In the Absence of Iles

by Bill James

  ‘You’re sure?’ Channing said.

  ‘Absolutely.’ Well, more or less.

  Channing paused again. He had to consider the politics. ‘What will be the relationship between this operation and the long-time investigation into Cormax Turton under DCS Tesler?’

  ‘They are interdependent. Simon will understand that. He is obviously preoccupied with his exceptionally useful work there. He couldn’t take on this as well.’

  ‘One rumour said the investigation – I mean the established investigation – would be shut down, because it can’t get past the silence brick wall, and that undercover will replace it.’

  ‘Our established, ongoing investigation and this new Out-loc project should complement each other really well, I feel, don’t you?’ Esther replied.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard from witnesses how, under an assumed name, and with his police identity concealed, Detective Sergeant Dean Martlew was placed in the Cormax Turton organization, performing a variety of duties, as if an ordinary working member of the company, but in touch secretly through telephone calls and meetings with a superior officer.’

  Esther attended court for slices of the judge’s summing-up in the trial’s last days, and saw Iles had also come. Wearing a grey, single-breasted suit, he sat again in the public gallery, not far from Mr Martlew, to the left of Esther and one row ahead of her, so that off and on she could watch Iles in full or part profile. Most of the time, he stared at the judge, his head still, a gundog pointing prey. Occasionally, he switched this gaze to Ambrose Tutte Turton in the dock, gave him the same sort of hard attention, before switching back to the judge. Iles’s tie seemed to have strong silver and red stripes on a dark blue background, perhaps the colours of some rugby club he played for when young.

  Esther tried to read what she could intermittently see of his face. Of course, she wondered if he’d decided this prosecution was halfway down the tubes; just as that earlier one went down the tubes on his domain after an undercover man’s murder. But she could not make out a lot from his appearance. His lips looked magnificently dry, although she understood he sometimes frothed if put to exceptional stress. This could happen, she’d been told, when quite frequently he berated two of his senior detectives in public, and presumably in private, about adulterous affairs conducted with Iles’s wife – at different times, as Esther heard it. Also, it would sometimes occur during funerals if, by invitation or not, and usually not, Iles got temporary control of the pulpit at a service for someone wiped out on his ground in a particularly unnecessary and possibly monstrous way. He’d use the chance to rage and foam against named criminals, and/or God, and/or the judiciary, and/or Fate, and/or the Home Secretary and Inspectorate of Constabulary, and/or medics. Esther felt almost certain, though, that Iles would never make such an open, fierce display in a fully fledged court of law like this, nor forcibly attempt to take over from the judge, whether male or female. His training surely made that impossible. Churches and chapels he’d have a different attitude to. He could be more brutal and competitive there. The rugby side of him might come out then. Pulpits he seemed to regard as up for grabs, like a ball fought over by players.

  The judge said: ‘A police witness has explained why it was thought necessary to infiltrate – to Out-locate, in police terminology – the detective sergeant into the Cormax Turton organization. You would, no doubt, have made your own deductions about this, even without the reasons given by Superintendent Channing. Put briefly, the police wished to know more about the workings of the Cormax Turton group and had determined to seek evidence by Out-location, as well as by other methods of investigation already under way. Police witnesses have been guarded about saying why these inquiries were considered necessary, but it is plain that the Cormax Turton group was suspected of some kind, or kinds, of lawbreaking. This is an important factor in the case, members of the jury, because, according to the Prosecution, it provides the background and, indeed, the reason for the death of Detective Sergeant Martlew. I shall speak more about this later.

  ‘I must emphasize to you now, though, that no evidence – I repeat, no evidence – has been put before you during the trial of criminal activity by the Cormax Turton organization. In fact, it could even be said that you have heard evidence to suggest the reverse. The Out-location project became necessary, according to the police, because a lengthy investigation by a team of officers, under the head of the Criminal Investigation Department himself, produced nothing to justify charges against anyone in Cormax Turton. We have been told that this investigation was still “ongoing”. Nevertheless, you might feel that the failure to find anything to warrant charges after eight months is significant.

