Play Dead (5 page)

About 40 metres away from Harpur, Iles came to a gradual stop, as if startled, intrigued, by something off to his left ahead. He, or she, pointed at Harpur, heaped unmoving on the soil, as neatly targeted Parry/Mallen. Their chosen route would not have taken them to the exact place: again, too obvious and simple - unrealistic. They'd have to divert for a proper close-up. Iles did and began to approach. He came near enough now for Harpur to make out what was said. ‘Someone there, Gerald. Look. It's not just dumped old clothes as I thought at first. Someone,' Iles stated, in his tense, emphatic she-voice. ‘A man, sort of hunched. Injured? Ill? A tramp?'

Iles morphed into a man: ‘Watch your step, Jane.'

‘Something very wrong,' Iles-Jane said. ‘I feel it.'

‘Pissed out of his mind?' Gerald asked. Iles put plenty of male harshness and extreme non-empathy into his words for this. Gerald thought drunks were dross, anyone could tell that. He believed in orderly, probably routine, weekly shopping trips to the Ritson, part of a decently regular life, even if it did take in a bit of trespassing. ‘Ill-met by fucking moonlight, and not much of it,' he said in more of the clangy Gerald voice. Harpur reckoned some of that must be quotation, which could help extend Gerald's personality further: he knew books and that kind of carry-on.

‘Whether or not, we must try to help,' Jane told him.

Harpur shut his eyes, scared it would put Iles off if he felt he and his figment duo were being watched by a figment corpse, though an actual body. The suck-sound of the ACC's Bowpark-Linden black lace-ups on mud came very near again. It brought class to this dump.

‘There's a blood trail, as if he crawled,' Jane said. ‘More blood than from a simple fall, surely. And his clothes, so filthy.'

‘That suit - bad enough when it was clean. A charity shop reject, I'd guess. Or joke garb for a clown. Is there a circus around? I'd be ashamed to lie here in a suit like that, dead or alive. It would put a blight on the housing, if it weren't already blighted.'

‘The poor dear,' Jane replied. Iles gave her a tenderness missing in Gerald - avoided, even despised, by Gerald.

‘We should phone for an ambulance,' he said.

‘Perhaps in a moment,' Jane said. ‘We must find what is the damage. I'll try for a pulse, shall I?'

As far as Harpur could remember, some of these exchanges were fairly accurately taken by Iles from their trial evidence. Iles would read something once and, if he thought it important, remembered it verbatim; though when the verbatim didn't suit him he'd jiggle it, of course.

‘To me he looks a goner,' Gerald replied.

Harpur felt Iles's hand on his wrist, a tender, lingering, ladylike, hope-shorn pressure. ‘I don't think there's anything,' Jane said sadly. ‘Let's turn him over so we can see what's what.'

‘Should we?' Gerald replied. ‘Interference? This is a job for the paramedics. We don't know what we're letting ourselves in for.' Cagey Gerald, full of street savvy?

‘It will be all right,' Jane said - a chancer, driven by human feeling and curiosity? Iles's acting could run the gamut. Move over, the shade of Alec Guinness.

‘Wait, I'll put the bags on the ground,' Gerald said.

‘Carefully. Remember the eggs,' Jane said. Iles would be proud of chucking in a background detail like that. It gave the scene workaday depth and authenticity. Fantasy eggs could get fantasy cracked and make a fantasy mess in the fantasy bag and so be unavailable for fantasy omelettes.

Harpur opened one eye for a second and saw Iles as if setting down the shopping so as to free his hands and arms. After a minute, he reached under Harpur and took a hold on the right lapel and surrounding material of his suit, regardless now of the mud. Gerald wouldn't be fussy: Gerald wasn't Iles, although, for the moment, Iles was Gerald. The narrative needed this flipping over of the body. It had actually happened on the night. Iles pulled with some gentleness but firmly and rolled Harpur on to his back. His hair as well as his clothes would need sprucing. Harpur had reclosed his eye. ‘My God, what's happened to his face, Jane?' Gerald said, the horror intonation brilliant, of Gielgud standard. ‘A ruin. This is all very strange, possibly very dangerous.'

It felt as though Jane came nearer and looked over Gerald's shoulder at Tom stretched out. If only Iles could have in fact been two people they'd have fallen into this configuration now. ‘Shot?' she said, shrewdly.

‘At least twice - nose area and chest. See?'

Harpur couldn't help them with any actuality for this, but kept his face blank.

