In the Absence of Iles

by Bill James

  ‘Will the poisonous bastard behave properly later?’ Iles replied. ‘Shall I come home with you?’

  Oh, the splendid possible double message here! Shall I come home with you? meaning, come home with her to take care that Gerald, in a pip-squeakish rage, didn’t get brutal – another dangerous domestic fracas. Or, Shall I come home with you? . . . meaning . . . well, meaning what Shall I come home with you? would generally mean – Shall I come home with you, Esther, and we’ll make our own kind of sweet music, not his, to compensate for Gerald’s sad, accelerating slide into total self-pity, panic and prize oafishness? Of course, she thought for a while this sounded fine, and more than fine, much more – that is, the second interpretation, the ‘own kind of sweet music’ interpretation. She felt willing to gamble that Gerald would be involved at the Millicent for several hours yet, if that was where he’d been going. Not long ago his name amounted to something, and the hotel would surely want to get as much as they could from his very available bassoon now.

  Esther found something grossly fanciable in Iles, though not to do with any of those personal features he’d probably think irresistible himself – say his haircut or lips or finery or legs: the only times she’d noted him break his stare at the judge in court was when he looked down to check on his legs, not simply refreshing his memory, but refreshing himself at once by enjoying new sight of them although trousered; and, yes, of course, subsequently stocking these in his memory, like a squirrel with winter nuts. But she loved the combination in Iles of majestic pride, wise offensiveness and devotion to the cause – the cause, now, being the police cause, and specifically the Dean Martlew undercover cause, and therefore her. True, as a sort of artist, Gerald also naturally had very notable pride and offensiveness, but it could not always be called wise offensiveness. True, also, Gerald showed devotion to a cause, but that cause was music, and, although this certainly added up to something worthwhile, for Gerald it did ultimately only come down to wind in a hollow stick, and this never entirely grabbed Esther.

  Iles could surprise. For instance, she had noticed in the pub that he went at food with remarkable refinement, almost squeamishness, as if marooned for ages on a barren spit of the Madagascar coast and ultimately forced to eat shipmates or lemurs. Iles possessed admirable, attractive delicacy, often part disguised by a degree of brassiness in his public behaviour and words, or entirely disguised.

  ‘I won’t come back with you to Mrs Davidson’s home,’ James Martlew said.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Iles replied.

  ‘No,’ Martlew said.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Esther replied.

  ‘You’ll have private police matters to discuss,’ Martlew said.

  ‘Very likely,’ Iles said.

  ‘Yes,’ Esther said.

  ‘Will justice be seen to be done, do you think, Mrs Davidson?’ Martlew said.

  ‘That depends who’s seeing it,’ Iles replied.

  ‘I believe in the British jury system,’ Martlew said.

  ‘I’ve met quite a few like you,’ Iles said.

  Esther’s mobile phone rang. ‘Davidson,’ she replied.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Gerald?’ she said.

  ‘I thought it would be switched off,’ Gerald said. ‘In the court. I wanted to leave a message on voicemail.’

  ‘The court’s adjourned. What message?’

  ‘Where are you then – on those damnable steps again, with them, flaunting it?’ Gerald said.

  ‘Flaunting what?’ she said.

  ‘In that disgusting way of yours,’ he said.

  ‘Are you calling from the Millicent?’ she replied.

  ‘Fuck the Millicent,’ he said.

  ‘Some hitch, dear?’

  ‘Fuck the fucking Millicent,’ he said.

  ‘Are there people around where you’re calling from? They’ll overhear, dear.’

  ‘Fuck them.’

  ‘Did you play at the dance?’

  ‘They don’t want me,’ he said.

  ‘You played – did a rehearsal?’

  ‘They said, graciously, “No thanks, old son,” which being interpreted means, “You and your bloody bassoon, get lost. You don’t suit the Millicent.”’

  ‘Suit in what respect?’ Esther said.

  ‘Suit.’

  ‘It’s not important, Gerald,’ she replied. ‘To some extent that kind of work is beneath you.’

  ‘To which extent?’

  ‘Yes, well beneath you,’ Esther said.

  ‘Exactly how far beneath?’ Gerald said.

  ‘There’ll be other calls with work offers,’ Esther said. ‘Major orchestras. They probably don’t realize you’re available.’

