For a couple of seconds, Percy looked confused and mentally off-balance. But then, Intelligent’s intelligence kicked in and, gazing at Harpur, he obviously understood what was happening. To the swarming Security people it would look as if Harpur were making a break-out with a stolen, rich cache of bottles. Harpur still had a protecting hand on Percy’s full trolley.

  ‘I warned you against looking guilty, didn’t I, Mr Harpur?’ Intelligent elbowed Harpur gently away from the trolley and broke Harpur’s grip on it. Intelligent replaced it with his own. He did some minor shakes of the head as he looked at his trolley load, as if checking everything was present.

  Intelligent spoke to what Harpur assumed to be leader of the supermarket’s Security: ‘This is Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur. But I expect you know that – have often seen him interviewed on TV News about local crime.’

  ‘Of course.’ Security was a short, plump, cheery-looking woman in her forties.

  ‘I asked Mr Harpur to take care of my trolley for a brief while so I could have a quick smoke outside,’ Intelligent said. ‘And I did tell him there might be an embarrassing moment or two, though I didn’t visualize this one. Like a good guardian he followed me out and obviously set off an alarm. It’s a false alarm I’m afraid. We’re very sorry to have troubled the Security department, aren’t we, Mr Harpur? There’s no thieving to detect and stop. Chief superintendents don’t go in for that kind of trivial crime, do they, Mr Harpur? They leave it for someone like me – someone very like me.’

  A few customers had gathered around, interested in the apparent kerfuffle. There were some questions from Security handled very professionally by Intelligent Percy. Things settled back to the normal, Percy pushing his drink collection. When Harpur glanced about, he saw that his target had disappeared in the melee.

  NINE

  Once … well, possibly twice, but definitely not more than twice, Harpur had heard the name Chail – Bernie Chail – come up in conversation between Denise and Hazel at home in Arthur Street. The number of times it had happened was important for Harpur to feel more or less sure of. Hazel was his daughter, Denise his steady girlfriend. They were not Jack Lamb. That is, they were not informants, and he had no wish for them, or either of them, to leak confidential material to him. To overhear something once, or, at a stretch, twice could have been – was – an accident. The name might be part of the normal social atmosphere at the university where Denise was a student, and at Hazel’s school. It didn’t prove Denise and Hazel were on something because they knew and used the name of a pusher. Harpur wouldn’t regard it as much of his business if they were – especially not Denise: she was old enough to make choices. He was one of her choices so he’d be biased. But, although Harpur would never ask either of them for special, inside information or other names, he had heard their mention of Chail and the tone in which it was spoken. This tone was one of awe and fear. It seemed to tell him that Chail had big status among middling dealers in this domain or adjoining.

  Of course, Harpur had most probably heard of Chail before this, but not as someone so notable. Francis Garland was working on a list of people from that level in the trade as suspects in the wharf murder. None of them would be at the grade of wealth enjoyed by Ralph Ember or Mansel Shale. That was the point: those with moderately successful businesses would have an envious eye on those like Ember and Shale, longing to displace them.

  In the interests of continuing peace, non-violence and stability, Harpur thought he’d better focus a bit of concentration on Chail – treat him as something more than one of the pack, the peloton. After that mad episode at the supermarket, he’d decided to abandon any hope of turning himself into a private investigator on retirement. Hazel had it right. He lacked the kind of mental structure required for that kind of stop-start, harum-scarum type of career.

  Following the supermarket disaster, Harpur felt he could not allow things to end like that – no end at all, really – and he had walked at slow pace towards the car-park entrance and the road beyond. He hoped that the unhurried pace would help him gaze around and possibly spot the target. No luck. He went out into the surrounding housing estate and continued the same leisurely bit of touring. Children on scooters tried to knock him over. In a while he realized he was walking in a circle: he was back in the supermarket car park. He went to join up with his Ford and found what looked to him very much like the target sitting behind the driving wheel. He touched a button and the driver’s window dropped.

  ‘Hello there, Mr Harpur. I thought I’d find you here.’ He smiled an exceptionally delighted smile, a cheery smile.

