Turnstone

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘A conversation,’ he said, ‘once he’s up to it.’

  He watched Templeman pocket the bill, turn the collar of his jacket up and limp out on to the pavement, his tiny hunched figure braced against the wind and the rain. Then he called the lawyer back.

  ‘By the way’ – he beckoned him closer – ‘who’s Juanita?’

  ‘What did they tell you?’

  Faraday had found Cathy Lamb in the empty CID room, standing by the window, staring out at the rain. She’d finally phoned the Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Plymouth and the news had been far from reassuring.

  ‘They’re trying to get calls through to all the yachts. Some answer. Some don’t.’

  ‘And Pete’s?’

  ‘Didn’t.’

  ‘You mean hasn’t. So far.’

  Cathy glanced back at him, seizing on the change of tense.

  ‘That’s right.’ She nodded, briefly warmed by the thought. ‘No word. Yet.’

  Pete’s boat was called Tootsie. At twenty-nine feet Cathy knew it was far too small to be out in weather like this and a snatched five minutes with the midday television news had done nothing for her peace of mind. Yachts on the Fastnet dismasted, capsized, abandoned. Huge seas swamping life rafts. Rescue helicopters battling eighty-knot winds. If anything, said one survivor, it was already looking worse than ’79.

  Desperate to change the subject, Cathy nodded at the roll of film in Faraday’s hand.

  ‘You want that developed? Only I’ve got something else to go up to photographic.’

  Faraday gave her the film and told her about Maloney, and the accident that had kept him out of the Fastnet. On the way back from the seafront, he’d been trying to piece together the kind of man he was, and competitive was one of the obvious conclusions. You could see it in the face in the photographs, sense it in his ex-wife’s bitter reminiscence. Here was a guy with a mind of his own, a guy who didn’t give in easily. Might a sudden decision to rejoin the crew explain the hastiness of his exit from the seafront flat? And his subsequent failure to turn up for Em’s birthday?

  Cathy wasn’t convinced. If it was a serious boat they’d never carry a casualty like that. Never.

  She was looking hard at Faraday, trying to gauge the strength of his interest. Was he really going to pursue this thing? With a queue of jobs stretching halfway down the corridor?

  Faraday slipped behind the nearest desk and reached for the phone.

  ‘Who organises this race?’ he queried. ‘Who do I talk to about Maloney?’

  The official race office for the Fastnet was over in Cowes. The girl with access to the data base needed only the gentlest persuasion to enter Maloney’s name. The check took barely seconds.

  ‘Stewart Maloney?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘He was on a Sigma called Marenka. He only crewed on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then another guy took over. A Sam O’Connor.’

  Faraday was scribbling down the names.

  ‘Tell me about this Marenka.’

  ‘It’s a Sigma 33.’

  ‘Thirty-three?’

  ‘Feet long.’

  ‘Is that big?’

  ‘Not really, not for the Fastnet. Nice boat, though.’

  Faraday explained about Maloney’s injury. With a broken arm, would there be any chance that he’d still made it on to the Fastnet?

  ‘On a boat like that?’ Faraday could hear the girl laughing. ‘They don’t come more competitive than Marenka. Her skipper was looking for class honours on the Fastnet. We had him in here a couple of times last week, sorting out the crew change. No way he’d take a guy with a bust arm, absolutely no way.’ She paused. ‘Lucky him, really, given what’s happening.’

  Faraday thanked her and put the phone down, aware of Cathy watching him.

  ‘Believe me now?’ she muttered.

  Back in his office, Faraday glanced through the list of waiting messages. Bevan, his superintendent, had rung three times. When he phoned his secretary, Bibi, she told him the meeting was due to start at two.

  ‘What meeting?’

  ‘I’d pop along if I were you,’ she said dryly, ‘and he might tell you.’

  Bevan was in his office, looking glumly at a cheese salad sandwich. His wife had put him on a meat-free diet and he’d grown to loathe the sight of lettuce. When Faraday appeared at the door, he pushed the plate to one side and tossed a file of press cuttings across the desk.

