Men from Boys Read online

  And that’s how it had been with Toni. He’d soon seen that a couple of glasses of celebratory champagne weren’t going to be enough. She was naïve, she was nervous, but beneath it all, she was ready, he was certain of that. A light lunch in his flat – one of his famous aphrodisiac salads – another bottle of bubbly, a shot of armagnac, and by two o’clock, two thirty at the latest, they’d have been in bed.

  The problem was there was this Yankee journalist, nine out of ten attractive and desperate for an interview, who was lunching him at the Grand at one. He contemplated standing her up, but with news of the Booker nomination to drop casually into the conversation, this was too good an opportunity to be missed.

  But so was Toni.

  It was a situation tailor-made for the Accelerant. So tailor-made that he’d genuinely forgotten that he’d used it and when he did remember, the only regret he felt was that she might not be able to share completely his own delightful memories. He’d kissed her on the forehead as he put her on her train, still apologising for her silliness in letting a little champagne turn her so woozy, and promised himself that next time he would make sure there wasn’t any need to rush.

  ‘You still there, Boy? Guilt got your tongue?’

  There was a strong temptation to justify himself, but with this bitch, that could be hugely dangerous. Just keep your head, he told himself. Be very careful what you say.

  ‘Yes, I’m still here,’ he said. ‘It’s simple incomprehension that’s reduced me to silence.’

  ‘Come on, Boy! Give it up! Okay, you probably told yourself all you were doing was speeding up the inevitable, you weren’t giving her anything she didn’t really want. Just like your cardboard hero. And she wouldn’t remember anyway. But she really didn’t want it, Boy. And she does remember. In nightmares, in panic attacks. Oh yes, she remembers. It’s going to take her a long time to forget.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said calmly. ‘What I do know is, if you repeat any of these monstrous calumnies in public, I shall be obliged, albeit reluctantly, to seek protection from the Law.’

  ‘Ah yes. The Law. That was my first reaction. Call in the police. But Toni got hysterical when I suggested it and Maggie, her sister, said no, it wasn’t the way. Interesting woman, Toni’s sister. Member of a club I go to. It was her got me to take on Toni in the first place, so we both feel responsible. Now Maggie, she’s quite different from Toni. None of her hang-ups. Action woman, looks at life straight on, bags of self-confidence and common sense. Well, I imagine you need all that when you’re an officer in the Ordnance Corps. And like a lot of soldiers, she doesn’t have much faith in civil justice.’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t,’ sneered Boy. ‘Even in this enlightened age, military dykes can’t have very good career prospects. I can see why she’d want to steer clear of the cops.’

  ‘Now I’d never have thought of that, Boy. Must be that famous artistic sensitivity of yours. But don’t misunderstand me, just because she’s a military dyke, as you put it, doesn’t mean she can’t pass for normal in the dusk with the light behind her. Or even at dawn. In fact, you can judge for yourself. It was her who served your breakfast this morning. Anyway, we both agreed, no police, unless of course you agreed to plead guilty at the trial and save Toni the trauma of giving evidence?’

  ‘Trial?’ He laughed. ‘Molly, don’t be ridiculous. We both know there isn’t going to be a trial. My conscience is clear. I have done nothing wrong except spend a pleasant hour in bed with a willing and enthusiastic young woman.’

  Put that on your tape and play it! he told himself gleefully.

  ‘Willing and enthusiastic? Yes, I can see you smiling at the jury and urging them to ask themselves, why would someone as attractive as I am need to resort to foul play to get my end away? You really do think of yourself as the Boy David, don’t you? One whirl of your slingshot and the whole world’s at your feet. And if they’re not worshipping, unconscious will do.’

  ‘Molly, I think you’ve had some kind of breakdown,’ he said with avuncular concern. ‘I think you need help. I’m sorry I can’t give it, but I advise you to look for someone who can in the near future. No more pranks, please, or I definitely will call in the Law. My solicitor will be in touch anyway about terminating our agreement. I’ll instruct him to be generous. Despite everything, I’m grateful for what you’ve done for my career.’

