Harpur heard Loxton’s breathing accelerate and Macey stood up again.
Lentle said: ‘Who do you think you’re talking about, you bastard?’
‘Talking about? Oh, you know Alma, don’t you?’ Iles replied, beaming. ‘The lady who should have been a duchess, but didn’t notice Benny wasn’t a
duke.’
‘It’s all right, Bobby,’ Loxton said. ‘This is just Iles. He stirs. Part of his charm, part of his box of tricks. To get people going, so they talk.’
Macey said: ‘Mr Iles got trouble with his own sweet lady, putting it about very tireless, so he thinks all women are like that.’
‘We believe it’s Justin, so we’ve got to ask you, Benny, if you can suggest why he’d be dropped in the dock,’ Harpur told him.
‘But we heard he had two referees for a mortgage and a woodworm survey done, Norwich way,’ Macey said.
‘What identification?’ Loxton asked.
‘It’s pretty sound,’ Harpur replied.
‘So what’s it to do with Benny, with us?’ Lentle asked.
‘He worked for Benny,’ Harpur said.
‘That’s fair enough,’ Loxton replied. ‘I see you got to ask the questions if it really is Justin.’
‘Or was he a talker, Benny?’ Iles asked.
‘A talker? Well, he had schooling, yes. Nice with a phrase.’
Iles said: ‘Was he opening his mouth about one of your projects? Who to?’
‘Have you thought, I mean, going back to where we started, that this could still be suicide, even Justin?’ Macey suggested. ‘This kid was a sensitive kid. Oh, sure, it looked
like things was going great, but he could have all sorts of worries. He’s got a girl and an old mother, a very old mother, Wales way or the Isle of Man, somewhere that area. There could be
things wrong there. He might think to come home to end it at a place he knew. People are like that, sentimental about doing theirselves in, it’s well known. Makes them feel
comfortable.’
‘And drove there naked and with two knife wounds?’ Iles said.
‘Knife wounds?’ Loxton exclaimed. ‘That changes the complexion.’
‘It did his,’ Iles said.
‘This sounds very much like a private matter,’ Loxton said, ‘some enemies Justin had that we never even heard of. He never mentioned nothing like that?’ He turned to
Macey.
‘Nothing. But he could be fiery,’ Macey recalled. ‘He was a kid, but he could cut loose. Oh, yes. He might of given offence, and this is what he collects. It’s bad, out
of proportion.’
‘Life don’t work to proportion, Phil,’ Loxton said.
‘No, but where’s the, well, natural justice of it?’ Macey replied.
‘Where did it happen, the knifing?’ Loxton asked.
‘We’re not too clear on that,’ Harpur replied, ‘if we –’
Alma Loxton returned, wearing a long check topcoat in grey, blue and red, like something bought from the wardrobe of
Dr Zhivago.
She waited in the doorway of the room, ready to leave.
Loxton stood.
‘Can you excuse him, us, now, Mr Iles?’ she asked. ‘We really must be on our way.’
‘Of course,’ Iles said, standing, also. ‘Our talk’s about over, as it happens. A profitable exchange, I think, Theodore?’
‘Indeed, yes,’ he said.
‘You’re very kind to fit in with our plans, Mr Iles,’ Alma Loxton told him.
‘No, if I may say,
you’re
very kind, for putting up with us in your lovely house at this hour, you and Theodore,’ Iles said.
‘But we’re delighted,’ she cried. ‘It’s only yesterday that Theodore was saying what a regrettably long time it was since we had bumped into you and your charming
wife. Please do give her our regards when you see her. So vivacious, so radiant.’
‘Yes, when I bloody well see her,’ Iles muttered, as he and Harpur walked down the drive. In the car, Iles said: ‘Do we know this boy Lentle’s special skills, Col,
supposing that’s really his name? It might indicate something for the future.’
‘He’s new to me.’
‘Can we ask around?’
‘Of course, sir.’ But where to ask when Jack Lamb was half-way to Italy or who knew where by now?
‘It’s a beautiful therapy for me, going into a house like Benny’s,’ Iles said. ‘I’m reminded of why I’m a cop and why I’m willing to be stuck on
this skivvy’s pay, and why I consent to work with people like the Chief and you, no offence, Col. It’s to save the world from Benny, and all the other Bennies. That task needs me. You
couldn’t do it. Could Lane do it?’
‘The Chief has some very strong aspects, sir.’
