Vacuum by Bill James Page B

around.’
    â€˜When I say, “Where are we?” what I mean is, are Ralphy Ember and his firm to be wiped out?’
    Yes, if Upton could manage it, Ember was to be eliminated as first stage in something larger. ‘I’d be interested to know where you pick up your rumours,’ he said.
    â€˜The changes – potential changes – bewilder me,’ she said. ‘They’re frightening.’
    He made tea and served it in proper china cups decorated with blue leaves and tendrils, plus matching saucers. He was keen on china and thought he might do some systematic study and buying when he retired. He loved how, with the best examples, something solid like the side of a cup could be almost transparent.
    â€˜So?’ Hazel had said when he spoke admiringly of it one day. His daughters considered this interest an affectation and ‘salon snobby’, as Hazel termed it. Jill didn’t seem to get what ‘salon’ meant, but she agreed about the snobbery. He’d seen them pour tea out of the cups he’d used when they had company and into stubby beige mugs.
    For the meeting with Karen Lister, he’d also marged some slices of currant bread and arranged these on a large plate from the same set. She seemed to enjoy the snack. Hazel usually made sure some of the bread in the cupboard was reasonably fresh.
    â€˜You’ve got a file on me, I expect,’ Karen Lister said.
    â€˜I deliberately don’t go ex-directory so that anyone with a problem who thinks I might be useful can look me up in the book and get in touch,’ Harpur replied. ‘I’m glad you took advantage of that.’
    â€˜I try to imagine what that file would record,’ she said. ‘ Karen Louise Lister, born January 1985, no convictions, live-in girlfriend-slash-partner of Jason Ivan Claud Wensley, number three or possibly four in the Shale hierarchy. There might be amendments to that last part since Manse has withdrawn. Jason’s probably number two now, after Michael Redvers Arlington, aka General Franco.’
    Yes, as far as Harpur could recall, the entry might be something like that. It would be brief, with little on her physical appearance. She signified only as a side item to the boyfriend: no need for a lot of identification stuff. Jill was right about the fair-to-mousy cowlick. Behind it, the rest of her hair hung straight to just above her shoulders. Jill was also right about the slimness, along, though, with what she called ‘boobs’. Lister had dark-blue eyes, a short-nosed, wary looking, strong cheek-boned face, fine skin, full lips, and small, even teeth. It all assembled into something as near to beautiful as anyone was likely to get. But he doubted whether that wary look was wary enough . Did she know how she was risking herself? That is, really know. She knew it sort of logically, theoretically, and had kept alert in case she had a tail. But did she know the perils in the way real perils were known – by feeling them continuously at her centre, a non-stop burn?
    With corpses, he’d always found a display of small, regular teeth in a part-open mouth especially awful, as though that mouth still wanted to say something, perhaps joke, or amend, or bite a slice of currant loaf.
    She sat straight-backed on the chesterfield, occasionally lifting or replacing her cup and saucer on a coffee table. She’d be about five foot nine inches tall, getting towards six feet in the slingbacks. Her accent wasn’t local. He thought maybe anglicized, educated Welsh.
    â€˜That assault on Low Pastures – people are bound to ask what it signifies, aren’t they,’ she said, ‘after all the previous non-intervention by Iles and the rest of you. It’s like ravaging a cathedral. Until now, a kind of reverence for the place, Ralphy and Margaret Ember’s shrine. Iles looks after them, just as he tried to look after Manse Shale. All right, the Embers can