‘Does your source provide for anyone else?’

  ‘Provide?’ Jack said.

  ‘But I suppose sources don’t source about their own sources,’ Harpur said.

  ‘No, we don’t.’

  ‘Daisy is a source, Jack, and you source to me,’ Harpur said.

  ‘That’s exceptional,’ Jack replied.

  ‘Good,’ Harpur said. ‘More than good – wonderful, Jack. When Daisy comes back on the second peep, they hadn’t moved: is that right?’

  ‘They were like before. As far as Daisy could tell,’ Jack said.

  ‘Looking in the same direction?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So what is it? What are they looking at for such a while? You’ve been out there, haven’t you, and you’d get some idea of their view?’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Jack said. ‘It would have been sloppy not to. The Ferris wheel made it easy – conspicuous. Ralph and Manse seemed to be focused hard on the fairground.’

  Harpur wished Hazel and Jill had been able to watch how the fragments gradually joined in an investigation because of the strong and steady contribution of informants. They’d be pleased, wouldn’t they, that clever, devoted people like Daisy and Jack were happy to work with their dad?

  ‘This fairground was a battle site, wasn’t it, Col?’

  ‘Bad. Deaths, surgery.’

  ‘But not in your area.’

  ‘Neighbourly. The past. But these things can come alive again now and then,’ Harpur said. ‘That’s what we wait for – or expect our sources to wait for.’

  ‘Daisy thought from how they were sitting that Ralph Ember might be … sort of … well, sort of “instructing” was her word … instructing Shale in something.’

  ‘How would she judge that?’ Harpur said.

  ‘Daisy has opinions. She said their head positions were fixed and their shoulders angled similarly towards the windscreen. No smoking. Possible conversation going on but, if so, talking straight ahead not breaking the gaze towards the fairground. But Daisy was too far away to hear any talk or to lip-read.’

  ‘So, not casual – not just a matiness session or an opportunity for a chat,’ Harpur said. ‘They are in a settled attitude for at least as long as it takes for Daisy to carry on and reach a turning point, probably in someone’s driveway, then come back.’

  ‘I saw where she had most likely done a reversal,’ Jack said.

  ‘Of course you did, Jack. We’ve said it would have been sloppy otherwise,’ Harpur said.

  ‘It would all take about three or four minutes,’ Jack said, ‘the manoeuvring and the actual distance, twice. And maybe they’d been like that for a time before Daisy spotted them, and afterwards.’

  ‘It’s strange. These are business associates – very close business associates, with a long history of cooperation, yet they apparently have to meet in a bit of a layby, not in their office or home,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘But if they want to share some special view, as we’ve suggested, Col, they’ve got to be at the same place and at the same time to see whatever it is they need to see,’ Jack said.

  ‘I’m interested in Daisy’s word “instructing”,’ Harpur said. ‘Who’s doing the instructing, who’s getting instructed?’

  ‘Well, Ralph’s behind the wheel so I think Daisy assumes it’s Ralph’s vehicle and that it’s his operation.’

  ‘Which is what, Jack?’

  ‘You’re the one to answer that, Col. You’re the one who might be able to do what you call “getting inside their heads”.’

  ‘Perhaps. Not my sort of magic guesswork,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Nor mine,’ Jack replied.

  ‘Daisy’s?’ Harpur asked.

  ‘Daisy wondered if Ralph was trying to get Shale back into violence mode in case things become rough by showing him how matters had developed in very adjoining territory not long ago. She thinks Ralph must be turning proactive: that’s another of her words. Manse has to live with the memory of his murdered wife and child, doesn’t he? Ralph possibly wants to tap into that reservoir of rage by showing him the kind of murderousness that always lies close by. Daisy seems to think Ralph is ready to initiate trouble, not just wait for it to hit him and the rest of us on the Iles–Harpur domain.’

  ‘Feasible,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Daisy’s always that. She sees Ralph repairing himself by taking Manse as an ally and hopes to prepare him by getting him to think violence – to breathe and believe in violence. He’s offering Mansel a share in a major project, but the offer arrives with conditions.’