  ‘Did I leave the keys?’ Harpur said.

  ‘Keys are history, surely. I did want a word. A long time since I messed about with keys, yours or anyone’s.’

  ‘Which?’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Which what? Mr Harpur?’

  ‘Which word, the word you want?’ Harpur replied.

  ‘I felt this was a setting that couldn’t be bettered. I had it in mind from five minutes after I woke up this morning.’

  ‘A lot of people get ideas then.’

  ‘Make the most of them I say,’ he replied.

  ‘To do with what?’

  ‘With Mansel Shale.’

  ‘Manse? What to do with him?’

  ‘Anxiety, deep anxiety. People walking about here in their usual manner wouldn’t spot that he could be suffering the way he is. Manse doesn’t do display. That’s not his style. What’s going on inside is something else though.’

  ‘I’ve known Manse a long while,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Of course you have. He wouldn’t want me to approach you in this matter otherwise.’

  ‘He’s had some very bad moments,’ Harpur said.

  ‘I take it you know his business colleague.’

  ‘Ember?’

  ‘Exactly. Likewise you’ll know Ember’s home – the mansion, Low Pastures.’

  ‘Where he lives with wife and two children.’

  ‘Plus?’

  ‘There are more? Some I don’t know about?’ Harpur said.

  ‘There’s a gateway.’

  ‘Naturally. This is a big property and all the features of a big and important estate are present including a fine pair of gates on to the road.’

  ‘Including also a couple of guardians lurking, never far from those gates.’

  ‘Oh, yes a defence patrol.’

  ‘Who ordered this defence patrol?’

  ‘It’s routine for some vulnerable properties.’

  ‘Mr Iles ordered it, didn’t he? Has Manse got one? No. Why not?’ He changed tone. ‘You’ll ask what is this to do with the trick I’ve just run involving your car. It’s a wheeze we used to pull when I was a teenager running with a bit of a gang in Lewisham, southeast London: get into an owner’s car and wait for him/her to come back to it. Then we’d give a lovely, warm greeting. What this said was, we could have driven off in this car leaving the motorist bereft. We were creating trust. We were announcing that the car’s defences, such as lockable doors, were no bloody good at all because a kid troupe could open it up and then hang about in totally relaxed style in the happy vehicle to demonstrate that it might not, in fact, have still been here, but it was still here, and there perhaps ought to be a good fee for those who’d ensured it would be just where it was left by the usual driver in case that next time the space might be occupied by a different car, not this previous owner’s at all, because that one had been driven away to somewhere confidential where it could be traded in for much more than the car-park fee originally available from me and associates with no hassle. Manse used to be part of the Lewisham federation when he was younger and living in London. He was – is – keen to follow that model now because, as he sees it, both undertakings concerned the same theme – trust. Manse rang and wanted someone to do a bit of detailed research on Iles. He didn’t think it could be done direct, but sideways on, as it were.’

  ‘By me you mean?’

  ‘By you or someone like you. Manse has your Arthur Street address, of course. I could get on your tail from there. You must be kept in the dark about the Iles aspect – kept especially from you because, obviously, Iles is a close colleague of yours, perhaps a friend as well as a work-mate. But Manse needs to know he can be trusted. He asks why doesn’t Iles give him guardians like those at the gates of Low Pastures. Does he want Ralph Ember kept in danger, exposed, vulnerable for some dirty plan of Mr Iles. I was central to Manse’s scheme for protecting himself – for finding out all I could about Iles but secretly. But then there’s all that terrible, flagrant foolishness at the supermarket today. These are the kind of circumstances that created huge uncertainty and farce. I can’t work in such conditions. But then, all that astonishing stuff today in the supermarket – I decided it wasn’t something I could keep hidden. Everything had changed. There was a woman involved and another woman in a Fiat and delivery of a parcel. I felt it was crazy not to talk to you about it before I spoke to Manse.’

