In the Absence of Iles (22 page)

Martlew said: ‘I hope this doesn’t sound far-fetched and precious, but there’s something terrible, almost disorientating, about the way my son, Dean Martlew, became Terence Marshall-Perkins, or The Quiff or Wally, and then ceases even to be any of these, according to some voices, and turns into Ian Lysaght Brain. This struck me so before, of course, when hearing the actual evidence. But it seemed worse in the sum-up words of the judge. She sounds so reasonable and measured. It’s like my son had, as it were, disappeared, had been dissipated into so many forms, had lost his essence, even before he died.’

To Esther it seemed a worthwhile chance for her finally to get some rapport with him. She said: ‘Yes, I’ve had the same thought, Mr Martlew, and –’

‘“Far-fetched”? “Precious”?’ Iles replied, thoughtfully.

‘I wouldn’t want my reactions to appear either,’ Martlew said.

‘Not in the least,’ Esther said. ‘These bewildering shifts of –’

‘Martlew, yes, you’re right, it
does
sound far-fetched and precious,’ Iles said. ‘Exactly the words for such chic twattishness.
Fucking
far-fetched and precious. I can’t stand “as it were” shit. Leave that to the writerly. Nothing of his essence was dissipated. He got shot from close and dumped in water. That’s not the same as dissipated essence. It’s slaughter and disposal. Bad, bad, bad. We’re here today because we’re mourning a real lad – your lad, Detective Sergeant Dean Martlew – so don’t pollute the genuine catastrophe with sale-price sodding pseudery about cliché crises of identity, OK? Many wish
I’d
have an identity crisis. They want me to decide I don’t exist and they’d landslide vote for it.’

Quickly, Esther said: ‘This shuffling off of names and assumption of other names, perhaps it tells us something about the nature of –’

‘It tells us nothing about the nature of anything except about the shuffling off of names and assumption of other names briefly,’ Iles said. ‘That’s simply basic undercover equipment – no mysticism or psychobabble bubbles. Half the driving tests in London are passed by people masquerading for someone else. The substitute driver assumes a string of Learner new names every day. The one who takes the tests doesn’t go home to Camden Town all twitchy and confused about loss of identity – the “Who really am I?” blather. He knows who he is, and hopes the police don’t, he meaning she as well here, of course. He’s the guy with the money, that’s who he is. He’s got hundreds of quid in his pocket and more to come from the same charades tomorrow. It belongs to the one-and-only Camden Town him. That is, the original Mr Wheels him; the cash-heavy, undissipated essence of him; the himness of him. His advertising says,
“Your
name,
my
driving.” The judge obviously believes it really was Ian Lysaght Brain at Dunkley Wharf, anyway, the retarded old bitch, so she’d dismiss the last name change.’

They began their walk to a pub. Esther resisted looking behind. It would be pathetic to seem scared Gerald might tail her. ‘I think it’s all right,’ Iles said.

‘What?’ Esther said.

‘He’s not there,’ Iles said.

‘I don’t have to worry about that either way,’ Esther said.

‘Good.’

She hadn’t noticed Iles make checks to see if they were followed. ‘How do you know he’s not there?’ she said.

‘It’s the sort of thing I
do
know,’ he said. ‘At Staff College I was called Ungumshoeable Iles, hard to shorten.’

‘Those two did see my son at Dunkley on 8 June,’ Martlew said. He was between Iles and Esther as they walked.

‘I don’t have anything against people who run snack bars,’ Iles replied.

‘They described my son. Unmistakable,’ Martlew said, ‘when they gave their evidence and today, in the judge’s version.’

‘Rowan and Bates?’ Iles said. ‘Disastrous witnesses. Couldn’t they have been enhanced a bit?’

‘How enhanced a bit?’ Esther said.

‘Their testimony smartened up, given better focus,’ Iles said.

‘Someone else suggested a similar ploy to me,’ Esther said, ‘about the campaign against Cormax Turton generally.’

‘Who suggested it?’ Iles said.

‘A fine detective here. Bernard Stonevale. He was retiring. At his leave party.’

‘It’s good he should be out of the service if he can make disgraceful suggestions like that,’ Iles said.

‘But
you
just did,’ Esther said.

‘The ineptness of talking to you about it,’ Iles said. ‘And when he’s no longer active.’

‘You mean he should just have got on with it privately, done it?’ Esther said.

‘“A fine detective”, as you call him, would be able to get the feel of a situation,’ Iles said.

