The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries Read online

  This funeral, then, Harpur considered could be one of the worst: one of the worst, that is, from the Iles aspect. Harpur guessed that, to describe the death, Iles would have been rehearsing some of his favourite terms, such as “symbolic”, “ironic” and “encapsulates”, for any pastoral chat he might choose to offer. If he turned to abuse of one or several or all of his targets, the words might be “slimy”, “smug”, “somnolent”, “supine”. Yesterday, Harpur suggested to him – hopelessly – that it would be wise, in view of the extraordinary tensions, to send someone of lower rank to represent them – for instance, Chief Inspector Francis Garland. “How about thinking of it for once from my angle, sir,” Harpur had said.

  “Which angle would that be, then, Col?”

  “Well, it could be stressful. If you become – I mean, I might have to do another grapple, and—”

  “My soul’s involved here, Harpur,” Iles replied.

  “That’s what I’m getting at, sir.”

  “What?”

  “The buzz will be around.”

  “Which buzz is that, then, Col?”

  “Re your soul, sir,” Harpur said. “People will tell one another: ‘This funeral: another Mr Iles soul session.’”

  “I do try not to make too much of it – my soul. Showiness one abhors. Performances one detests.”

  “But people already know you can be very souly, sir. You’re famed for it. Probably it’s on your Personnel dossier. ‘Deeply souly.’ People will realise you’re likely to become uncontrollably moved . . . well . . . even berserked by the funeral, so we’ll get an enormous crowd there, sightseers, not just mourners, gawking in case you put on one of your perf . . . in case your soul takes over again in that tremendous way it has. The shouting, the arc of armpit sweat, the alliteration.”

  “I must go,” Iles replied. “We must go.” They had talked in the ACC’s suite at headquarters. Harpur occupied a leather armchair. Iles paced. He liked to concentrate on nimbleness. There was a long wall-mirror near the door for him to check his appearance in civvies or uniform before going out. Harpur noticed Iles kept his eyes away from that now, though, which must signal he had bad feelings again about how his Adam’s apple looked. The ACC regarded his Adam’s apple as part of a skilfully focused, foul genetic joke against him. He had on one of his navy blazers, plus narrow-cut, dark grey flannel trousers to do his legs justice, and what might be a rugby club tie. He said: “This funeral demands me, Col. My presence. Well, our.”

  “I—”

  “Unignorable, Col. This death, this pyre – unignorable.”

  “I—”

  “Oh, you’ll reply, ‘It was merely someone accidentally peppered in a gang spat.’”

  “Well, no, I don’t think I would ever . . . I see nothing ‘merely’ about any death, sir. It’s just that, perhaps as far as the funeral goes, we—”

  “People, Col. You mentioned people.”

  “Is that OK?”

  “People in relation to my soul.”

  “Very much so.”

  “They’re an interesting entity, Harpur.”

  “Who?”

  “People.”

  “Absolutely sir, but—”

  “Yes, it’s a fact, Col. Out there, where they immemorially are, people do seem fascinated by me.”

  “Patent, sir.”

  “Many would like an, as it were, glance into my soul.”

  “I’ve heard more than one express this longing,” Harpur said.

  “How many more?”

  “Or a desire to know you in what they call ‘the round’. They wonder what you’re like ‘in the round’.”

  “It’s something I by no means understand.”

  “What, sir?” Harpur replied.

  “This . . . well, yes, I don’t think this exaggerates . . . this fascination.”

  “That’s because of your astonishing flair for self-effacement and—”

  “Much less do I actually seek their fascination, Col.”

  “Few would accuse you of that, sir.”

  “Which fucking few, Harpur?” The ACC stared from this third-floor window down on to passers-by in the street, as though some of that disgusting few might be there, conspiring. In a while he turned back: “Let me ask: what was that poor sod doing when wiped out, Col?”

  “This has been thoroughly covered in the reports, sir.”

  “I know, I know. You see it’s symbolic, do you, Harpur?”

