Hotbed (5 page)

‘Which very fucking few?'

‘Statistically almost negligible.'

‘Do you note the names?'

‘People say things for effect. They hear someone spoken of reverentially and feel driven in a destructive way to counter this. It's mere mischief.'

‘Reverence I don't seek, Col.'

‘Although you don't seek it, it comes, sir.'

Iles nodded, but a fairly minor nod. ‘Ralph led a kind of gush testimonial to Shale. This is sickening, worrying, Col.'

‘Manse is getting remarried.'

‘Yes. Dangerous. Someone he met through art.'

‘Is that right, sir? Manse does a lot of appreciation. Apparently, it's a tonic to see him gaze at canvases. Empathy's his chief relaxation. He's very keen on one sort of stuff – auburn hair and long purple dresses. It's his other side from the trade. He wants to be thought of as an all-rounder. Some pictures in his collection at the old rectory are quite possibly not forged, I'm told.'

‘Who told you?' Iles was in one of his double-breasted navy blazers that enveloped him like a tribute.

‘You know, sir, I
like
to think of Manse Shale as an art fan,' Harpur replied. ‘It proves he still has bits of uncorrupted soul.'

‘Well, we all possess some of
them
, Col.'

‘Is that right?'

‘On the whole, police should have more bits of uncorrupted soul than villains. It's tidier that way. It's expected. And it helps mark a difference. This is a difference one favours.'

‘I can see the point.'

‘Oh, yes, bits of uncorrupted soul are universal, or we're into heresy. It would mean God made evil. At the Agincourt, Ralph led a rendering of “For He's a Jolly Good Fellow”.'

‘About God?'

‘With resounding, mawkish repetitions of the chorus, and pointing at Manse in case of doubt. For
he's a jolly good fellow.
' Iles could do quiet irony, but this was more like out-and-out baying. ‘What's behind something as disgusting as that?'

‘In which respect, sir?'

‘That evidence of grand heartiness between Ralph and Manse and magnificently authentic respect – even affection. What are they disguising? What are they compensating for? Shit will fly.'

‘Was this at the liqueurs stage?'

‘Why?'

‘Well, they kick the waitresses out just before that, for confidentiality. If one of those is your source I'm wondering how she'd know so much.
Do
your whispers come from a waitress you're giving it to, sir?' Or did they come from someone who spotted Ralph and Brown in the hotel car park and hid and watched? Harpur could not ask that, though, as Harpur was not officially there.

‘In the past we've invited ourselves impromptu to their Agincourt dinners now and then near the cheese or liqueurs juncture, haven't we, Col?'

‘To show interest. In your friendly, positive way, sir, you thought Ralphy and Manse deserved that.'

‘Now, neither of us bothers. Why is this?'

‘No, neither of us. Nothing much ever came from our visits.'

‘And you'd rather be at home, sporting with the lovely undergrad.'

‘I might drift down and have a look at the Agincourt from a distance at the next one.'

They talked now in Harpur's room. Harpur had an armchair. Iles paced. He liked pacing, cultivated inborn pacing skills. He was nimble, slight, less than six feet tall, his grey hair back to normal length after a period when he went close-cropped after seeing an old Jean Gabin film. Iles looked the sort sure to hate the singing of ‘For He's a Jolly Good Fellow', no matter who led it, or who was the supposed jolly good fellow. Iles wouldn't really believe there could actually be such a thing as a jolly good fellow, only a song about a jolly good fellow. And this had to get those singing it to bellow and rebellow ‘so say all of us', because in fact most considered the jolly good fellow a turd.

Iles said: ‘Of course, my source thought it all very lovely, the choral aspect and general harmony of the evening. One
listens
to a source. One doesn't always accept altogether what's said. A source feeds material in. It is I who must decide its worth.'

‘Like Tony Blair used to say. Your source can't be a waitress if he/she was present for the singing and the formal speech. Have you got someone grassing to you from Ralph's lot, sir? Or Shale's?'

‘And then I gather Ralph's to be Mansel's best man.'

‘Ember will look great in the full ceremonial clobber, his jaw scar vivid above a very white shirt.'

