Play Dead

Table of Contents

A Selection of Titles by Bill Jamesg

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Footnotes

DOUBLE JEOPARDY *

FORGET IT *

FULL OF MONEY *

HEAR ME TALKING TO YOU *

KING'S FRIENDS *

THE LAST ENEMY *

LETTERS FROM CARTHAGE *

MAKING STUFF UP *

OFF-STREET PARKING *

TIP TOP *

WORLD WAR TWO WILL NOT TAKE PLACE *

THE SIXTH MAN and other stories *

YOU'D BETTER BELIEVE IT

THE LOLITA MAN

HALO PARADE

PROTECTION

COME CLEAN

TAKE

CLUB

ASTRIDE A GRAVE

GOSPEL

ROSES, ROSES

IN GOOD HANDS

THE DETECTIVE IS DEAD

TOP BANANA

PANICKING RALPH

LOVELY MOVER

ETON CROP

KILL ME

PAY DAYS

NAKED AT THE WINDOW

THE GIRL WITH THE LONG BACK

EASY STREETS

WOLVES OF MEMORY

GIRLS

PIX

IN THE ABSENCE OF ILES

HOTBED

I AM GOLD

VACUUM *

UNDERCOVER *

PLAY DEAD *

 

*
available from Severn House

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

First published in Great Britain and the USA 2013 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited.

Copyright © 2013 by Bill James.

The right of Bill James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

James, Bill, 1929-

Play dead. - (The Harpur & Iles series)

1. Harpur, Colin (Fictitious character)-Fiction. 2. Iles,

Desmond (Fictitious character)-Fiction. 3. Police-Great

Britain-Fiction. 4. Police corruption-Fiction.

5. Undercover operations-Fiction. 6. Detective and

mystery stories.

I. Title II. Series

823.9'14-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-043-0 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-403-4 (epub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

H
arpur had what he regarded as some pretty good, bright information for Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles. But one of the central things about Iles was that he hated dependence on any of his people for good, bright information. Iles considered he was the kind who should already
have
all the good, bright information himself as of right - and have all other brands of important information, too, not just good and bright. He didn't want subordinates sneaking ahead of him in knowledge, and especially he didn't want Harpur sneaking ahead of him, in knowledge, or whatever else.

Over the years Harpur had come to realize it could be stupid to blurt straight out in a big-headed, smug way insights that Iles to date lacked. Instead, get deft. New facts should be offered one at a time and gradually, not all in a triumphalist lump. Eke them out. Harpur had learned how to eke, could have run a degree course in ekeing. And he would try to be deft and gradual today in this dodgy aftermath chat with the ACC.

One of the other core factors about Iles was he frequently went in for big self-blame. ‘Big' meant allowing no excuses; ‘big' meant bordering on suicide. With ruthless accuracy he'd weigh some part of his life in the balance and find it hopelessly wanting. Many would have been surprised to hear this about him, because he generally seemed so stiff-necked, feudal and tirelessly insolent. But Harpur had occasionally seen that other, confidential, cripplingly repentant side of the ACC. He saw it this morning. He understood where it came from. He thought he might have something precious to turn the ACC around, restore to him all that familiar brazen, Hunnish, startlingly talented obnoxiousness. The good, bright information should do it, but only if administered to the Assistant Chief with quiet dexterity and finesse, like a nurse with a suppository.

Not long ago he and Harpur had been sent by the Home Office to do deep checks on another police force where there was a possibility, and more than a possibility, of corruption at a middling, or upper-middling rank. For security reasons the force had been coded Larkspur. An undercover officer brought in from a different force so as not to be recognized - Carnation - had been shot dead there. As it eventually turned out, the killer gunman was another officer who'd apparently feared a crook-police racket might be exposed by the spy from Carnation. But, until Iles and Harpur arrived, there had seemed to be no intense, committed investigation of the killing. It went nowhere. Blockages? The Home Office became uneasy. Were some people at Larkspur protecting themselves by neutering inquiries - the way inquiries seemed to have been neutered or sidetracked after the racist murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in London?

Through good detective work Harpur and Iles discovered the marksman and arrested and charged him.
¹
It stopped there, though. Who ordered the execution of the undercover man? Why? How high did the conspiracy go? The crook-police racket presumably centred on drug dealing - crook-police rackets usually did - but in what way, what ways, at Larkspur: the system, the connections? Harpur and Iles didn't find answers to these infinitely dark conundrums. The conundrums remained.