‘You told me to keep everything straight,’ Esther said.

‘I told you to keep everything straight and win,’ Iles said.

‘I did keep everything straight, to win,’ Esther said.

‘But what
is
win?’ Martlew said. ‘A conviction won’t bring back my –’

‘Not more fucking flim-flam, for God’s sake,’ Iles replied. ‘A win is Ambrose Tutte Turton locked up for ever as cold murderer of your boy, and the firm imploding soon after. Doesn’t that sound like victory? One villain inside and a villain network expunged. They might be scared of Cormax Turton,’ Iles said.

‘Who?’ Esther said.

‘Rowan and Bates.’

‘We’d have given them witness protection if necessary,’ Esther said. ‘They’d been told.’

‘Yes, but they might be scared of Cormax Turton, just the same,’ Iles replied.

‘Do
you
believe he was there on 8 June, Mr Iles?’ Martlew said.

‘Who?’ Iles said.

‘Dean,’ Martlew said.

‘For instance, to improve their value in the box, Bates and Rowan could have been briefed with special distinctive features about his shoes, say, or hand-jewellery, things they’d swear they’d noticed before,’ Iles said. ‘It was all there, I gather, on the body.’

‘What do
you
think, Mr Iles?
Was
Dean on the wharf?’ Martlew said. ‘If not, where was he during those days in late May, early June?’

‘And tonight, when you get home and he gets home, will it be all right?’ Iles said.

‘He’s intensely taken up with music,’ Esther replied. ‘It possesses him.’

‘Will it be all right, when you and he get home tonight? Iles said. ‘Some music makes them tetchy and cruel. César Franck.’

They reached the pub and Iles bought ploughman’s lunches and beer for the three. In a while she saw Gerald look in at a window behind Iles and Martlew. Yes, like the starving kid in the restaurant picture, but less easy to sympathize with: she’d applaud a restaurant owner who went out, handed him a couple of old monkfish bits and told him to piss off. She smiled a quick, confidential smile at Gerald while the others were preoccupied with their food, and tried also to make it a smile that pleaded with him not to come in with his teeming lunacies and piffling resentments, while yet thanking him unstintingly for his husbandly closeness to her in a time of true tension.
Off to the fucking Millicent you bilious roving soul.
Esther didn’t mention that Gerald was there, because she thought Iles would be mortified at getting successfully gumshoed in daylight on a main street by someone with a lurid, loosely worn bow-tie on and carrying a bassoon.

Gerald did not enter the pub and disappeared again. Probably he’d be thinking up some nicely structured malice for when he and she were next alone, if he had time for such ideas before the Millicent, or wherever the work was – malice not necessarily to do with César Franck. There’d been a time when she kept an excellent masonry hammer handy, but this had come to seem crude and unfair and she’d given it to a charity as very suitable for development work in the Third World. On the way back to the court, Iles said: ‘He showed again, did he, your clever music man? I thought the “Get lost, sweetheart” smile a masterpiece, and I’ve seen a lot of them from women.’

*
See
Protection

3. On the Waterfront

Near the start of that Millicent car park evening conference in Channing’s pool Rover, Dean Martlew had said: ‘Of course, I’ve been trying to get in on the dockside operations.’

‘Don’t rush them,’ Esther said.

‘I don’t know what that means,’ Dean said.

‘Don’t rush them. You make yourself noticeable. Too eager. Let things develop.’

‘They might not,’ Dean said.

‘No, they might not. But it’s safer like that.’

‘I’d have been wasting my time there.’

‘Patience – it’s one of the chief requirements in undercover. I know. I’ve done it,’ Esther said, and thought, Oh, God, so weighty, so historical!

‘Their docks operation is a sure route for me to Ambrose,’ Dean said. ‘I don’t see a route to Cornelius or Palliative at all. But Ambrose seems to control all their waterfront activity. Look, ma’am, so far I do some street-level, chickenfeed dealing with H and Charlie and this is about it. One up from a courier.’

‘How
I
began,’ Esther said, ‘though not so much Charlie about then. How most undercover starts.’

‘I’ll never get to the management that way. We’ve got to know the scale of things, haven’t we, if the prosecution’s to be worthwhile – how Cormax Turton is organized, the turnover, their substances suppliers, the pay Cornelius, Palliative, Ambrose draw? All right, I know we have
something
on their business structure, but no detail in depth. And I’m nowhere near discovering any of that.’

