He began to protest, but Bevan wasn’t having it.
‘There’s a desk in the inspectors’ office with your name on it,’ he grunted, ‘and by and large it’s empty.’
‘This morning it was empty.’
‘Quite.’
‘This morning was unusual.’
‘It fucking well better be.’
Faraday returned his stare. He’d later spend hours trying to work out why this conversation had boiled over so quickly but just now they’d reached an impasse.
The real problem was simple. The real problem was that the DI’s job had changed beyond recognition. High-volume crime wasn’t sufficiently serious for him to get involved, not directly at any rate. Anything really tasty, anything at the other end of the scale, was declared a major inquiry and handed over to someone higher up the food chain, a detective chief inspector, or even a detective superintendent.
Either way, as Bevan was so forcefully pointing out, Faraday was trapped behind a desk, a prisoner of the ceaseless flow of paper that would otherwise choke the system. He’d joined the CID to clear up crime. He’d done well. He’d won promotion. And here he was, years later, pulling thirty-five grand a year and feeling like a well-paid clerk.
Bevan had relaxed a little.
‘Maybe you should have taken the MIT board more seriously,’ he muttered, ‘instead of pissing them about. A job’s a job, Joe. All I’m asking is that you do it.’
To Winter’s infinite disappointment, Juanita had disappeared to the bedroom to pull on a pair of jeans and a white sweatshirt before plugging in the percolator and making him a cup of coffee. One brew had led to the promise of a second and now – nearly an hour and a half later – the only memory of her near-naked body was the sight of her bare feet tucked beneath her. She’d used a vivid scarlet varnish on her toenails and the colour worked perfectly against the deep tan of her skin. Add the loop of thin gold chain around her right ankle, and Winter knew exactly why Marty Harrison had become so territorial.
They’d met on the quayside in Puerto Banus, where she’d been working for a yacht charter business. They’d spent time together and she’d introduced Marty to various friends, some of whom were English. A handful of the latter were expatriate criminals with excellent contacts in the drugs business, and for Marty Harrison Juanita had quickly become the perfect bridge between business and pleasure. She set up deals for him – tiny to begin with but rapidly getting bigger. She helped him find the waterside house that had long been his dream. And on the nights when he wasn’t too pissed she was happy to share his bed.
Just now, she was on a kind of extended stay. Marty had leased the flat for her and bought a brand new Cherokee Jeep as a runaround. Last week, before he’d got himself shot, he’d even been talking about marriage. She nodded, flicking back the fringe of hair from her big brown eyes.
‘Marriage,’ she confirmed.
‘Was he serious?’
‘Muy.’
‘Are you?’
‘Maybe.’
Winter frowned.
‘But he’s an animal, isn’t he? Marty?’ He gestured at her, at her body, at those glorious feet. ‘Why him when you could have the pick of the litter?’
She laughed. Perfect teeth.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Animal is right.’
‘You like all that?’
‘I must do.’
Winter shook his head in mock-bewilderment. He was playing the naive old buffer who’d stumbled into a world he didn’t understand. He’d no idea whether she believed him or not but it was certainly fun finding out.
‘You said you got my name from a file.’
‘That’s right. It was an old file of Marty’s. I found it in a drawer in the house down in Puerto Banus. He talked about you sometimes, too.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said you could be bought.’
‘How much?’
‘Five thousand?’ She shrugged. ‘Ten?’
‘Bollocks. That’s way off. He always was a mean little toe-rag.’
She laughed again, throwing back her head, and Winter watched her as she hopped off the sofa and went to check on the coffee pot. At first he couldn’t get over how up-front she was, how incredibly open about everything, but now he was close to accepting that this candour of hers was for real. That’s the way things went, if you were foreign, and beautiful, and shameless, and had the misfortune to fall in with the likes of Marty Harrison.
‘He’s got a girlfriend, you know,’ he called out to her, ‘and a kid, too. You can read about it in the papers.’
‘I know.’ She was back with the coffee. ‘I know about all that.’
