The Take

by Hurley, Graham

  He was on the seafront now, looking down at the beach as the girls unpacked their little bag. He loved the smells of this place: seaweed, suntan oil and the tang of sizzling onions from the burger van across the greensward. He and Joannie would wander along the prom late on summer afternoons, still an hour to go before the train went, just yacking. In those days Joannie used to talk at a hundred miles an hour, dreaming about the little house they’d one day buy, the colours she’d paint it in, the way she’d do the bathroom so that every morning started exactly right. She wanted bright colours, flowers and a big, big window with sunshine flooding in. Oddly enough, when the dream came true, that’s exactly what happened. Except that the house was in Pompey and they could only afford the top half of it.

  So where had he gone wrong? At first, Winter had blamed it on marriage, on the institution itself. It was nothing to do with Joannie, nothing personal, just the feeling that he’d somehow been trapped and needed to demonstrate a little independence – just to prove it still all worked, just to reassure himself he was still the irresistible screw Joannie had fallen in love with. This had been OK the first couple of times, but then his little excursions, his little adventures, had become a kind of habit, and in the end he’d been forced to the conclusion that he was just greedy. He fooled around with other women not because his marriage wasn’t good, not because kids had never happened, but because he just couldn’t resist another screw. It kept his hand in. It made him feel good about himself. And a man who felt good about himself probably had a marriage to match.

  Odds on, Joannie had probably guessed anyway. There were too many late nights, too much crashing around in the bathroom in the early hours of the morning trying to scrub another woman’s smell off his face and crotch before he fell into bed. She’d never made an issue of it, never sat him down and asked the harder questions, and when he thought about it now he realised that deep down she’d always treated him like the kid he really was. In the end, she’d known he would always come home. Because home was where it really mattered.

  Winter abandoned the seafront and made his way back to the flat where he’d left the car. At the corner of the street, he gazed up at the net-curtained fourth-floor windows, still unable to grasp the real implications of the consultant’s bombshell. If what the guy had said was true, then Joannie would never see another Christmas, another pantomime, another early daffodil. The world of calendars, of tax returns, of bargain winter breaks was suddenly meaningless. She’d die before her mother, her sister, even the bloody dog. It was that unfair.

  But what could he do about it? The fact that he couldn’t get beyond this big fat question mark had begun to obsess him. He knew where his duty lay. He knew that Cathy and Faraday and the rest of them were right, that he should be up there with Joannie, giving her support, warmth, company, reassurance, a crutch to lean on as the path steepened over the next few months. But somehow he couldn’t do it. Not because he didn’t love her. But because it was just so fucking passive.

  Life had rarely laid a finger on Winter, but when it did – like the recent knock-back on the Drugs Squad application – he was up on his toes again within minutes because that’s how blokes like him handled themselves. Someone takes a poke at you, you whack him back. Someone in a white coat tells your wife she’s on Death Row, you get out there and do something about it. But what?

  Fighting the temptation to cross the road and climb the stairs, Winter fumbled for his keys and returned to the car. The files he’d so carefully collated on Hennessey were still lying on the rear seat. Getting in, he reached back for the top one and pulled out the name and address.

  Dierdre Walsh. 2 Buttercup Cottages, Amberley.

  Addison appeared before the magistrates at the end of the morning session. Despite two nights in the cells at the Bridewell, he appeared as neat and self-possessed as ever. Look hard and you might have sensed a hint or two of exhaustion in the dark brown eyes, and maybe a suggestion of impatience in the way his fingers drummed on the wooden lip of the dock, but Dawn knew that the magistrates were impressed by appearances. This man was a fellow professional. He had a decent address, a degree, a full-time job. Were they really prepared to commit him to Winchester prison on remand?

  The CPS solicitor thought they should. In his view, Addison represented a threat to the public at large and should be subject to custodial remand. Julia Swainson, Addison’s brief, disagreed. Her client profoundly resented the implications of the charge laid against him. The damage already done to his private and professional lives was incalculable. He was wholly innocent, and when the time came to prove it, he most certainly would.

  The magistrates retired. Back again, minutes later, they consulted with the clerk of the court on a legal point. Then they announced that Addison would be granted bail on condition that he didn’t go within half a mile of certain designated areas within the city. The areas included the waterside ponds, Farlington Marshes, Hilsea Lines and the entire length of the footpath that skirted Langstone Harbour. The implications were obvious. If he was to dress up as Donald Duck again, he’d have hundreds of witnesses within spitting distance.

  Dismissed by the magistrates, Addison turned to leave the dock. As he did so, he caught Dawn’s eye. She thought he was smiling, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Faraday met his CID boss, Detective Superintendent Willard, for lunch in a pub in Eldon Street. Willard was involved with an ongoing Crown Court case and had half an hour between CPS conferences. The lunch was at Faraday’s request.

  Willard, in every sense, was a big man. A greying fringe of beard softened a face that wouldn’t have been out of place on a poster for a boxing promotion, and he had a physical presence which dominated even social exchanges. His empire extended to the whole of the county’s Eastern Area, a chunk of territory which included the sprawling conurbation of Portsmouth, Havant and Waterlooville, and he’d brought a certain bluntness to the job that had lifted heads and done wonders for morale. He was a detective’s detective. He had no time for political correctness and civic grandstanding. His blokes were out there on the ground to nail the bad guys. Faraday liked him a great deal.