‘What kind of a ploy is that, Col – Ralphy best-manning?'

‘They're long-time mates.'

‘I won't have gunfire in a fucking church, Harpur. This is going to be a proper C of E place, I'm told.'

‘Who by, sir?'

‘Not some non-Con shack.'

‘St James's.'

‘I'd hate it if such a congregation had to scurry.'

‘In what respect, sir?'

‘Away from bullets. Manse's people will know
exactly
where Ralph is going to be, all morning-suited and smiley. This might be rapid fire, spray weaponry. There are fine stained glass windows at St James's and fonts and screens. Terrible to hear of a font chipped by gunfire. Think, Col: it would be very poor form to wear a flak jacket over wedding duds, plus buttonhole carnation, and in such a joyous, kosher – as it were – setting.'

‘You think Manse is going to –?'

‘I wouldn't mind if we could guarantee they'd blast each other, preferably a double death, of course, but mutual serious disabling OK. We'd have a
tabula rasa
. If there's one thing right up my street it's a tabula rasa, Col.'

‘I've definitely heard somewhere of one of those. Or maybe more.'

‘
Tabulae rasae
. A clean sheet, or sheets,' Iles said.

Harpur wished he hadn't pushed Iles into that explanation. The words ‘sheet', ‘sheets' and/or ‘bed' and/or ‘back seat driver' could activate him. The ACC said: ‘Of course, you wouldn't know tabulae rasae, but perhaps you know the meaning of clean sheets. However, and
very
damn however, I wonder if the sheets stayed immaculate when you were exploring my wife in your comradely, heated, sneaky way, Harpur.' Iles began to scream, always a very recognizable, Iles-type, agonized scream, regardless of the particular words it carried at different times. Some spittle fell on to the right lapel of the blazer and lay there glistening, set off by the splendid, dark blue material, like dew on lavender. But Harpur knew that blazers were not special to the ACC's jealousy squalls. In the past, Harpur had seen spit cascade on to both a grey and a navy suit when Iles grew reminiscent in this painful way. Harpur stood and moved across the room, as was standard for him during an Iles spasm. He made sure the door had been properly closed. People at headquarters hung about in the corridor hoping to eavesdrop if they knew the ACC was spending some time privately with Harpur and might go into a hate fit.

There had been a time when Harpur tried to work out the state of the ACC's mind from the clothes he picked for the day. All the civilian garments Iles put on were high grade, custom-made and costly, but Harpur had attempted to tie each outfit to a mood, and so forecast a brilliant and/or amiable or deranged or even neutral spell from the Assistant Chief. Harpur devised a multi-coloured wall-chart in his room to display the relationship of outfits to behaviour, suppose one existed. He had disguised the chart as a breaking-and-entering graphic, and he coded as major warehouse robberies occasions when Iles actually had notable froth on his lips in an outburst – something more than a couple of droplets. Harpur kept the chart going for three months and at the end had to accept that Iles's brain and temper operated without regard to particular gear. (Obviously, Harpur excluded Iles's uniform from the survey because he wore this only when due at ceremonies and functions, and it was not a matter of choice.) The chart showed that Iles could be benign and/or constructive in a blazer and malignant and/or doolally in a blazer. It was wrong – unjust and naive – to suppose that when getting dressed for work he'd look at his wardrobe and deliberately choose something to flag up and increase, say, his viciousness and frenzy for the next eight hours or so.

‘What reaction by Manse, sir?' Harpur said.

‘To what?'

‘To the “For He's a Jolly Good Fellow”.'

‘What do her parents think of it?' Iles replied.

‘Whose?'

‘The undergraduate's. For instance, you're about twice her age, aren't you, quite apart from no-nos such as your clothes and back-street barbering?' ‘You see the likelihood of an attack by Manse on Ralph, do you, sir, not the other way about?' ‘People marrying above themselves get strange compulsions, Col. They try to up their personal status.'

‘
Is
he marrying above himself?'

‘It's a fair bet, isn't it, given who Manse is?'

‘Who?'

‘Manse.'

‘I sometimes think he has a kind of dignity, a kind of crooked dignity.'