  ‘Further, Detective Sergeant Martlew had been installed at Cormax Turton for four months at the time of his death. Detective Sergeant Martlew and Superintendent Channing, who had charge of the Out-location project, maintained covert contact – or contact they hoped was covert – and several meetings took place, as well as telephone calls. We have heard no evidence – I repeat, no evidence – from these debriefings that anything criminal had been discovered by the detective sergeant. Superintendent Channing has said that it could take some time before such a flow of information might be expected from an Out-located officer. This is understandable, but does not change the fact that from neither of the types of inquiry run by the police – the team investigation and Out-location – had any evidence been gathered at that stage – I mean before the death of Detective Sergeant Martlew – to justify a prosecution of a member or members of the Cormax Turton Guild. This you must keep in mind when considering matters of motive in the case before the court now. You should not regard suspicion as fact.’

  The judge adjourned her summing-up soon after this. In the evening, Esther went to a retirement party for Bernard Stonevale, one of the eight-month investigation team into Cormax Turton. Bernie had done his thirty years and, obviously, the eight months made only a tail-end fragment to his career. Just the same, she felt a kind of grim symbolism in these proceedings. Generally, Esther didn’t go much for symbolism and its realms of wool. But tonight, during the presentation and speeches, Esther heard something beyond the usual fond, formal leave-taking. Cormax Turton lived and prospered, whereas Detective Inspector Bernie Stone-vale, who’d sweated and intrigued to wipe out the firm, now withdrew, passed on. And if the judge’s summing-up resumed tomorrow with the same slant as today’s, Cormax Turton might continue to live and prosper, with Ambrose Tutte Turton back near the top of the Guild and pretty well fireproof. Of course, it was a fluke that Bernie should be going out of the job now, but Esther found herself for more than a moment or two conscious of a signal in his departure: a white flag signal, a retreat, a capitulation. God, so damn unjust to Bernie – yet the idea clung and seemed particularly strong and troublesome, because a few years ago hadn’t Bernie helped tutor a lad new to plain-clothes duty in the mysteries of detective work: Dean Martlew?

  Iles had disappeared very quickly this afternoon when the judge ended proceedings for the day. He plainly did not want to talk, most likely because any talk between Esther and him after the judge’s words could be only miserable. Mr Martlew had also left quickly, but then he always did, as if preoccupied by his own private sadness and despair, and uninterested in the reasoning and explanations of the brass who caused them. She could sympathize with him. Sometimes brass had to take a hammering.

  Now, at the evening do, Simon Tesler handed over three farewell gifts and Bernie spoke his thanks and ran through some formula farewells. Soon, the main drinking would start. Esther did not intend staying. She might inhibit things. Brass. Gerald sometimes came to this kind of function with her and had wanted to tonight. Esther put him off, though. There would be tensions here: the failure of the investigation; the possible failure of the court case; the hints of resentment from Tesler over the Out-loc management, despite its bad end. Gerald couldn’t always cope with social tension.
Actually, Gerald couldn’t ever cope with social tension, and it always seemed wrong to Esther for someone to look so deranged or crushed in company while wearing one of his foully bright bow-ties. To dissuade Gerald from coming to the Stonevale party was not easy. Months ago, Esther had given up suggesting to him on occasions when she wanted to leave him at home that he should settle with a six-pack and listen to some radio music. He had come to hate any performance he wasn’t in, which these days meant all performances.

  Eventually, tonight, he said he’d go to his club, a dismal little place near the city centre with some similarly arty members in various routine difficulties about getting or selling work. They consoled or incensed one another, and he’d often spend a few uncheerful hours there. Money could be a tricky topic. Obviously, as an authentic bassoon player, he would have been insulted if Esther offered him a twenty for these evenings. Luckily, though, the owner of the club had been an army officer and to some members, including Gerald, he allowed the same kind of civilized arrangements he’d enjoyed in the mess: not cash over the bar but a monthly bill, in Gerald’s case always paid by cheque very much on the nail – from the joint Esther-Gerald account.

