The house itself, brick-built with a timber-clad upper floor, sat four-square on a modest parcel of land beside Langstone Harbour. Down here, on the south-easterly tip of the island, Portsmouth was no more than a rumour, a low burble of traffic spiked by the occasional siren. Summer sunsets, if Faraday cared to stand in the garden at the rear of the house, etched the city’s distant battlements - tower blocks, mainly - against the crimson flare of the western skyline, but the truth was that the Bargemaster’s House had turned its back on Pompey and for that Faraday was grateful.
He loved the peace and quiet of this little area, peopled mainly by retired folk and weekend dinghy sailors from the club along the towpath. This time of year, he could wake early on summer mornings to the mirrored calm of the harbour. Up in his study, overlooking the water, he’d installed a tripod and a decent scope, and there was always a pencil and notepad readied for another set of sightings.
Faraday had been logging the harbour’s birdlife for longer than he cared to remember, ever since he and the infant J-J had embarked on this collective adventure, and thousands of entries later - with J-J in his mid-twenties - he was still peering into that intricate web of relationships that gave the harbour its eternal fascination. The fussiness of a lone turnstone on the foreshore. That busy sequence of bright spring mornings when rafts of brent geese gathered in their hundreds for the long passage back to Siberia. The sudden glimpse of a low-flying shag, just feet above the water, arrowing seawards. Sights like these, however familiar, never failed to send a little jolt of pleasure through Faraday, and only last month, journeying through the lush green uplands of Thailand, he knew he’d never be able to live out of reach of the water.
He let himself into the house, realised he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, checked the state of the fridge. He had courgettes, onions, a big bag of tomatoes, and a couple of plump heads of garlic. Ratatouille, he thought, with rice, grilled sardines and a chilled bottle of Chablis he’d been saving.
He helped himself to a stick of celery and a square of cheese, then keyed the messages waiting for him on the phone. There were a couple of work-related calls. Then came a pause and a click before he recognised J-J’s cackle. His son was up in London now, working as a picture editor for a big video production house. The job, he knew, had been largely Eadie’s doing. After she’d taken him into Ambrym, her own production outfit, the pair of them had become very close. In fact virtually everything J-J had picked up about the industry he’d learned from Eadie and Faraday knew he owed her a huge debt. How many other hard-pressed video producers would have spared the time to school a deaf-mute in the black arts of documentary-making?
Faraday listened to the tape again. For obvious reasons, father and son normally communicated by e-mail but when J-J was especially pleased with life he’d plant a cackle or two on his dad’s answerphone to signal the presence of a waiting e-mail upstairs. Faraday was often lazy about electronic mail and if J-J had something important to say then he’d take no chances on his dad neglecting to check for incoming messages.
Faraday poured himself a beer and went upstairs. The bed was still unmade and he tidied the duvet before walking through to his study and settling at the PC. Most of the messages were bird-related - a reminder about his RSPB subscription, an exultant missive from an e-correspondent confirming that kites were back nesting in at least two Hampshire locations - and he scrolled quickly through the rest of the list until he found the electronic stone under which J-J had hidden his latest news. ‘You’ll never believe this,’ his son had written, ‘but these guys are sending me to RUSSIA. We’re doing a big thing on ENERGY SUPPLIES and we’re doing the rough-cut in MOSCOW. So that means I’ve got to check out all the gear and make sure it WORKS. Cool, eh?’
Faraday read the message a second time, warming to the headlong, madcap prose. J-J’s use of capitals echoed the way he communicated face to face, a wild frenzy of gesture, plucking meaning and nuance out of thin air, emphatic, urgent, most of it comprehensible even if you didn’t know the first thing about sign language. Quite what the Russians would make of his windmill of a son was anyone’s guess but this was a country that had produced the likes of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, and in his own way Faraday suspected that J-J was no less romantic, no less theatrical. ‘You’ll love it,’ he tapped back. ‘And a big hug from your proud old dad.’
