thing in criminal cases … You get one of my known villains off the hook on a technicality and the men on my patch who’ve sweated their guts out just to bring him up before the bench, they’re mad as hell … They’d like to see you roasted …’
Kemp looked startled. ‘Not to the extent of trying to set my house on fire?’
John Upshire drew the back of his hand across his lips, and gave Kemp a sharp glance. ‘H’m … I think you’d better tell me about it.’
‘Somebody pushed petrol-soaked rags through my letterbox this morning, followed by a lighted match. Luckily I was in the kitchen at the time and saw the flare-up. I stamped out the fire and we only lost the doormat. I did report it, John. Your desk sergeant has the details, and the debris. You weren’t around.’
‘I’ve been up at the Bailey all day helping to put away the Clayton brothers. My God, Lennox, why didn’t you tell me straight off?’
‘I’m telling you now. And it wasn’t the first attempt. My car was rammed out on the London Road on Saturday night. An unidentified van drove into me, reversed smartly and accelerated away leaving me on the edge of a ditch. It was a wet night, and I thought he’d just skidded, didn’t want to face the consequences and got the hell out … Now I’m not so sure. My car’s still in dock, that’s why I walked here tonight.’
‘We’re both walking,’ said Upshire, tersely, ‘and this calls for something stronger. Whisky, eh?’
‘Sounds like a good idea. I’ll get them.’
As he threaded his way through the brass-topped tables Kemp was reminded of the many other nights he had spent with John Upshire in the Cabbage White, turning the small coin of their shared experience. For it was only here, away from the strictures of their respective offices, that they could, as it were, unbutton and let their tongues go free. Lawyer and policeman, they might be said to have the same end in view, but Kemp’s way was not Upshire’s and they both knew it, warily skirting the difference when occasion arose.
It had been a long friendship of benefit to each of them in their lone years when neither had other companionship, the inspector a widower, Kemp unmarried and with no clear plan to alter that state. Despite careful adherence to, on the one hand professional ethics and on the other the rules of police procedure, such meetings were mutually enlightening and sometimes their outcome had played havoc with the lives of those socially malfunctioning members of the community who had criminal tendencies. It was of these that Upshire now spoke.
‘You’ve helped put away a few in your time, Lennox. Their families, now, they’ve not liked it. When some of our old East Enders came out here for a new start they thought they’d find us less on the ball than our colleagues in the Met. Well, they learned different … But when someone we’ve nabbed is doing his stretch he gets to brooding … Mebbe he comes out with a grudge …’
‘You know we solicitors don’t prosecute nowadays, John. That’s all up to the Crown Prosecution Service …’
‘Five or six years ago you were doing it. Put a few behind bars in those days. Some got ten to twelve … With remission, they’re out now, prowling the streets, God knows what in their twisted little minds. You thought of that?’
‘I’ve not had time to think of much … Anyway, it would be your lot who finally put them away, my part was small … Why don’t they have a go at the police?’
John Upshire grinned – a rare occurrence. It split his chubby features like a half-opened bun. ‘Because, my lad, we embody the law. We’re a force to be reckoned with. They can’t point the finger at one individual in a team. But you, you’re out on your own …’
‘Which I feel most acutely,’ said Kemp, not heartened by the turn in the conversation. ‘Believe me, I’ve been searching my conscience since this morning
‘Then you’re in the wrong area. Conscience has nothing to do with it. If you’ve nailed some rogues in your time, and even a few murderers, you did it in the course of duty …’
‘And in answer to the call for justice … I know all the high-sounding words, I just wonder sometimes as to their meaning …’ Kemp felt it was probably the spirit of the grain which was beginning to fuel their terms of expression. John Upshire was normally a man of some reticence in speech, more at home with official prose than abstract concept. Only with Kemp did he sometimes relax sufficiently to reveal an inner depth of understanding, a cognisance of other issues beyond those contained in police dossiers. Kemp was surprised that he had not been made superintendent by now. The local force respected him for his fairness, the knack he had of seeing their point of view, his sympathy with raw recruits doing a difficult job in hostile circumstances, he backed them to the hilt against all criticism while at the same time upholding strict discipline, that first tenet of his belief in the system he had to operate. Perhaps the powers that be had never interpreted correctly Upshire’s inherent loyalty to the men serving under him, and his refusal to bend even when it went against the wishes of his superiors. There would have been conflict there; perhaps it had not helped him in the promotion stakes.
‘I’ll run a routine check,’ the inspector was saying, ‘to see if there’s anybody just released or out on parole who might fit the bill.’ He paused, and shook his head. ‘But it’s a long shot. Most of them steer clear of trouble – at least for a month or two. And we keep a close eye on them if they’ve been part of one of the organized-crime rackets. This kind of petty revenge isn’t nearly as common as you might think …’
‘I don’t see anything petty in an attempt on my life. It’s the only one I’ve got and I’d like to hold on to it for a while yet.’
‘I bet you do – particularly now it’s changed. You got married …’
Upshire could not keep a slight resentment from edging into his tone. He too had savoured these nights spent mulling over cases, the relationship which had brought comfort to them both when neither could find it at home. Now things would be different. Kemp had acquired a wife – and not one John Upshire would have chosen for him. Mary Blane, her name when she was single, though she had had others, had a past which the inspector considered to be dingy if not downright disreputable. He could not help commenting on it, even at the risk of putting strain on a friendship he cherished.
‘Have you thought that it could be your wife they were getting at? She had some pretty weird connections back there in the States.’
‘Come off it, John. Matrimony hasn’t quite blighted my wits. Of course I’ve wondered about that, but it just isn’t on … These letters I’ve had, what they say, they’re aimed at me alone. They hint at things that have happened only to me, either here in Newtown or even further back … I haven’t any ideas yet as to what they’re getting at but I’m working on it. But it has nothing to do with Mary.’
Upshire grunted. ‘Whatever you say … I’d better have a look at them. I suppose you’ve kept the stuff?’
‘Have you ever known a lawyer throw away anything that’s written down? And, talking of Mary, she’d like you to come to supper on Saturday night. She feels it’s time she got to know you better and, frankly, I think a closer acquaintance with her will modify your view.’
If John Upshire’s acceptance of the invitation was grudging that was only to be expected. Kemp was well aware that the inspector’s opinion of Mary Madeleine Blane, now Mrs Kemp, was bound to be coloured by her involvement in a recent case which had put her by Upshire’s reckoning in that grey area between legal right and moral wrong, or perhaps the other way round. As an upholder of the law, the inspector didn’t like grey areas; he preferred to see people in black and white, and possibly with little captions under them saying guilty or innocent. Kemp’s work, by its very nature, forced him to dig deeper into the character and motive of his clients so that his attitude to their frailties tended to be tolerant and sometimes even ambivalent.
The two men parted at the corner, Upshire to go back to the empty suburban house he and Betty had bought when he