Full of Money (2 page)

fn1
See
Tip Top
and
In The Absence Of Iles
.

Two

Just ahead of Larry Edgehill, as he walked to the Tube station, a large, very noticeably undamaged silver BMW pulled in, alongside three boarded-up, fly-postered ex-shops. It seemed to wait for him. The posters touted a tattoo parlour, bargain hairstyling for men and women, guitar tuition, two used furniture auctions. Edgehill recognized the sparkling car, and its registration, ADP 12. Most local people would. In any case, the brilliantly preserved condition marked it out as the toy of someone extremely magnificent on this, the Whitsun Festival municipal housing estate; ‘extremely magnificent' signifying the car could be left in the street, or anywhere else on Whitsun, and nobody would have the inane cheek to hurt, filch from, or even touch any part of it, let alone take it.

The vehicle and its gaudily intact exhaust system, tyres and mirrors etc must belong to a leader in special commerce, and of at least brigadier level in the eternal Great War against neighbouring Temperate Park Acres estate. Actually, of course, as Edgehill knew from the famed reg, the owner's rank would turn out to be much higher than brigadier: say, Chief of the General Staff – his. Edgehill kept walking along Gideon Road. He had to get his morning train for work. Yes, work. Not long ago, he had been switched from Sport programmes at N.D.L.tv to produce a regular arts, or Arts, show for the company. That was fine, or even better than fine. But, as he saw it, there were the arts, or Arts, and there was life, or Life. Not the same. Not even sodding similar. For him, the Arts meant these culture sessions weekly, in series of thirteen over a three-month period twice this year, and going on similarly into 1999, then even beyond. Whereas Life he regarded as the Whitsun housing estate, its vandalism and general thuggery; the cash complexities detaining him as a resident there; the heavy mortgage that got him the Whitsun flat a few years ago; the incessant territorial drugs trade savagery between Whitsun and Temperate Park Acres, including deaths, like the young, nosy journalist's lately, plus, of course, turf fight casualties. Admittedly, people said the arts, or Arts, and life, or Life, should be properly linked. If not, the arts, Arts, would appear phoney, elitist, irrelevant, effete.

And, yes, Edgehill would admit a connection between the two did sometimes happen.

Now.

Although he might, and did, try to avoid all contact with Whitsun's gang lads, it wouldn't necessarily stop
them
seeking contact with
him
. He saw that Adrian Pellotte had the front passenger seat in the BMW, next to his chauffeur/
aide-de-camp
/ bodyguard/secretary/hit man/poison taster/gatekeeper/adviser on the novels of Anthony Powell/enforcer/valet/counsellor/echo/pal. Edgehill favoured walking on, possibly upping his pace, though unnoticeably, if he could do it: best avoid seeming rude or offhand to Adrian Pellotte. This was
one
reason for not turning your back on him. Off
hand
? That might be only the start. There were lots of other bits Adrian could take off you, or have taken off you. A couple of toes, for instance. A couple of balls. Edgehill tried to believe the car's arrival had nothing to do with him, tried very hard to believe it. How
could
the car have anything to do with him?

The car had something to do with him.

‘May we offer a word of very sincere congratulation on your television show week after week, Mr Edgehill?' Pellotte said through the open window, his voice and eyes angled up towards Edgehill's throat/face in an almost credibly friendly way, most likely not at all foreshadowing a rip. ‘Or Larry, if you'll permit, this being informal. A high, maintained standard. Remarkable. Dean and I have long wished to pass on our thanks. Your programme's a staple for us.'

‘Plus we have a fairly vital topic Adrian would like to discuss with you,' Dean Feston said.

‘Which?' Edgehill said.

‘Vital,' Dean replied.

Edgehill halted and crouched. He had never spoken to, or been spoken to by Pellotte before, just seen him and the BMW on its regular, cash-harvesting or disciplining trips about Whitsun, civically respecting the speed limit, slowing even further for hang-about pigeons, direction-signalling top notch, like a good deed in a much worse than naughty world: they'd had clips from a new production of
The Merchant of Venice
on the programme lately, and some lines stuck in Edgehill's head.

‘Yes, a staple for us, the programme, isn't it, Dean?' Pellotte said.

