Rules of Engagement

by Hurley, Graham

  The agent looked down at him.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘Though I imagine she’s dead.’

  Gillespie said goodbye to the agent at the kerbside, keeping a copy of the particulars and thanking him for his time. The young man got in his car, and sped away, the uncertainty and the suspicion evident beneath the automatic smile. Gillespie returned to the ninth floor, choosing the door opposite Suzanne’s flat. He knocked twice and rang the bell. After a while, the door opened. A man in his mid-sixties stood there. He was wearing monogrammed pyjamas under a silk dressing gown, and he smelled of aftershave. Down the hall behind him, Gillespie could see a line of framed regimental photographs.

  ‘My name’s Gillespie,’ he said, ‘I’ve come about the flat opposite.’

  The man nodded and looked vague.

  ‘Gas, are you?’ he said. A refined accent. Clipped. Ex-military.

  Gillespie shook his head.

  ‘Number 913,’ he said again, ‘Miss Wallace. That was.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes…’ He paused. ‘Did you know her at all? Were you friends?’

  The man looked confused again.

  ‘I’m on the electric,’ he said, ‘I haven’t got gas.’

  Gillespie gazed at him for a moment, and tried again, trying to tease some sense out of the man, but the conversation went nowhere, and in the end Gillespie gave up. The man was clearly shot. A lifetime of cheap booze in the mess had seen off the last of his white cells, and there was no point prolonging the exchange. Gillespie thanked him for his time and turned away.

  At the other two flats on the hallway, he drew more blanks. One flat was evidently empty, while the woman at the other refused to even come to the door.

  He took the lift again and walked out into the sunshine. At the corner of the flats, he glanced up, checking the line from the ninth-floor balcony. The concrete path beneath was quite bare. The intervening month had removed whatever the forensic men might have overlooked. Gillespie hesitated a moment, deep in thought. Then he turned on his heel and headed for the seafront. There were two phone booths by the Pier. One, at least, might have survived the vandals.

  Annie said goodbye to Goodman outside the Bunker. She’d been tempted to forgo the normal courtesies, the handshakes and the assurance that all had gone well, but she knew that she’d have to go back to this man, with his softly spoken good manners and his permanent hint of a smile, and she knew it was wiser to wrap the whole thing up properly.

  She paused in the sunshine while the video crew filed past with the heavier bits of equipment. She extended a hand.

  ‘Thanks very much,’ she said, ‘for your time.’

  Goodman shrugged.

  ‘I’m glad we could help,’ he said. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’

  Annie looked at him, weighing up the merits of an honest answer, deciding against it.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘more or less.’

  He nodded, pleased.

  ‘Good,’ he said. He took out a diary, small, thin, bound in red leather. He looked up at her. ‘When do we expect to see the results?’

  ‘Next week. Tuesday.’

  ‘Really? As soon as that?’

  She looked at him, knowing for a fact that he was lying, that he’d known the transmission date for days. Bullock had already agreed the terms of the arrangement: a preview forty-eight hours before transmission, the hospitality suite booked for Sunday evening, the champagne already on ice. Some celebration, she thought, watching the camera assistant loading a box of recorded cassettes into the back of the Volvo. An hour of bland nothings. The authorized version. Stamped, sealed, and utterly meaningless. She blinked. Goodman still had the diary open, his finger anchored on a particular day.

  ‘I’ve just had a thought,’ he said. ‘It may be of some use.’

  Annie smiled politely.

  ‘Oh?’

  Goodman glanced down at the diary.

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ he said, ‘I’m speaking at Rotary.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled at her. ‘The speech won’t be anything special, but they’re going to give me an award. I only mention it because it might give you something extra. It’s obviously up to you.’

  Annie frowned. ‘What sort of award?’

  ‘Oh,’ he shrugged, master of the subtle boast, ‘services to the city. A thank-you for what happened during the Emergency.’ He smiled again. ‘It’s not for me, really. It’s for all of us.’ He nodded back towards the Bunker. ‘The whole team. That’s why I’m suggesting it … but it’s probably irrelevant. I’m not sure what you’re really after…’

  Annie glanced at her watch.