‘And?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I told you. If I wanted him all, I could have him like’ – she snapped her fingers – ‘that.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
She was pouring the coffee. Close to she smelled of sunshine and coconut oil.
‘You think there’s a problem?’ she asked.
‘There must be. You phoned me.’
She studied him for a long moment, then put the coffee pot carefully down on the low glass table and extended a hand.
‘Come,’ she said.
On the balcony, Winter followed her pointing finger. Beyond a forest of masts, executive houses lined the far side of the yacht basin.
‘You see the one with the yellow curtains? The one with the sports car behind?’
‘Yes.’
‘That one.’ She nodded. ‘And he says you know this person.’
‘What person?’
‘The person he goes to see so much. The girl who screws for her living there. The puta. The whore.’
Winter stared at her, totally lost, then slowly the drift of this strange conversation became clearer. Marty Harrison had been visiting a call-girl. And his outraged mistress wanted to know why.
‘You’ve got a name for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘What is it?’
She looked up at him, moist-eyed, and for the first time it occurred to Winter that she might be serious about Marty Harrison.
‘She calls herself Vikki. Vikki Duvall. You know her?’
Winter fought the urge to give her a big hug. Results like this were sweetest when least expected.
‘Her real name’s Elaine Pope.’ He smiled at her. ‘How can I help?’
Faraday sent Cathy Lamb to sort out the totalled Porsche and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing the Aqua Cab lead. Cathy needed something to take her mind off her marriage and a face-to-face with Nelly Tseng would do exactly that.
By ten past four, Faraday had extracted the names of three drivers from Aqua, all of whom divvied up the shifts on car seventy-three. Car seventy-three had definitely been the cab that had responded to Maloney’s call from the flat on Friday afternoon. On the phone, the first driver was guarded to the point of near silence. No, he hadn’t been working on Friday afternoon. No, he hadn’t a clue who might have been at the wheel. And yes, he’d be more than happy to bring this conversation to an end. Faraday’s second call raised no response at all, not even an answerphone, and he was about to give up on the third, a mobile, when a voice finally came on the line. He sounded apologetic. He’d been asleep in bed. What time was it?
Minutes later, Faraday was on his way to Southsea. Barry Decker occupied a tiny basement flat in a sidestreet off Albert Road. He’d been on shift in car seventy-three all Friday, but he’d gone in for a silly tackle playing football at the weekend and had been laid up with a dodgy knee ever since.
Faraday roused him from his bed, put the kettle on, and then settled him on the sofa.
‘Solent View Mansions,’ he said. ‘Flat seven.’
Decker was trying to raise a flame from his lighter. For the first time in his life, Faraday wished he smoked. Getting to his feet, Decker hobbled across to the kitchenette and lit the roll-up from the gas stove. A lungful of smoke, and his memory finally cleared
.
‘Bloke in a leather jacket,’ he said, ‘pissed off as fuck. Steaming, in fact.’
‘How did you know?’
‘You can tell. I talk to them all. I don’t make a great thing about it. If they don’t want to chat, that’s cool. But this guy did. And he wasn’t happy.’
‘Any idea why not?’
‘No. We talked about sailing mainly. He’d done his arm in and he was going to miss out on the Fastnet. But he wasn’t really concentrating on what he was saying. He was miles away most of the time. Totally wound up.’
‘Where did you take him?’
‘Port Solent. You want to know where exactly?’ He frowned and shook his head. ‘I could take you there but no way have I got the address.’
Faraday drove Decker to Port Solent. The most expensive houses lay to the north of the yacht basin, a minute’s drive from the entry roundabout. At the end of a cul-de-sac, Faraday found himself looking at a spacious executive house with an adjoining double garage.
He glanced over at Decker.
‘Here?’
‘Yep, and the boat was right behind the house, tied up like. You could see the mast.’
‘Boat?’
‘The boat he’d been crewing on. The boat that was doing the Fastnet. He told me the name but it’s gone.’
‘Marenka?