  ‘Trying to find you is ceasing to be a joke,’ he said. ‘Read those.’

  Coastlines was a local freesheet, the brainchild of a young journalist-turned-entrepreneur called Spencer Weatherby. Like every other householder in the city, Faraday got the paper delivered twice weekly, and on a couple of occasions he’d even found time to read it. Weatherby’s bright idea had been to marry an aggressive civil-rights agenda to a peppy, hard-hitting tabloid journalism – and Coastlines’ resulting profile had pulled in bucketloads of advertising.

  Faraday began to leaf through the cuttings. It was no secret that the police force had been one of Spencer Weatherby’s prime targets, and over the last year he and Bevan had inevitably crossed swords. The headquarters press office, alarmed by the size of Coastlines’ readership, was trying to broker a peace between the two men and at their insistence Weatherby had been invited along for an off-the-record background briefing in a bid to get the paper onside. The meeting was scheduled for two o’clock. Faraday’s role was to talk about CID.

  ‘So what do you think?’

  Faraday was still looking through the cuttings. Most of them were pretty innocuous – undergraduate drivel about aggressive policing – but Bevan had ringed some of the more colourful phrases in red Pentel. Not a good sign.

  ‘It’ll be fine, sir,’ he murmured. ‘These people need us more than we need them.’

  ‘You really think so, boyo?’ Bevan shook his head. ‘That makes you as naive as I was.’

  The meeting got off to a disastrous start. Spencer Weatherby had been called to attend an important client meeting and he’d sent his news editor to stand in. Kate Symonds was an outspoken twenty-four-year-old with an absolute determination to antagonise Bevan just as soon as she could. She handed him her long, belted raincoat, sat down uninvited, and complained that down her street no one had seen a beat officer for months.

  ‘I thought you guys were into community policing,’ she said, producing a small lined pad and putting it carefully on the table. ‘Round our way, coppers are an endangered species.’

  Bevan ignored the remark. Waving Faraday into the chair beside him, he tabled his peace terms. Decent access in return for responsible coverage. Prior briefings on important policy issues. Maybe even a tip or two about major initiatives at street level. And all this as a down-payment on a new partnership.

  ‘Is any of that beyond us?’ he asked briskly.

  ‘Us?’ The girl bridled at once at Bevan’s choice of pronoun. ‘We have a duty towards our readers, Mr Bevan. If you’re talking partnership, our partnership’s with them.’

  This was classic media-studies tosh, flaunting the precious independence of the fourth estate, and Bevan wasn’t having it. Twice in the last month, front-page splashes in Coastlines had headlined alleged police harassment. At best, went the editorial line, our coppers are lazy and inefficient. At worst, they’re no better than the louts and bullies who rule our streets. Unlike Faraday, Bevan had a thin skin as far as the media was concerned. Coastlines’ accusations had wounded him deeply and only a last-minute intervention from the press office at HQ had stopped him from taking up the cudgels in earnest. Now, at last, he had a chance to set the record straight.

  The girl was talking about journalistic ethics. Bevan leaned forward across the table. He was never more dangerous than when he was smiling.

  ‘That’s a joke,’ he said softly. ‘And an oxymoron, too.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘An oxymoron. A contradiction in terms. The day you convince me that gutter journali
sm and ethics go together is the day you start wising up about grammar.’ He reached for the file and began to lay the cuttings out across the table. Then he looked up again. The smile had gone. ‘My people bleed because of your incompetence. I’d just like you to know that.’

  The girl was staring at the cuttings. Many of them carried her own byline.

  ‘I can defend every one of those stories,’ she said hotly.

  ‘No you can’t, love. And you know why? Because they’re not true. People like you want headlines, not real life, not the stuff we deal with. You want grief and sensationalism. You want widows and orphans. And when they’re not available, you think it’s smart and street-wise to have a pop at us. You’re reckless and lazy and you have absolutely no idea of the damage you do. Here. Let’s start with this one.’

  Bevan reached for yesterday’s front-page coverage of the Harrison raid. The headline read ‘In Cold Blood?’ Then he found another about an alleged strip show at the police social club. He’d hit his stride now, citing example after example of facts unchecked, circumstances misunderstood, phone calls never made.