‘Not dress sense, I’d venture, and not wit or farsightedness or necessary ruthlessness. Good-natured to a fault, a dangerous fault. Is he a saviour, though, Col? Can he harrow hell,
defeat evil? Can he recognize it?’ He had turned in the front seat to look at Harpur.
‘Well, we didn’t get very far with Loxton ourselves, sir.’
‘We will. He felt a cold wind blowing. I’ve set my mark on him. He knows it. Those people, if they’re left alone, or if they have to deal only with your kind – someone
fine and soft and passably decent – they’ll come to believe they can do anything, including make the step from being Benny to Theodore, or Theodore OBE, or Sir Theodore, or eventually,
through one of his kids, to Lord Theodore of the Docklands, instead of Benny of the Drowned Metro. His wife thinks she’s half-way there already, poor, simpering drab. That would be victory
for the pit, Col, and enthronement of wrong. It could easily happen. It’s happened already. Remember Henry the Fourth?’
‘Not all that well.’
‘I know you went to a school, because it says so on your papers, but were the teachers there pissed all day? The point is this, Col: if people like Benny are allowed to think that kind of
progress might come to pass, they will work the harder and dirtier to make it come to pass. That is a very perilous situation, and one we help create if we don’t act effectively. We’d
deserve impeachment. Myself, I think Lane should have gone that way a dozen times already, for having a heart of gold and marshmallow teeth. But, when I get myself into the festering, neat lounges
of people like Benny, in their half-million quid, tawdry houses, and when I open my mouth and let them get a glimpse of what’s blocking their way to the real cream – I mean to
respectability and peace of mind – and of what’s certain to go on blocking their way for as far ahead as they can see, they lose a vast slab of their bloody arrogance and optimism. I
can get through to these people, like an Old Testament prophet crying woe. They hear what I say and think to themselves, “Christ, I’m still just a crook, and this bastard’s got me
noted.” After that, they’re always liable to panic and do something stupid and give-away. That’s what policing is about, Col, and it’s a noble, knuckle-duster job, and a
holy joy to be in. It encloses me. Perhaps that’s half my trouble at home. All the time I feel like crying out, “Wist ye not I must be about my father’s
business?”’
‘You’re into whist, sir? I didn’t know that. But Sarah likes bridge. Is that the problem?’
Iles stared at him. Harpur was never totally sure how far he could go with the Assistant Chief, but now and then for self-preservation’s sake he had to score a few points against him in
retaliation, and try to bring him back to earth.
At Idylls, Sarah’s car was still absent. Iles gave no reaction, as if he had known it would not be there yet. ‘We’ll have a nightcap, Col.’
Harpur might have preferred to go, but decided the decent thing was to wait for her with him: Iles had achieved some happiness through the encounter with Benny and the rest, but it could soon
disappear if he were left alone. The Assistant Chief made some cocoa and they sat together in the unkempt living room.
‘It’s likely Sarah had a phone call, fixing a rendezvous,’ Iles said. ‘They’ve got some sort of code – probably a ring at an exact, specific time. I could
have the thing bugged, but what sort of man does that to his wife? Or, I could tail her, but likewise. She’s entitled to run free, sod it.’
‘You’re very tolerant, sir.’
‘I don’t step into fights I can’t handle. If I got tough with Sarah I’d lose.’
‘You think she’s with Aston now?’
‘Where else?’
‘A lot of people are looking for him.’
‘Aston would tell her where to look.’ Noisily he sipped his cocoa. ‘I ought to kick her out, I suppose. Or maybe she’ll go to him for keeps, if he’ll have her.
Things are touch-and-go, Col. Still can’t face losing her, that’s all.’
‘It could blow over, sir.’
‘Yes: there must be a chance some of these people will find him. Perhaps he could end up at the bottom of the dock, too. I pray constantly about him, in those terms.’
Harpur left at half-past midnight, and she had still not returned. He did another tour of the area, looking for the Golf and the Panda, and found neither. On his way home he dropped into the
control room and glanced through the incident reports for the night. None of them sounded like Sarah or Aston or Tommy Vit. It would have been easy enough to bring up the Panda’s number on
the computer – probably the Golf’s too – and ask for patrols to keep an eye open. How did he explain that, though, and especially how would he explain to Iles, if he learned about
it? Harpur considered, too, going back to Benny’s place and getting him out of bed to ask whether Tommy Vit was on Sarah’s tail, and whether he had reported back. That would be real
doorstepping. But did he want Benny aware of how much he knew? No, Sarah, running free – in Iles’s phrase – would have to look after herself tonight.
