I Am Gold (3 page)

‘Mr Harpur and I have daughters, so we know how helpful girls can be to their fathers. We'll take your advice and leave it to someone in the firm.'

‘Daughters? Another story around Bracken was you fancied one of Mr Harpur's. The older one, Hazel, but not old enough, all the same.'

‘Tell Inspector Coulter everything you saw, would you, please,' Iles replied, ‘from the first moment you noticed the parked silver car.'

Chapter Four

Going back to them moments when Manse first started feeling he might get killed, he had definitely decided he would not want a vulgar, newsy funeral with black horses and black plumes fixed in their head bridle. Showiness Manse loathed. He hadn't thought it right to discuss this kind of dark matter with Naomi pre-death, but he hoped she'd realize from knowing him pretty well by now that he hated nearly all display, although Sir Winston Churchill's funeral, seen sometimes in TV documentaries about history, didn't seem too bad. But, obviously, Manse knew he himself would never get a gun-carriage.

Also, his art worried him. He had a lot of paintings at home, many what was known as Pre-Raphaelite, from a span in history, and with brilliant colours, especially girls' hair and clothes. He really loved these works. But imagine his estate had to be probate-valued, suppose he got popped. It would be sickening if a scholar came in and said some of them, or even most, was fakes, and worth next to nix, not a couple of million. Manse would look a bonus-package fool then, for getting killed,
and
for spending big money on duds that he hung on his walls, causing visitors secret, superior giggles. He wouldn't like his children to grow up thinking he had been a full-scale idiot, and not having all that much to leave them, the art being a joke.

The only art expert Manse knew was a picture dealer, Jack Lamb, who lived out in that country mansion, Darien. No point in asking Lamb to check the paintings because Manse had bought most of them from him. He wasn't going to say, ‘Glad you asked, oh, yes, I slipped you a phoney there, Manse, for six hundred grand, if I remember right,' was he? And then: ‘This lad I know does Burne-Joneses Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's one of his, and one of his best, as I recall.'

You didn't quiz Lamb too much about where he got the items. Suppose you did, he'd reply things like, ‘Many's the collector after this one, but I knew it would be so right for my good and discriminating friend, Mansel Shale.' Or, ‘Yes, you're correct to sense it's heavily, even madly, discounted, Manse, but I like to think long-term, and look after my steady customers. Ultimately, this always pays off in my business.'

Manse had considered going to the City Museum and asking if he could commission their Pre-Raphaelite wallah to come to the house and do a valuation. But there was two snags about that, wasn't there? First he, or she, might recognize some of these paintings as being on a police missing list. Second, how would you know he or she was straight? Working in a museum didn't make someone honest. He or she might say some was fakes, and offer to get real ones as replacements, so as Manse would not look a cunt when dead. Then this trickster would go off with the paintings, which might really be genuine, and bring Manse other Pre-Raphaelites to hang where they'd been, these being fakes. Manse would have to pay him or her a fortune for these, so he or she would clean up twice, by also selling the others, maybe to Jack Lamb.

Of course, art was how he and Naomi met, on visits to a gallery a couple of years ago. He'd admit it must be quite a step for her, from discussing pictures to finding out something about the kind of commodities career Manse had. Although art really grabbed him – some art, anyway –it couldn't be his complete life, could it? She had to realize he could only buy good art because he earned good money at work. You did not get paid for looking at pictures, unless you was Anthony Blunt, and think what happened to him.

If Manse mentioned to Naomi that she should take different approaches to and from Bracken Collegiate with the kids when he was away, he knew she found it a pain and frightening and difficult to understand. He didn't think the children would explain to her. Some matters, such as the swap of school run roads, just happened, that was all, like a leopard being a leopard or a starling a starling.

‘But why, Manse?' Naomi had said, the first couple of times he'd asked her not to stick to the same trundle.

‘People notice if you start a pattern,' he said.

‘Which people?'

‘Oh, yes, they notice.'

‘Does it matter?'

‘They'd know the timetable.'

‘Who would?'

‘If you get samey. They see the car in the usual place, usual moment, morning or afternoon.'

‘Who do?'

‘That's enough for them. They think, “Right. We'll be there.” They expect it to be me, you see.'

