Borrowed Light

by Hurley, Graham

Webster extended a hand. Five years ago, on the same job that had brought Pembury to the island, he’d been an eager young D/C keen to move to the mainland and test himself on Major Crime. Now there was a wariness in his nod of welcome, a definite sense that he had territory to defend.

  ‘Boss.’

  ‘Still hang-gliding?’

  ‘Afraid not.’ He managed a wry grin. ‘Still chasing all those birds?’

  The image specialist thought it was funny. Faraday too.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Why would I ever stop?’

  Faraday sorted himself a coffee, then headed for the loo at the back of the changing room. He’d often wondered what it might be like to be an alcoholic, having to cope with the real world in your face every morning, and now he was beginning to understand. Not because he was desperate for a drink – he wasn’t – but because the sheer business of coping was suddenly so bloody difficult. House fire, he told himself again. Four bodies. X-rays. And maybe pellets of gunshot.

  The X-rays were the first item on Pembury’s agenda. A radiographer arrived with a portable machine and Faraday watched while each of the corpses was wheeled in from the fridge room. For some reason he hadn’t anticipated the contents of the body bags. One of the mortuary technicians was double-checking the ID tag on the first bag against the file held by the Crime Scene Investigator. The CSI made a note of the time and stepped aside while the bag was unzipped and its contents transferred to the slab.

  Faraday had seen what fires could do before, on dozens of occasions, and this blackened grotesque should have come as no surprise. Intense heat contracts the bigger muscles in the arms and legs, and the faceless figure in front of him seemed to have readied itself for a fight. The arms were raised, the fists clenched, the legs bent at the knees. There was something deeply primitive about the pose, Faraday thought, something that spoke of helplessness and anger as well as pain.

  The radiographer retired while the machine took the first set of X-rays. Three more bodies followed. One, recognisably a woman, was more intact than the rest. When Faraday asked about what – exactly – they were dealing with, the CSI pulled a face. The farmhouse had been thatched, he said. The roof had collapsed inwards, leaving a bonfire contained by the outer cob walls, which even now, a day and a half later, were still warm to the touch.

  Faraday could smell the smoke on the first of the bodies to be examined. He watched Pembury carefully dissecting down through folds of cooked muscle, aware of an acrid aftertaste that seemed to reach deep inside his throat. The X-rays were available by now. All four indicated gunshot wounds and Faraday felt his spirits lift when Pembury’s scalpel confirmed the presence of tiny pellets of lead. So far, the inquiry would have been handled locally. Now, under the iron grip of DCI Gail Parsons, everything would be folded into Major Crime. Not an accidental house fire at all, but multiple homicide probably followed by an act of arson.

  The first of the pellets had appeared, a tiny sphere of lead, lightly coated in body fluids, glistening under the mortuary lights in the jaws of Pembury’s tweezers. The image specialist stepped forward. First the stills camera. Then video. Faraday was looking at the head on the slab, at the smudge of blackened features, at the thin crust of liquid that had bubbled out of the skull under the intense heat. So far, to his relief, the sheer predictability of the post-mortem – the script that pathologist after pathologist was obliged to follow – had stilled the voices in his head. But then he caught the smell again, smoke laced with something sweeter, and his stomach churned as he remembered his first glimpse of the pathetic bundle of bandages that was Leila. This blackened gargoyle could have been her on the slab, he told himself. Easily.

  The pathologist had found another pellet. The CSI stepped forward with an evidence bag and held it open. Faraday watched this tiny piece of theatre, his own hands knotting again, the squeeze and knead of thumbs against fingers, and knew he had to leave the room. He couldn’t take this stuff any more. Not this.

  He’d seen the shower earlier. It was in the changing room. He stood under the scalding water, as hot as he could bear it, his face tilted up, his eyes closed. The roar of heavy jets taking off from the airfield near the hospital. The morning one of the cleaners left a carefully folded newspaper on the table beside his bed. The paper was in Arabic. He hadn’t a clue about the headline but it was the photo that had drawn the cleaner’s attention and it was that same photo that came back to him now. After ten days of laying waste to Gaza, local newspaper editors no longer saw any merit in restraint. The child’s body had no head. Dogs tore at the open throat.

  Then, from miles away, came another noise that Faraday took a second or two to recognise. Opening his eyes, he found himself face to face with D/C Darren Webster. He’d pulled back the plastic curtain on the shower. He’d seen Faraday leave the post-mortem and wanted to know that he was OK.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Faraday wiped his face, thankful that the water masked his tears. ‘Just fine.’

  Winter happened to be at Mackenzie’s house that morning. Between them, he and Stu Norcliffe had convinced Bazza that they must make a start on stemming the haemorrhage of funds that was edging Mackenzie’s business empire towards the blackest of holes.

  On the basis of the last quarter’s figures, backed up by a one-year overview, Stu had drawn up a list of enterprises that would survive the coming recession. These included Speedy Cabs, a brace of fast-food outlets much patronised by students, a martial arts gym, an upmarket seafood restaurant with a loyal clientele, a Fratton corner shop specialising in exotic reptiles, a jobs agency serving the call-centre sector, a security consultancy offering cut-price twenty-four-hour protection and the Royal Trafalgar. These businesses, said Stu, would thrive in hard times, and he was therefore proposing to float them off, ring-fenced from the dodgier areas of Mackenzie’s empire. These, to Mackenzie’s acute distress, included pretty much the rest of what he’d so carefully jigsawed together.