‘Feel for a heartbeat, Gerry,' Jane said. ‘Sometimes the pulse is hard to read.'

‘I tell you he's finished, Jane.'

‘Please, just try once more.'

Iles's hand went
under
the lapel this time and rested on Harpur's chest. ‘Nothing,' he said. ‘Utterly still - stilled. But, hello.
Hello!
What's this?'

‘What?' Jane said.

‘Things get worse,' Gerald said. Iles unbuttoned the shoulder holster he'd given Harpur, took the Walther from under Harpur's jacket and must have held it out as if for examination by Jane, following the transcript.

‘Heavens! Tooled up?' she cried. This was true amazement, almost.

‘A Browning,' Gerald said. ‘We use them in the Territorials. Excellent stopping power.'

‘But why?' Jane said.

‘Why what?'

‘Why should he have a gun on him?' Jane said.

‘Part of his normal gear, I expect, like shoes or a watch. He'll be carrying no ID, though. I told you, love - we're caught up in something very dubious. It's an innocent bystander situation,' Gerald said. Harpur opened an eye again. Iles was standing near, chatting very naturally into darkness as the two.

‘What? You think a turf war - something like that?' Jane said.

‘Something exactly like that,' Gerald said.

‘But why here on such a dud bit of ground?'

‘He might have been duped into choosing this route,' Gerald said. ‘It's the chosen killing field. Ideal for that.'

‘Duped how?'

‘I don't really know, Jane. Set up by apparent friends? Some internal dispute in the firm? These people don't fool about. Or might he be a cop?'

‘A cop?'

‘Undercover.'

‘But exposed?'

‘They don't forgive what they see as treachery,' Gerald said.

‘My God!'

‘More important now, though, is the matter of where did the shots come from?' Gerald replied. ‘The upstairs of one of the houses? We might be vulnerable here ourselves. Let's get clear and call emergency services. We've done our bit.'

‘We can't leave him, Gerald.' Love of fellow humankind, regardless, was in her tone, possibly difficult for Iles to catch.

‘We can't do anything for him,' Gerald replied. Male - practical, alert to hazard, icily logical.

‘The BBC have been showing a public information film on how to help if someone has a heart attack,' Jane said. ‘It's not kiss of life, but a hard pumping massage of his upper body. Useful here?'

‘His chest's a mess,' Gerald said, ‘and it's no heart-attack.'

‘Just the same,' Jane said.

‘All right, all right.' In fact, as Harpur recalled the trial transcript, the real Gerald
had
tried kiss of life on Mallen. Iles obviously couldn't face lips-to-lips with Harpur, and Harpur felt immeasurably grateful. Iles didn't have a monopoly on squeamishness. In any case, Harpur discovered that Iles wanted his lips free so he could talk abuse.

Harpur sensed Iles get down near him. He began to hammer on Harpur's chest. If someone else were crossing the site and saw them they might think a fight or a mugging. Iles must have put the gun away in his pocket. For a while, Harpur lay as if far-gone but possibly savable. He had the impression, though, that Iles wasn't following the BBC resuscitation method absolutely. The hands should be out flat on the victim's chest, surely, to provide a good area of pressure. Iles seemed to be using his fists and was giving short-arm jab punches rather than forceful massage: an attack, not a therapy. Harpur felt something, some
things
, damp and glutinous fall one-by-one in a small shower on to his face.

‘Any response?' Iles asked in the Jane voice, but slightly winded from effort.

‘Nothing yet,' Gerald said.

‘Keep trying,' Jane replied.

‘Yes,' Gerald said. The punching grew heavier, maybe of rib-cracking intent. Yes, it did make Iles breathless, and Harpur, as well, but Iles had big reserves of hate, malice and cuckoldry-resentment to keep him going OK. He was Des Iles now, not Gerald, and the blows were Des-Ilesian, unforgiving and deft. He stood for a few seconds so he could kick Harpur twice in the balls with the expensive black lace-ups. That, too, differed from the original Gerald's behaviour. Then Iles lowered himself and lay close again. The ACC grunted contentedly: ‘Got you, you immoral, amoral, scruffy, smirking, lecherous sod, Harpur. Gotcha! I could see you off here - you realize that, do you?
Crime
passionel
,
recognized as just cause by the law. Terminate you. Why fucking not? No witnesses.'

‘What about Jane?' Harpur replied. The punching abated for conversation.

‘Who?'

‘One of the shoppers - Jane and Gerald.'