  ‘The assistant manager – no interest in me at all,’ Gerald said.

  ‘They’re fools,’ she said.

  ‘All he can talk about is celebrities who’ve been to the hotel.’

  ‘You’re a celebrity,’ Esther said.

  ‘And “the prestige” of the damn place.’

  ‘You’ve got prestige,’ Esther said.

  ‘Film people, TV people, that big-time local business guy, Cabinet ministers.’

  ‘Which big-time local business guy?’ Esther said.

  ‘You know – Cornelius Max Turton.’

  ‘Cornelius Turton was at a tea dance?’

  ‘No, no, at some Inheritance Tax thing, with his team not long ago.’

  ‘He’s a crook,’ Esther said.

  ‘They don’t care about that. He’s a celeb. He’s an important name. He’s risqué but legal so far. As you know. The assistant manager says I’m a goner, a bit of yesterday. I don’t fit into the image they want for the Millicent.’

  ‘Tea dances are a bit of yesterday,’ Esther said. ‘The people who go to them are a bit of yesterday, or the day before.’

  ‘I think they’ll cut the tea dances, anyway. But, whatever, I’m out,’ Gerald said. ‘O. U. T. I’m ignored. Discarded. Treated lightly. And now you – you’ll get a victory and professional gloire at the court, but what about me? Have you thought of that? Do you ever think of it? Am I marginal to the whole way of the world?’

  ‘Has he got a dark green Bentley?’ Esther replied.

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Cornelius Max Turton.’

  ‘Would I know?’ he said.

  ‘Where are you?’ she said.

  ‘I suppose you’re with those people, male, the ones on the steps, in the pub, filling your damn faces, you smiling your For fuck’s sake, Gerald, fuck off smile. God, the heartlessness, the selfishness, the casual cruelty.’

  ‘Are you at home?’

  ‘Why would I be at home?’ he said.

  ‘After the Millicent.’

  ‘After the disgrace of the Millicent? After gross scorn at the Millicent? What’s at home for me?’ he said. ‘What companionship? What comfort? I’d be like that child in the old movie, home alone.’ He cough-sobbed.

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘I suppose you want to bring one of the fuckers back there, do you – thinking I’m busy at the Millicent? Or more than one. Yes, fuckers.’

  ‘Say where you are, Gerald, please.’

  ‘Where d’you think, for God’s sake?’

  ‘No, I can’t tell. How would I?’

  ‘Somewhere meaningful,’ Gerald said.

  ‘Well, yes, I expect so. Where?’

  ‘Don’t mess about,’ he said. ‘You must know.’

  ‘I don’t honestly.’

  ‘Meaningful,’ he replied.

  ‘But where? Why did you want to leave voicemail?’

  ‘Just to tidy things,’ he said. ‘I hope I’m always considerate, kindly.’

  ‘Well, yes, definitely. What things?’

  ‘I wished to do the decencies,’ he said. ‘A proper dignified, necessary goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye?’

  ‘Listen,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just listen,’ he said.

  She had
the idea he held his cell phone away from his ear to pick up background noise. She heard waves breaking, probably on pebbles. ‘Christ, he’s at what we were talking about,’ she said to Iles and James Martlew.

  ‘Which?’ Iles said.

  ‘Pastel Head.’

  ‘He’s going to top himself?’ Iles said. He began to descend the steps fast and went out of sight.

  ‘Get it?’ Gerald said.

  ‘The sea?’ she said.

  ‘Of course the sodding sea,’ Gerald said. ‘It’s all that concerns you, isn’t it? His body on the beach. Your obsession. You can’t ever stop asking yourself if you were responsible. You don’t care about anything else, such as me. Well, now you’ll have another body on the beach to worry yourself over, won’t you? This is my only way to reach out to you, Esther. Gone, gone are the moments when I might lick your significant wounds.’

  ‘No,’ she replied, strongly. ‘No, Gerald.’ At the foot of the steps, a Volvo appeared, Iles driving. Two blue lights flashed above the dashboard. He opened the pavement side rear door and the front passenger door.

  ‘I’m coming to you, Gerald,’ Esther yelled into the phone. ‘Please wait.’

