The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries

THE SIXTH MAN by Bill James

The thing about Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles, as many knew by now, was that at funerals he could get really a bit out of proportion. This one coming up today after the crossfire killing: dicey, dicey, dicey, Harpur thought. It had big overtones and Iles loved overtones, danced and dreamed to them. Consider: a middle-aged, born-again factory worker, out ardently slipping salvation gospel tracts through people’s letter boxes on his afternoon off, gets somehow in the way of a motorized turf battle between drugs firms and picks up two.38 bullets in the back. And a spread of spent bullets around, as well as those that hit him. Iles would scent chaos: this victim, born-again but dead. Did it look like salvation? Harpur himself scented chaos. Iles would love to sound off to folk in funeral pews a bit about chaos, and more than a bit.

As an additional element, sure to disturb the Assistant Chief, this shooting took place very close to the spot where a young, cheery, ethnic girl, rather favoured by him, had her beat, and he would fret in a very Iles style of fretting about the danger she, also, might have been in. Iles used to meet her down there on waste ground now and then, in change-every-time, by-the-hour hire cars, for anonymity. Part of Harpur’s job was to know about anonymities.

At certain funerals following criminal violence, a police presence might be necessary as a public relations duty. It indicated concern and sympathy. Harpur always hated going with the ACC, whether the service happened at a church or chapel or the crematorium direct, but felt he must be handy in case some kind of restraint were needed against Iles so as to preserve reasonable calm. After all, Harpur considered it more or less obvious that funerals should have dignity, decorum. They could be ticklish events for him. Although only a Detective Chief Superintendent, he might be required to curb and lull a superior officer while eyed aghast by the congregation and minister, possibly in parts of a church that would reasonably be considered special, such as the pulpit.

Actually, “such as the pulpit” would not really do in describing these crises. If Harpur had to reach him, and apply a degree of quietening, repressive force, it would nearly always be because Iles had decided to bulk out the proceedings with a personal, extra sermon, and had somehow taken over the pulpit – or its equivalent in fundamentalist meeting halls. Then, at least until Harpur’s intervention with muscle and/or pleas for sense, the Assistant Chief could not be persuaded out and/or silenced. Now and then at tragic funerals he would weep thoroughly; weep blatantly and noisily before he gave an address. Today’s was unquestionably a tragic funeral. There’d been bloodied tracts on the pavement. Sometimes during these episodes, Iles would slander the Home Secretary for the national state of things leading to the death, or the Prime Minister, or the Trinity, or his mother and aunts, or school attendance officers, or all of the above, or permutations. Often he slandered himself and, of course, Harpur. Generally, these onslaughts came over impressively via a pulpit microphone and amplifying system. Failing these, Iles bayed.

Naturally, he would try to fight off Harpur, or anyone else who turned physical in an attempt to suppress him: say, a vicar, if he/she thought Iles’s behaviour had become too wild. The ACC was not big, but possessed craftiness and knew head-butting well from way back in his career. Always, it had seemed especially unkempt to Harpur for someone to head-butt in a place of worship, whether he, Harpur, was on the end of it, or somebody else. Against anyone who opposed or attacked him, Iles could summon an abnormal weight of momentary but true loathing, especially against Harpur, on account not just of immediate irritation, but that past chapter with the ACC’s wife. These reserves of hatred seemed to help increase Iles’s hideous strength and, more often than not, gave his lips true froth during tussles. He usually went to funerals in full dress uniform, and that made him additionally ferocious, unhinged and malevolent, as though convinced he should live up to the high-grade cloth, Queen’s Police Medal ribbon, superb black lace-ups and insignia of his rank.

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 chance. 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, small 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.

“He took two stray bullets,” Harpur said. “Walter Rainsford Lonton had God on his side, most likely, but not luck.”

“Somebody in one of the cars mistook him and panicked.”

“Mistook him for what?”

“There were two cars,” Lamb replied.

“That we know. Four people.”

“It was to be a simple but ample deal. One car brought packets of substance – a lot of packets. The other brought cash, a lot of cash. There should have been a swap. Yes, simple, but also, as you’d expect, very nervy, very excitable. These are people who live with two-timing and rough tricks.”

Ritualistically and uselessly, Harpur would always ask Jack where his information came from. Ritualistically Jack, like any other purposeful whisperer, always ignored this. Sources stayed secret, or next time there would be no sources. There might be no Jack, either, if he ever disclosed too much, or anything, about those who disclosed to him. When Jack told you something you’d better believe it, and you’d better be content with that. “Who’ve you been in touch with, Jack?”

“On the day, one of them in one of the cars, or perhaps more than one and in both cars, sees Lonton flitting between houses and assumes he’s some sort of look-out and is alerting hit squads standing by behind a couple of front doors to dash out at the crux moment and hijack everything – substance and cash. Anyway, somebody opens fire on Lonton…”

“So not accidental, not just trapped in crossfire?” Harpur said.

