“I respect Mum and Great-Aunt Edna, naturally. That will never alter. But I can’t be run by them anymore. I’m grown-up, Ralph.”
The bank raid had transformed him. This was not just a matter of what Ralph thought of at first as “jauntiness.” That could come and go. Max had climbed a little late into maturity and would stay there. He could spiel. He fancied himself as a warrior now — a warrior who could still show gallant deference to his mother and great-auntie Edna, but who also knew that a true warrior’s main and perhaps only real role was to fight and kill. He’d had a makeover.
Ember said: “There’s a phrase for this — ‘rites of passage.’ ”
“Great. I could get fond of phrases.” Articulate put an arm across the bar, skirting the Kressmann bottle with its striking black label. “A handshake will do for us, I think, Ralph,” he said. It was clipped, matey, foursquare. “You keep turning down my mother’s and great-aunt Edna’s loony scheme for my funds and I see to Luke Apsley Beynon.”
Ralph took his hand with wholehearted firmness. Sure. This agreement could only be a bonus. He would never have given Great-aunt Edna, Mrs. Misk, and Articulate the least financial footing in the Monty, anyway, and, yes, Luke Beynon was beginning to look more and more like severe peril.
And, because Beynon looked more and more like severe peril, Ralph went again to the Monty during the afternoon next day to do his security checks. He was touring the Monty yard to satisfy himself no mysterious packages had been left against club doors when an unmarked Volvo drove in and parked. Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles and Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur left the car and walked towards him, Iles looking as jolly as napalm. These two often arrived at the Monty, on the face of it to see that all licensing conditions were observed, but actually, in Ralph’s view, to terrorise the members and enjoy a few free drinks. “Hunting firebombs, Ralphy?” Iles said.
Ember took them to the bar and mixed a gin and cider in a half-pint glass for Harpur and a port and lemonade for Iles, “the old whore’s quaff,” as he described it. Today, although it was only afternoon, the club had twenty or so members in, mostly at the bar or playing snooker and pool. Iles did his usual arrogant glare about, as if he couldn’t believe how some of these people, or any of them, could be out of jail.
They sat at a table, Ember again on the armagnac. Harpur said: “I gather Articulate was here last night for quite a dialogue. Has he suddenly turned really articulate? He’s emerged somehow?”
“I see such one-to-one conversations with long-time members as a very worthwhile and, indeed, pleasurable experience,” Ralph replied, “and an essential factor in one’s job as host.”
“How true,” Iles replied.
“Handshaking, also,” Harpur said.
“We’re civilised, you know, Mr. Harpur. All the usual courtesies are practised at the Monty,” Ember replied. It always hurt him to think the club had members who watched things here and straight off reported to the police, for some measly fee, most likely.
“And then Articulate and his mother and great-aunt Edna in earlier,” Harpur said. He was big and thuggish-looking, some said like a fair-haired Rocky Marciano, the one-time heavyweight champion of the world. Alongside him, Iles looked dainty, but in fact lacked all daintiness.
“This sounds like real activity,” Harpur said.
“What does?” Ember said.
“These visits,” Harpur said.
“This is a club. People drop in,” Ember replied.
Iles said: “We wondered, Colin and I, whether you could recall the gist of your talk with Articulate, or even with Articulate and his mother and great-aunt Edna.”
“I talk to many members over any twenty-four hours, you know,” Ralph said.
“They’re lucky to have you,” Iles said. “Everyone realises that. But don’t muck Col and me about, Ralph, there’s a chum. Just give us what Max said, what you said, what the women said, would you? Something agreed at the afternoon meeting and then Articulate comes in late to confirm? Or cancel?”
“Casual conviviality, that’s all. You make it all sound very purposeful and businesslike, Mr. Iles,” Ralph said, “whereas—”
“Yes, purposeful and businesslike,” Iles said. “That’s our impression.”
“Your impression via a fink,” Ember said — “as through a grass darkly.”
“Wow, Ralph!” Iles said.
“It’s the later conversation that really interests us,” Harpur said.
“Generalities, I should think,” Ember said. He did a frown to indicate he meant to try to help them and recollect. “Weather. Holidays. Cricket. The usual small talk. We try to avoid politics — too controversial. I bump into so many people in the club and have a few unimportant yet, I trust, comradely words. These little pow-wows seem to merge into one pleasant and not very significant encounter. I don’t know whether Max would recall things better than I. It might be in your interests to talk to him, if you feel something significant might have come up.”
“The thing about Articulate is, he’s dead,” Iles replied.
“My God,” Ralph said. The shock was real.
“Which is why what he talked about with you might be to the point,” Harpur said.
“Generalities,” Ralph said.
“Shot,” Harpur replied.
“My God,” Ralph said.
“Our impression is that he meant to bop Luke Apsley Beynon, but got bopped himself,” Harpur said.
“As most of us would have forecast,” Iles said. “I mean, was Articulate Max anywhere near capable as executioner?”
“The whisper’s around, isn’t it, that he was in on the I.C.D.S. robbery with some sort of stooge function?” Harpur said. “Did that make him feel suddenly big and mature and competent — and free up his voice box?”
“Poor deluded prat,” Iles said. “He gave himself a mission on your behalf? Luke Apsley Beynon’s been breathing untender words to you, hasn’t he, Ralph? This is our information.”
“Luke Beynon?” Ember replied.
“Did Articulate, with his new gloss, offer to knock him over for you?” Iles said. “Suddenly he thinks he’s one of Nature’s hit men? Were you and he talking some kind of deal? You’ll see why we’re concerned about his appearances here, especially the second one, without his minders, the women. Did he need to say something they shouldn’t hear?”
“Deal?” Ember said.
“Quid pro quoism of some sort,” Iles said.
“Generalities,” Ralph replied.
“We’re charging Luke,” Harpur said. “He’ll go down. His firm will break up without him.”
“So you don’t come out of this at all too badly, Ralph, do you?” Iles said. “You won’t have to cower behind the collage anymore.”
Ember replenished their drinks and took more armagnac himself. “I think about his mother and great-aunt Edna,” he said.
“Those two are provided for, we believe,” Iles said.
“I mean their grief,” Ralph said.
“You were always one for tenderness to prized Monty members, Ralphy,” Iles replied.