  ‘Give my bassoon to a charity of your choice after cleaning,’ he replied.

  Esther and Mr Martlew ran down the steps. ‘You here, Esther,’ Iles said, pointing to the seat alongside him. ‘It’s bad form for me to emergency flash on someone else’s ground, but they’ll all recognize you and I’ll look like the chauffeur.’ Mr Martlew got into the back. The car pulled away.

  ‘Can he swim?’ Martlew said.

  ‘It will be all right,’ Iles said.

  ‘There’s a kind of . . . well, nobility . . . yes, nobility to it,’ Martlew said.

  ‘Bollocks,’ Iles replied.

  ‘He seeks status, even in death,’ Martlew said.

  ‘The arch jerk wanted to voicemail, so that when the terrible, end-it-all message was heard it would seem too late,’ Iles said. ‘Then, after a while, he’d turn up, all safe and grieved over, and the relief and reconciliation would be extra sweet, extra sexy. He’s an artist. He stages things.’

  When they reached the beach, they saw Gerald sitting there in his suit facing away, towards the breakers. He had scooped out a good little dent among the pebbles for comfort. His body was hunched forward, his arms folded. Even from the back, he looked like detritus. His bassoon, cased, lay near him. ‘You are loved, Mr Davidson,’ Iles shouted with big volume as they approached. ‘Oh, so much loved.’

  ‘These are the two, Esther,’ Gerald said, turning his head. ‘I saw them with you.’

  ‘But you had to get off to something urgent in the Central Market, always a magnet,’ Iles said.

  ‘Mr Iles and Mr Martlew,’ Esther said. ‘This is my husband, Gerald Davidson, the musician. You’ve probably heard of him. Woodwind.’

  ‘Martlew?’ Gerald said. ‘Related to the dead officer?’

  ‘His father,’ Martlew said.

  Gerald bent his head forward further and, unfolding his arms, put up a hand to each side of his face. He seemed to cough-sob again. ‘Oh, God, God, I’m so sorry. Forgive my fucking flippant carry-on, can you?’ He kept his head bent.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mr Martlew said.

  ‘Me, trivializing this beach,’ Gerald said.

  ‘This beach is a focus for all of us,’ Martlew said.

  ‘Yes,’ Esther replied.

  ‘Your wife – so devastated, so committed to you, Mr Davidson,’ Iles said. ‘An example to many. She would come to you at once, regardless.’

  ‘Regardless of what?’ Gerald replied.

  Mr Martlew helped him to his feet and picked up the bassoon. He handed it to him. ‘That unfeeling, philistine Millicent hotel,’ Gerald said.

  ‘I only got one side of the conversation but I imagine they have failed to value you properly,’ Iles said. ‘However, does that matter a fish’s tit when your wife regards you with such lasting, unlimited esteem?’

  ‘I don’t hold it against you,’ Gerald replied.

  ‘What?’ Iles said.

  ‘On the steps. And the pub meal,’ Gerald said. ‘It’s in the nature of things. I see that now.’

  ‘Your wife hurried out of the pub to press you to join us, but you’d gone, unfortunately,’ Iles said. ‘We were all disappointed.’

  ‘Considerably,’ Mr Martlew said.

  Iles drove them back to near the courthouse so they could pick up their own parked cars. On the way, Esther asked: ‘Cornelius Max Turton at the hotel with a team, you said, did you, Gerald?’

  ‘Family, minders,’ Gerald said. ‘All that bodyguard stuff really excited this pathetic assistant manager – continually checking the building and the car park. “Power.” “Dark glamour”, he called it, essential for the Millicent’s “changing profile”. That’s why they’ll most likely kill the tea dances.’

  Esther tried to remember if she’d noticed people moving about the Millicent car park that evening – not just walking to or from their vehicle, but checking who might be lurking there, or who might be holding a three-way meeting. Maybe she should have had a full squint to make sure nobody was lying low and watching in the Bentley. Or the Aston Martin. Or . . . you name it.

