Play Dead (15 page)

The report said it was unclear whether more than one person carried out the attack. ‘Cass was over 6 feet tall and around 220 pounds. He might have seemed a risky target for someone acting alone, even someone armed with a knife.' But the paragraph added that Cass wouldn't have been expecting violence at what rated for him as a business meeting; and, if there
were
only one attacker, he, or she, would have the advantage of maximum surprise.

It seemed likely Cass had taken several steps from the Focus, possibly to go to talk to someone, or more than one, in another vehicle. Police would be examining the ground for tyre tracks. The news item ended with a brief biography and a list of important investigative stories Cass had previously handled, including a charity fraud, a pimping organization across six counties, club protection firms in Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham. He was 29 years old, married to Louise, 31, a former nurse, and with two children, Zoe, four, and Timothy, two.

Harpur turned again to the obituary.
Before this visit, Cass had made inquiries and found that some aspects of the case were never satisfactorily dealt with, possibly very substantial aspects. A deliberate, unholy ploy.
This sounded as though there had been a discussion, or discussions, between White, the associate editor, and David Lee Cass, about the current Larkspur state of things. To be expected: Cass couldn't just clear off to Larkspur without an OK from his superior. Cass would presumably have argued the case for renewed inquiries there, and White must finally have agreed.

Harpur felt a lack in White's summary, though.
He went to see what he could find.
It sounded so offhand, so autonomous. This should have read, shouldn't it, ‘I sent him to see what he could find'? It wasn't just David Lee Cass who targeted Larkspur, it was David Lee Cass as hack, emissary, bellhop, for a major British newspaper. How
had Cass convinced him there might be a story?
Why
did Cass decide to make inquiries so long after the jailing of Courtenay Jaminel seemed to close the case satisfactorily? How and why
did Cass get to suspect calculated neglect of these
possibly very substantial aspects. A deliberate unholy ploy?

Philip White's tribute contained no explanation. He wrote as though Cass had been given a sudden, supernatural signal. From Sunday school at the Gospel Hall when he was a child, Harpur recalled that King Belshazzar in the Book of Daniel watched a hand write in capitals on the wall of his banqueting hall, ‘YOU HAVE BEEN WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE AND FOUND WANTING'.

Harpur felt the obit's tone suggested Cass might have had something similar: ‘VERY SUBSTANTIAL ASPECTS IN LARKSPUR HAVE BEEN CLEVERLY BLIND-EYED, DAVE - A DELIBERATE UNHOLY PLOY, SO SADDLE UP.'

But, of course, Maud Clatworthy - Home Office Maud - had also come to wonder whether some ‘very substantial aspects' of the Mallen case were left uninvestigated, despite the conviction: calculatedly uninvestigated. Harpur and Iles had secured that conviction, and this was as far as they'd been asked to go then. Over the months, though, Maud had obviously decided on another objective and the ACC and Harpur were sent back. Had Maud known David Lee Cass and been so affected by the famous integrity and charm that she became one of the
many confidential sources, so crucial in his type of work
?
Cass might have had contact with the Home Office and Maud during an earlier investigative case, or cases. Did she resolve to make sure Larkspur got a really good going over this time, by briefing and assigning not just Harpur and Iles, but also an accomplished, wide-ranging Press muckraker?

Harpur took this as a possible slight on him and Iles - as if they couldn't conduct this new inquiry without help. Maybe, though, it had not been Maud personally who prompted Cass but, as Dathan had suggested, one of her staff, familiar with Maud's thinking and willing to pass it on for a dab in the hand; maybe even on a retainer, like many of
The Sun
's payrolled whispering officials. Who said broadsheets were above all that? Answer: those who ran broadsheets. Who believed them? Answer: only their mothers.

The obituary - and especially White's contribution - was very coyly phrased, perhaps with some of that
measured
,
considerate
method it referred to, so as to prevent undue clarity. White would know all the tricks of investigative journalism - its
concealed
purposes
, and areas needing
tactical
finesse -
as thoroughly as Cass, including how not to over-blab in print.
Harpur realized when analysing this obituary that his young lover, Denise - ‘the undergrad piece' as Iles called her - had taught him quite a bit about dissecting a slab of writing. Her university courses trained her in the skill, and now and again, when she was stopping over, she'd bring some academic work with her and chat to him about how to get at its essence. Harpur's divorced sister was looking after the children while he was away, and Denise would probably call in when she had time and help.