‘The Pope didn’t start in the Vatican,’ Esther said. ‘Slowly. They’re watching you. All of them. I expect you can feel that. You’re someone with no checkable past.’

‘Well, I hope so,’ Dean said.

‘They’re fond of checkable pasts, like a prince picking a bride. They’re
used
to checkable pasts. Your sort makes them uncertain. They’re always on guard, but now they’ll be very, very on guard. I’d bet they’ve heard the long-time investigation’s a likely write-off. They won’t assume that’s the end, though. The thing about true, career crooks is they know from a kind of modesty/arrogance that this is what they are, crooks, and that they have to be hounded. Somehow. It’s a kind of social imperative. And if they’re
not
hounded and hunted, they think it’s because they’ve become negligible and must be missing something good: a kind of slight on their work. So, now, they’ll be watchful for a different ploy. You’re it. They don’t know, and won’t know – mustn’t know – until you’re out of there, but they’ll wonder. Possibly, they’ve even heard I’ve been to Fieldfare. CT have a good Intelligence Unit. Although they’ll try for a trace on you, the biog we built has several sweetly placed brick walls and go-nowhere mazes,’ Esther said. ‘You’ve spread the tale?’

‘Sure,’ Dean said. ‘Liverpool, France, Italy, Ruislip, Preston. I’ve told them.’

‘Not all at once.’

‘I eked it, as rehearsed. Anecdotal. Like, “The police in Milan – too bloody tough and efficient, so I decided to quit Italy.” That kind of thing. And they might say, “How, too bloody tough and efficient, Terry?”’

‘And what do you answer?’ Esther said.

‘Well, obviously, I’d had that briefing on Milan before I went into CT – a briefing on all the spots in my supposed past – Marseilles, Preston, Liverpool, Ruislip.’

‘Stick exactly to what you were told,’ Esther said.

‘I do.’

‘Nothing too damn graphic or specific,’ Esther said. ‘They can check these things, you know. CT will have connections in Italy, especially a wealth centre like Milan.’

‘I wasn’t given street names to quote or even districts – not for any of these places. Just “Milan” or “Ruislip”.’

‘That’s all right,’ Esther said. ‘They’ll notice the vagueness, maybe, but villains don’t like talking over-thick details about their past, even to other villains. ‘

‘I just say, “I was lucky to get out. I went to lie low, very fucking low, in Liverpool for months, and then a move to Preston, all under extremely changeable names, naturally. I’m not Terry in any of those places. Well, you wouldn’t fucking expect it, would you!”’

‘You and Superintendent Channing agreed some fine alternative names, didn’t you – additional to Terry and our own coverall, Wally?’ Esther said.

‘“Klaus Nightingale”, “Lance Vesty”, “Hugo Maine-Sillett”. I would have quite liked being a Lance, in, say, Marseilles. It’s got something – glamour and barminess. I see Lance in very dark three-piece real wool suits, despite the Mediterranean heat, and a nose stud. Lance is one up on Wally, for sure.’

‘Do they ask?’ Esther said.

‘What?’

‘Which name you used where?’ Esther said. ‘Such as, “So, were you Lance Vesty when operating in Marseilles, Terry, and Hugo Maine-Sillett in Ruislip?” This could be awkward, if they go for a trace and can’t get any confirmation that Lance Vesty ever villainized in Marseilles.’

‘Not yet,’ Dean said.

‘Not yet what?’ Esther said.

‘As far as I know,’ Dean replied.

‘What as far as you know?’ Esther said.

‘As far as I know, they haven’t attempted to tie one of the extra names to one of the places,’ Dean said.

‘What does that mean?’ Esther said.

‘What?’ he said.

‘“As far as I know.” How
would
you know?’ Esther said.

‘Nobody’s mentioned it,’ Dean said.

‘Nobody would, surely?’ Esther replied.

‘I sort of
feel
they haven’t,’ Dean said.

‘“Sort of feel” it why?’ Esther said.

‘Yes, sort of feel it,’ Dean said.

‘I’m not sure I like this, the lack of curiosity about your background,’ Esther said.

‘When I say “not yet”, my feeling is they would certainly do these CV checks abroad and in Preston and so on if they came to think I might be phoney, but at present they believe I’m all right,’ Dean answered.

‘Do they repeat things, or even write them down?’ Esther said.

‘Which things?’

‘When you say you were Lance in Marseilles and Hugo Maine-Sillett in Ruislip –’

‘Hugo Maine-Sillett in Preston. Klaus Nightingale in Ruislip,’ Dean replied.