“They open fire deliberately on him, and would have on anyone else who appeared from the houses, if anyone had, which, as we know, nobody did, because Lonton was a total innocent. The noise of firing convinces some of the others they’re being attacked – that an attempted snatch of the substances or cash is under way – so, of course, they retaliate. But as far as I’ve discovered, neither car has injuries.”

“I don’t know,” Harpur said.

“Both cars finally pull away. Only Lonton is left.”

“So who, Jack? In the cars.”

“No names, or you’ll go and pick them up now and charges might not stick. I want them done as they are doing what they do. They’ll come back. They won’t let a botch muck up their trade, not trade of this scale.”

“I-”

“Look, Col, I only give tip-offs when I think people have acted with real vileness and disregard. I’m not a mouth for mouthing’s sake.”

“Absolutely.” Harpur had listened often to Jack’s gospel of grassing. It was important for Lamb to feel all right about what he did. No money went to him for his help, but neither did Harpur ever ask too much about the rich art business Jack ran. That’s how the arrangement worked, and overall it worked well.

“I consider it monstrous to knock over an amateur apostle on his divine rounds,” Jack said. “All right, an error, but people so jumpy shouldn’t be out with guns. So jumpy they can’t even hit one other.”

“They hit Lonton.”

“I wonder how many shots it took. Did you recover other bullets?

“A quantity,” Harpur said.

“A ton?”

“We’re still searching.”

“This kind of cruel, blast-off craziness – I see it as a symptom of something rotten nationally, Col. And it deteriorates.”

“Mr Iles says that.”

“There you are, then.”

“He can get things right sometimes,” Harpur replied.

“Yes, they’ll come back,” Jack said.

“The buyers and sellers?”

“That’s part of their brazenness, part of the general rottenness. This is commerce, Col. This is gorgeous livelihoods, Col. A bit of a shoot-out, a mistaken shoot-out, can’t be allowed to stop the free flow of merchandise – dirty merchandise, but merchandise. Yes, they’ll come back, not to that particular bit of ground, obviously. But I can point you the right way.”

“How the hell do you know this, Jack?”

“You, plus trusted pals – pals able to handle a Walther – will be waiting. Not a full-scale swarm operation, please. Now, please. Leaks can happen when too many are in the know. The business would be called off. And they’d guess how police came to find out about the new plans, the new site. How? Me. Too perilous, Col. You and your picked group can certainly manage them.”

“How many?”

“Probably four again, two in each car. You’ll outnumber. You’ll have surprise.”

“I hope.”

“A big BMW. A big Volvo. These are a switch from previously. They’re not going to risk the same transport, are they, especially as their previous cars might be damaged? But I’ve got registration numbers for you. Can you call on some good, discreet boys?” He put an encouraging, huge palm on Harpur’s shoulder: “But of course you can, Col.”

“Francis Garland as a start. Yes, I’ll be all right.”

“And as long as you scoop them all up-”

“-it won’t matter if they work out who sold them,” Harpur said.

“I don’t like ‘sold’.”

“Sorry. Let’s amend: It won’t matter if they work out who scuppered them,” Harpur replied.

“Because they won’t be around to do anything about it.”

“You want the Walthers back afterwards?” Harpur asked.

“Not if they’ve been used. Police can prove all sorts from a used gun. But you probably know that already.”

As it would turn out, only one of the Walthers was eventually used, and, a little later than eventually, Harpur committed that to the river. He returned the rest to Jack at a subsequent short and joyful debriefing session at Number Three.

Harpur had found he could recruit four helpers, including Garland, not five. The pool to draw on was small. He wanted good marksmen ready to believe they’d be passably safe, regardless: passably safe, regardless, from the crews they had to stalk; and passably safe, regardless, from superior ranks after running an uncleared shooting romp. Harpur considered that to convince four in the circumstances might be good going. Luckily, so luckily, one of them was Garland’s sergeant, Vic Callinicos, an esteemed marvel with handguns. In the swoop, when it came he fired ahead twice from out of the passenger window of a Citroën moving fast over uneven ground after shots aimed at them from the Volvo and the BMW. Their shots missed. Vic’s didn’t.

Harpur’s interception platoon were in the Citroën and a Ford, both unmarked. They’d waited and watched in the dark, unnoticeable among a string of parked cars on the road bordering a public open sports field. This had been specified by Lamb at the block house as the new transaction site. A Vauxhall and a Peugeot already stood at one end of the field, probably immaterial. Harpur thought they could be love buggies: a soccer ground in the day, nooky at night. Jack had said to expect the target cars between ten thirty p.m. and eleven. At ten fifty, the Volvo, its registration spot-on, arrived and waited. It was at a distance, but near enough for them to hear that the driver kept its engine running. At two minutes to eleven the BMW came to a stop by the Volvo.

