Vacuum by Bill James

Author:Bill James [James, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
Publisher: Creme de la Crime
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

NINE

Harpur wondered whether Karen Lister really understood what Jill had called, in her know-all, read-everything, muckraking way, omertà: the holy, crook gospel of buttoned lip. Karen Lister would have heard of it, naturally. She wasn’t dim or ignorant. But did she appreciate its strength, feel – actually feel – its power: an imported strength and power, yes, a Mafia concoction, but in play here, too, on this patch? Its purpose was the same as in that native Italian scene, or scenes, if Jill had things right about the Naples variant.

Karen seemed to think it would be safe and effective for Harpur to arrive at the house and announce he’d been tipped-off that Jason meant to wipe out General Franco, but must immediately cancel because, (i) it was known about, (ii) it was dangerous, and (iii) it was against the law, Iles’s law or Sir Matthew Upton’s. Iles’s and Sir Matthew’s ideas on the law might vary about drugs policing, but they’d be closer on something like murder, though Iles didn’t much mind when villains killed one another.

If Harpur did call at their place, she might be present when he made the declaration and would probably act shocked. Did she think this would fool Jason? She wasn’t Dame Dench. ‘My God, Jason, it would be an appalling risk. Please, drop the idea. Now, please!’ Although there might be other possible sources for Harpur’s information, as he’d told her, she would be the most obvious. Perhaps Karen reckoned she could manage Jason, even if he did suspect. This was what made Harpur fear she didn’t really grasp the force of the omertà edict. A love-match partnership couldn’t compete.

Harpur hesitated to expose her, and expose her for what, after all, was only a series of guesses, not a stack of facts: Jason might believe the new hands-on supremo of the firm, Arlington-Franco, lacked boss qualities; might feel re-fighting the Spanish Civil War a byway; might intend to replace Franco; might try to do it by force; might get hurt or worse in any battle for the leadership. A thick goulash of maybes.

Harpur decided he would not drop in at their house: too direct, too blatantly set up, and set up by Karen. No, he’d take an evening drive around the main dealing district near Valencia Esplanade and the docks and hope to come across Jason on his foreman duties; or perhaps he was higher than that now. The chieftain topic could be slipped in as part of casual chat, not its flagrant only purpose. This seeming casualness would be difficult to phrase – not, for instance, ‘Oh, by the way, Jason, I heard you want to kill General Franco’ – but Harpur believed it feasible. Dealers had become used to Iles’s relaxed regime, so no longer cleared the district when Harpur or any other officer turned up, though their alarm system would announce he had entered the area.

Karen and Jason had a semi in a spruce district, not all that far from Iles’s home in Rougement Place.

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