  ‘It sounds fascinating,’ she said. ‘Can I take a rain check?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘of course. Just let me know. OK?’

  ‘I will.’

  She smiled at him and extended a hand for the second time. He shook it, maintaining contact for a second longer than the occasion demanded. His touch fascinated her. Dry, cool, total self-assurance.

  ‘Give me a ring,’ he said, looking her in the eye. ‘We might have a spot of lunch.’

  Gillespie met his CID friend in a pub near the Civic Centre. The man was half an hour late. He picked his way through the crowd of lunchtime drinkers and joined Gillespie at a table in the corner. Gillespie slid the beer-mat off the top of his pint. The man sat down and acknowledged the drink with a nod. He took a mouthful and glanced at his watch.

  ‘I’ve got ten minutes,’ he said. ‘Been in the wars, have we?’

  Gillespie fingered the bruise over his eye.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, not bothering to explain further.

  He looked at the man across the table, and lifted his drink in salute. He’d known the detective for the best part of three years. He’d been a Redcap before leaving the Army, serving ten years in the Military Police, most of it in West Germany. Now he was a constable with the local CID, bored witless by the back-biting, and the gossip, and the daily mountain of paperwork. The two men understood each other, shared a similar outlook on life. A mutual friend had once suspected they were brothers. Gillespie took another mouthful of lime juice.

  ‘There’s a file I want,’ he said.

  The other man nodded.

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘What’s the urgency?’

  ‘As soon as you can.’

  The detective nodded.

  ‘OK,’ he said. He reached inside his anorak and produced a pen.

  ‘Photocopy do?’ he said drily. ‘Or would you prefer the original?’

  Gillespie sipped at the lime juice.

  ‘Photocopy,’ he said, ‘bird called Suzanne.’

  The other man hesitated, his pen in mid-air.

  ‘Suzanne?’ he queried. ‘Suzanne Wallace?’

  Gillespie nodded. ‘That’s right.’

  The other man put his pen down.

  ‘What do you want that for?’ he said.

  Gillespie shrugged.

  ‘I just do,’ he said. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘She’s dead.’ He paused. ‘And it ain’t that simple.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gillespie smiled, wholly innocent. ‘Committed suicide, didn’t she? Fell off some balcony?’

  The detective leaned back, wary now.

  ‘How much do you know?’ he said at last.

  There was a long silence, and then the other man picked up his pen and returned it to his pocket. He pushed back his chair and stood up. Gillespie watched him backing away.

  ‘You haven’t finished your drink,’ he pointed out quietly.

  The detective shook his head.

  ‘Don’t need it,’ he said. ‘Thanks all the same.’

  He turned to go, but Gillespie called him back.

  ‘By tonight,’ he said. ‘If it’s OK by you.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gillespie shook his head, reaching for the beer-m
at, and sliding it once again over the half-empty glass. ‘Shame…’ he said thoughtfully, looking up, ‘…about all those other little drinks. Still…’ he shrugged, ‘I expect you’ll find some story or other.’

  The other man looked down at him.

  ‘You wouldn’t?’ he said. ‘Would you?’

  Gillespie smiled. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘for this one, I would.’

  Annie sat in the studio canteen, nursing a glass of Coke. It was the first time she’d stopped for nearly a day, and Bullock had joined her in time to answer the harder questions. He put a plateful of spaghetti on the table and returned his tray to the rack. Then he sat down.

  ‘How goes it?’ he said.

  Annie looked at him without enthusiasm. Sleep obviously agreed with him. Lucky man.

  ‘It doesn’t,’ she said.

  ‘Oh.’ Bullock frowned, reaching for the black pepper.

  Annie shook her head.

  ‘It’s game, set and match,’ she said. ‘We haven’t got a prayer.’

  ‘Oh? Why not?’

  ‘You know why not.’

  ‘I do?’