He sent the e-mail and scrolled through the rest of the messages. Nothing much caught his eye until he got to the very bottom of the list. He peered at the name, not recognising it. The message was tagged with an attachment. The suffix on the address, fr, meant France.
Puzzled, Faraday opened the message. It was long, maybe a couple of hundred words. ‘Cher Joe … ’ it began, ‘vous m’avez dit que vous comprenez assez bien franc¸ais. Donc, je devrais peut-être vous écrire dans ma langue maternelle. Ça ne vous embête pas?’ Faraday struggled on for a sentence or two, suddenly realising whose voice this was. Then he opened the first of the accompanying attachments and found a photograph of himself with a woman in her early thirties. They were standing on a thickly wooded hillside in northern Thailand. Faraday, in shorts and walking boots, was stripped to the waist. The woman was wearing a pair of baggy dark trousers and a plain white T-shirt. Her face was partly shadowed by the brim of a battered straw hat but her head was thrown back in helpless laughter and the photo had caught the whiteness of her teeth.
Faraday gazed at the image, instantly back on the jungle path amongst the bougainvillea and the wild orchids. He could feel the bubbles of heat rising from the red earth and the tickle of sweat on his bare chest. He could hear the deafening rise and fall of the cicadas in the thick green canopy overhead, and the faraway rumble of thunder as yet another storm tracked up the valley towards them.
On the eve of the wet season, with Eadie Sykes gone and Faraday travelling on his own, he’d met this woman on a country bus ten miles short of the Burmese border. Her name was Gabrielle and she was enjoying a brief holiday before returning to her native France. For the past year she’d been working with the hill tribes in the highlands that straddled the border between Laos and Vietnam. She was a qualified anthropologist with a PhD to her name, and European funding had made this expedition of hers possible. At some later date she’d be publishing a book. In the meantime, with the shrinking remnants of her research grant still in her pocket, she was making the most of Thailand.
They’d travelled together for a couple of days, shared meals, got to know a little of each other. Still bruised after the encounter with Eadie, Faraday wasn’t really in the mood for company, but when Gabrielle had mentioned a riverside hotel back in the Kwai Valley, he’d made a mental note of the name and location. She’d be meeting a girlfriend there in ten days’ time. This time of year, the huts overlooking the water were cheap. So maybe, alors, they might meet again.
Heading south after a week in Burma, Faraday noticed a roadside sign for the hotel and decided there’d be no harm in staying over for a couple of nights. Gabrielle was already in residence, sharing a room with her French girlfriend, a lecturer from one of the Bangkok universities. During the day the two women would hire mountain bikes and disappear into the maze of trails in the surrounding jungle. In the evening Faraday joined them in the hotel dining room, an airy terrace with a fine view of the river.
The Kwai Valley, with its memories of the death railway, fascinated him. He’d visited a nearby museum, walked several kilometres of surviving railbed, picked up a book or two, learned what disease, starvation and forced labour had done to tens of thousands of Allied prisoners of war. The last evening they were all together, out on the terrace, he’d talked about it, trying to explain what the surrender of Singapore had meant to a whole generation of Englishmen. Gabrielle’s friend from Bangkok was regularly in Singapore and found it difficult to reconcile the gleaming tower blocks and booming economy with Faraday’s account of the burning godowns and the desperate mobs of stranded white families. But Gabrielle, at the meal’s end,
had reached across the table and lightly touched his hand. ‘My father,’ she murmured in her broken English, ‘was at Dien Bien Phu.’
Faraday, who knew very little about French military fortunes in the Orient, could only nod. Days later, passing through Bangkok en route to the airport, he’d made a point of finding a book on the subject. Dien Bien Phu, it turned out, was France’s Singapore, a military defeat so catastrophic and so humiliating that it signalled the end of the French presence in South East Asia.
On the plane home, thinking about it, Faraday had meant to get in touch with Gabrielle. They’d exchanged e-mail addresses and he wanted to know more about her father’s war. How come he’d survived the cauldron of Dien Bien Phu? And what had become of him afterwards, in the prison camp? But somehow, despite the best of intentions, the press of events on Major Crimes had swamped him almost at once, and his memories of that brief interlude, high above the Kwai River, had faded.