In the Citroën, Harpur said, “We go now.” He drove, with Vic Callinicos alongside him. Harpur took the car up over the kerb and pavement and on to the grass. The Ford with Garland in charge followed. They had fix-on blue lamps and got them going at once. Garland also carried a loudspeaker in the Ford and began yelling: “Armed Police, Armed Police, get out with your hands up.” Despite this din and the cars’ engine roar, Harpur heard shots from the BMW and Volvo, and heard Vic Callinicos’s reply. He saw the driver of the BMW pitch forward against the windscreen and the man in the Volvo passenger seat lurch to his right. In a minute the Citroën had reached the BMW and Harpur braked and jumped out. He had a Walther in each jacket pocket and produced one of them now, and started howling the “Armed Police” advertisement himself. You could valve off some of the fear that way. He was on the driver’s side of the BMW, its window down. With his free hand, he was about to pull the door open when the man in the passenger seat leaned across behind the body of the driver and blurted: “All right, all right. Here,” and threw a Browning pistol out through the window. When Harpur did open the door, the driver’s body tumbled on to the field and covered the Browning. Harpur got a grip on the front passenger’s arm and dragged him out. Harpur did not recognize either of them: a supply firm from away, most likely. The packages were very neatly laid out right the way across the back seat. As Jack had said, a lot.

At the Volvo, too, resistance stalled, though the engine kept going. Vic could not only shoot, he could identify the right ones to shoot to neutralize an enemy. When Harpur went to that car, he found he did know these men, the alive and the dead: Karl Dane, arrested, and Joshua Tive-Amory, both local, both very small small-timers until now. So, perhaps Lamb’s and Iles’s joint theory of a fast-widening threat stood up. Garland handcuffed the two survivors to the BMW steering wheel while a money search of their clothes and the Volvo went on. Dane said: “Who the fuck sold us then, Mr Harpur?”

“Sold you?” Harpur said.

“You had us surrounded, didn’t you. Four fucking cars here to swamp us. Major planning. Who sold us?”

“Just two, the Ford and the Citroën,” Harpur said. “All we needed for such a soft job. The other two cars are not ours. A bit of rudimentary guesswork told us you’d be back.”

“I don’t believe it,” Dane said.

“You’d better believe it,” Harpur replied. And he decided, then, that he ought to make sure the people in those original two parked cars were all right. Salvoes had flown tonight, who knew where? The Vauxhall moved off fast as Harpur approached. Somebody, or some pair, or even some trio, hetero perhaps, homo perhaps, mixed perhaps, didn’t wish to get sucked into this scene. He memorized the registration all the same, in case they’d do as witnesses.

In the back seat of the second, the Peugeot, he now recognized Iles and his friend Honorée, efficiently getting themselves back into presentable shape. Iles lowered a window and said: “Perhaps I mentioned previously, Col, that Honorée wanted a change of location following the Lonton business. Well, I’m not sure this is better, after all, are you? I think we took a shot through the driver’s door and into the upholstery. One might have been sitting there, you know, Harpur.”

“Probably you’re a back seat person in fields, sir.”

“How about you give me the Walther, Harpur?” Iles replied. “It will look to the rest of them as if I’d been duly notified of this operation – and I should, should, and should, have been duly notified of this operation, holding the position, as you’ll recall, of Assistant Chief (Operations) – and so, having, we’ll imagine, been notified of it, decided to contribute in a personal, armed capacity. That would make the illicitness of this more or less all right, I feel. And the car hirer can then charge headquarters for the bullet trouble to his car.”

“The illicitness of what, sir?” Harpur replied. “You mean you and Honorée having a-”

“Let’s go and chat to the baddies and their captors, shall we, Col?” Iles left the car and he and Harpur walked towards the BMW and the Volvo. Iles paused, and Harpur paused with him. The ACC said: “Sly and eternal thicko, when I call it illicit, I mean, of course, you running a damn secret, unapproved, cordite campaign in which I might have got my balls shot off. But fortunately, now this has become an official police victory, with the Assistant Chief a participant. I think we can swing that. It’s why I wanted your Walther. Authenticity. But, all right, if you object, I’ll-”

“I have a spare Walther, sir.”

“There we are then,” Iles replied.

Harpur gave him the pistol intended by Jack for the sixth man. Iles would do as the sixth man. “It has to be handed back later.”

“Handed back to whom?” Iles said.

“Will Honorée disappear while we’re over here, sir, with the task force, prisoners and deads? That the idea? She can sneak away to the road and a cab?”

“Disappear? Of course she won’t disappear, Col. This is a fine and precious girl. This is plainly a girl I brought with me as cover. If you’re masquerading as an amour car for the purpose of ambush, you need to have a girl with you, don’t you, Harpur? She’s like a theatrical prop, isn’t she? It’s called verisimilitude. You’ll find that one in the dictionary, too.”

“I hadn’t thought of cover as an explanation for her, sir.”

“Don’t get despondent. I can think for both of us, Col. It’s a habit.”

“I haven’t had time to congratulate you on the funeral, sir. You were very measured, if I may say.”

“I think you may. I appreciated the setting. I loved that wall text.”

“Which?”

“The main one,” Iles replied.

“ ‘Without shedding of blood is no remission,’ “ Harpur said.