  ‘Yes.’ Annie pushed the glass to one side, angry at the hours of wasted time, the mute compliance forced upon her by impossible deadlines, and Bullock’s precious network slot. In two brief, busy days she’d become just one more arm of the Government machine, the voice in the nation’s living rooms, the assurance that all was well, that everything had been for the best. ‘It’ll be crap,’ she said, ‘and you know it.’

  Bullock wound a strand of spaghetti around his fork, and coated it in bolognese.

  ‘Really?’ he said mildly.

  ‘Yes. Really.’

  Annie bent forward over the table. Time for a few home truths.

  ‘Number one,’ she said. ‘They’re calling the shots. They decide the agenda. Nothing obvious. Nothing I can I put my finger on, stamp my foot about, have a good shout. Nothing like that.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh no. They’re much too clever. They know bloody well that we’ve no time, no research, no pictures, nothing.’

  ‘The pictures are coming back,’ Bullock said. ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘Oh?’ Annie paused. ‘Are they?’

  ‘Yes. They’re returning the stuff they seized.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘Well…’ Annie sniffed, the wind spilling out of her sails, ‘even so … it’s still a joke.’

  Bullock looked at her, another hundred calories on his fork.

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ he said, ‘just you wait.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can. You have to.’

  She stared at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying, the space between the words.

  ‘What is this?’ she said. ‘What haven’t you told me?’ Bullock shook his head, innocent, the benign editor with nerves of steel and a passion for stodgy Italian food.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  Annie nodded, unconvinced, looking for further ammunition. She found it, remembering her final exchange with Goodman outside the Bunker. She bent forward again, earnest, outraged.

  ‘You know what he’s offering now?’ she said. ‘Goodman?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘His speech to the Rotary Club. It’s prize-giving. He’s getting some award.’

  Bullock looked amused.

  ‘Sounds great,’ he said, ‘you should go.’

  Annie stared at him. ‘You serious?’

  Bullock nodded. ‘Perfectly,’ he said, eyeing another forkful of spaghetti. ‘Do it.’

  Gillespie sat in the big armchair in his living room, feet up on the low table, phone to his ear, big foolscap pad propped up on his lap. Through the net curtains at the front, he could see the Bengali kids across the street learning how to skateboard off the kerb. He bent to the phone, beginning to write.

  ‘Say again,’ he said.

  The voice at the other end spelled the name. Gillespie wrote it down, looked at it.

  ‘Bowyer?’ he said. ‘With a “y”?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He put the phone down and stared at the name. The man from the Environmental Health Department had been more than helpful. They’d acquired responsibility for Suzanne’s body from the Coroner. An inquest had been opened four weeks back. The Coroner’s Officer had reported the circumstances in which her body had been found – a fall from a balcony, evidence of heavy drinking – and there’d been a formal identification by a friend. A post-mortem had taken place, and he understood that the police were still making inquiries. In the meantime, in the absence of any known relatives, Suzanne’s body had been released to the Environmental Health Department for burial.

  It was an unusual situation, the official had admitted. He himself had been to the flat. It was his job to assess the estate, and to pass on the details to the Treasury Solicitor. Normally, in these cases, he’d be dealing with the destitute, men and women ekeing out the last of their lives in some squalid bedsit, but in this case, the young lady, it had been very different. The place was spotless, beautifully tidy, neat as a pin, and the flat itself was in a prime position with seventy-five years left on the lease. The estate could easily run to six figures. It was all highly unusual. Gillespie had stopped him there.

  ‘Neat as a what?’ he said, backtracking.

  ‘A pin.’

  ‘Nothing disturbed?’

  ‘No. Nothing. In fact it had only just been painted.’

  ‘Oh?’ Gillespie reached for his pen. ‘When was this?’

  At the other end of the phone, he could hear the man leafing through a diary. Then he was back, ever helpful, ever precise.

  ‘Three weeks ago,’ he said, ‘exactly.’

  Gillespie frowned.