‘Oh, great,' Edgehill said. ‘Thanks. We're always delighted to hear from—'

‘It has what could be described as range,' Dean Feston replied. ‘This is what gets our response – Adrian's and mine.'

He would be about 185 pounds, a lot of it bone and sinew, dark suit, white shirt open at the neck and three buttons down, no medallion. A whisper said he had been pulled in by the police lately, then released, uncharged. The reporter's death? Feston's missing medallion could not be more renowned. Its absence set a tone, indicated a particular, very muted, Whitsun-racketeer style.
Vogue
might pick up on it soon for one of its
milieu
features.

‘Thank you again,' Edgehill said. ‘Which other vital topic do you—?'

‘Consistency,' Dean said. ‘We can rely on
A Week in Review
for continual perceptiveness, yet not jargon or pedantry. Adrian's averse to jargon.'

‘We deeply liked that item you screened last week on the Tate Retrospective, didn't we, Dean?' Pellotte said.

Edgehill felt conspicuous chatting on long, straight Gideon Road, very visible from ahead and behind. Nobody would think the car had pulled in to ask him directions. Pellotte and Dean didn't need directions around Whitsun. They directed.

Edgehill said: ‘The programme tries to—'

‘We'd already been up town to enjoy the Retrospective, you know,' Pellotte said. ‘We do like to keep on top of things. How else to pull one's weight in conversation otherwise?'

‘Yes, how fucking else?' Dean said.

‘A Retrospective gives that sequential aspect,' Pellotte said. ‘Dean's got such an appetite for learning. It's an inspiration.'

He would be seven or eight pounds heavier than Dean and a couple of years older, about forty-five. Pellotte had on a grey, pinstriped suit, his dark hair brushed smooth, not spiky or tinted. His face was entirely unscarred and free from cell pallor, his tie burgundy and in a modest knot, no flashy, imperious bulge. He didn't do hand jewellery of any kind. Whitsun gossip said pushers and wholesalers as far off as Carlisle and Linton-upon-Ouse spoke wonderingly of this principled dearth of rings, despite magnificent commercial, unprosecutable success on and around the estate, regardless of a new clean-up, top woman detective. Yes, tone. Obviously, in view of Pellotte's non-decorativeness, it would have jarred if Dean wore a medallion. Unflashiness and Pellotte were synonymous, understatement his statement.

‘It's good we could intercept you like this today, Larry,' Dean said. ‘We didn't want to come ringing your front doorbell – disturbing you and giving the street cause for talk first thing in the morning. When Adrian calls on some people at home, especially when it's early, there can be neighbourhood interest. Rumour. Gossip, etcetera. If we conduct visits of that sort they will often have, well . . . to be frank . . . often have a sorting-out purpose.'

‘Sorting out?' Edgehill said.

‘In a special sense,' Dean said.

‘Which?' Edgehill said.

‘Someone in the house needing to be sorted out,' Dean said. ‘This wouldn't have been decided hastily by Adrian and me, but it would have been decided on.'

‘The sorting out?' Edgehill replied.

Dean said: ‘If we arrived at your place, 19a Bell Close, pre-breakfast, folk on the estate could imagine you were in some sort of difficulty – could think you'd foolishly, disgustingly, crossed Adrian – been skimming from deals, say, and doing tetramisole or hydroxyzine mixes.
Undue
tetramisole or hydroxyzine, damaging the firm's reputation for notable quality. In fact, of course, we wouldn't have had that kind of ticklish, reprimand purpose in calling on you, but people form ideas of their own. It's what's known as their “perception”.'

Edgehill wondered whether to people in Gideon he'd look like a Pellotte associate, though a lowly one, who could be required to stoop and take a kerbside briefing which wasn't brief. He'd prefer not to have that sort of reputation, thanks. If Edgehill had owned a car himself and used it to drive to work, unwanted encounters like this would be impossible. But almost as soon as he bought his Whitsun flat he'd realized – been made to realize – that vehicle ownership here didn't really serve, unless you were Pellotte or one of his staff, and – crucially –
known
to be one of his staff. Otherwise, if you kept a car in the street, pieces of it, or it itself, would disappear some nights, or days, and, in fact, as to pieces of it,
most
nights or days: anything removable. You might keep it elsewhere, out of the district, and go to pick it up by Tube train or bus or hike or folding bike, but you still had to pay insurance postcode related, and the postcode of
your
address, not the car's, with bulky weighting for likely vandalism and, almost just as likely, taking, driving away and torching.