  At last, Symonds managed to hit back.

  ‘You’re saying yesterday’s raid wasn’t a tragedy?’

  ‘I’m saying it was a mistake.’

  ‘Shooting someone? With a baby in the room? A mistake?’

  ‘We never like shooting anyone. Even scum like Harrison. Far too much paperwork for a start—’

  Bevan broke off, shaking his head, knowing he’d gone too far. Symonds was still staring at him when her mobile phone began to ring. She hesitated, before retrieving it from her bag. Bevan was watching her closely across the table. Faraday had never seen him look so wary before.

  Symonds began to nod. Someone was talking very fast at the other end. Finally she glanced up at Bevan.

  ‘Of course,’ she said on the phone. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  She slipped the mobile into her bag and got to her feet. Bevan hadn’t moved.

  ‘Who was it?’ he asked stonily.

  ‘The office. The Search and Rescue blokes are pulling bodies out of the water from the Fastnet. A lot of these guys are local. I have to get back.’

  ‘More widows? More orphans?’ Bevan glanced sideways at Faraday as she made for the door. The smile was back on his face. ‘You think we made a friend there, Joe?’

  Ten

  By late afternoon, Faraday was back outside the seafront apartment block where Maloney had gone missing. His first visit had ended with checks on neighbours who might have been able to shed light on Maloney’s disappearance, but most of them were either out or unhelpful. Only one lead had seemed remotely worth pursuing. Maloney had been on good terms with the lady in the flat across the hall. Her name was Dorothy Beedon. Every Monday she was in the habit of going to a local bridge club but she was normally back around four.

  By now, the full force of the storm had engulfed the south coast. Sheltering beneath the big porch while he fumbled for Emma’s keys, Faraday watched huge waves battering the seafront, livid explosions of foaming brown water that dwarfed the lamp posts on the promenade. From a distance it felt as if the city was under bombardment and he shuddered to think what it must be like out at sea.

  At last he found Em’s keys and let himself in. The woman at number eight answered his knock within seconds. Dorothy Beedon was a tall, thin, elderly woman with a slight cast in one eye. She peered at Faraday’s ID, then let him in.

  ‘I thought you were the builder,’ she said, gesturing helplessly at the window.

  They were standing in the big front room. A semicircle of buckets and saucepans in the bay window were carefully positioned beneath a line of steady drips through the ceiling. More rain bubbled through the seals on the windows themselves.

  ‘It’s been like this for an hour. You’d think he’d be here by now, wouldn’t you?’

  Faraday couldn’t take his eyes off the view. The boiling sea had turned a sinister shade of yellow-brown and at last he understood a phrase he’d treasured from his childhood reading.

  ‘Evil weather,’ he murmured, turning back into the room.

  He accepted the offer of an armchair and explained that he was making some inquiries about Mrs Beedon’s neighbour, Stewart Maloney. He understood that the two of them were friends.

  ‘Am I right?’

  ‘You are.’ She offered him a vigorous nod then glanced towards the window. ‘My goodness!’

  A length of bladderwrack, seaweed the colour of iodine, had briefly flattened itself against the glass, blown hundreds of metres across the common. They both gazed at it.

  At length, Mrs Beedon struggled to her feet.

  ‘He’s broken his arm, you know. Would you like some biscuits?’

  She left the room without waiting for an answer and returned with an open packet of custard creams. Young Stewart had popped in first thing Friday to borrow some milk. That’s when she’d seen the way they’d strapped him up.

  ‘He broke it here. Not nice.’ She touched her cardigan lightly with one gnarled finger, high up on her right arm.

  ‘Was he OK?’

  ‘Not at all. Would you be?’

  ‘I meant in himself. Apart from the arm.’

  Mrs Beedon went across to the window bay, examining the buckets one by one. Thinking she hadn’t understood the question, Faraday tried to rephrase it, but he could have saved himself the breath.

  ‘How was little Em’s birthday?’ Mrs Beedon was back in her chair. ‘They went to London, didn’t they?’