  At the leaving party, after Stonevale’s speech and some hand-shaking he crossed the room to Esther. ‘Well, as Simon Tesler said, we’ll miss you, Bernie,’ she told him. Stonevale was squat, strong-looking, boyishly open-faced although into his fifties. He had a job lined up with the Health and Safety people.

  ‘It’s all going to collapse, isn’t it, Chief?’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘We’ll never get Cormax Turton. But maybe I shouldn’t say “we” any longer. I’m gone.’

  ‘Someone will take over your work, don’t worry.’

  ‘I know I’m not irreplaceable. That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘We stick at it.’

  ‘But you’ll never get Cormax Turton, will you?’

  ‘It’s uncertain at present. Yes, it’s uncertain.’

  ‘We heard about the summing-up today.’

  ‘Not over yet, Bernie.’

  ‘But, so far, bad?’

  ‘The judge had to say what she did. It was fair.’

  ‘“No evidence against Cormax Turton,”’ Stonevale replied.

  ‘It’s true, but marginal. Ambrose Tutte Turton is on trial, not the Guild.’

  ‘I feel like I’m going out a failure. I’ve done a lifetime, but it’s all made nothing by Cormax Turton.’

  ‘Not at all, Bernie. You –’

  ‘As if I’m deserting.’

  Yes, it had been her thought, too, hadn’t it, cruel and absurd? ‘Nothing’s finished yet.’

  ‘If he gets off it’s finished, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Inquiries were, are and will be ongoing.’

  ‘You can’t do undercover again.’

  ‘No, not undercover.’

  ‘So you’re back to what – back to the kind of stuff we’ve already tried and tried, and it’s hopeless, isn’t it?’

  Yes, fairly hopeless. But Esther said: ‘You know how it is with this kind of investigation, Bernie – suddenly we get one piece of evidence that makes everything else add up right.’

  ‘If he’s acquitted, any other move against Cormax Turton will look like grudge tactics – malicious prosecution. And they can afford top briefs to say so. My view? We should have been a lot more fucking malicious way back.’ He frowned: ‘Oh, sorry, but I can fuck and blind in your presence now I’m nearly through the exit door.’

  ‘We’ve done it absolutely straight.’

  ‘Which has got us where, Chief? This judge wants evidence. Fair enough. They all do. That’s the kind of minds they have. All right, we should have supplied it.’

  ‘We’ve tried to. You as much as anyone know that, Bernie.’

  ‘We should have tried harder,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think we could have.’

  ‘Tried harder and been cleverer.’

  ‘Cleverer?’

  ‘Really cleverer.’

  ‘“Cleverer” meaning . . .?’

  ‘Really cleverer.’

  ‘You mean try to fit people up – Cornelius himself? Ambrose? Palliative?’

  ‘I think you did right to go Out-loc, despite the disaster,’ he replied. ‘Yes, you had to risk it. Not everyone around here thought so, but me, I was in favour. You chose well. Dean had talent. He might have brought out seeming little items, inklings – items that could be fashioned up into something that would impress a jury, even impress a judge. Dean would have been good on inklings. He’d see the potentials.’

  ‘Fashioned up?’

  ‘And these would also have helped us plump out some of the material we’d been working on in the investigation.’

  ‘Plump out?’

  ‘All right, they have top lawyers, smart at knocking our case, smart at looking for flaws and so-called make-believes and contradictions in our stuff, but we still might have been able to get enough past them and convince the jury. After all, evidence is not something pure and absolute, is it, Chief? One scientist looks down the microscope and sees Life’s First Cause. Another scientist looks at the same slide and sees not much at all. Evidence is what you make of it. Often it needs some . . . some shaping, some helping hand. Think of Tony Blair and the weapons of mass destruction.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘We need to win, Chief. You need to win. We – you – know what Cormax Turton really is.’