  ‘What’s the score, then?’

  Willard shook the remains of a bottle of brown sauce over his steak and kidney pudding as Faraday explained about the incident at the Marriott. There was no point trying to snow Willard so he came clean about his conversation with Hartigan. His divisional boss wanted to keep a finger in Hennessey’s pie. Faraday was more than happy to fight his departmental corner, but he wanted to be sure that he’d got this thing in perspective. Was there really enough evidence to throw serious effort at the surgeon’s alleged ‘disappearance’? Or was Faraday missing something here?

  Willard had no interest in point-scoring as far as his colleagues were concerned. Whatever he felt about career-obsessives like Hartigan he kept strictly to himself. His sole purpose, in his own phrase, was to add quality to investigations, and that meant dishing out available resources with a strict eye on potential outcomes. It was like backing horses. Never waste your money on a rank outsider. Not unless you’d heard a whisper you could trust.

  He made Faraday go through every particle of known evidence about Hennessey. Faraday told him everything he’d learned from Cathy Lamb. At length, Willard nodded, spearing another forkful of steak.

  ‘Adds up to fuck all,’ he grunted. ‘But keep listening, eh?’

  Ten

  Wednesday, 21 June, early afternoon

  Winter had phoned ahead, catching Dierdre Walsh on the point of setting off for a visit to Arundel library. He’d explained that he was making inquiries in connection with Pieter Hennessey and would appreciate a moment or two of her time. When she asked whether it was really important, he said yes.

  Buttercup Cottages lay in the middle of the tiny village of Amberley, number two the smaller half of a picturesque timber-framed building that looked as if it might once have been a pub. A square of lawn at the side of the house had recently b
een mown and the nearby compost heap was topped with fresh grass cuttings. At two in the afternoon, rolled in an empty bottle inside the tiny porch, there was already a note out for the milkman.

  Dierdre Walsh was an anxious, thin-faced woman who looked a good deal older than fifty-two. She wore a pair of baggy brown corduroy trousers and a pale blue cardigan over a red and white check shirt, and the moment Winter stepped inside the house he understood why. Despite the heat outside, the place had a definite chill. There was also a smell, sharp and acrid, that Winter at first mistook for cat’s piss. Only later did he realise that the stench was only too human.

  Dierdre had already prepared a tray of tea, and to Winter’s relief, they sat outside on a tiny flagstoned patio at the back of the house, dispensing with small talk within seconds. This was a woman who’d lived with the consequences of Hennessey’s work for the best part of a year and time had done nothing to soften the anger she felt at the treatment she’d received at his hands.

  Meeting Hennessey, she said, had been a straightforward referral from her GP. He was a gynae consultant at the biggest of the local hospitals. He was the man you went to if you had a problem ‘down there’, and she felt lucky to have got to the top of his patient list within weeks.

  ‘Lucky? Can you imagine that?’

  She sat bolt upright in the sunshine, her bony fingers knotted in her lap, her face shadowed by an ancient straw hat. This was the first time Winter had had the chance to picture Hennessey in action, to get a flavour of the man.

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Like?’ She was watching the plate of chocolate biscuits slowly melting in the sun. ‘He was like you’d imagine any old-style consultant to be. He was loud. He barked a bit, especially when he laughed. If you were a nervous type like me he could be a little bit intimidating. People like Hennessey make you feel very small. It’s a special little knack they have. Small and stupid.’

  Winter nodded, thinking of Joannie’s consultant. Not intimidating, exactly. Just superior.

  ‘They think they know it all,’ he agreed, ‘and they don’t.’

  At the hospital, Hennessey had had access to the results of some smears she’d had taken. He’d also examined her himself, an experience that even now sent a shudder through her thin frame.

  ‘Big fat fingers,’ she said, ‘fingers like sausages. And absolutely no finesse. At the time, you think nothing of it. In fact, you tell yourself you’re making a fuss. But later, when you realise just how hopeless the man really was, you kick yourself for putting up with it all.’

  The scan and the examination had led Hennessey to the conclusion that Dierdre needed more than a bladder operation. Her womb should come out as well.

  ‘There was no discussion,’ she said. ‘He just told me that was what he was going to do.’

  ‘Did you ask why?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He just laughed. He thought it was amusing. Then, when I made a bit of a point of it, dug my heels in a bit, do you know what he said? He said I wouldn’t be needing it any more so he’d be doing me a favour. He made it sound like some kind of house clearance, you know, getting rid of all the junk. He had absolutely no idea how hurtful that can be, a woman of my age, a woman of any age. It was horrible. Quite horrible.’

  ‘But there had to be a medical reason, surely?’

  ‘Oh, I think there was. Later, when I kicked up a fuss about what had happened, he said some of the cells they’d stained looked pre-cancerous. But why didn’t he explain that at the time? Instead of playing God?’

  Playing God. It was a good image, Winter thought. It fitted them all, every single one of them. The power to turn this woman’s life into a constant misery. The power to hand Joannie a death sentence.