  ‘No, they didn’t,’ Faraday said. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  He explained briefly about Maloney’s disappearance. Something had happened to call him away from the flat across the hall. Had Mrs Beedon seen him after he’d borrowed the milk?

  ‘Not to talk to, no.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I did see him go out. Friday afternoon it must have been. After the other chap had popped in.’

  ‘What other chap?’

  ‘Well now …’ She bent her head, frowning with the effort of recollection. ‘An older chap I think he was, thinnish. He came on Friday afternoon, arrived in a taxi.’ She nodded towards the bay window. ‘It’s the view, Inspector. I sit here most days. Not much gets by me.’

  ‘And this man? Had you seen him before?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘What time would this have been?’

  She frowned, looking at her watch.

  ‘The big P&O ferry had just gone out. Say half past three.’

  Faraday asked her how long the stranger had stayed. She thought ten minutes, no more.

  ‘And Mr Maloney was in?’

  ‘Oh yes, definitely.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well, this other chap couldn’t have got in otherwise, whoever he was. Not without Stewart. But there was the shouting, too.’ She nodded, disturbed by the memory. ‘They were having an argument, a real set-to.’ She bent towards him, her knuckles white on the armrests of the chair. ‘I was quite worried, to tell you the truth.’

  ‘What were they saying?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they were both … you know … pretty angry.’

  ‘Was there any other noise? Bumps? Crashes?’

  ‘Fighting, you mean?’ She shook her head. ‘No, thank goodness.’

  ‘And you saw this person leave?’

  ‘Yes, and this time he was carrying something big, wrapped in newspaper.’ Her hands sketched an oblong in the air. ‘He didn’t take a taxi this time. He just walked off.’

  Faraday leaned forward in the big armchair. The shape she’d just made would have fitted the empty space on Maloney’s wall. Almost exactly.

  ‘This man,’ Faraday said, ‘would you recognise him again?’

  ‘Maybe …’ She hesitated. ‘But the eyes aren’t as good as they were.’

  ‘What was he wearing?’

  ‘Outdoor clothes, you know, one of those anorak things. Red it was, and a nice
red, too …’

  Faraday stopped writing for a moment. Sandra Maloney’s boyfriend wore a red anorak. He’d seen it in the photograph on the piano. He was tall, too, and on the thin side. He glanced across at Mrs Beedon. She was saying that Maloney had left shortly afterwards. In another taxi.

  ‘Can you remember the firm?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t.’

  The two of them looked at each other for a moment then a brief flash of white drew Faraday’s gaze to the window. A gull, he thought, desperately trying to spill air and regain some kind of control before the storm tossed it over the rooftops. The touch of the old woman’s hand on his arm made him jump. She was peering at him in the gloom.

  ‘Tell me something.’ She was looking anxious again. ‘Do you think the builders really will come?’

  Faraday let himself into Maloney’s flat with Emma’s key. Ignoring the clutter in the sitting room, he went straight to the bedroom at the back. Stored computer files on a PC had rapidly become one of the CID’s first ports of call in situations like these and normally the search teams downloaded everything on to floppy discs for later analysis. Faraday could organise this if he felt it necessary, but a quick trawl might save him precious man-hours later. Settling himself on the end of the bed, he fired up the computer. Within minutes, he scented success.

  Maloney had stored a correspondence file tagged ‘Emmy’ on his hard disc. There were three letters, all of them addressed to one of the city’s biggest legal firms. The first letter was by far the longest and told Faraday everything he wanted to know.

  According to Maloney, his ex-wife had started a new relationship. Her partner’s name was Patrick McIlvenny. He was Canadian by birth and taught at a local comprehensive. His own marriage had foundered a couple of years ago and now he wanted to go home. Home was Vancouver. He was determined to take Sandra with him. And Sandra was equally determined to bring Emma, Maloney’s only daughter.

  The letter bristled with righteous anger. ‘There’s absolutely no possibility,’ Maloney had written in the final paragraph, ‘that I will ever let this happen – and they both know it. Legally, I need to know that I can stop them. If this proves impossible, there have to be other ways.’