  Hazel came not too soundlessly back into the room and gave Harpur an unforgiving stare for being so long on the landline. There’d been a time when Hazel announced to Harpur: ‘This house is a home. It has three occupants – occasionally four – you, me, Jill, Denise, and the occupants have equal rights to any fitments.’ This had been said with a level tone, laden with threat.

  Jack said: ‘What we have to bear in mind, Col, is that Daisy might’ve been seen during her reconnaissance, especially on the second visit when she must have been driving slowly – sort of loitering – to make such a complete survey possible. She was building a picture of their psychologies from their faces and way of sitting in a car. It can’t be rushed. She’s on show as much as they are. Daisy is aware of that danger. Likelihood? After all she had noticed them so they might have noticed her. That’s what this episode is all about, isn’t it?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Harpur said.

  Hazel did a couple of heavy breaths.

  ‘You have company, Col?’ Jack said.

  ‘Hazel’s monitoring,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘She might have a view on the teasers that are baffling us,’ Jack said.

  ‘Yes, she might,’ Harpur said. ‘But not now.’

  ‘The drawbridge is coming between Jack and you, Dad,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Did I hear mention of a drawbridge?’ Jack said.

  ‘Yes, and that’s as much as you’re going to get now, I think,’ Hazel said.

  ‘Is Daisy a cracker?’ Harpur said.

  ‘Who’s Daisy?’ Hazel said.

  ‘One of Jack’s friends,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Dad means big boobs, neat bum,’ Hazel said.

  ‘I didn’t get all of that,’ Jack said.

  ‘If she’s something special, she’s likely to stand out and get observed, and not just by you,’ Harpur said. ‘They’re focused on the fairground, not girls. She’s a workmate of Jack.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Hazel said.

  She went and sat in one of the big leather armchairs near a telephone extension but did not lift the receiver. Now and again, Hazel did exercise a fragment of tact and restraint, despite how Harpur worked. Jill might not be the same, though.

  SIXTEEN

  Harpur decided he’d better go out and have a look at this seemingly crucial location on the north, northeastern road for himself. He was getting information from what certainly felt like perfectly reliable mouthpieces, but they were not mouthpieces that spoke directly to him. The tip-off came by phone from Jack Lamb, Jack had received it from someone called Daisy, unknown to Harpur though, apparently, not to Jack. There was plenty of room for errors in this devious process.

  Normally, Harpur would have believed and acted on anything that arrived from Jack Lamb, probably the most gifted and accurate informant anywhere. But his information now was to do with a sort of nothing topic. That is, it speculated that an ordinary bit of roadway might indicate that some big, crooked, violent plan was in formation and likely to destroy the harmony of this region. Harpur also reasoned that there might be an emotional/fleshly connection between Jack and Daisy which could affect the kind of work they produced together. Harpur was ashamed to realize that he had such doubts about Jack, but he had to acknowledge to himself that sometimes they did exist.

  He didn’t like leaving the non-official gun that Jack Lamb had given him around when he wasn’t present, and he put it in the breast pocket of his jacket. He drove out alone in an unmarked squad car to what he thought must be the parking spot. He had no trouble finding it, although there were no parked cars there now, and he could see at once why it must strike the others as significant.

  ‘Hello, Col,’ Iles said, pulling the door open as Harpur arrived. Iles put a hand forward and did a feel of Harpur’s jacket.

  ‘Ah, gun-up, are you? I expect your dear mother told you never travel without a .38, my beloved boy. Mothers have a good deal to be said for them, but for God’s sake don’t bother to say it, Col, will you? One of our traffic people saw a couple of cars parked eccentrically not long ago and did a check on one of the reg numbers. The check showed Ralph Ember’s ownership. The Control Room chief considered I’d be interested and told me. She’ll go far. I decided to keep an eye on this drab piece of ground, carry out an intermittent watch. And how was it with you, Harpur?’

  ‘What, sir?’

  ‘Why are you out this way?’

  ‘My mother had no views on .38 pistols as far as I can remember,’ Harpur replied.

  ‘Mothers would favour a gun that can nestle snugly in a pocket of a well-cut jacket, or even in a crying-shame alleged specimen of tailoring like yours. The fact that I could spot the gun’s neat build can’t be blamed on your mother. Irrelevant.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Harpur replied. ‘I’m sure she would be very grateful for such tolerance.’