  TEN

  Hazel was right: Harpur needed to feel he had a strong, solid, stoutly constructed organization behind him to help deal with any crisis. He realized this probably meant Iles. An alliance with someone like Intelligent Percy wouldn’t do. That was only a temporary fluke, leading nowhere except to mess up. The bulky titles of his and Iles’s jobs – detective chief superintendent, assistant chief constable (Operations) – proved and endorsed the existence of a big and bonny system. Harpur went to see Iles. Harpur couldn’t have said why moments like this came occasionally to him. Harpur wished they did it oftener.

  ‘I’ve been thinking of Chail, sir,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Bernie?’

  ‘The name’s around quite a bit,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘I wondered when you’d get to him,’ Iles said.

  ‘It’s only lately that he’s come to seem a bit of a worry.’

  ‘Why is that, Col?’

  ‘Because of you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘If you went,’ Harpur said. ‘Went to another post.’

  ‘How would that affect Chail?’

  ‘You maintain a certain climate here, sir. That would be up for grabs.’

  ‘A climate up for grabs,’ Iles replied. ‘Have they heard about this at the Met Office?’

  ‘We don’t want it to happen,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Which “we” don’t want it to happen?’

  ‘Us,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Which us?’

  ‘Me. Everyone in the city who’s sane,’ Harpur said.

  ‘They love me, do they, Col?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Everyone in the city who’s sane,’ Iles replied.

  ‘Most likely,’ Harpur said.

  ‘You?’ Iles said.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve fixed on Chail as of possible significance. But I should have realized, sir, that you’d spot something special there, something not necessarily good.’

  They were in Iles’s suite again, the ACC pacing-pausing-pacing, Harpur on a straight-backed office chair. He said: ‘As you will have discovered, Chail and a few other small-timers are readying themselves and their flunkies for major trouble when (if) you go to another Force.’

  Iles said: ‘Yes.’ He paused. He was in uniform. He took his cap from a shelf. ‘He’ll be at home this afternoon. I know his timetable and his address, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Harpur said. ‘It’s outside our territory.’

  ‘Certainly. That’s what makes him interesting for us, isn’t it, Col?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘He’s looking our way enviously,’ Iles said.

  ‘I was expecting that I’d have to tell you that, sir, not the other way around,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Naturally you were,’ Iles said. ‘Most people find themselves tagging along behind me.’ He drove. ‘Chail was on the edge of that little war at the Ferris wheel fairground, wasn’t he? But he got away with it.’

  Chail lived in Verson Close, a small group of modern detached houses not far from a roundabout on to the motorway.

  ‘Bernie! Here’s a treat,’ Iles said when Chail opened the door. ‘I hope that doesn’t sound over-familiar, but I feel I know you already, know you well. And I’m sure my pal and colleague here, Col Harpur, would say the same – a fine treat, wouldn’t you echo that, Col?’

  Harpur didn’t answer.

  Iles said: ‘These visits out of the blue, so bracing and warm for all concerned.’

  ‘Well, possibly,’ Chail said.

  ‘I don’t blame you for the caution, not a bit,’ Iles said, ‘and neither would Col, I’m sure, would you, Col, oh definitely he wouldn’t. Some, in fact, call Harpur Cautious Col.’

  Chail took them into a conservatory built on to the back of the house in the rear garden.

  ‘All the glass!’ Iles said. ‘How I approve. It shows neighbours there is nothing secret or sinister about this call, despite my uniform.’

  There was a baby in a beige carrycot on a kitchen table at the far end of the conservatory. Iles had a smile already in place when they entered the house with Chail. He extended this when he saw the cot. He walked a few steps so he could look down at the child who seemed to be asleep. Harpur wondered whether Iles’s research took in the baby. The big smile seemed to have an element of surprise in it. He took off his cap and carried out a sweeping bow with the hat in his right hand. Iles said: ‘I wouldn’t say it was entirely Harpur’s idea to make this visit. I think I can claim some part of the credit, but shall we say the preponderant factor was the Col Harpur factor. He’s not one to demand special recognition of his skills and achievements, but fortunately I am here to see that he gets what he’s unquestionably due.’