The call from Ian Aston had brought back almost all the old joy to Sarah, and when she set off to meet him it was with the same sort of excited fearful pleasure that used to
grip her at the door of the Monty. They were juvenile feelings, and she recognized it now and then, but they did not let up.
Although he had telephoned when Sarah was alone in the house, Ian would speak only briefly, obviously in case Desmond had the line bugged. And he named no rendezvous point but asked her to go to
a pay phone in a suburban street and wait for another call. When she arrived, she saw he had chosen carefully: in this prosperous area, few people would need to use a public box or break everything
up for habit cash. It was unoccupied and unvandalized, and she had been waiting inside for only five minutes when he rang again. This time he was ready to talk for longer, but still delayed telling
her his address.
‘Sarah, love, this isn’t to cause alarm, but could you check there’s nobody behind you?’
‘Behind me?’
‘Following.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. Desmond? Or people who know we were at the Monty?’
‘Desmond – following me?’
‘Who knows what he’s found out, Sarah?’
‘He wouldn’t, whatever he’s found out. Desmond? Good God, he’d think it paltry and beneath him to care that much.’
‘People do all sorts of things when they’re angry and jealous. Please, just look around, outside the box. Remember, we had trouble before.’
She didn’t look, because the idea that Desmond might tail her really was absurd and gross, just like the idea that he might bug her calls, but she took a few seconds pretending she had
surveyed the street. ‘Nothing.’
‘Nobody? Not Desmond, nor someone who might work under him, nor anyone else?’
‘Ian, it’s all right, believe me.’
Then he gave her directions. It was a long run-down road she knew, behind Valencia Esplanade and parallel to it, only a mile or so from Margot’s place but to date outside the tarting-up
plan for the dockside, and still definitely lacking the chicness and bijou qualities of Margot’s area. To avoid pinpointing the house, he asked her to park a distance away and do the rest on
foot. She agreed, although it was the kind of district where she would never normally have walked alone in the dark, nor even left the car unattended: but again she reminded herself, if you got
into this sort of life, you took the conditions.
‘It’s lovely to hear you,’ he said. ‘And even more lovely that I’ll see you soon.’
The words were simple and not too original, but, to be told something like that in a voice sounding as if he meant it through and through, she would put up with the mad, tiresome precautions and
forgive all Ian’s edginess. Even in a phone call to a street box, he could soothe her, warm her, make her feel properly alive again, and nobody and nothing else answered that kind of need.
Ten times, and maybe more, she had told Margot what he could do for her, and she always listened full of sympathy, and seemed to understand, but then might suddenly ask, ‘So what’s
keeping you with Desmond and at Rougement Place?’ And, if Margot were here now, Sarah knew she would recognize her pleasure at talking to Ian again and going to meet him, but she would also
spot the squeamishness over visiting him in the Valencia, and her lack of patience with Ian’s endless anxieties and suspicions. Margot would certainly make a meal of all that in her frank,
niggling, flat professional voice. Once, she had even grown witty on the subject and said Sarah was only half-and-half in love with the
demi-monde.
Margot could go stuff herself. She might
be honest and worth the money, but she was also a top-class pain sometimes, regardless. Sarah said: ‘I’ve been going nuts, Ian, waiting.’ The line broke up for a moment.
‘Wanting, did you say?’ he asked.
‘That as well.’
He had rooms at the top of a once stately Victorian house in Tempest Street, now subdivided three or four times, its staircase covered in battered green and gold carpet, the landings dark and
littered, and the wallpaper, probably high-quality when new, whenever that was, now hopelessly faded and chipped and scrawled over. The house was full of sounds from behind the closed doors –
music, shouting, talk, television voices, pots and pans – but she saw nobody as she hurried up the stairs. He opened his door as soon as she knocked and took her hand to draw her inside. In
the poor light from the landing and the little passageway to his rooms he appeared shockingly haggard and pale. He hadn’t even smiled yet. For a couple of seconds he remained on the
threshold, staring back down the stairs, his body arched and tense, obviously listening for the sound of footsteps above the barrage of noises from the other tenants. Perhaps he looked what he was,
a hunted man, and the signs would probably have been familiar to Desmond or Colin Harpur, whose business was with such people all the time, alive and dead.