Play Dead (2 page)

‘Is it possible, Col - abandoned, given up on? Oh, God, no. No! OK, Harpur, policing deals with the - what did you say? With the feasible, the achievable. Is that
worth
saying, it's so trite? “Art of the possible” and similar jargon. But I'm one who believes the feasible and the achievable should be constantly extended, should be forcibly stretched by an officer of flair and grit.'

Iles paused. He did some very genuine work on getting modesty into his face and wordage. ‘Please don't think, Col, these are terms I've suddenly and egotistically claimed to describe myself. No, hardly! But it's my mother. I'm indebted to my mother. She would joyously, wonderingly employ them about me as a child. “Desmond,” she'd exclaim, “flair and grit - they are so brilliantly and resoundingly yours!” I wouldn't claim to
like
my mother, but she had perception and a kind of vocabulary.'

‘Mothers can come out with all sorts,' Harpur said.

‘In what sense, Col?'

‘Remarks.'

‘Which?'

‘Remarks. They're what make mothers what they are.'

‘In which respect, Col?'

‘Often they mean well,' Harpur replied.

‘Did
your
mother make remarks about you? Oh, dear, I'm sorry, Col. But at least it helped you develop a splendidly thick skin,' Iles said. ‘Elastic and thick. You bounce back, regardless.'

‘Regardless of what, sir?'

‘Regardless, yes.'

The ACC continued to pace. Harpur could certainly spot agitation in this movement, but also observed resolve and a kind of cheetah-like, latent, on-tap energy. The two, big adjoining rooms had a connecting pair of doors. Iles needed these open to provide honest distance for his lopes. He passed through the gap now and went out of Harpur's sight for a while. Iles stayed audible, though. Both shouted a little when the ACC was at his farthest in there, trekking around a long conference table. Harpur kept to routine comments at this stage. It would have been off-key and unfair to bellow his special material while the ACC was yet a great way off, like the Prodigal, and absurd to phone him on his mobile. After a few minutes Iles returned, clearly still troubled.

He wore his pale blue dress uniform of magnificent material for some Lord Mayoral function he had to attend later. Iles didn't altogether despise these events and Harpur had heard he would even behave quite temperately at them, unless, of course, something or someone enraged him, which could happen. The office pacing slowed now, then ended. Iles lowered himself into another of the red, leather-covered easy chairs. The colours of his outfit and the upholstery contrasted, but more or less tolerably. ‘I feel terrible guilt, Col,' he said. ‘I, Iles, fell short.'

In an abrupt change from the slick grace of his recent in-house stroll, he seemed now to sit stricken, huddled forward around his shame, as if to conceal it; and yet, also, in a weird, masochistic, Des-Ilesian way, to cherish it - guard it, enfold it protectively, like a hen-bird with its eggs, because he, Des Iles, deserved it, had thoroughly earned it by what he would see as vast, unpardonable incompetence.
I, Iles, fell short:
that merciless pinpointing of his name, with the disturbing paired clangs of the ‘I' sounds;
I Iles
- so poignant. ‘Do you realize, Harpur, someone at Larkspur is laughing at me, at my defeat? Or maybe more than one. A dire, filthy phalanx of them, chortling at my bungling, drinking toasts to Iles's consummate ineptitude.'

‘Laughing at both of us, sir.'

‘Oh?'

‘If it's to do with failure to net the organizer - organizers? - of that death,' Harpur said. ‘I, too, was defeated.' By volunteering at once to accept his part in the shambles he longed to lessen the ACC's pain, divert a share of it. But, immediately he'd spoken, Harpur realized this was an idiotic, impertinent, lese-majesty error. Arrogantly, it presumed a kind of equality between him and Iles, a parity of suffering and self-disgust, whereas the ACC's suffering and self-disgust would be unmatchably awful.

‘They'll laugh more viciously, more convulsively at me - a hierarchy aspect,' Iles replied. ‘Just think of Hiroshima, Col.'

‘True.'

‘They needed a suitably significant target to drop the bomb on, not some outlying village, but a grand city. Targets have to be worthwhile, Col.'

‘Very few would say you were not worthwhile, sir, whether as a target or anything else.'

‘Which very fucking few, Harpur?'