  That would sound well on the tape, if there was a tape.

  ‘That’s kind of you, Boy. And don’t think I don’t recognise your good qualities too. For instance, it was brave of you to pull the loo chain. And you often said things that made me laugh. Okay, they were usually a bit sour and cynical, but they genuinely amused me. Which is why I’m putting in this effort to get you to see reason and face up to things like a man. A grown man, I mean. Okay, it’ll be painful and when it’s over, you won’t be the famous Boy Ansell any more. But you can’t stay like that for the rest of your life anyway. You’ve got to grow up some time. Might even help your writing. So let’s talk a bit longer and see if we can’t come to some resolution which makes sense to all of us.’

  She sounded so genuinely concerned that despite himself he felt touched. But the crack about his writing was the last straw. Who the hell did she think she was, a stringy middle-aged literary leech talking like this to a man with a Booker cheque in his wallet?

  He said, ‘Molly, there’s nothing left to say. I’m going to ring off now.’

  She said, ‘Boy, don’t hang up. I’m warning you, don’t hang up. Please.’

  But of course he did.

  Though perhaps, as he did so, because he was after all a good if somewhat overrated writer and deserving of at least a third of the praise heaped upon him, perhaps his keen ear for nuance detected that there was more of appeal than threat in Molly’s words.

  Then perhaps his sharp eye for detail reminded him that Toni’s sister was an officer in the Ordnance Corps.

  And perhaps there was even time for his fine sense of balance and proportion to register that there was something not quite right about the set of the shoulders on Michelangelo’s statue, as if someone had been mucking about with the resin.

  But there was no way even his brilliant mind could put all these things together in time to abort replacing the phone on the statue’s crotch.

  Which was when both Boy Davids lost their heads together.

  LIKE AN ARRANGEMENT

  Bill James

  Not everyone realised that the thing about Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles was he longed to be loved. Among those who did realise it, of course, a good number refused to respond and instead muttered privately, ‘Go fuck yourself, Iles.’ A very good number. On the other hand, there was certainly a young ethnic whore in the docks who worshipped the A.C.C. unstintingly, and he would have been truly hurt if anyone said it was because he paid well.

  What Iles totally abominated was people who came to esteem him only because he had contributed or helped in some way: say a piece of grand, devastating violence carried out by the A.C.C. for them against one of their enemies. He despised such calculating, quid pro quoism, as he called it. Once, he had told Harpur he utterly disregarded love that could be accounted for and reckoned up. Harpur felt happy the A.C.C. received from his docks friend, Honorée, and from Fanny, his infant daughter, the differing but infinite affection he craved. Also, Iles’s wife, Sarah, definitely possessed some quaint fondness for him, quite often at least. She had mentioned this to Harpur unprompted in one of their quiet moments.

  To Harpur, it seemed that much of Iles’s behaviour could be explained by this need for completely spontaneous, instinctive, wholehearted devotion. Think of that unpleasant incident at the Taldamon School prize-giving, for instance. Although Iles would regard the kind of physical savagery he was forced into there as merely routine for him, it had made one eighteen-year-old girl pupil switch abruptly from fending off the A.C.C. sexually to offering an urgent come-on. This enraged Iles. He
had been doing all he could to attract the girl, probably as potential stand-by in case Honorée were working away some time at a World Cup or Church of England Synod. Totally no go. And then, within minutes, the Taldamon girl suddenly changed and clearly grew interested in Iles, simply because he had felled and disarmed some bastard in the stately school assembly hall, and kicked him a few times absolutely unfatally about the head and neck where he lay on the floor between chair rows. Colin Harpur instantly knew the A.C.C. would regard this turnaround by the girl as contemptible: as grossly undiscerning about Iles, as Iles. That is, the essence of Ilesness, not simply his rabbit punching and kicking flairs, which could be viewed as superficial: as attractive, perhaps, but mere accessories to his core self. Harpur saw at the end of this episode that the A.C.C. wished to get away immediately from the girl and return to Honorée for pure, unconditional adoration even, if necessary, on waste ground.