Iles and Harpur were in the Assistant Chief's double-room office suite at police headquarters in their own domain - encrypted Cowslip for that operation. They looked back and took stock. Colin Harpur had a red leather easy chair. The Assistant Chief paced, a habit of his, most probably meant to show off the straightness and slimness of his legs. He refereed rugby matches now and then, though he had gone off the game since it went professional. When younger he'd played at outside-half for police teams. He had that kind of unburly, lithe physique. ‘I could jink off either foot,' he'd told Harpur once, and Harpur believed it. Jinking would come easily to Iles. ‘Jink right!' ‘Jink left!' Whichever the coach wanted, Iles would deliver.

‘We failed, sir,' Harpur said. The approach with this fine new stuff - new to Iles - had to be oblique, roundabout.

‘Absolutely, Col.' The ACC nodded in sad congratulations. ‘Now and then you'll get things totally right. Maybe even oftener than now and then, despite your clothes and all-over appearance.'

‘Thank you, sir.' Harpur did try, though, to fix a minor, preparatory lifting of the gloom. There had been pluses on their Larkspur visit. ‘But I know some folk would say we didn't fail at all. The very reverse, in fact. That's why we were pulled off.'

‘Who?' the ACC said.

‘Who what, sir? Harpur said.

‘Which folk would say we didn't fail?'

‘Yes, quite a number. They'd argue that we nicked the one who actually fired the shots. He's doing life, minimum eighteen before parole possibility. Cop kills cop - that's evil.'

‘We nicked a nobody. We fly-swatted, nothing more,' the ACC said.

‘Many would dispute that, I feel, sir, with respect.'

‘Who?'

‘Many.'

‘“With respect,” tell me, Col,' the ACC replied, his voice wonderfully mild, conversational and dangerous, ‘where do you come across them?'

‘Who, sir?'

‘The folk who say we did well.' Tone switch: ‘Are they all fucking mad, Harpur?'

‘They believe this is how policing
must
operate.'

‘Who believe it?'

‘Many.'

‘How, then?' Iles said.

‘How what, sir?'

‘How
must
policing operate, in their folksy view?' the Assistant Chief replied.

‘They'd say policing can cope only with the feasible, only with the achievable. There are tight limits. These have to be recognized, or frustration and distress result. Policing nails the villain it's possible to nail - nails the villain who
can
be nailed. In this case, it's the one who pulled the trigger, pulled the trigger twice: blew half a face away at night on a building site, as planned.'

‘A cat's paw,' Iles said.

‘A police officer, yet a killer.'

‘But who instructed him to kill? Which superior, superiors, was he looking after - trying to shield from exposure?'

Harpur said: ‘We're probably not talking about the Larkspur Chief himself, Rhys Dathan, are we, sir? After all, he asked for this undercover specialist from another force to come in. He needed a spy to penetrate a powerful, seemingly invulnerable, drugs firm on Larkspur's ground, perhaps a corruptly favoured drugs firm by a clique of his officers. The Chief used standard tactics. He wanted someone unlikely to be recognized by any of the gang, so gets an officer from Carnation. The Chief acted properly. He wouldn't have done that if he personally was involved in a dirty game, would he? He'd be inviting exposure.'

‘Smart, Col. Always I've loved the confident way you summarize the obvious.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘Of course, it could have been a ruse by Dathan, couldn't it? He must have realized his outfit looked dubious and had turned smelly. So, he invites undercover. Pre-emptive? Afraid undercover might be sent, anyway. By calling for it, he knows who the undercover is and can monitor and manage him, or her. Clever? Subtle? Anyway, Col, somewhere in Larkspur there was a secret, tainted syndicate,' Iles replied.

Harpur nodded. ‘Still is? Regrettably, we never identified it.'

‘Yes, regrettably, regrettably. We didn't even get near. Yet it's what we were sent to discover, Col - I, an ACC, and you a detective chief superintendent: a considerable, experienced team looking for evidence of a cover-up, evidence of a perversion of justice, but stymied, brick-walled.'

‘Yes, this is where we missed out . . .' Harpur almost started his comforting news, then decided there should be a little more strategic delay.

‘Obviously, matters can't be left like that, Harpur,' Iles said.

‘Can't they? The operation is closed, sir.' Not exactly a lie, but in that area, though Iles wouldn't know this.