Ash and Bone

51

Framlingham's office was dominated by an oil painting of his yacht, a Mistral class thirty-footer with white sails and green trim. Framed alongside it were three small watercolours of the Blackwater estuary near St Osyth Marsh that Framlingham had painted as a young man.

Framlingham himself looked comfortable behind his desk, chair eased back, one leg crossed lazily over the other. Elder stood by the side window in front of drawn blinds, feet apart, hands lightly clasped behind his back. Both men were looking at Maurice Repton, and Repton did not look comfortable at all.

The faint ticking of the clock on the shelf opposite the window was just audible beneath the ragged edge of Repton's breath.

The phone on Framlingham's desk rang unanswered and then was silent.

'You're hanging me out to dry,' Repton said.

'Maurice, nonsense. Another little chat is all.'

'A fucking summons, your office, eleven sharp.'

'You weren't expecting coffee?'

'Fuck your coffee!'

'Tea, then. It might be possible to arrange tea.'

'You're a cunt,' Repton said.

Framlingham slowly smiled, as if this were indeed a compliment. Perhaps, from Repton, it was. 'We just thought,' he said, 'you might appreciate the privacy. Rather than resume discussions in the full public view.'

'There's nothing to discuss.'

Framlingham leaned lazily forward. 'I think if there's a problem it may be rather that there's too much. A matter of where to start. Though Frank and I think what we've seen on the video might be the place.'

'What fucking video?'

Framlingham and Elder exchanged smiles.

'Singin' in the Rain' Framlingham said. 'Always a favourite.'

Watching Repton's increasingly ashen face, Elder thought about the call he'd received from Maureen Prior earlier that morning. Up in Nottingham, Bland was coming round to making some kind of a deal, the best that he could in a bad set of circumstances. In the end, Elder thought, that was what they all did. Bland and his kind. Aside from the ones who chose a gun to the head or a rope knotted tight about the neck; the ones who went silent to the grave.

Repton had sat watching the tape with scarcely a movement, scarce a word. Now that he was faced with a blank screen, a nerve twitched arrhythmically above his right eye, hands knotted in his lap. Elder eased open the blinds and light seeped back into the room.

Framlingham spoke into the silence. 'Only two ways to go, Maurice.'

Repton said nothing.

'Try saving your pal Mallory, it isn't going to happen. Isn't going to work. Besides, you've watched his back long enough. Wiped his backside. Time to save yourself, if you can.'

Repton looked at him quickly, then away. There was something troubling him about the crease in his trouser leg and he straightened it carefully with index finger and thumb.

'I need to think about it,' he said.

'Of course.' Framlingham rose to his feet. 'I need to take a slash, anyway. Five minutes, okay? Frank will be just outside the door. And no calls, Maurice, eh? In fact, Frank, why don't you relieve Maurice of his mobile, just in case?'

Sour-faced, Repton handed over his phone.

'Not armed are you, Maurice?' Framlingham said. 'Carrying a weapon of some kind? Dereliction of duty if I left you alone with enough time to put a bullet through your brain-pan.'

'Fuck off,' Repton said.

'Frank,' Framlingham said.

Elder carefully patted Repton down: no weapon.

'Five minutes,' Framlingham said, opening the door. 'Don't let them go to waste.'

When they came back into the room, Repton seemed not to have moved.

'I'm going to need assurances,' he said.

'Of course,' said Framlingham, repositioning himself behind his desk. 'That's understood. Your assistance, a case like this. Minimum sentence, open prison. Back outside in eighteen months, I shouldn't wonder.'

'No,' Repton said. 'No jail time. None at all.'

'Maurice, be reasonable. You know I can't promise that.'

'Then there's no deal.'

'Oh, Maurice, Maurice. What am I going to do? You want me to fetch CIB in on this? Here…' reaching for the phone, 'I can call them now. If you'd really feel more comfortable talking to them than me.'

'Listen,' Repton said. 'Everything you want to know George has been into, going back what? The best part of twenty years?' He tapped his fingers against his temple twice. 'It's all in here. Names, places, amounts, everything. And that stuff on the tape…' He laughed. Not a pleasant sound. 'You want to know where the bodies are?' He tapped his head again. 'But I want guarantees. One, no time inside. Two, protection, before the trial and after. Twenty-four-hour, round the clock. And then I want a new identity, new address the other side of the fucking world.'

Framlingham set the phone back down, unused. 'Maurice, I'll do what I can, you know that. But there's only so much, in good faith, I can promise.'

'Then make your calls,' Repton said. 'Firm it up. You know what I need.' He got to his feet. 'And don't try fobbing me off with any Witness Protection Scheme bollocks, either. I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking over my fucking shoulder, waiting to see who's going to come through the fucking door. You handle this differently. Handle this yourself. Close to your chest.'

Framlingham sighed. 'All right, Maurice. I'll do what I can.'

'This time tomorrow,' Repton said. 'And not here. I'll contact you. Okay?'

'Okay.'

'My mobile,' Repton said to Elder, holding out his hand.

Elder gave him back his phone.

'How do we know,' Framlingham said, after Repton had left the room, 'he isn't calling Mallory right now?'

'We don't.'

'In which case, let's hope self-preservation beats in his heart a shade more strongly than loyalty.'