‘Dunno. Could have been.’
‘Wait here.’
Faraday got out of the car. A narrow walk-through led him down beside the garage. Beyond it lay an empty wooden pontoon which served as a private mooring. Faraday peered up at the house, looking for signs of life, but no one answered when he knocked on the big patio door. He turned and looked out at the view. Beyond the forest of masts, he could see the row of tinted office windows above the Mexican restaurant where the marina’s management were headquartered. Nelly Tseng, he thought, and her ever lengthening list of trashed motors.
Back beside his car, Faraday at last checked in his notebook, flicking through the scribbled entries he’d made earlier in the hospital ward in Plymouth. Charlie Oomes, Marenka’s owner/skipper, had a house here. Seven, Muscovy Drive.
Faraday looked up. The big brass seven beside the hardwood door broadened the smile on his face. So what was the boat doing back in Port Solent on Friday? When, according to Oomes, they’d never left Cowes?
He bent to the open car window. Decker appeared to be asleep, so he reached in and gave him a shake.
‘Name of the road?’ he queried.
Decker opened one eye.
‘Muscovy Drive,’ he confirmed, ‘and I gave the geezer a card in case he wanted a ride back later.’
Back at the police station, early evening, Faraday found Cathy Lamb sitting alone at a table in the social club. Within seconds, it was obvious that she was drunk. As best she could, she told him the bad news about Nelly Tseng – that she was about to lodge a formal complaint with the Chief Constable – and then insisted on buying him a double Scotch to celebrate.
‘Leave it to the Chief,’ she kept saying. ‘His problem, not ours.’
Faraday explained the latest developments in the Maloney case. He needed to be sure that his memory of the conversation with Oomes at the hospital was correct.
‘He definitely said the boat never left Cowes last week. Isn’t that right?’
Cathy was staring into the middle distance, her eyes glassy.
‘She’s a probationer,’ she said at last. ‘From Fareham nick.’
Faraday remembered the girl at Pete Lamb’s bedside. A probationer was a recent recruit to the force.
‘You’re pissed love,’ he said. ‘I’m asking you about Charlie Oomes.’
Cathy did her best to concentrate.
‘He said they were in Cowes all week. Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘That’s definitely what he said.’
Faraday watched her take another long swallow from her glass.
‘Get a grip, Cathy,’ he said softly. ‘This is important.’
‘Got a grip, sir.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘Surprise me.’ She peered at him and then nodded. ‘He definitely said they never left Cowes.’
‘Then he was lying.’
‘Or the taxi bloke got it wrong.’
‘Sure, but he seemed pretty certain. And anyway, we can check when we do the house-to-house.’
‘Oh yeah, when?’ Cathy frowned. ‘Are we talking major inquiry here? Incident room? The whole caboodle? Only if we’re not, you just might get shitty about the overtime. Like last week. And the week before. Or had you—’
She broke off, staring across the room at a woman who’d just come in. She was small and pretty. She was wearing a thin blue cotton zip-up jacket over a white blouse, and when she turned her head, scanning the bar, Faraday recognised the face at Pete Lamb’s bedside.
Finally, she made her way towards the table. Faraday’s arm went out, steadying Cathy as she tried to get up. The girl was right beside them now, and looking up, Faraday could see how nervous she was.
‘Can I have a private word?’
Faraday rose at once to leave them, but Cathy beat him to it. Lungeing across the table, she caught the lapels of the jacket in both hands then pulled the girl’s face hard towards her own forehead. Faraday caught the briefest scent of perfume before the girl twisted her body, sparing her face, catching the force of the headbutt on her shoulder. Glasses crashed to the floor with the table. The bar went quiet, then erupted with roars of applause. By now, the young probationer was wriggling free from Cathy’s crushing bear hug and running for the door. She was faster than Cathy, and probably a good deal fitter, but Cathy had been saving herself for this one moment for the best part of a day and no way was she going to let her rival go.