‘Who do?'

‘I can show you on the map new ways to go. Like them signs, “Diverted Traffic”. Only a few extra miles and minutes. We don't want to make it easy for them, do we, Naomi? They could be watching.'

‘I still don't know who
they
are.'

‘We mustn't make it easy for them, must we?'

Chapter Five

Harpur watched Iles. The Assistant Chief had pulled his head out from the cabin of the Jaguar, but still gazed down at Laurent. The paramedic took Matilda away. Most probably, Iles would be continuing large, Assistant Chief-type thoughts about the symbolic meaning of this outrage – its significance as a pointer to savagery and moral disintegration throughout the country and perhaps the Western world. Although he used to make fun of a previous Chief here, Mark Lane, because Lane saw vast implications in any big crime on his ground, now Iles seemed to suffer from the same cosmic twitch.

But, as well as this wider view, Iles would also have formed a detailed picture of what had happened here and how. This might be what Assistant Chiefs and upwards brought to the job: they did global, they did nitty-gritty, too. Or, Iles did, anyway. He could see the core of a situation more or less instantly, and then would know where to place it in the great, overall context of things. As only a detective chief superintendent Harpur didn't have to mess with contexts. He specialized in actuality and in guesses at it. He knew he'd better try to work out a version of the actualities here. Soon, Iles would return from general focus on the universe, and his part in it, and order Harpur to speak a step-by-step scenario of how he saw these sad events and the lead-up to them.

In fact, perhaps he'd already begun to swing back towards the particular. ‘Manse Shale went up to Hackney, London, for Denz Lake's funeral, didn't he, Col, a while ago – after Lake's termination by double-barrelled mouth-wash? Was it two Astra pistols doing deep throat with him?' Iles said. ‘Some said suicide, didn't they?'

‘The trip to Hackney is the kind of high-management gesture Manse would always make, sir. Nobody's more committed to the duties that come with supreme rank. When he gets a title, his escutcheon motto will be,
Noblesse oblige.
Pinched.'

‘We ran surveillance on Shale at the time, yes? This would be 2007. March?'

‘Not surveillance. We had information.'

‘From?'

‘Yes, certain information,' Harpur replied. ‘Who went with him?' Iles said.

‘It obviously required some travel and at least a day's absence from the firm, but this would not deter Manse. He'd feel compelled to show respect as chairman of the companies. Suicide or approximate suicide – a tragedy either way.'

‘I saw some of the reports, didn't I?'

‘I like to keep you in touch, sir.'

‘Is that right?'

‘It's routine.'

‘Is that right?'

‘If an Assistant Chief is Assistant Chief (Operations) he should obviously be kept informed about operations.'

‘Logic I love, Col,' Iles said.

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘Shale was in private discussions post crem, I think.'

‘With a brother of Denz, and a cousin.'

‘Separately?'

‘One to one.'

‘Did the one know about the other one?'

‘Sir?'

‘Was the brother aware Manse talked privately with the cousin and was the cousin aware Manse talked privately with the brother?'

‘I have nothing on the content of these conversations,' Harpur said. He waited for more questions, hoping he could then work out the direction of Iles's thinking. But the ACC went silent now, his face unreadable, his mind possibly back among those vaster, staff officer issues. What did this shot boy and his shot stepmother and their shot car indicate about the state of the planet and the Assistant Chief's responsibility for it?

So, Harpur entered his own realm: the actual. Clearly, the street – Sandicott Terrace – was part of that. It would lead up to the main Landau Road and a further straight, four-mile drive to Bracken Collegiate. She could probably have joined Landau Road and the direct, swift-flowing traffic sooner. The route through Sandicott Terrace and other minor streets was most likely a deliberately complicated roundabout course to guard against ambush. But no good.

‘A parked silver car over there,' Matilda had said. ‘Most likely a Mondeo. Automatic fire.' The Mondeo had been waiting for them. Sandicott Terrace was ideal for the attack, short, narrow. The Jaguar would be moving slowly as it turned into the street and possibly slowed further as it pulled out to pass the parked Mondeo, or, possibly Toyota. Then, up would come the automatic pistol, and the blast would take in the Jaguar's windscreen, Naomi Shale, the passenger window and the boy in the back, not quick enough at getting down on account of curiosity: ‘It has to be that twat Ralphy, or someone hired by him.'