  ‘We hear plenty about possible aims and ambitions, Bernie.’

  ‘Harpur can be blunt,’ Iles said.

  The baby had a body-length shiver.

  ‘Blunt and impatient,’ Iles said. ‘Some would call it rude. They can’t see that behind a roughish exterior he means well. Perhaps he doesn’t. It’s not something you can ask him face-to-face, is it? “Do you mean well?” Most probably he’d reply, “What are the options?”’

  The conservatory had several blue leather easy chairs and Harpur and Chail had already sat down. Iles came now and took the one next to Chail.

  ‘His mind – Harpur’s – ranges quite a bit,’ Iles said. ‘You’d be amazed, Bernie. It’s the kind of mind we’d all do best to keep on the safe side of if that safe side is available. The baby in its cot would almost certainly grasp instinctively the unique aura Harpur brought to any situation. That enormous shiver just now was probably meant for him, but my aura overrode it. This kind of mistake can happen with auras. We’re talking subconscious matters here, of course: babies can’t be aware of such mystical areas. But their bodies and nervous system respond to the unknowable. Harpur’s mind tells him – tells me too – that you would be a total, unreclaimed fucking idiot to think you have a hope of getting your palsied self a comfy billet now or in the future on our blessed ground. We thought we’d drop in to mention this to you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Chail replied. He was tall, thin, bony fingered, dark, retreating hair cut short.

  ‘Why, now here’s Mama,’ Iles said. ‘As expected.’

  A woman of about Chail’s age – mid-thirties – amiable looking, nicely balanced, fine complexion, came into the conservatory and went at once to look at the baby who was still asleep.

  ‘What do you mean “as expected”?’ Chail said.

  ‘Oh, yes, spot on,’ Iles said.

  ‘Have you been tracking us?’ Chail said.

  ‘Splendid to meet you,’ Iles said.

  ‘Mr Iles and Mr Harpur want a discussion re their domain and what is impending,’ Chail said.

  ‘We don’t know what’s impending,’ Iles said.

  ‘You probably know more than the rest of us,’ Chail said.

  ‘I can see you’re concerned mainly with the baby, Mrs Chail,’ Iles said. ‘That could not be more natural.’

  ‘I’ll make some tea for our guests, Maud,’ Chail said.

  ‘I’d prefer you didn’t,’ Maud Chail said.

  ‘Oh?’ Iles said.

  ‘Why not, Maud?’ Chail said.

  ‘I see no reason to entertain them or to give any sign of civility in their direction, such as tea,’ she replied.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve met anyone called Maud before,’ Iles said. He did a triumphant double-fisted handshake above his head, like a boxer in the ring congratulating himself on a win. He switched to a different sport. ‘There’s a Maud associated with a quite famous poet, W.B. Yeats, who wrote about a rugby star who kept dropping passes, “the centre cannot hold”.’

  ‘Who the hell do they think they are, the pair of them, barging unannounced into our property?’ Maud said.

  ‘A good question,’ Iles replied. ‘Who do we think we are, Col? But there’s a clue, I’ve called you Col.’

  ‘It’s whom,’ Harpur said.

  ‘What?’ Iles said.

  ‘It’s whom do we think we are?’ Harpur said. Or was it?

  ‘Ah! Have you been going to English language lessons again, Harpur? Hopeless.’

  ‘I don’t like to think of you two being in the same room as Egret the babe,’ she said.

  ‘If you don’t like to think of it, don’t think of it,’ Iles said. ‘I can tell you this, Maud, that although you have in coarse terms declined to make Harpur tea, he will not bear an eternal grudge. He is well known in the profession for taking hatred based on tea, or the absence of tea, as of passing significance only. If you offered him tea now, despite your previous rejection of such an offer, he would most probably tell you to shove your tea up your arse, but this is unlikely to have been accompanied by a physical onslaught, even though Harpur can on occasions throw a nice punch. Egret is a charming and useful name because, as you probably know, there is a little egret, very suitable for a babe and then the ordinary egret as the child grows.’