  “Symbolic?”

  “You spot the irony?”

  “Irony, sir?”

  “These are terms that always confuse your struggling little mind, don’t they? But I certainly absolve you of blame for this. I think of that bloody nothing school you went to.”

  “Someone was shot,” Harpur replied.

  “Let me ask again: what was this poor sod doing when wiped out?”

  “Religious tract deliveries on Valencia Esplanade and in the side streets.”

  “Exactly, Col. And that is surely why we must be at the funeral. This death – I have described it as symbolic. Yes, I think so. This death – I have described it as ironic, painfully ironic. Yes, I think so. Doesn’t it tell of our times, Harpur? Yes, tell of our dismal, sickening times. A man, Walter Rainsford Lonton, devotedly, pro-actively taking religion to householders, blasted suddenly by thugs. Anarchy? Hellishness? Barbarism triumphant? Forgive me, do, Col, but here’s another one you may have heard me use before and been baffled by – ‘encapsulates?’ It’s a word. You’ll find it in the dictionary. For me, this shooting encapsulates appalling social decline, moral decline. It’s happening everywhere, Harpur, accelerating.”

  Symbolic. Ironic. Encapsulates. Yes, Harpur feared these perennial insights would almost certainly pop up if Iles went into his standard mode at the funeral and splurged some bounteous, thudding, possibly actionable, bum oratory. Iles liked fixing a worldwide significance to limited local incidents and crises. It could be a tic taken from the former Chief Constable, Mark Lane, who’d always feared universal disintegration might begin on his patch from some seemingly limited local incident and crisis. A doorstepping, part-time missionary holed by two .38 bullets in the back would constitute such a seemingly limited local incident and crisis. Iles saw endless ramifications. Perhaps all officers who made it to Staff College had this habit of bumper-size thinking banged into them. Iles used to mock Mark Lane for his dreads. Now, though, the ACC seemed to echo them.

  “But then again, I don’t suppose you suffer much anxiety about social decline, moral decline, Harpur,” Iles said. His voice shifted upwards towards an agony scream or screech-owl cry. Harpur took a few steps across the room and checked the door had been properly closed. This was routine when Iles seemed on his way to a reminiscence interlude. Headquarters staff would hang about the corridor outside Iles’s suite if they knew he was talking privately to Harpur, in case they could eavesdrop one of the Assistant Chief’s fits. Iles said: “Social decline, moral decline – they couldn’t have mattered much to you when giving one to my wife in bed-bug hotels, vehicles – including possibly even official police vehicles – and, I wouldn’t be surprised, on industrial canal tow-paths.”

  “How’s your nice leggy friend down Valencia Esplanade, sir?” Harpur replied.

  “Honorée? Troubled. A kind of superstition has crept in. Fears the Esplanade area’s jinxed. She likes to work other sites since the shooting.”

  “We think we’ve got several decent leads on the people involved, sir,” Harpur replied. “Some locals, some not.”

  “My faith in you is total, Col.” the Assistant Chief said.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “As to the job, I mean, Harpur.”

  In fact, Iles behaved with great and sustained sweetness at the funeral. For Harpur, the proceedings turned out significant, not on account of any outbursts by the ACC, but because suddenly, from behind, someone, a male, muttered, very close to Harpur’s ear, “I guessed you and Ilesy would be here, so took a cha
nce. Number Three. Ten tonight.”

  This was at the very end. The coffin had left for the crem and a general shifting about among the congregation began as people edged from their seats towards the aisles, making for the door. The place was as crowded as Harpur had expected, so this dispersal took a while. Harpur did not turn to see the man who’d whispered. Unnecessary. And it might have been unwise. Of course, he recognized the voice. Although it stayed low, and had to compete with an organ finale, Harpur knew who’d spoken to him in the throng. And, of course, he understood the message.