‘Maud has been in touch, sir,' he replied. Harpur knew, of course, this would agonizingly rile the ACC but it couldn't be avoided. Ultimately, progress had to take over from timid tact. Ultimately was here.

‘Maud Logan Clatworthy? Home Office Maud? “In touch”? In touch with
you
?' Iles whisper-gasped these dazed phrases. The announcement had scattered his calm for a moment. He raised his left hand and stroked his chest in an instinctive twitch, as though trying to free up his lungs.

‘I think you might have been difficult to reach at the time,' Harpur said.

‘But she could reach
you
, all right, could she, Harpur? Naturally. In London, did you eventually get around to giving her something to remind her of you?' Iles recovered to ordinary speech level: an authentic, pedigree snarl, perfect for sarcasm. ‘Home Office Maud,' was a whizz kid who had sent them on their anti-corruption mission to Larkspur. They'd spent a lot of time in Whitehall getting briefed by her. Iles had thought she showed extra interest in Harpur - little to do with the job, much to do with sex.

‘She believes she can get the investigation “reactivated”,' Harpur said. ‘Maud's no more content than we are with the way it finished - finished without finishing.'

‘She told you this? You had some nice, intimate prattle?' Iles sweetly feminized his larynx: ‘“Oh, it will be so grand and lovely, Colin, to team up again, don't you think? I'm really thrilled,”' he fluted. But then he reverted for a while to a normal, enraged male voice. ‘She knows, doesn't she, because I told her at one of our previous meetings - you heard me tell her - I told her that not long ago 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? Yet this doesn't put dear Maud off, does it? What is it with you and women? Do they look at your garments and haircut and general air of decay and pity you - want to help you in one of the few ways available to them, such as letting you bang them 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? They find your clothes frightful, so prefer them off?'

Iles had now begun to scream, as he usually did when discussing Harpur and Sarah Iles. His voice went back to the high register needed to do Maud, and soon soared and quivered much higher. Minor froth appeared on his lower lip - minor in quantity, as compared to other foamings from Iles that Harpur had witnessed in the past, but not at all minor in quality, no: thick, throbbing flakes of spit, each a wet, glistening proof of his pain and disarray. His breathing became laboured and desperate, like a dog's half strangled by its lead and collar.

In a while he recovered and asked: ‘Does Maud realize you have no respect for—?'

‘As I say, sir, Maud would have spoken direct to you, but met unavailability,' Harpur replied. ‘Daisy, her PA, tried repeatedly. Maud felt deep disappointment, but made do with talking to me. Very made-do. Possibly you were at another of these civic bean-feasts. Understandably you get so many invites. You confer on their little occasions what I think is known as cachet - brilliant distinction. They adore having someone of rank present in full but tasteful gear to bring undeniable class, don't they?'

‘Well,
was
I at a function?' Iles said. ‘When did she speak to you? This is easily checkable against my diary. Couldn't she have emailed, voicemailed?'

‘Not regarded as secure. Think of the
News of the World
hacking scandal. Think of detectives trawling emails for evidence of corruption at
The Sun.
'

‘So she goes to dearest Col whose ears and zip are always open. If he's not debauching my wife, he has this undergrad piece from the university up the road. Denise? That's her, isn't it?'

‘Maud particularly wanted
us
to carry out any further digging at Larkspur, not have the matter handed over to some other combo,' Harpur replied. ‘We already understand so much about the situation, the murder venue, the supposed hunt, the ambush, the blood spillage. And she was very insistent that I should let you know of this development soonest.'

‘Should “let me know”?'

‘Soonest.'

‘Allow me into the loop finally?'

‘Soonest.'

‘Kindly,' Iles said.

‘I think she has you very much in mind, sir.'

‘Nice.'

M
aud did get the operation ‘reactivated' and Harpur and Iles went back to re-snoop and re-interview and re-dredge at Larkspur. Maud must have managed to convince her chiefs that sending the gunman to jail should be only the first move in a full Larkspur clean-up. He'd been very tidily scapegoated: loaded with all the blame for Carnation man's death. But who'd done the loading? Who'd given the executioner his orders? Who controlled him? Who, ultimately, hung him out to dry? Who could scare him so much he wouldn't talk, even for a reduced sentence trade? Who was money-doling and generally protecting his family as long as he stayed shtum? Who'd be making sure he got good stuff in jail, also as long as he stayed shtum? What dug-in crooked power group lay behind him? Did it still flourish?