‘What
you
think of as dignity, Harpur, most call moral decomposition. He'd need exceptionally good, accurate people.'

‘Who would?'

‘Manse. The best man stands very close. Shale won't want to get hit by friendly fire at his wedding. Or the bride. Yes, he'd probably worry about her, too. Manse in the Marriages and Deaths columns of the same
Times
issue – he'd loathe the idea of that.'

‘It might turn out to be a really fine occasion.'

‘Might it? In any case, that doesn't guarantee anything afterwards. Consider the younger Royals. Or, for instance, my wife and myself. This was a considerable occasion, her father something more or less worthwhile in Town Planning, and stretch limos for guests before stretch limos were everywhere.'

‘I for one would have bet on it.'

‘But what happens after a few years?' Iles's voice began to rise once more. ‘You'll see what I'm getting at, won't you, Harpur? Won't you, Harpur? She and someone I thought of as a dear, admittedly loutish, but unswerving colleague decided they would –'

‘If only one of them were killed in a gang battle – Ralph or Manse – which would you prefer it to be, sir?' Harpur replied.

‘Of course, Sarah can't understand now how or why she ever took up with someone of your make, Col. We often have a chuckle together at the preposterousness of it when looked back on.'

‘I believe one sign of a good marriage is husband and wife can chuckle together. That kind of joint chuckling is a true bond.'

‘Ralphy will dither, naturally,' Iles said. ‘He'll have spotted that Manse most likely wants to see him off. But, because Ralph is Ralph, he'll hesitate for as long as he can. He'll try to prove to himself that his dreads and suspicions are unwarranted. That will be
so
Ralphy. Part fear, part decency. In his generous, nervy style, he craves to think Manse really is a jolly good fellow despite the ferret features and art collection. Do you know what I'd guess, Col?'

Iles's guesses often amounted to clairvoyance. ‘I wonder, sir,' Harpur said.

‘Yes, I suppose you would.'

‘Many admire your guess facility.'

‘I'd say Ralph will try to put someone into Manse's firm to take some soundings, get at his intentions.'

‘A spy?'

‘But for the best of reasons – Ralphy-type, should-I? must-I? shall-I? reasons.'

‘Plant an observer? Your contact told you this, has some evidence of this?'

‘Of course fucking not, Harpur. My contact describes what is there to be seen and heard at the Agincourt. Nothing else. The factualness of the facts. This is as much as you can expect from a source. It's
my
function to see past these, Col – to envisage, to posit, to anticipate. This is the factor realm.'

Yes, the thing was, when Iles did some of his positing and all the rest of it he generally posited spot on. Harpur had seen this happen so regularly. And perhaps he'd seen it happening at the back of the Agincourt the other night – that secret, secretive, exchange between Ralph and Turret Brown. Iles might be right about Ember's methods. He would favour slow, stage-by-stage tactics – hesitant, cagey tactics. Hardly tactics at all. Ralph
could
take action, but he didn't like it much. Was he lining up someone to do a bit of a crafty drift into Mansel's grace and favour? Joachim would be a fair bet. His work as a courier brought a lot of intermingling. There'd be some half-open doors for him to try to edge through. Iles might have spotted the meaning of that meeting if his car-park source told him of it, or if he'd seen it himself. Perhaps Iles deserved the gold across his cap for gifted inklings, even if his outfits did get saliva'd sometimes.

‘Do you think he knows someone who could infiltrate like that and stay safe and effective, sir?'

‘Don't be smartarse, Harpur.'

‘In which respect, sir?'

‘“In which respect” what?'

‘“Smartarse” in which respect?'

‘Because it sickens me when you ask a straight question,' Iles said.

‘In which respect, sir?'

‘I know it means you already have the answer, or half the answer. You wouldn't humble your paltry little self more by showing ignorance. You've found out who's going in for him, have you?'

‘This would need to be someone who can hear the unspoken, read the unexpressed. Nobody's going to say outright to him, “We're planning to do Ralph.” Or not at first, anyway.'

‘You've found out who's going in for him, have you, Harpur?'

‘I'll do a data sift, and see if I can sort out some likelies.'