Silenced before he could
find
more
, the newspaper article said. More? More than what? Had he begun his explorations and discoveries? And had he told White what the discoveries were,
to prove progress, and reassure him that the rail, hotel and car hire expenses he'd have to wave through would ultimately be justified by at least a double-page show in their paper and big-deal, unignorable headlines?

H
arpur was in the downstairs lounge of their hotel with the newspapers and a post-breakfast coffee. He and Iles had been asked to call on the Larkspur Chief Constable as a formality this morning at the force headquarters - standard protocol for officers working on a patch not their own. This would be a private meeting, not like the five-sided session with Ruth Bowles, the Press officer. Harpur and Iles would, of course, be loathed as Home-Office-hired snoops and stirrers by many Larkspur people. That kind of contempt, plus possible obstruction, always came with the job of scouring another force, and possibly dishing out blame. The proper rituals had to be gone through, though, and the Chief treated as if he himself were spotless.

The headquarters were not far from their hotel and they would walk.

Iles came in to the lounge now and sat down. He wore one of his double-breasted, custom-made grey suits. Harpur thought the cloth radiated a kind of smugness, as though it had lain waiting hopefully in the tailor's bale to be cut and stitched for a wearer worthy of its excellence, and could now glory in the fine luck that brought Des Iles. Harpur reckoned about a thousand quid's worth, the shoulder padding totally right for Iles's shoulders, and only Iles's. There had been a time when Harpur foolishly tried to gauge the Assistant Chief's state of mind by what he wore. It was a hangover from Harpur's school days: he'd noticed that one of the teachers always seemed in an evil rage when he turned up in a tartan waistcoat. For a six-month spell Harpur diaried Iles's garments - other suits or blazers and flannels - as against mood. He'd daily filled in a chart pinned to the back of his office door, and disguised as a breaking-and-entering record of incidents and methods. But he'd failed to find a relationship between outfits and temper. Destructive malice, for instance, could spring vibrant and hale from Iles, regardless of any fashion choice. Likewise, something very close to sanity and reasonableness might show, also regardless of kit. On Harpur's chart the acronym ‘BSB' might appear, indicating, on the face of it, ‘Bell System Buggered' - i.e. the alarms of a warehouse had been totally neutralized by the thieves before their pinch. In fact the letters meant ‘Blazer (Single Breasted)' and referred to Iles's garb on the day. Against the BSB entry could be a couple of capital Bs, signifying the ACC had been a ‘Bloody Bastard' while in this garment; or S & S, short for ‘Sweet and Saintly', although in the same single-breasted blazer.

Iles glanced at the
Daily Star.
He carried a cup of hot water, from which slight trails of steam rose, and sipped it with loud enjoyment now and then. Iles never took breakfast, said he'd been put off it eternally as a kid by the scatter-gun way his father ate baked beans on toast. On the day Iles told Harpur this, the Assistant Chief had, for a moment, reverted to childhood and instinctively raised a hand as if to wipe daddy's mouth missiles from his face and hair. ‘Maud sends us here to look at the background and origins of an
old
murder and as soon as we arrive we get another, Col, most probably related,' he said. ‘Fucking reporters. Why can't they stay in the newsroom hacking celebrities' voicemails, or fixing up big bribes by phone? What's he doing out on a nothing road in the night?'

‘Cass was investigative.'

‘And?'

‘It happens with investigative journos.'

‘What?'

‘I think it's like this, sir, investigative journalists feel they have to get out and investigate. It's what makes them investigative.'

‘Lying dead alongside a Ford Focus is not very investigative.'

‘They follow their nose, like us.'

‘And it leads them to a knifing.' In a similar movement to the baked beans response as a boy, Iles raised his hand to his left cheek, as if reminded of his own nose region. ‘How do you think it looks now, Col?

‘What, sir?'

‘The impairment.'

‘Well, I expect you've examined it in the mirror.'

‘But I want
your
view, as its architect.'

‘It has a plus side.'

‘In which respect?'

‘Neatness.'