  He jotted down a note to himself, listening to Dierdre describe the afternoon she’d surfaced after the operation. Then, and for days afterwards, she couldn’t understand the constant dampness between her legs, and the smell. At first she’d put it down to some kind of post-operative reaction. It was the body sorting itself out, the nurses told her. The constant trickle of warm urine would soon dry up. But it didn’t. Not in hospital, not during convalescence at a friend’s house, and not for a single moment over the weeks and months to come. She leaked like an old tap with a dodgy washer. And the image, once again, was Hennessey’s.

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘Those very words. I’m not making it up, Mr Winter. It was when I insisted on going back to see him. I was upset, naturally. I wanted him to do something about it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He just said I’d have to put up with it. He said it was wear and tear. An old tap’ – she nodded – ‘with a dodgy washer.’

  ‘Nothing to do with him?’

  ‘Absolutely not. When I asked, he said there was nothing more he could do for me.’

  ‘No apology?’

  ‘Apology? People like Hennessey don’t apologise, Mr Winter. They’re not in the apology business. And you know why? Because they’re never wrong. Mistakes are something that other people make. Never them. As far as he was concerned, he’d done a thoroughly professional job and that was that. If I wanted anything else done about my’ – she made a loose gesture towards her lap – ‘waterworks, then I’d be better off going to see a plumber. Can you imagine a doctor telling you that?’

  Hurt and outraged, she’d sought a second opinion. The consultant on this occasion was a good deal kinder but confirmed that her incontinence would remain chronic. Hennessey was right. There was nothing to be done.

  ‘Did he explain why you’d got the problem? This second quack?’

  ‘Of course not. They never do. They just cover up for each other. He probably knows. In fact, I’m sure he knows. But the last person he’s going to tell is me. Isn’t that amazing? It’s my body he’s wrecked, my life I have to cope with, yet none of them are man enough to come clean.’

  ‘You’re sure it was Hennessey’s fault?’

  She looked at him for a moment, despairing, then pulled herself together.

  ‘All I know is this. When they put me under, everything worked the way it should. When I came round afterwards, I was leaking like a sieve. The person in charge of me in between was Hennessey. It’s simple logic, Mr Winter. It had to be him.’ She paused, then gestured at her lap again. ‘Do you know what I’m wearing under this lot? Plastic pants, like a baby, and four nappies a day.’

  Later, before Winter left, she fetched a box file from the house. Other Hennessey victims had got together and compared notes. They were all women, and in many cases the stories were the same. A bluff arrogance you’d ignore in the belief that this man knew what he was doing. A botched operation that went horribly wrong. Months and months of post-operative pain, the wounds salted by Hennessey’s blunt refusal to accept any particle of blame. She quickly sorted through the inch-deep pile of letters, and as she did so Winter glimpsed names he recognised from his own research. Finally, with a little grunt of pleasure, she found what she was looking for.

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Do you have a pen?’

  The girl’s name was Nikki McIntyre. Unlike most of Hennessey’s victims, she was young, still in her twenties. She was also extremely striking, beautiful even, and if Winter was really interested in seeing what kind of havoc a man like Hennessey could wreak, then he could do no better than pay her a visit. She lived in the Meon Valley, and her story deserved the widest possible audience.

  Winter scribbled down the number and enquired whether Dierdre happened to know where Hennessey had gone. Were she or her lawyers still in touch? Had there been any contact recently?

  Dierdre shook her head. She hadn’t seen Hennessey for months – which was probably just as well.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Winter was on his feet now, ready to leave, eager to progress the investigation.

  Dierdre was shuffling the letters back into order. She closed the lid on the box file and finally l
ooked up.

  ‘Because on bad days,’ she said, offering Winter a thin smile, ‘I could cheerfully kill him.’

  Mid-afternoon, Dawn Ellis made time to have a second crack at Shelley Beavis. With Addison formally charged with GBH the pressure had eased slightly on the Donald Duck job, but she didn’t share Rick Stapleton’s faith in the strength of the file they’d be preparing for the Crown Prosecution Service, and she anticipated all kinds of questions from the CPS lawyers. There were bits of the jigsaw that didn’t fit properly. And one of them was Shelley Beavis.

  Rawlinson Road was in its normal state of urban squalor, and the chaos wasn’t helped by a newish BMW 7 series half-parked on the pavement across the entrance to Shelley’s basement flat. Dawn glanced at the car as she edged past. There was a tangle of sports gear tossed into the passenger footwell – white shorts, hooded top, blue socks – and a pair of brand-new Reebok trainers in an open box on the back seat. A cutout in the shape of a blue number nine football shirt hung from the driving mirror.

  Dawn negotiated the steps to Shelley’s front door. There was a yellow stick-it over the Yale lock and she peered at the message. ‘Jimmy’s’, it read. Nothing else. Just ‘Jimmy’s’. Jimmy’s was a café-bar a couple of minutes’ walk away. The chrome-and-leather decor attracted a certain clientele – hard-drinking car dealers, guys running contraband tobacco, call-girls from the quality end of the trade – and often featured in the late-night disturbance reports.