Play Dead (32 page)

‘This is the kind of hearty and generous endorsement of our work that Col appreciates enormously, Leo,' Iles replied. ‘Also myself, of course, but Harpur, particularly, longs for approval by the community. In him it comes close to egomania, but is more or less tolerable, and it does have its pathetic aspect, also.' Iles gave a small wave with his cup. Harpur felt this was meant as a sign of fellowship, despite his ego and pathetic need for approval by the masses.

They were in capacious, very comfortable brown leather easy chairs, what Harpur thought of as gentlemen's club chairs, though he had never been in a gentlemen's club. Back home, Panicking Ralph Ember would have liked to think the club he owned, The Monty, of Shield Terrace, might one day deserve that title, but the transformation would take a while, plus exclusion of almost all the present membership, including those locked up, or recently released, or between stretches locked up, or on bail or probation. The Monty was the only club Harpur knew at first hand. He and Iles would look in there now and then, trying to eavesdrop and/or sense anything about current and future projects - wedding receptions, robberies, beatings, christening parties, protection schemes, acquittals, territory campaigns. And because they were fond of Ralph.

Iles said: ‘It's that bright, Home Office babe called Maud who's interested in what we've dubbed the “context” of the Mallen death, Leo. Her job is to take the global view.'

‘That's the way of them up there in London, isn't it, Mr Iles? Trends. They're concerned with trends. Something occurs and they're not bothered about the thing that's occurred as such but they ask theirselves, “What does this thing that happened tell us about trends?” They're entitled to ask this because trends are meat and drink to Whitehall people. Meat and drink. If they think it's a good trend they'll try to help it along. But if it seems bad, they'll want to kill it off before it gets to be more than a trend and is . . . and is what it is, like.'

Young's drawing room looked out on to the gravelled front yard and then beyond, towards the sea. Emily's yellow and black Mini Cooper was parked near the front door. Outbuildings to the right had been well restored and roofed with genuine slate. Framed floral prints hung on the drawing room walls, bland, unvivid. A fine, rosewood antique bureau and long mahogany chiffonier stood opposite Harpur's chair. The floor was varnished hardwood strips covered here and there with Persian-type rugs, their prevailing, background colour a dark, warm red. Leo or Emily had some taste. In Harpur's experience, Leo always dressed formally and had on a grey three-piece suit, button-down collared blue and white striped shirt, and azure silk tie, black lace-up shoes.

‘Maud's persistent,' Iles said.

‘Clearly, we could of asked for a lawyer to be present at this interview, a “sit-in” as they're known, watching out for questions that might do damage, and putting the block on same for the clients' sake, such as us.' Young stopped and took a few seconds before he resumed. ‘But, no, no, not “interview”.' He gave that a hard, confrontational, deep probe tone. ‘“Interview” sounds too cold and official - it should be “at this
visit
”,
like of a hearty, cuppa-based social nature. We decided, Emily and me, that a lawyer would not be appropriate in these circs. There's that word again - “appropriate”. Or, in very truth, we could say its opposite, “
in
appropriate”. This is how we regard the idea of a lawyer: inappropriate. Like an insult to all of us - an insult to you for suggesting you could be hiding something harsh and unfriendly behind a mock-up happy get-together under our roof; and an insult to us for seeming to brand ourselves, Emily and me, scared and needing an LLB in the room for protection.

‘What, I ask, have we to be scared of in this meeting? The answer comes
so
easy - nothing. In fact, the total reverse.' Harpur thought Leo sounded delighted by the neatness of polar opposites. ‘This is an occasion where common interests can be discussed in reasonable, relaxed fashion. These interests might not be wholly the same on both sides - your side, Mr Iles, Mr Harpur, our side, Emily's and mine - but nor are they head-on opposed to each other. There is plenty of agreement, and this can be improved and extended, which we'll all agree, I'm sure, is desirable.'

‘Maud has a certain idea, Leo,' Harpur replied.

‘That's another kind of item they're interested in - ideas,' Leo said. ‘An idea can lead to a trend, and the other way about.'