  Iles had, indeed, given an address, but by invitation, and he made it short and heartfelt. Today, in Harpur’s opinion, the Assistant Chief could be regarded by almost anyone fair-minded as virtually decent and stable, even an asset, regardless of previous form at such functions. Iles referred to the “terrible symbolic impact” and “grim, searing irony” of Lonton’s death. But he ditched “encapsulates”. This, after all, was a Gospel Hall service, and the congregation mainly ordinary people whose education might have been as ramshackle as Harpur’s. Iles, gazing out upon them, taking their tone, probably realized that “encapsulates” would sound fruity here. Iles could be surprisingly sensitive if you had time to wait.

  Gospel Halls ran without clergy or ministers, and the funeral was conducted by a gruff, middle-aged man in a black jacket and silver pinstriped trousers. After he had preached from the platform about Lonton and his certainty of heaven, he asked if anyone else wished to say something. Iles hesitated. It astonished Harpur, but he detected a definite, as if modest, reluctance: perhaps Iles recognized the salt-of-the-earth qualities in this congregation and would not impose on it any of his mad monkeying and egomaniac slobber: witness, later, that editing out of “encapsulates”. The simplicity, plainness, unpretentiousness of Gospel Halls might be new to him. Not to Harpur: he’d been sent to Sunday School at one as a child. He remembered emulsion-painted walls similar to these, adorned only with large-letter Bible verses.

  The ACC went forward eventually and climbed on to the platform. He’d brought with him a couple of Lonton’s tracts, mud-stained from the pavement and blood-flecked. Iles held them up for a time, and then read aloud the text from their front page: “It is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgement.” Iles nodded. “Harpur will do what he can about the judgement.” Afterwards, the Assistant Chief remained up near the top end of the Hall until everything finished, and then talked there for a while with some of the family.

  Back home, Harpur found his two daughters had watched television news coverage of the cortège. “Some of them at school say police can’t keep the streets safe any longer,” Hazel told him.

  “Who at school?” Harpur replied.

  “You want names? You want me to fink?”

  “I mean, pupils or staff?” Harpur said.

  “Which would worry you more?” Hazel replied.

  “Neither. They’d both be wrong,” he said.

  “My friends say it,” Hazel replied.

  “Staff as well, I expect,” Harpur said.

  “I hate it when people say rotten things about you, Dad,” Jill told him.

  “I’ve heard worse,” Harpur replied.

  “Dad, listen, I think you ought to pack something,” Jill said.

  “We don’t talk like that,” Harpur said.

  “Like what?” Jill asked.

  “ ‘Pack something’, of course,” Hazel said. “Do you know how dim you sound, a thirteen-year-old, with words pinched from cop dramas – corny, ancient, reshown TV cop dramas?”

  “I think Dad should have a gun,” Jill said. “OK? What do the all-wise and wonderful fifteen-year-old and her all-wise and wonderful friends feel about that, then?”

  “Have you lost control of the streets, Dad? Valencia Esplanade is ‘No Go?’” Hazel asked.

  “Of course he hasn’t lost control of the streets,’ Jill bellowed at her, half about to cry. “Or he wouldn’t if he packed something. It’s obvious. I think he should look after himself. You should look after yourself, Dad. People blasting from cars. What could you do? What could this poor Holy Joe do? He’d got some bits of paper. What’s the use of them?”

  “You sound like the US gun lobby: bang-bangs for everyone,” Hazel said.

  “Not for everybody. For Dad.”

  “I have to go out later,” Harpur replied. “I might be late. Lock up properly and turn in.” He single-parented since Megan’s terrible death, and found it a strain sometimes.

  “Go out where?” Hazel said.

  “Work,” Harpur replied.

  “Is it?” Hazel asked.

  “Yes,” Harpur said.

  “Of course it is,” Jill said.

  “What work?” Hazel asked.

  She liked to keep track of his morals. “Routine,” Harpur said.

  “Is this a one-to-one with a grass, for example?” Jill said.

  “Routine,” Harpur replied.

  “You ought to pack something,” Jill said.