‘In which respect?'

‘It's a perfectly rounded wound, not an untidy, crudely jagged skin rip, which would suggest a barbaric, wholly uncivilized attack.'

‘Would you say the way it was given was
un
barbaric, then, Col, and civilized?' Iles put his index finger on the hole. ‘Yes, it
feels
round. There's a definite shapeliness.'

‘That's because it reproduces the shape of the . . . well . . . implement.'

‘Which . . . well . . . implement?'

‘The one that did it.'

‘What
was
that?'

‘I thought you'd have got a glimpse.'

Iles sipped again, sending his mind back in the pause.
‘
I had an impression of something green - yes, a greenness swinging in on me at the end of your arm, like a scythe tinted by chlorophyll from brambles.'

‘That's very perceptive.'

‘I was a detective. I perceive. At Staff College they called me “Des, the ever-open-eye”.'

‘A fine commendation.'

‘If something, of its nature, can be seen, I, Iles, will see it. What was green?' Iles replied.

‘A Biro with faint old traces of green ink in its barrel.'

‘Yes, I thought a Biro. But difficult to believe. You actually carry one as weapon - no gun but a Biro?'

‘I—'

‘Previous to this use, did you write green messages to that undergrad Denise with it? Intimate, hot green messages? Does green turn her on? Do I want that kind of horny, pleb excess in my blood stream, Harpur?'

‘It was there.'

‘Where?'

‘There. Under me.'

‘There? Latent? Ready? You're telling me God or Fate or Fortune or What-have-you made it available so you could break into my face despite rank?'

‘Chance.'

‘Some will find it hard to understand this injury, Col.'

‘Yes, it could be difficult for them to guess how and where it happened - the Elms mud and a role-play episode. It's not the sort of thing that comes up every day or evening.'

‘In a way, a blemish of this kind takes away some of one's self-confidence, Harpur.' His voice had gone flaky, his tone shrivelled and pitiable. Occasionally, Iles could suddenly get like that: all the bombast, vanity and cockiness suddenly lost. Hadn't it happened through self-condemnation not long ago in his suite back home?

Harpur hated it when the ACC glissaded into uncertainty and weakness. If Iles could be reduced like this, anyone could. Harpur found the idea alarming, a step towards universal disintegration. Iles's usual arrogance, iron unmeekness and mighty brain power helped keep the world, or this bit of it, reasonably OK. It was damned irresponsible of him to turn frail and humble: self-indulgence through abasement. His customary roaring offensiveness must be allowed to flourish. It was offensiveness in a good and vital cause. Now, though, the face jab seemed to have punctured him, deflated him. As face jabs went, Harpur considered this one had been exemplary for timing, location and sheer power.

He said: ‘Yes. I see the awkwardness. You can't very well announce you've been penetrated by a ballpoint. Oh, sure, Jane Matson mentioned that mot stating the pen is mightier than the sword but this probably wasn't to do with an ex-Biro poking its way through skin.'

Iles thought about things for a while, then said: ‘What I'd like you to do, Harpur, is go ahead of me, on your own, to the meeting with the Chief.'

‘Certainly, sir.' Harpur yearned to help him back to full cantank-erousness and true Des-Ilesian disdain. Although his suit might be brilliant, it couldn't on its own hold him together.

‘Then I'll come in later,' the ACC said.

‘Right. He didn't seem to notice the wound in Ruth Bowles's room. Or might have been too polite to mention it. In case he didn't notice, do you want me to forewarn him, alert him to it, so he's not surprised into uncontrollable giggling? I could explain its cause - the intense tussle at very much ground level on the housing estate, you out of your mind with jealousy; me as Tom Mallen/Parry; then you as the gunman and, I suppose, as Death.'

‘Death, yes. If you open your gob like that I'll kill you.'

‘Right.'

‘This might be too subtle for you to understand, Harpur, but what I wish to give is a lively demonstration of carefreeness, suave blandness on my part. I
will
show up - that's necessary politesse - but I show up when I feel like showing up. Autonomous. I'm not bound by his holy Larkspur timetable and agenda. OK, I, without question, do display, quite prominently, a temporary unsightliness, but that doesn't mean I'm going to turn all crushed, unbuoyant, diffident.'