  ‘But the funeral was before that. The 5th. Monday.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why the delay? In getting into the flat?’

  The official hesitated, sensing for the first time the depth of Gillespie’s interest.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘You’ll have to ask the Coroner.’

  ‘Sure.’ Gillespie made another note, leant back in the chair. ‘But you’re telling me it was ten days before you got into the flat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Gillespie nodded and thanked the official, and hung up. Time to repaint it, he thought. Time to cover tracks, tidy up. No wonder the young man from the estate agent had been so vague. He simply hadn’t known. Gillespie studied the name on his pad. Mr Bowyer. 862561. Ran a funeral parlour. Had the Council contract for welfare burials. He’d know about the headstone, the man from the Environmental Health had said. He’d know where it came from.

  Gillespie reached for the phone again and dialled the number. A receptionist answered, a querulous woman with a middle-aged voice. Gillespie asked for Mr Bowyer. There was a pause. Then a male voice. Very local, very gruff.

  ‘Yes?’

  Gillespie introduced himself as a close friend of poor Suzanne. He’d just come back from Greece. He was distressed to have heard the news. He understood there’d been a welfare burial. He’d been to the cemetery. He wanted to know who to thank for the headstone. There was a long pause at the other end.

  ‘It’s not in the price,’ Bowyer said at last, ‘we never quoted for that.’

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ Gillespie said patiently. ‘That’s why I’m asking.’

  Bowyer grunted. ‘Only don’t you go telling people the Council pay for fancy headstones.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because they don’t.’ He paused. ‘You live here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, then…’ he sniffed, very self-righteous, ‘it’s your money too. Ratepayers’ money.’

  Gillespie gazed at the phone, promising himself one last bid for the simplest of facts. A name. Nothing else. There was a long pause. Bowyer clearly hated discussing welfare burials. He came back on th
e phone, even gruffer.

  ‘Middle-aged gent,’ he said, ‘paid cash.’

  ‘You know his name?’

  ‘He never left any name.’

  ‘That wasn’t my question.’ Gillespie paused. ‘I asked you if you knew who he was.’

  Gillespie waited, wondering whether he’d been too direct, too forceful. In the Corps, they always taught you to take control, to dominate the situation. In Civvy Street, it wasn’t always so simple. Mr Bowyer again.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘happen I do know who he was.’

  Gillespie smiled, knowing that he’d made the right decision after all. Nice and easy now, reeling in.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ he said lightly. ‘So who was he?’

  ‘Goodman,’ he said, ‘that Controller bloke we had.’

  Gillespie thanked him and put the phone down. He hesitated a moment, thinking hard. Then he got up and went across to the small bookshelf beside the fireplace. He found the pocket French dictionary at once. He thumbed through it, remembering the smudged blue scrawl on the card with the freesias at Suzanne’s graveside. The three words had stuck in his brain. He found chagrin. He found pitié. He found paix. He listed the words carefully, on a pad, one under the other. Sorrow … it went, and pity, and peace. He looked at the words, scarcely believing it, at last beginning to understand.

  Twelve

  Martin Goodman left work at four that afternoon, driving out of the underground car park, and turning east at the big main road. James’ first football match had begun only half an hour earlier. With luck, by the time he got to the recreation ground, the kids would still be playing.

  He drove fast through the city, the sun streaming in through the open roof. The morning in the Bunker had gone well, far better than he’d expected. When Davidson had first phoned him about the film, he’d been cautious. He saw no point in disinterring the whole episode. His own brief war had been far from distinguished, and he sensed no appetite amongst his colleagues for going through the whole thing again. Better, surely, to simply forget it.

  Davidson had been sympathetic. He understood Goodman’s reservations. He was glad he’d had such a successful holiday. He was delighted he was back at work. But there were anxieties at national level that the Government had been seen to be rather forceful in this one key city. The blockade and the curfew and one or two other measures might well become causes célèbres in certain left-wing circles. Better, went the official line, to come clean at once, to get the whole thing out in the open. To pre-empt any criticism of the kind he’d described.