  “And we don’t call them grasses,” Harpur said. Of course, everyone did call them grasses, but the term seemed wrong from a child. “Informants, Jill.”

  “What’s the difference?” she asked. “Informants grass, don’t they, the same as grasses grass? Wasn’t there a song – ‘Why Do You Whisper Green Grass?’”

  “No police force could run without informants,” Harpur said. “They are valuable and often brave people.”

  “I didn’t say they weren’t, did I? I only said they grass.”

  “ ‘Grass’ makes them sound contemptible,” Harpur said.

  “So?” Jill replied.

  And, yes, it was for a one-to-one with an informant that Harpur left them at about 9.30 p.m., perhaps the greatest grass Harpur had ever met. Perhaps the greatest grass any detective had ever met. When Harpur did meet him, it had to be in reliable secrecy. Grasses could lose limbs for grassing, could get killed for grassing. Among villains, grassing rated as easily the greatest villainy, maybe the only villainy. Harpur made for an old concrete block house on the foreshore, built during the war to help throw the Germans back into the sea if they ever tried it on, and still standing. Harpur reached it just before ten o’clock. Jack Lamb was already there. Lamb seemed to like this spot best of their carefully varied rendezvous points, their Number Three, as he’d called it at the funeral.

  It was dark, and darker inside the windowless block house. An occasional flash of moon poked through a loophole when the clouds cleared for a few minutes. Jack had on what might be a cavalry officer’s “bum-freezer” greatcoat, designed for when cavalry meant horses, not tanks, and cut deliberately short, like a riding jacket. Jack stood six foot five and weighed over two hundred and fifty pounds, so there was a lot of bum to freeze. He also wore a green Commando beret, with some large badge on it, which Harpur could not identify in the darkness. Whenever they came to Three, Lamb liked to wear army surplus clobber, in keeping. In each hand tonight he carried a brown briefcase, perhaps also once military. These cases looked well-filled, as if he would soon be off to brief Eisenhower for D-Day. Jack put both on the filthy concrete floor, opened them and brought out six automatic pistols, which he laid alongside one another on the leather. Harpur thought they might be 9 mm Walthers.

  “As to the Walter Rainsford Lonton aftermath, you’ll need these, Col,” he said. “You’ve got to pack something.”

  “I keep getting told that.”

  “Because it’s right. Who by?”

  “It’s well intentioned,” Harpur replied.

  “Of course it’s well intentioned. Tooling up – vital at this stage.”

  “That right, Jack? Which stage?”

  “You’ve got to recruit a little private army – you and if poss five others.”

  “That right, Jack?”

  “I don’t want a big mob of police.”

  “Where don’t you want a big mob of police?” Harpur said.

  “Just you and a nice, capable, sma
ll team. And in such clandestine circumstances, you won’t be able to draw official police weapons, will you?”

  “Hardly.”

  “So, I supply. They’re all loaded, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Fifteen-round magazine,” Lamb said. “Good firepower.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “At one time, the police used Walthers, I think.”

  “Some are still around,” Harpur replied.

  “Reliable. Stoppers.”

  Lamb, like some other informants, most other informants, went in for an amount of mystification when they presented their stuff. They let the material out slowly, perhaps to make it seem more, and so qualify for bigger cash; perhaps just as a playful, theatrical exercise by creating suspense and curiosity. With Jack, it would be the second. He did not have to worry about money. But he did enjoy acknowledgement and admiration. By puzzling Harpur and then gradually making things clear for him, Jack must feel he’d come over as abnormally bright and kindly. And it was true, he was abnormally bright, despite the beret. Even kindly.

  Jack Lamb now did as he usually did and crouched for a while at one of the rifle apertures, gazing at what he could see of the sea, ready to take on anything Mr Hitler could chuck at him.

  “What Lonton aftermath?” Harpur said.

  “You know what happened there, do you?” Jack said. He abandoned his sentinel stint and came and stood over the pistols.