‘Maud believes that one of the drugs outfits had a business arrangement with some police, and that's why Mallen and the journalist probably got it - they'd started looking for evidence of this alliance, perhaps discovered some early fragments,' Harpur said.

‘That's an idea, but a terrible, evil idea,' Leo said. ‘This would probably mean police corruption.'

‘Yes, most probably it would,' Iles replied.

‘People who should be looking after the law would be rubbishing it,' Leo said.

‘That exactly,' Iles said.

‘We wondered, Leo, if you'd heard anything around the business community of this kind of abuse,' Harpur said.

Emily put down her cup with a hard smack on the wood floor. ‘How would Leo hear something of that sort?' she asked. ‘You're talking about drug-dealing businesses, aren't you? What would Leo have to do with
them
?'

Although it was said in an attack-defence voice, Harpur thought it sounded again, not like someone trying to kill off the topic with a question that suggested what he'd said was too ridiculous to need an answer, but a wife asking for real insights about her husband's business - though at the same time scared of those possible insights, and wanting to correct them, bury them.

‘There are often ripples of gossip, rumour, speculation about these criminal firms which reach out even as far as eminently straight businesses such as, for instance, Leo's,' Iles said.

‘Rumours of what kind?' she said. ‘And I thought the police didn't deal in gossip, rumour and speculation. I understood you wanted hard evidence.'

‘One reason it's called hard evidence is it's sometimes hard to find,' Iles replied. ‘Gossip, rumour, speculation can offer a starting point.'

‘None of this - the rumour and so on - has reached any of my companies,' Leo said. ‘I'm sure such material would have been passed on to me if it had come to them.'

‘Maud has a detailed scenario of how this corrupt scheme would be organized,' Iles said.

‘But, obviously, this is only what we been discussing just now - one of them
ideas
. Yes? A scenario would be like an idea, wouldn't it?' Leo said. ‘Scenarios are Hollywood. This is not fact or the arrests would already of been made. This is imagination. It might be clever imagination, which is what we'd expect from people in London doing that kind of flashy desk job. But it's still only imagination.'

‘Maud sees it this way,' Iles replied. ‘The management board of one of these criminal firms takes a decision to recruit some officers from the local force on to the staff in a “facilitator” role. The facilitating would be to do mainly with making things easier and safer for the firm's pushers. The board's street people, or disco or rave people, should be able to advise which officers looked likely and could be approached and talked terms with. Maybe some had already been taking sweeteners as payment for blind-eyeing. That would be on a small scale, though. This new arrangement would be more substantial and solid. Officers might be offered a salaried position, possibly pensionable, or be paid on a fee-per-task basis, non-pensionable. The choice would be theirs. An officer with dependants might prefer the long-term benefits of settled salary and pension. Their pension from the firm would, of course, be in addition to the fine police pension and lump-sum upon retirement after thirty years' good service, so Maud says some would regard this as an excellent double career path, and double income after ceasing work. But other officers might prefer the alternative of large,
ad hoc
fees as and when, and eventually rely on the police pension only.

‘Anyway, whichever form their appointment takes, once they have received any part of it they're caught. They have to continue. They've become elements in a system, and the system can function properly only if
all
its elements are in place and operating efficiently. If they try to get out they're in danger of execution because the firm, and the officers who stay on, will fear the renegade might blow the whistle. He or she must be silenced. The renegade's family would also be in peril. There are very powerful pressures and, on the other hand, inducements to stay with a firm.

‘Inducements? Yes, some very positive aspects exist. For instance, Maud says most firms of any size hold substantial reserve and contingency funds. These would cover such expenditure as (one) private health and anti-addiction treatment in the Betty Ford-style clinic for any member of the firm who becomes an uncontrolled user of company products. This is particularly relevant to police members because symptoms of junkiedom in an officer could lead to very prejudicial inquiries as to commodity source, and, therefore, a possible link to the firm.

‘(Two) Organizations will keep a comparatively large amount of cash ready to subsidize families when someone on company business is arrested and jailed, leaving the household potentially destitute. All worthwhile firms recognize a responsibility in such cases and are ready to cough up: “Sustenance Subsidies”, as this support is known. The convicted member of the firm will be aware, naturally, that such support terminates if he/she talks to the police. And there might be other reprisals, including, possibly, against children.'