Now, he did his best with the rest of the e-mail. As far as he could judge, Gabrielle was back in her native Chartres. She’d picked up her dog and her ancient VW camper from her mother and was working on the book in her own apartment. Being back in the West, bien sûr, was a bit strange. She’d couldn’t get over how busy everyone was, and how little time they had for each other, but she supposed it had always been this way and she’d simply forgotten. In closing, she wondered whether one day they might meet again. Joe was welcome in Chartres any time. There was an address and phone number, and she signed off with the hope that he’d enjoy the photos she’d sent him.
Faraday opened the other attachment. Gabrielle, it turned out, had been busy with the digital camera she always carried. None of the shots would win awards for focus or composition but Faraday knew only too well how hard it was to take decent photos of birdlife. He scanned them quickly, recognising a red-throated flycatcher, a river chat and a grey-faced buzzard. Then, touched by this totally unexpected gesture, he pictured again his days in her company.
What had struck him at the time, he remembered, was her sense of self-possession. Here was someone who knew exactly who they were. Travelling in the remoter parts of Thailand was seldom free of incident, yet whatever happened, however frequent the bus punctures or unscheduled detours, she never lost her fascination for the bustle of faces around her.
A greater contrast to Eadie Sykes - impatient, demanding, headstrong - Faraday couldn’t imagine, and as he returned to the photo he’d first opened he tried to pin down exactly why Gabrielle’s company had been so easy. It wasn’t that he’d fancied her. It wasn’t even that he’d ever thought of seeing her again. It was simply, he decided, the recognition of a fellow traveller, of someone for whom life offered a series of imperfectly locked boxes. She had a curiosity he understood, and a scientist’s thirst for trying to make sense of the world. Every passing day seemed to bring her something new, and with her urchin haircut and wire-rimmed glasses she must have sensed the same in him. Hence, now, this e-mail.
Faraday got up from the PC, meaning to return to the kitchen and charge his glass, but beside the wall of books in his study he paused. The Michelin atlas of Europe was on the bottom shelf. He turned the pages until he was looking at northern France. Chartres was half a day’s drive from the Normandy coast. He studied the route for a moment, then tucked the atlas away again and headed downstairs.
Five
Wednesday, 13 July 2005, 09.45
An Aqua cab dropped Winter in the heart of Somerstown. After a couple of sunny days, the weather was crap again, low cloud and a drop or two of rain, and the forecast on the radio was promising heavier stuff for the afternoon. Winter zipped up his anorak, standing amongst the swirl of chip wrappers and discarded burger boxes beside the battered parade of shops. Only in Somerstown, he thought, would the betting shop have a handwritten notice taped to the window. Cash removed every night went the note. Save yourself the hassle.
The address he was after was round the corner. He followed the line of cracked paving stones, stepping to one side to avoid colliding with a couple of teenage mums with buggies. Both had mobile phones pressed to their ears and for one lunatic moment Winter wondered if they were talking to each other. These days, he thought, you’d rule nothing out.
Hermiston House was an unlovely tower block with a bit of a reputation in the divisional CID office. Social Services had a habit of dumping single parents on the lower floors and some of the kids from families further up the building had long ago bailed out of full-time education. Despite periodic uniformed sweeps to satisfy the storm troopers from the Home Office Inspectorate, truancy was rife on the estate and Winter could cite case after case where kids had discovered that life outside the classroom could be immensely profitable, as well as fun. Shopkeepers round here, Asians especially, had been robbed blind. Drug dealing was frequently in the hands of fourteen-year-olds. Turn up pissed after dark, stray into the wrong areas, and you’d be lucky not to become a crime statistic.