Fully automatic pistols could be very inaccurate. The force behind the bursts tended to make the gun jump and fire high. But the distance between the two cars here would be minimal and some bullets were sure to spray the Jaguar. Its driver took hits and, out of control, it mounts the pavement on the wrong side of the street and is stopped by one of those low, front-garden walls, destroying half of it, but not more because the car had little speed. Iles was standing near the wall wreckage now.

At first, Harpur did think of the setting as perfect for the onslaught, but doubts came. For one thing, the Jaguar might have veered the other way, left instead of right, and hit the Mondeo, perhaps making it undrivable, cancelling any getaway. And then there was the timing. The scheme seemed to have been to let the Jaguar come alongside and open fire through the lowered Mondeo driver's side window. Even though the Jaguar might not have had much pace, the shooting would need to be very quick, more or less instant. Did that explain why Naomi Shale was hit instead of Manse? Iles had suggested error. Yes. There'd be no chance to correct a misidentification. In fact, only the Jaguar might have been identified. The driver was assumed to be Manse because he usually drove the Jaguar on the school run and elsewhere. Had this been a sloppily planned and casually organized attack, its main calculation that some fraction of a machine pistol's volleys at next to no range, car-to-car, was certain to hit?
Spot the Jaguar. Have the Jaguar abreast. Fire. Leave. Get to the motorway. Job done.

Of course, there were people on their doorsteps now. Perhaps one or two had seen something, if they'd been looking out on to the street when the shooting began. Harpur would get them all interviewed, but didn't expect much. There might even be cell phone pictures. Tapes closed off both ends of the terrace. Four officers erected a tent over the Jaguar. Iles came around the back of the car and joined Harpur. ‘How do you visualize things, then, Col?'

‘Well, I'd say –'

‘You'll be worried about the route.'

‘Well, yes, sir. How would –'

‘How would they know they should wait for the Jaguar in a back street chosen to fool them?'

‘It's difficult to –'

‘She's probably the sort who wouldn't like being ordered by Manse to vary things. New wife, has to establish herself. Hoity-toity. But she accepts there could be some point to what he says. So, she does get off the big road and treks through suburbia. To work a bit of self-assertion, though, she keeps the varying to along the same ground every time, so the arrangement is half Manse, half her. This procedure has been noticed, borne in mind, perhaps during previous absences by Shale.'

‘Do you know her to be that kind of woman, sir?' Harpur said, and realized at once he'd tripped. Oh, God, what a sodding mistake.

‘They're all like it, Harpur. They hate being what they call male-constrained. They'll break out from the well-ordered and proper, as of right.' Iles's voice galloped and skitted towards a scream. ‘But I hardly need to tell
you
this, do I, when we've all heard how you in your fine, inhuman, destructive fashion –'

Harpur's mobile phone called him. Iles swung a fist, trying to knock it from Harpur's hand, but he'd expected this, of course, and had made sure he'd tightened his grip. ‘I suppose you've got some way to set that off your fucking self to save you when a conversation gets awkward, concerning women,' Iles said.

Harpur took the message. ‘The Control Room says we have road blocks in place, sir.'

‘A woman, such as my wife, apparently normal and well placed, will suddenly decide she –'

‘We've closed ten miles of motorway in both directions.'

Iles came back fast from his agony interlude, as he usually would, like someone emerging from a
petit mal
blackout: ‘Let them know we're dealing with a machine pistol, Col. That's a lot of wild fucking fire power.'

Chapter Six

When those personal death ideas first came to Manse he did think for a while about his own funeral and the art, but he had also tried to push the worries away. Jitters, he decided. They'd pass. But, as well as this, he naturally wondered who would want to do it, if people really came to finish him. He could not discuss this with Naomi, or with other top members of the firm. It seemed to Shale that Naomi didn't understand all the details of his profession, and he would prefer it to stay like that for now. This was a lovely, kindly, intelligent woman. She deserved to be screened off from the quirkier sides of Manse's activities. He wanted her to shop and buy interesting handbags and shoes.