  ‘Of course we do. That’s not enough, though, is it?’

  ‘We – you – should make it enough, somehow.’

  Well, yes. That’s what it had all been about. It was why she chose Dean, or made Channing choose him. Dean had talent. Enough talent? It hadn’t been enough to keep him alive. ‘Enjoy Health and Safety, Bernard,’ she replied.

  Chapter Ten

  Out-location of DS Dean Martlew: Esther’s narrative

  1. Preparation (continued)

  To date:

  (a) Out-location project approved.

  (b) Manager approved – Superintendent Richard Channing.

  Pending:

  (c) Who? Selection of suitable officer to Out-locate.

  Yes, who? Esther had felt herself getting too involved in the choice, and yet couldn’t back off. She knew that picking the officer actually to go undercover should be left almost entirely to Richard Channing. No, not almost entirely, damn it, damn it, damn it, Esther. Absolutely entirely, Esther, damn it. If you appointed a manager you let him manage, and particularly on a job like this one. After all, it was he who must work with the selected detective in the kind of exceptional, tense, indispensable closeness natural to undercover. He would search for someone whose general temperament might suit his own. Naturally, he’d also be looking for the full bag of basics – of essentials – for a spy: plausibility, observation skills, courage and more courage, coolness, memory, an unspectacular career past, confidence, and still more courage. But the need to find an officer whose nature might harmonize with his own probably rated higher than any of these more obvious wants.

  Only Channing could sense – guess? – who might fit. It would be an instinct, though an educated, trained instinct about people. Nobody should try to advise him on that mysterious bonding aspect of selection. Nobody. Esther knew this included her, and her above all. But . . . But she had instincts of her own, educated, trained instincts about people, and about bonding, mysterious or not. Although she’d attended God knew how many leadership courses that stressed the crucial role of wise delegation in police work, she’d always been poor at this, and knew it. Having appointed Channing, she should give him autonomy. She knew this, too, but couldn’t deliver.

  From the start of the selection process there were difficulties. Channing could not at first reveal to people the purpose of his trawl. He, and Esther, had to avoid gossip. Although it would start as restricted police gossip, it might spread. And Cormax Turton were gifted, wise listeners. They heard a lot. Firms didn’t las
t two full decades without ears and a flair for information. If a tale went around that Superintendent Channing wanted somebody for Out-location, Cormax Turton would grow interested and expect to be one of the intended targets; would expect to be top of the intended targets. Or the only. They prized, and, naturally, denied officially, their crooked status. They’d get super-alert and prepare a reception.

  Cormax Turton, of course, knew about the eight-month, brickwalled, blank inquiry into the Guild. Although they might also know about Esther’s long, dogged resistance to undercover, perhaps if they heard whispers of Channing’s search, they’d quickly deduce that eight months of failure could bring a mental turn-around in his boss. This was another thing about firms that lasted two full decades: they tried to understand the opposition, and did a bit of psychologizing.

  So, Channing went very delicately. He did all his early research by computer-sift, working through the personnel dossiers of detectives who met the first, utterly elementary requirements: no prominence in previous cases; not too old; not too loaded with dependants. For undercover, these could be only very crude selection criteria. Dossiers might say who’d had business training and would be useful on fraud inquiries; or who spoke fluent Polish or Mandarin or Albanian, a nice plus in some situations. But undercover abilities? There was no way of assessing these from stored profiles, unless an officer had actually done that kind of work and made a go of it. Until now, though, Esther had forbidden undercover so nobody with experience lived on her ground, except for Esther personally. Age and rank would disqualify her. And, these days, because of civic functions, and media interviews on police themes, she badly lacked anonymity.