‘An informal encounter like this is better,' Pellotte said. ‘I'm more comfortable with that. Doorstepping – so crude and potentially . . . potentially unpleasant.'

‘An Englishman's home is his piss-hole,' Dean said. ‘I guessed you'd probably be walking to the Tube at about this spot – the former fruit and vegery – around now, you see.' He glanced sadly at the planked window. ‘We were fond of this shop. But the owner, Greymatter Charles, decided he needed no protection, and look what happened.'

‘What did?' Edgehill said. ‘I was never clear on that. Nor about the other two shops.'

‘They thought if they banded together, formed a kind of cooperative, they'd be able to look after themselves,' Dean said. ‘You'd imagine someone called “Greymatter” would have better judgement than that, wouldn't you? But “Greymatter” – the name might have been a joke, meaning the reverse, like “Slim” for some fatso.'

‘We have a note showing your routine, Larry,' Pellotte said. ‘That kind of very rudimentary information. Address and so on. Kept entirely confidential, believe me. You've heard of data security? Meet Dean, its greatest fan.'

‘Just a basic fact store,' Dean said. ‘Nothing worrying in the least. Adrian would hate to be thought of as some Big Brother figure, wouldn't he, watching everyone on Whitsun, creating dossiers? Again, not at all his way.'

‘My timetable is pretty simple and easy to chart,' Edgehill said.

‘We've observed that,' Dean said. ‘I don't say this is unwise. You're in a non-hazardous occupation. Why should you fear interference?'

‘Well, I should be moving on,' Edgehill said.

‘And possibly a mention of some other factors,' Dean said.

‘Which other factors?' Edgehill said.

‘That Tate item on your show, certainly a triumph,' Pellotte replied. ‘Most of the panel people had it so right in their discussion of the Retrospective, Larry. On the whole, very well-selected contributors.'

‘Which other factors?' Edgehill said.

‘Several of the people you get on there are quite knowledgeable, and all credit to you, Larry,' Pellotte said. ‘I gather you'll offer an occasional panel place to Detective Chief Superintendent Esther Davidson's husband, Gerald. Fine idea. Distinguished bassoonist.'

‘The data shows he gets around a bit too much, but, still, an undoubted artist,' Dean said.

‘Often these actual practitioners can talk so forcefully, are so down-to-earth and precise,' Pellotte said.

‘Mind, we were glad you didn't have that slimy fucker, Rex Ince, on the panel last time,' Dean said. ‘He's the sort who just
has
to snipe and niggle, doesn't he? So predictably negative. Hardly what we might call aesthetic. No decorum. Talks like he's the only fucker in the fucking world who ever heard the fucking words “perspective” and fucking “ambience”.'

Dean, behind the wheel, had to lean forward to get these insights past Pellotte and to Larry through the window.

Edgehill said: ‘We try to vary our—'

‘Ince is sad,' Pellotte said. He gave a small wave of his right hand to scatter tolerance towards Rex Ince.

‘To quite a degree, Adrian believes in that famous adage,' Dean said.

‘Which?' Edgehill said.

‘“Live and let live”,' Dean said.

‘Fine principle,' Edgehill said.

‘Yes, to quite a degree,' Dean said, ‘except when some totally unreasonable, sneaky, insolent fucker has to be countered, obviously.'

‘Which unreasonable, sneaky, insolent fucker?' Edgehill asked.

‘Obviously, “live and let live” doesn't necessarily mean someone like, for example, Ince. He's Cambridge, isn't he? A fellow of one of the colleges. A don, as they're termed,' Dean said. ‘Mind, I'm not necessarily against Oxford and Cambridge – or “Oxbridge” as they're called together – though we've run across someone else from Oxbridge lately who didn't really suit. Is this coincidence, or is it Oxbridge?'

‘Didn't suit in which way?' Edgehill said.

‘Yes, in his undergrad days he was at Oxford, this one,' Dean replied.

‘Who?' Edgehill said. ‘Did something happen?'