  ‘I think a really quiet evening now, Gerald,’ Iles said. ‘Rest. You’ve had a bellyful of stress, though you come out of it looking wholly unruffled, bow-tie brilliantly stable, your complexion almost normalized by sea air. Yes, I do recommend a period of quietness and rest. It would trouble me badly if I ever heard you’d been bully-boying, you dismal fucking freak.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  But, of course, when the rescue group had finally gone into Cormax Turton for Dean Martlew, Esther did not – could not – accompany them at once, though she’d longed to: high rank disqualified again. Assistant Chiefs had to stand back. Assistant Chiefs did not do raids, only organized the people, method and apparatus for raids. Overview. On screen Esther monitored things from a proper, executive distance in her suite: the Control Room relayed running, search-team reports to her, and she followed the operation’s progress via data-bank pictures and detailed architectural drawings, inside and out, of Cormax Turton’s main sites. Progress? Non-progress.

  The reports were graphic, thorough, regular, and hopelessly, sickeningly, devoid of Dean Martlew, or traces of Dean Martlew, so far. Although the stand-by teams had known him only as Wally until the call to move came, this unit would have by now opened the sealed orders and found pictures of him, his true name, and cover identity, Terence Marshall-Perkins. But, naturally, they would not disclose at Cormax Turton who it was they wanted – not under any of his tags: or not disclose it until desperation point, and probably then accompanied by the thousand pounds.

  If the failure to find him, or pointers to him, continued till the end despite the bribe, Esther recognized that a lot of damned harsh publicity might follow. Would Cormax Turton turn awkward? The Guild could reasonably complain they had been subjected to wrongful, unexplained rough treatment by thug police of both sexes. God, it might look nearly as absurd as that massive, futile, anti-terrorist invasion by the Met of a house in North London; though, at least, nobody at CT had been shot, as did happen in London. Or nobody at CT had been shot yet. Esther decided it would be OK for her to go to one of the main sites under search after, say, an hour, and wait somewhere near, observe events, but not actually enter any CT building or ground. Overview.

  Perhaps she’d order the mobile Incident Room there and use it as a base. She’d go uniformed. Top brass had to show it backed the onslaught, even if she couldn’t take part, and even if it went nowhere and produced nothing. Maybe especially if it went nowhere and produced nothing. Somebody must carry the can. No, not somebody – she must. ACC: Arsehole, Carry the Can. The media would swarm. You couldn’t run a blitz programme like this without word getting about. It was unreasonable to expect the unit inspector to, first, lead the pry, then, as a no-win extra, take hos
tile Press questions and talk safe platitudes to television and radio news. Anyway, the inspector could have only a limited idea of why he/she was scouring Cormax Turton with a thousand pounds in reserve. Naturally, reporters would spot the likely resemblance to that fabulous Met shambles. They loved recording gargantuan police flops. It showed journalists weren’t muzzled, cowed, or slaves to official spin. They’d squeeze the laptop thesaurus for equals to ‘bungled’, ‘heavy-handed’, ‘unprovoked’, so they could rave on without repeats. ‘Hard-hitting’ – how their training manuals categorized this style.

  And, unless Dean Martlew were successfully salvaged, Esther might agree that ‘bungled’ and ‘heavy-handed’ could be about right, and some hard-hitting justified, hardhitting of her: ACC. But ‘unprovoked’? The Out-location itself had definitely been provoked – brought on by Cormax Turton’s disgustingly long-time, brilliant, nauseating, masterful, insolent skill at appearing through-and-through innocent. And the attempted rescue of Martlew had also been provoked. Esther, in that way she liked, could tabulate how:

  1. her certainty that Cormax Turton was profoundly and utterly crooked;

  2. her fear Cormax Turton would slaughter an undercover cop, because

  3. the undercover cop might have collected evidence to prove – and prove solidly enough for a court – prove that Cormax Turton was, yes, in fact, profoundly and utterly crooked and not through-and-through innocent at all.

  The Chief came in. Esther pointed on the screen to the picture of a Cormax Turton warehouse used in the sea cargo business, where the latest search report came from. ‘Dud?’ he said.

  ‘It’s going well so far. They’ve got quite a bit to look at yet, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Dud?’ he replied.

  The Control Room spoke on the intercom. Esther changed the screen image and pointed again. ‘Where do they come from?’ the Chief said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘All these photographs and drawings.’

  ‘We’ve amassed them over a period,’ Esther said.

  ‘Secretly amassed them?’

  ‘It’s important to keep an eye on how the Guild spreads.’