Winter pushed in through the big double doors. The address was on the third floor. Number 34 was at the far end of the corridor. He knocked on the door. He could hear music inside, a girl band, loud. He knocked again, then a third time. Finally, someone turned the music down and the door opened. She looked tiny, barely a teenager. She was wearing a pink top and a pair of briefs and not very much else. There was a huge purple love bite on the side of her neck and and more than a hint of bruising under one eye.
Winter showed her his warrant card. He said he wanted to talk to a Mr Givens.
‘Never heard of him.’ Pompey accent. Wary expression.
‘You live here?’
‘Yeah. What’s this about then? Only I’m busy. Me and Cher -’ She jerked her head sideways. ‘- We gotta go down the doctor’s. She’s snotty again. My mum says she needs looking at.’
Winter made to step into the flat. The girl didn’t move.
‘You can’t come in here.’ She sounded indignant.
‘Why not?’
‘You could be anyone.’
‘I’ve just showed you my warrant card.’
‘Means nothing. Not round here it doesn’t. We had someone said he was from the gas people the other day - fancy ID, all that shit. Friend of mine was stupid enough to let him in. Turned out to be a perve. Had to call the Old Bill.’
‘I am the Old Bill.’
‘Yeah?’ She looked at him a moment longer, troubled, and Winter knew she was softening.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘This is going to take a couple of minutes. Better we do it now than I come back mob-handed, eh?’
‘Do what?’
‘Let me in and I’ll tell you.’
She frowned, trying to make up her mind. Then a baby started crying somewhere deep in the flat and Winter took advantage of the distraction, stepping round her and shutting the door behind him. The heat inside was overpowering. She must have the radiators turned up full, Winter thought. The baby was howling now, and he followed the girl down the tiny hall. Three steps took him into a bedroom. The baby was lying on a double mattress on the floor, naked, kicking its legs. There was a deckchair propped against the wall, nicked from the beach, and a collection of empty Kronenbourg bottles on a broken-backed chair beside a transistor radio. In the corner of the room was a brand new widescreen television set, three grand at least, tuned to one of the morning chat shows. The sound had been muted in favour of the radio, and Winter wondered what the baby made of Fern Britton watching a black chef toss pancakes.
Winter bent to retrieve a pair of jeans. They obviously went with the scuffed Reeboks in the corner. He inspected the label on the jeans. Thirty-four leg.
‘Who else lives here?’
‘No one. Just me. And her.’ The girl was doing her best to calm the baby.
‘Whose are these then?’
The girl glanced round. Winter was still holding the jeans.
‘My boyfriend.’ She shrugged. ‘He stays sometimes.’
‘Yeah? What’s his name?’
The girl was in the kitchen, trying to tempt the baby with a bottle she must have been warming up. The baby was watching Winter. Big blue eyes. Just like her mum.
‘What’s your name, love?’
‘Ain’t telling you.’
‘Don’t fuck around. I can go to Merefield House. You know I can.’
At the mention of Social Services, she turned her back on Winter, rocking the baby in her arms.
‘Emma,’ she said at last.
‘Emma what?’
‘Emma Cusden. Don’t go grassing me up to that lot, will you? They’ve been well nice to me lately.’
‘Why would I grass you up?’
‘Dunno.’ She glanced back at him and risked a smile. ‘You ain’t here for coffee, are you?’
Once the baby was settled, Winter took them both through to the living room. The room was bare, the fug even worse. A couple of chairs, scabbed with grease and crusty bits of food, were pushed back against the wall, and there was a beanbag as well, equally knackered. Someone must have been to the tip, Winter thought, and helped themselves.
‘I’m interested in post for this Mr Givens,’ he said. ‘You’d have got some stuff through last month.’
‘Not here.’ She shook her head at once. ‘Not me.’
‘Someone else, then. Your boyfriend maybe.’
‘Doubt it.’
‘You’re telling me you never saw any envelopes addressed to a Mr Givens?’
‘Never.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Course I am.’
Winter nodded. He knew she was lying but that wasn’t the point. In these situations you always took a hostage. Helped no end. He stepped across to her, tickled the baby under the chin.
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