‘Monstrous,' Emily said.

‘Disgusting,' Leo said.

‘Thus, the Jaminel buttoned lips,' Iles replied. ‘He could tell us so much. But the risk for him is too severe. Others, similar.'

‘My God, it's awful,' Emily said.

‘Terrible,' Leo said.

‘So, what duties for the firm would the bought officers be expected to provide?' Iles replied. ‘Maud proposes (one) to forewarn of any planned special anti-drugs drive by the police, and its locality - city district or club or pub; (two) to allow trading by the firm without interference in those areas where the officers supposedly represent law and order; (three) to move heavily and often against competing drugs firms through prosecutions, with tactfully planted material if required; (four) to act sometimes as secure couriers, taking supplies to nominated pushers.'

As far as Harpur knew, Maud had never spoken in such precise, exhaustive terms about that kind of crooked career scene. This would be a commercial profile created entirely by Iles himself and, as would be expected from him, brilliantly thorough and probable. But to present it as his own thinking could scare Leo too much and make him clam up. Iles must be hoping that, as long as Leo stayed sociable and wordy he might - just might - accidentally reveal something which could be followed up, worked on, developed. By attributing the ideas to Maud he allowed Leo to regard them as just that - London ideas, a scenario, imagination, part of Whitehall's obsessive, high-falutin', woolly search for trends. He could remain reasonably relaxed and devious.

‘I expect you find all this a trifle out of proportion, Mrs Young,' Iles said.

‘What out of proportion?' she said.

‘One bad moment at a house on the Elms, and then all this subsequent activity and turmoil. There's a danger the house might take on a kind of symbolic status,' Iles said.

‘That's absurd,' she replied. ‘It's a house, a part-finished house, I gather. Nothing more.'

‘Yes, you're right, I expect,' Iles said. ‘I've been there myself. It's as you say - a stalled bit of building. I imagine the same depressing symptoms are on view all over the country.'

‘Emily's not at all interested in that kind of grim spot,' Leo said.

‘I'm sure she's not,' Iles said.

‘Museums - that's Em,' Young said with a terrific pride-throb. ‘Ancient caves and cottages, not half-done modern villas. Her colleagues, who are themselves much qualified in the historic and
really
historic stuff, think so high of Em that she's the chairperson, meaning she has knowledge of all sorts - spinning jennies, crossbows, flints, millstones. You show her a millstone and she'll tell you the century straight off, by looking at it, not Googling. It's in her head. Same with ink and paper. She can tell their age. She would never of been fooled by them Hitler diaries, so called, conning top editors here and in Germany. Em would of said right at the beginning, “Them notebooks are not the sort of notebooks that was around in Adolf's time.”'

‘How do you get on with the car, Mrs Young?' Iles replied.

‘Car?' she said.

Iles pointed through the window at the Mini Cooper. ‘I think that's yours, isn't it?' Iles said.

‘It's fine. What's that to do with anything?' she said.

‘Good,' Iles said. ‘Maud sees a pattern in these corruption schemes,' Iles said. ‘The basic organizational and financial factors are constant from case to case. (One) Obviously, all payments to officers, whether as salary or fees, are in cash with twenties the highest denomination. No fifties: they draw attention. Also there is an acute forgery risk. If a fifty was identified as dud there'd be no knowing where the inquiries might go. (Two) Sales in a notorious drug-dealing street, disco, club or rave must take place with maximum speed and discretion. Pushers from other firms might be nearby and spot such transactions. They'd possibly do some of that anonymous broadcasting of hostile information you spoke of, Leo, aimed at hurting, even dismantling, the competition. (Three) Payments should not be banked or placed in a building society, or share-invested, or used to upgrade housing in this country. All such displays of wealth could excite curiosity. Private schooling expenses are reasonably OK. Likewise university. Properties abroad in slump countries - Greece, Spain, Portugal - might also escape notice, and, incidentally, should be cheap.