  ‘She would be full of warm memories with you as a child talking about the grand advantages of the .38 automatic job.’

  ‘These are good recollections,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Your mother would be the kind who instantly understood why her fine boy would be out in this fucking shithole of a nowheresville today, greeting his assistant chief (Operations). Specifically me.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Your superior having given a full and remarkably truthful explanation of his own presence here expects a basically polite response from the assistant chief (Operations) who waits, tolerantly, for a courteous and respectful matching answer.’

  ‘Somebody mentioned it,’ Harpur said, ‘following noticeably sharp eye-work.’

  ‘Mentioned what?’ Iles said.

  ‘This fucking shithole of a nowheresville,’ Harpur said.

  ‘Why did he/she mention this shithole of a nowheresville?’ Iles said.

  ‘Mention to me.’

  ‘Well, it would be to you, wouldn’t it, Harpur, being the kind whose bloody mother puts a pistol in his pocket?’

  ‘It wasn’t my mother,’ Harpur said. ‘It wasn’t anyone’s mother. A chum.’

  ‘Good,’ Iles said. ‘I hate hearing of promiscuous mothers. What time would they have for skateboarding?’

  ‘But there’s no denying the gun is snug. If my mother had thought much about guns in those days, she would have probably picked a .38 and put it in my breast pocket. However, many a mother might do that for the welfare of their lad.’

  ‘Yes, we must give them credit. There’s a move towards larger calibre handguns,’ Iles said. ‘They’re not really suitable for a pocket. Get your mother to write protest mail, Col. Resist, resist. Quite a few mothers about lately, aren’t there? Intelligent Percy has a mother, hasn’t he?’

  ‘I’ll definitely look into all this,’ Harpur replied. ‘Of itself this place where we find ourselves mysteriously together is of flimsy importance, I believe.’

  ‘Do you, do you? Or is it, as we’ve already described it, a shithole nowheresville. But perhaps you have more information than me, your assistant chief constable (Operations). It would not be the first time such a disgraceful and mutinous situation has been contrived by you, Col.’

  ‘Mutinous?’ This wasn’t the term Harpur would have used to describe his attitude to Iles. The word recalled for Harpur a famous film, Mutiny on the Bounty, occasionally brought back on one of the movie channels, where the brutal captain played by Charles Laughton is ousted by one of his officers, Fletcher Christian, and set adrift miles from anywhere in a small boat. ‘I’ll see you hanged, Mr Christian,’ the captain says. And so he does.

  But Harpur didn’t hope to displace or even diminish Iles. Harpur wanted to look after himself and was confronted by someone who wanted to look after himself and skilled and ruthless at doing it. Police forces were full of such high-ranking – but not the highest-ranking – officers.

  And so, Harpur did what he could – and what he could was plenty; especially how to manipulate the flow of informant information, which was more likely to come his way, rather than Iles’s, because the supreme part of Harpur’s job was informant material. Harpur had to preserve that kind of information, if necessary sit on it or hide it. Maybe he let a little of it emerge occasionally, but it would be rationed: enough to maintain safety of the informant and, as it happened, prevent Iles from knowing too much about what was going on, particularly if what was going on looked liable to be crucial to the advancement of the ACC’s career.

  Iles was wearing one of his excellent, single-breasted, light-grey suits and white training shoes with red and blue stripes. Harpur had on a white shirt, open at the neck, and a lightweight jacket. They got out of their cars and pace-measured the parking space together. ‘Hey,’ a woman called loudly, ‘what are you doing all the time up here exactly?’

  ‘Up where, exactly?’ Iles replied.

  ‘Here. Strutting.’

  ‘Strutting? Who?’

  ‘You,’ the woman said.

  ‘I don’t know how to strut.’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself, strutter,’ the woman said. ‘You’ll one day most likely get an MBE for it.’

  ‘My friend and I like a bit of a stroll,’ Iles said. ‘Strolling is very different from strutting. Strolling is leisurely and inoffensive. Strutting is bombastic. You will confirm unhesitatingly this to the lady, won’t you, Col?’