  It was some school: private, of course, and residential, and right up there with Eton and Harrow for fees. In fact, it cost somewhere near the national average wage to keep a child at Taldamon for a year, and this without the geology trip to Iceland, the horse riding and extra coaching in lacrosse and timpani. Harpur and Iles – Iles particularly – were interested in Taldamon because the police funded one of its pupils during her entire school career. This was an idea picked up from France. Over there, it had long been police practice to meet the education expenses for the child or children of a valuable and regular informant, as one way of paying for tipoffs. The scheme convinced Iles and others. It was considered less obvious – less dangerous – than to give an informant big cash rewards, which he/she might spend in a stupid, ostentatious way, drawing attention to his/her special income. That could mean the informant was no longer able to get close to villains’ secrets because the villains would have him/her identified as a leak. It could also mean that his/her life was endangered. A child out of sight at a pricey school in North Wales would be less noticeable. Or this was the thinking.

  They had put Wayne Ridout’s daughter, Fay-Alice, into Taldamon, from the age of thirteen, and now here she was at eighteen, head prefect, multi-prizewinner, captain of lacrosse, captain of swimming and water polo, central to the school orchestra, destined for Oxford, slim, straight-nosed, sweet-skinned, and able to hold Iles off with cold, foul-mouthed ease until . . . until she decided she did not want to hold him off, following a gross rush of disgusting gratitude: disgusting, that is, as Harpur guessed the A.C.C. would regard it.

  Harpur and Iles would not normally attend this kind of function. The presence of police might be a give-away. But Wayne had pleaded with Iles to come, and pleaded a little less fervently with Harpur, also. It was not just that Wayne wanted them to see the glorious results of their grass-related investment in Fay-Alice. Harpur knew from a few recent conversations with Wayne that he had felt down lately. Because of her education and the social status of Taldamon, Ridout sensed his daughter might be growing away from him and her mother, Nora. This grieved both, but especially Wayne. His wife seemed to regard the change in Fay-Alice as normal. Harpur imagined she probably saw it on behalf of the girl like this: when your father’s main career had been fink and general crook rather than archbishop or TV game show host, there was only one way for the next generation to go socially – up and away. Regrettable but inevitable.

  Wayne could not accept such sad distancing. He must reason that if he were seen at this important school function accompanied by an Assistant Chief Constable, who had on the kind of magnificent suit and shoes Iles favoured, and who behaved in his well-known Shah of Persia style, it was bound to restore Fay-Alice’s respect for her parents. And it would impress the girl’s friends and teachers. For these possible gains, Wayne had evidently decided to put up with the security risk in this one-off event. Harpur doubted Fay-Alice would see things as her father did and thought he and the A.C.C. should not attend. But Iles agreed the visit and addressed Harpur for a while about ‘overriding obligations to those who sporadically assist law and order, even a fat, villainous, ugly, dim sod like Wayne’. The A.C.C. was always shudderingly eager to get among teenage schoolgirls if they looked clean and wore light summery clothes.

  It was only out of politeness that Wayne had asked Harpur. As Detective Chief Superintendent, Harpur lacked the glow of staff rank and could not tog himself out with the same distinction as Iles. In fact, the A.C.C. had seemed not wholly sure Harpur should accompany him. ‘This will be a school with gold-lettered award boards on the wall, naming pupils who’ve gone on not just to Oxbridge or management courses with the Little Chef restaurant chain, but Harvard, Vatican seminaries, even Time Share selling in Alicante. There’ll be ambience. Does ambience get into your vocab at all, Harpur? I know this kind of academy right through, from my own school background, of course. I’d hate you to feel in any way disadvantaged by your education, but I ask you, Col – do you think you can you fit into such a place as Taldamon with that fucking haircut and your garments?’

  ‘This kind of occasion does make me think back to end of term at my own school, sir,’ Harpur reminisced gently.

  ‘And what did they give leaving prizes to eighteen-year-olds for there – knowing the two-times table, speed at dewristing tourists’ Rolexes?’

  ‘Should we go armed?’ Harpur replied.