‘What the hell are you talking about?'

‘Jane's watching
She's
a witness.'

‘
I'm
Jane -
and
Gerald, you prat.'

‘You,
sir?'

‘Of course.'

‘You in person?'

‘What's that mean?'

‘You personally, sir, are Gerald?'

‘Certainly.
And
Jane.'

‘Both?'

‘As agreed.'

‘Agreed with
them
?'

‘Agreed between
us
,' Iles replied.

‘Which us?'

‘Us.'

‘You and me, sir?'

‘Obviously, you and me. Have you gone nuts, Harpur? This is a performance.'

‘Harpur? No, I'm Parry/Mallen, and dead.'

‘Soon, yes,' Iles replied. He let his hands play on and around Harpur's neck, a possible garrotter's hands, governed by a possible garrotter's mind. He could probably amend to a simple throttle. ‘Did you think when you were banging my wife on the quiet in fourth-rate rooming joints, under evergreen hedgerows, in marly fields, on river banks, in cars - including police vehicles - and, most probably, my own bed, that I'd get a lovely, heaven-sent opportunity to deal with you like this? Of course you fucking didn't, Col. You were driven by disgusting, traitorous, uncontrolled, uncontrollable fleshly compulsion. You had no time or inclination for thoughts about me, your superior officer and, in some senses, friend. “Think dick” was your mantra, which meant don't think at all, just have it away.'

Harpur realized that the droplets hitting his face were lip-foam from the ACC, often accessories to his frantic but well-structured rage episodes about Harpur and Iles's wife. ‘Did you plan this, sir, just as it was planned to get Tom Parry/Mallen out here on a cooked-up mission? God, I've lost track of what's thesp and what's real, what's flashback and what's now. Have you, too, sir? If you kill me they'll get you from the type of construction site mud on your coat. The forensic people are good at that these days. Headline: “Did top cop murder love-rat pal in revenge spasm?” We're visible from the street and by anyone using the site.'

‘Do I care? I'll have put things right, restored my pride in being who I am and was, Col - husband, father, law-officer of the Queen, guest at city hall functions, wholly unbribable rugby ref always up with the play.'

‘
And
you're the two shoppers on their way home from Ritson. Very, very few would dispute your perpetual right to such pride in yourself, sir,' Harpur said.

‘Which very, very fucking few, Harpur?'

‘Well, never your mother among the very, very few, we can be sure of that,' Harpur said, with a warm chuckle of congratulation.

‘Leave my sodding mother out of it,' the Assistant Chief replied. ‘This wasteland is no place for someone's mother.'

‘Sorry, sir. But you sometimes bring her into things.'

‘I'm entitled to bring her into things. That's what being a son means. But not here where the dead properties give no shelter.'

‘
I
don't do it.'

‘What?'

‘Bring my mother in,' Harpur said.

‘I don't blame you.'

‘Why, sir?'

‘I don't. That's all,' Iles said.

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘I shouldn't think she'd want to be associated with you. Even mothers have to show some taste and discrimination.'

‘Mothers have a lot to do - stair carpets to Hoover, measuring up for new curtains, feeding the goldfish. That kind of thing.'

‘True,' Iles replied.

Harpur felt safer when they talked, even if it was mainly family and domestic topics. The conversation seemed to preserve a degree of normality, a tiny degree, but enough to give Harpur time to think of how to neutralize Iles quickly - how to bring him back to rational behaviour. No question, the ACC
could
manage rational behaviour for quite long, though unpredictable spells. Frequently Harpur had seen Iles more or less mentally normal, even for hours. Harpur wished he still had the Walther/Browning. Failing that, though, he moved his right palm in a sensitive, arcing sweep over the ground near him. He had come to think of it as
his
terrain. The Harpur writ ran here uncontested. These objects owed him dirty fealty.

His questing fingers homed in on the old, topless Biro, once able to write green. Almost certainly it could then have done something very lively and even vivid-looking on good white paper. Green was life - for a while. It said ‘Go' at traffic lights. It showed in springtime's new shoots. There was a Green Party, concerned with looking after the environment and, therefore, the health of the planet and its future. But Iles would most likely locate different symbolism in that green Biro - its decline into a cast-off, of no more use than the ring-pull from the can without the can. Iles tended to see many aspects of life as in decline. This pen could sum it up, not through what it wrote - nothing now - but merely through
being
a pen, a defunct pen, lying undegradable in soil that one day might be a road. Not yet, though.