  ‘Unhesitatingly is a very large claim.’

  ‘Strutting,’ the woman said. ‘In a suit like his, and those shoes, that’s strutting gear. Patriotic training shoes, red, white and blue. Is this the fucking Olympics? You’re a duo.’

  ‘Col has his own style. The rest of us play along willingly,’ Iles said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’ Iles said.

  ‘Why willingly,’ the woman said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Iles said but didn’t answer.

  ‘The other two, recently, sat watching. They stayed in their cars. It’s you and your mate who do the strutting. One of you is in control,’ the woman said. ‘You,’ she said, pointing at Iles, ‘and calling your colleague by different names. I mean such as “Col”. That’s officer talk. You wouldn’t call him Col.’

  ‘His name’s not Col.’

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  ‘Do you mind being called Col, Col?’ Iles said. ‘It’s nice and easy to say: “There’s a call, Col.” His mother probably wanted that when they gave him the name. She would be thinking that when he was grown-up, somebody might say to him, when handing the phone over, “It’s a call for you, Col. Please take the call, will you Col?” The tone of the person’s voice would tell which Col or call was meant, although it would be both.’

  ‘We’re talking persistence now,’ the woman said.

  ‘Who’s persistence?’ Iles said.

  ‘People,’ the woman said.

  ‘Which?’ Iles asked.

  ‘I said which,’ the woman replied. ‘They were a duo and now you are a duo, strutting. What is it you want?’

  ‘Are we a duo, Col?’

  ‘In a sense, I suppose,’ Harpur said. ‘At a quick count, there are two of us.’

  She was about Harpur’s age, dressed in a long woollen skirt and short-sleeved blouson. She seemed to have come out from one of the houses. She stood at the closed front garden gate, looking over it to the street where Harpur and Iles had been walking. They had paused now. Perhaps she’d been doing some observing. It was a street and a district that could profit from more air.

  ‘Col’s mother thought quite a bit about .38s as well as names,’ Iles said.

  ‘.38s what?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Iles said. ‘When these other duos were around, did you notice what they were especially interested in?’

  ‘I wanted to ask you that.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Iles said. ‘I’m interested in their purpose. One of our purposes is to find what their purpose was. They’re a mystery.’

  ‘We don’t approve of what’s going on,’ the woman said. ‘We can’t relax when there are, or were, strangers lurking.’

  ‘Harpur likes to think he’s so affable and hearty that he’s not regarded as a stranger,’ Iles said.

  ‘Of course he’s a fucking stranger,’ she replied.

  ‘Who doesn’t approve?’ Iles said. ‘Who doesn’t like anyone lurking in the vicinity?’

  ‘People,’ she answered.

  ‘Which people?’ Iles said.

  ‘People who live here,’ the woman said. ‘I live here. You can call me Fay, even though you are lurking,’ she said.

  ‘You shouldn’t be ashamed of where you live,’ Iles said. ‘People have to make the best of a bad job. Oh, hark at me! That’s a kind of sucked-dry commentary on life that idiots and vicars try to shear us up with, Fay. Harpur’s mother probably spoke such arsehole wisdom when supplying the .38 into his pocket.’

  ‘What’s a .38?’ Fay said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Iles said.

  ‘People don’t like having other people strutting about where they live,’ Fay said. ‘They don’t know – we don’t know – what the outcome will be.’

  ‘Which people?’ Iles repeated.

  ‘People such as people we don’t know, such as yourselves,’ Fay said. ‘Why are you here? Do you know the word “casing”?’

  ‘Col might know it. He knows quite a few words,’ Iles said.

  ‘Giving the place a once-over for their own reason,’ Fay said. ‘With an objective?’

  ‘Which objective?’ Iles asked.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ Fay said.

  The ill-temper seemed to come at Iles and Harpur in neat, precise helpings, as if it had been packaged and prepared somewhere and placed ready to be flung. The bulk of it was directed towards Iles, and Harpur felt glad of that. It was the sort of thing Iles could officially deal with. People spoke of the shit hitting the fan but in that kind of mess-up, Iles was the fan.