The double doors at the end of the bar crashed open. Faraday, in hot pursuit now, heard the clatter of footsteps on the concrete stairs beyond. The social club was on the fourth floor. Obscenities echoed around the stairwell as the women spiralled downwards. Cathy was back in her native Paulsgrove, all self-control gone.
‘Fucking slag,’ she was screaming, ‘fucking whore.’
The route to the street took them out through the car park. At last, on the apron of tarmac at the front of the police station, Cathy finally caught up, trapping the younger woman against the brickwork.
‘This is going to hurt,’ she gasped, ‘and afterwards you’re never going to see my husband again.’
She went for the girl’s face again, the heel of her hand this time, but the girl ducked and suddenly they were down on the tarmac, bodies intertwined, struggling for advantage, the classic playground brawl. Faces had appeared at windows immediately above them. Passers-by had paused to watch. A bus lingered at the stop across the road.
Faraday did his best to separate them and then stepped aside as a burly uniformed sergeant ran down from the front office. He stared at the two women, still flailing at each other, then glanced at Faraday for guidance.
‘Cathy’s not too well,’ he said wearily. ‘Leave it to me.’
He put the young probationer from Fareham in a taxi, and drove Cathy home. She was crying, humiliated and angry with herself, and when Faraday pulled up outside her house he could see in her face that it was the last place she wanted to be.
‘Come back with me, Cath,’ Faraday suggested. ‘You can kip in the spare room.’
She looked at him a moment, grateful as well as surprised, then shook her head.
‘You must think I’m a head-case,’ she said.
Without waiting for an answer, she got out of the car and began to walk unsteadily towards the front door. When Faraday wound down the window and tried to call her back, she waved him away.
It was dusk by the time he got home. There were no lights on in the house and until he went upstairs he assumed that J-J was still out. Then, passing his son’s bedroom, he saw the envelope pinned to the door. The envelope had his name on. Faraday ripped it open. The note was as brutal as it was brief. J-J had made a m
istake coming home. He should have stayed in France, which was why he’d taken the afternoon ferry back to Caen. He’d be in touch soon. Love, J-J.
Love J-J?
Faraday read the note again, making sure he hadn’t got it wrong. Angry now, he pushed the door open, finding the bed stripped to the mattress and both rucksacks gone. He stared at the discarded sheets, at the single sock the boy had never had time to pack, then his brain began to work again. Why this sudden decision? And where had J-J got the money from?
Another door gave on to the study they’d shared together. He stepped through it, standing in the gloom, staring up at the empty shelf. All nine volumes of Birds of the Western Palearctic were missing, doubtless flogged for a song to some second-hand shop. Just enough to pay for the ferry fare. Just enough to make good his escape.
Faraday gazed at the empty shelf a moment longer, then went downstairs again. He still had J-J’s note. He read it one last time and then tore it into tiny pieces. If this was what the boy wanted, if this was the best he could do after all those years together, then so be it.
Thirteen
For once, Faraday ignored the overnight prisoner list. It was five past nine in the morning. Half a dozen officers, uniformed and CID, had gathered in the empty social club for the daily update, but Faraday wasn’t interested in warehouse burglaries and a particularly violent affray outside a Southsea nightclub.
‘Port Solent,’ he said. ‘Muscovy Drive.’
Cathy Lamb sat beside him, listening to his brief account of yesterday’s developments in what Faraday now termed ‘the Maloney inquiry’. A pair of sunglasses hid the worst of the swelling around her right eye, and the scratch marks down her cheek weren’t as bad as she’d first feared. Even the smell of the social club – cigarettes and stale beer – made her want to gag.
‘House to house,’ Faraday ended. ‘Any address with line of sight to number seven. That’s front and back. We’re interested in comings and goings on Friday afternoon, and we’re especially interested in a yacht that was allegedly tied up round the back. OK?’
He was looking at Dawn Ellis. She and Cathy were to handle the house-to-house inquiries, while Paul Winter held the fort back in the CID room, getting to grips with the mountain of other crimes that were still awaiting attention.
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