to let me in, but they’re still suspicious. They’re suspicious of everyone they haven’t seen around for at least months, and they’re suspicious of them, too. Incidentally, when you select your officer for Out-location it has to be someone with no vivid background of past detective work or he/she is likely to be already familiar to the firms. This proviso can mean that the officer must be young and fairly inexperienced – which may add to risk. And it can mean, too, that he/she is likely to have worked in an outlying police station, not somewhere central and major: distance helps with disguise. Preferably, the officer will have no dependants, though some elasticity might be permitted on that.

  ‘But about names: personally, I wouldn’t pick one that sounds like I’m trying hard to come across as through-and-through naffdom and therefore suited to small jobs, such as being called after her parents’ honeymoon spot, Bude, or a soccer team – Villa. “Dawn” has good, middle-ground credibility. Yes, it’s workable. But then, what I noticed one day was people in the firm started using this name too damn much. Eerie. Chilling. It was, “Dawn, there’s a rave at Colly’s Palace Friday through Saturday, Dawn. We must have representation there, Dawn. You’ll need a tonne of stock, Dawn.” I was pushing all sorts for them as my role at the time, and, I thought, getting general recognition as an extremely OK dogsbody. And then, “We’ll have Sandy and Mick there as well, Dawn, to see off any competition, so you should get just peaceful selling, Dawn, a real sweet location.” That repetition, like a tic – what’s going on? Then I work it out. I know I have to work it out, fast. It’s as if they want to tell me they really believe my name’s really Dawn and are so really comfy with it and really convinced by it that they’ll bring it out really matily at every chance now. And, of course, the reason they want to tell me they really believe my name’s really Dawn is because they don’t really believe it at all. Or they’re starting to doubt it, I don’t understand why. They’re going to do some digging around. Maybe they’ve already done some digging around, testing the CV I come with. Meanwhile, they’ll lull me, help me feel absolutely part of the outfit by Dawning me here, there, inside, outside and around the corner. They wouldn’t call Sandy or Mick Sandy or Mick every few words because they’re really certain Sandy and Mick are Sandy’s and Mick’s real names. Maybe there’s a touch of mockery as well to all the “Dawns”. It’s “Dawn”, “Dawn”, “Dawn”, because they’ve got an idea it’s not. They’d like to say it, “Dawn? Dawn??? Dawn!!!! Who ever fucking knew a rat called Dawn?” Minor indicators, yes. What just now I called shadows. But I grow very alert. I’d been watchful before, even though I’d imagined I was winning. Now I’m max watchful. And I might spot some of the bigger signs I promised to give you.

  1. The occasional question about my supposed background. This will be nothing too rough �
�� not interrogation, only conversational. And then another question next day, and one the day after. They’ll be weighing the answers for consistency, and maybe doing some checks around where I’ve been claiming I come from. A probably referred to Reservoir Dogs. You’ll recall how members of the gang chat sweetly and amiably with Mr Orange, who’s actually a cop spy, going over tales from his alleged past, looking for flaws. Incidentally, that’s an instance where a one-off operation, the jewel robbery, is penetrated. But, it has taken a long time to set up, so maybe for Mr Orange to get himself into the team is just about believable.

  2. I might notice someone snooping me from a vehicle while I work. The aim is to see that I trade and nothing else – no chats with someone playing a punter but actually my contact from headquarters.

  3. I’ll get told well ahead about some operation – say a cash-in-transit project – but, somehow, it doesn’t happen. They’ve been testing, fictionalizing. They want to see whether a police brigade turns up at the spot on my tip-off.