  ‘This is a wholesome occasion at a prime girls’ school, for God’s sake, Col.’

  ‘Should we go armed?’ Harpur said.

  Iles said, ‘I’d hate it if some delightful pupil, inadvertently brushing against me, should feel only the brutal outline of a holstered pistol, Harpur.’

  ‘This sort of school, they’re probably taught never to brush inadvertently against people like you, sir. It would be stressed in deportment classes, plus during the domestic science module for classifying moisture marks on trousers.’

  Iles’s voice grew throaty and his breathing loud and needful: ‘I gather she’s become a star now as scholar, swimmer, musician and so on, but I can remember Fay-Alice when she was only a kid, though developing, certainly . . . developing, yes, certainly, developing, but really only just a kid . . . although . . . well, yes, developing, and we went to the Ridout house to advise them that she should –’

  ‘There are people who’d like to do Wayne. He’s helped put all sorts inside. They have brothers, colleagues, sons, fathers, mothers. Perhaps the word’s around he’ll be on a plate at Taldamon, ambience-hooked, relaxed, unvigilant.’

  ‘A striking-looking child, even then,’ Iles replied, ‘despite Wayne and his complexion. A wonderful long, slender back, as I recall. Do you recall that, Harpur – the long slender back? Do you think of backs ever? Or was it the era when you were so damn busy giving it to my wife you didn’t have time to notice much else at all?’ Iles began to screech in the frenzied seagull tone that would take him over sometimes when speaking of Harpur and Sarah.

  Harpur said, ‘If we’re there we ought at least to –’

  ‘I mean her back in addition to the way she was, well –?’

  ‘Developing.’

  This long back Fay-Alice unquestionably still had, and the development elsewhere seemed to have continued as it generally would for a girl between thirteen and eighteen. A little tea party had been arranged on the pleasant lawns at Taldamon before the prize-giving, out of consideration for parents who travelled a long way and needed refreshment. It was June, a good, hot, blue-skied day. ‘Here’s a dear, dear acquaintance of mine, Fay-Alice,’ Wayne said. ‘Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles. And Chief Superintendent Harpur.’

  Iles gave her a true conquistador smile, yet a smile which also sought to hint at his sensitivity, honour, beguiling polish and famed restraint. Fay-Alice returned this smile with one that was hostile, nauseated and extremely brief but which still managed to signal over her teacup, Police? So how come you’re friends of my father, and who let you in here, anyway? Was it just normal schoolgirl prejudice against cops or did she have some idea that daddy’s care
er might be lifelong dubious – even some idea that her schooling and Wayne’s career could be unwholesomely related? This must be a bright kid, able to win prizes and an Oxford place. She’d have antennae as well as the long back.

  ‘Fay-Alice’s prizes are in French literature, history of art and classics,’ Wayne said.

  ‘Won’t mean a thing to Col,’ Iles replied.

  ‘I wondered if there’d been strangers around the school lately,’ Harpur said, ‘possibly asking questions about the programme today, looking at the layout.’

  ‘Which strangers?’ Fay-Alice replied.

  ‘Strangers,’ Harpur said. ‘A man, or men, probably.’

  ‘Why would they?’ the girl asked.

  ‘You know, French lit. is something I can’t get enough of,’ the A.C.C. said.

  ‘Mr Iles, personally, did a lot with education, right up to the very heaviest levels, Fay-Alice,’ Wayne said. ‘Don’t be fooled just because he’s police.’

  ‘Yes, why are you concerned about strangers, Mr Harpur?’ Nora Ridout asked.

  ‘Are you two trying to put the frighteners on us, the way pigs always do?’ Fay-Alice said.

  ‘I recall Alphonse de Lamartine and his poem “The Lake”,’ Iles replied.

  ‘Alphonse is a French name for sure,’ Wayne said. ‘There you are, Fay-Alice – didn’t I tell you, Mr Iles can go straight to it, no messing? Books are meat and drink to him.’

  Iles leaned towards her and recited: ‘ “Oh, Time, will you not stop a while so we may savour the swiftly passing pleasures of our loveliest days?” ’