This last she regarded as the crux question, touching now and the future. The murder and trial and conviction were the past. Or
merely
the past, Maud would probably say, in that brusque, now-get-your-ear-around-this style of hers. Maud thought big. Maud thought practical. Maud thought the present, but Maud also thought days and maybe years beyond the present. Maud thought the Home Office could often do with a kick up the arse from somebody who worked there and who despised non-interventionism - such as Maud Logan Clatworthy. She'd be late twenties, not more, maybe less. Daisy Fenton, her personal assistant, was at least twice Maud's age.

According to Iles, Maud would have a first-class Oxford or Cambridge degree in a very non-vocational subject, such as Philosophy or the Classics or both, and this should indicate true brain-bright scope. Also according to Iles, though, most of her superiors in the Home Office would similarly have first-class Oxbridge degrees in a very non-vocational subject. This ought to mean, didn't it, that they likewise should have true brain-bright scope? Just the same, Maud thought some of them needed a kick up the arse. From inside Maud knew the slowness and blasé languor and indecisiveness of the place. Maybe Maud had a
super
-first-class degree, a first-class degree with bells on, and therefore her brain-bright scope outscoped theirs. The kick up the arse might help them extend and revitalize their scope.

When Harpur and the ACC arrived at Larkspur for this second investigation and had booked into the same hotel as before, Iles decided there should be a bit of theatre. ‘Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, and defy time, Harpur.'

‘Time's always out there, sir.'

‘That's a fact, Col. Time future is contained in time past, you could say.'

‘And I do, sir. It's one of the chief things about time - it never stops. Even while we've been talking about time, time has moved on. Clocks can stop, but not time.'

‘Don't go fucking ruminative on me now, Harpur. Look, Col, we'll re-create those rough, past circumstances and observe them as though afresh.'

‘Which circumstances, sir?' Harpur said.

‘A death, of course.'

‘How?' Harpur said. They were in the hotel bar. Harpur had a double gin topped up with cider in a half-pint glass, his usual. Iles drank what he called ‘the old tarts' drink', port and lemon,
his
usual.

‘How what?'

‘How re-create the circumstances?'

‘We'll mimic the gunshot moments of the undercover man's murder.'

‘Mimic?'

‘Reprise. Closely imitate. Carry no identification, Col, just in case.'

‘In case of what, sir?'

‘Yes, just in case. We'll do it on location, where it actually happened. Authentic.'

‘Play-act the killing?'

‘Ah, you'll, naturally, be thinking of
Hamlet
, I know,' Iles said.

‘Inevitably.'

‘You'll have in mind, Col, the theatrical troupe who
portray
a murder, while Hamlet is considering a
real
murder, himself. It's eerie. I should imagine you've had many a shiver while watching this part of the drama from your seat in the gods.'

‘Right. But what can we discover? We've already identified the killer and had him convicted.'

‘We'll possibly learn something we previously missed - something in addition to the simple, limited shoot-bang-fire of the assassination, Col. We must seek its context, Harpur, its place in the overall villainous pageant.'

‘Most probably the Carnation officer wouldn't have regarded the shoot-bang-fire as limited, sir. It finished him. But I suppose it
was
limited in the sense both bullets hit him, and nobody else.'

‘He was just one step up from a nobody, Col, only a minor figure in a savage, wider scene. Our aim is to find the meaning of this figure among many others, some vastly more tasty and grand.'

Harpur accepted that Iles had a right, even a duty, to think and talk in this large, billowing, bullshitting style now and then. He was an Assistant Chief, for God's sake, and Assistant Chiefs always came with a cartload of wordage. And so, at what Harpur had called ‘the murder venue', he took the part of the twice-shot man, and Iles became the sniper. There wouldn't be any Oscars. It was a building site of new dwellings, but hit by the recession and uncompleted so far. They'd be comfy, hygienic, executive-style villas with three bathrooms if they ever got finished - and if there were enough solvent executives around then to afford the deposit, and tell members of the household which bathroom they'd been allocated.