  Bazza was sitting at the kitchen table in the big house in Sandown Road, pretending not to listen to Stu’s thoughts about a retirement development on the Costa Esmeralda. In Stu’s view, Playa Esmeralda was sucking the life out of the rest of the Spanish portfolio.

  ‘So we bin it? Yeah?’ Mackenzie was watching the big wall-mounted plasma screen. Fern Britton doing her best with a pink Pilates ball.

  ‘Definitely. And muy pronto.’

  ‘But half the fucking world are over sixty. They’ve got to live somewhere.’

  ‘Yeah, but not in Spain any more. We’ve been through it, Baz. The poor sods down there are stuffed. Number one, they won’t be getting interest on their savings any more. Number two, what’s left is worth zilch.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of sterling. Because of the euro. The rest of the world has found us out, Baz. Have you tried buying a beer in Europe recently? The pound’s fucked.’

  ‘That’s now, Stu. You’re not telling me this is for ever. I say we wait, hold our nerve. Never did us any harm in the old days.’

  Norcliffe shook his head. Talking to Bazza in this mood was a waste of time. He pushed his stool back from the breakfast bar and got to his feet.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Why?’

  Norcliffe was stooping for his briefcase, Bazza’s question ignored, when Winter heard the front door open. Seconds later, Marie stepped into the kitchen. The pinkness in her face and the brightness in her eyes told Winter she’d been swimming again.

  ‘How many lengths?’ he enquired.

  ‘Fifty, since you’re asking.’

  ‘How far’s that?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  Winter watched her shake her towel out before bundling it into the washing machine. Since the troubles last year her life had been transformed. Eight months ago, after the trauma of little Guy’s kidnap, she’d been resigned to her daughter and Stu and the kids all moving out to Spain. Instead they’d bought a huge old house in the next roa
d and she saw her grandchildren pretty much every day. Life, she’d recently told Winter, couldn’t be sweeter.

  The retirement development on the Costa Esmeralda had always been Marie’s baby. Bazza told her what her son-in-law had in mind.

  Marie was at the sink now, rinsing out her Speedo.

  ‘Shame,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure Stuart knows best.’

  ‘And that’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?’ Bazza shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re off the planet, you lot. I work day and night putting all this together. I make it cushty for you – I make it legit, respectable – and now we just piss it all away? How does that work? Anyone care to tell me?’

  No one offered him the satisfaction of an argument. Norcliffe left the room without a word while Marie asked whether Winter wanted a bite of lunch. After a solid hour in the water she was famished.

  Winter said yes to prawn salad and fresh bread. He’d accompanied her and the kids to the pool on a number of occasions and had watched the impact she made on even the younger guys. A woman in her mid-forties, still blonde, still slender, she could still turn heads without a whisper of self-regard. In this respect, as in many others, Bazza didn’t know how lucky he was.

  Bazza didn’t care a hoot about lunch. He had something else on his mind. ‘You talk to Stu about this new job of his?’ He was speaking to Winter.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Some new boutique bank? Whatever the fuck that might be?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He says he’s giving it serious thought. It’d be Mayfair. Again.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Winter glanced at Marie. She’d hate having Stu back in London. She’d worry about Ezzie and the kids.

  Marie appeared not to be listening. She’d got hold of the TV remote and had changed channels for the lunchtime news. After the weather forecast came the local round-up.

  ‘That’s Johnny’s place …’ she said quietly. ‘I swear it is.’

  Winter turned towards the screen. The remains of some kind of farmhouse were smouldering under a thin drizzle. It had no roof and the entire property was surrounded by police no entry tape. Through an open window, framed by the blackened wood, two Scenes of Crime guys were on their hands and knees, sifting through a pile of debris. The item cut to a different shot. A small army of officers was advancing inch by inch down a long meadow towards the hedge at the bottom. In the distance, behind the commentary, Winter could hear a dog barking.

  ‘That’s definitely their place.’ It was Marie again. ‘I recognise that tree.’

  The reporter said that four bodies had been recovered. A police spokesman confirmed that enquiries were on-going.

  Abruptly, the coverage cut to sport. A spokesman at Fratton Park had refused to confirm or deny rumours that Pompey were in deep financial trouble. Diarra sold to Real Madrid. Jermain Defoe up the road to Spurs. The club sinking like a stone. The cupboard, player-wise, dangerously bare.

  Winter was watching Mackenzie. Since the item on the burned-out farmhouse, he hadn’t moved.

  ‘Baz?’ he ventured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fratton Park? You believe all these gloom bags?’

  Mackenzie’s head came round. His face was the colour of chalk. He forced a smile.

  ‘Never, mush.’ His voice was a whisper. ‘Never in a million fucking years.’

  Faraday found D/S Jimmy Suttle in an upstairs office at Newport police station. He wanted to know about Gail Parsons. Brisk, he’d told himself in the taxi from the hospital. Keep it brisk.

  ‘She’s due any minute, boss. I got a call about an hour ago.’

  ‘And she’s SIO?’

  ‘As far as I know. With you as deputy, assuming we hoist this thing in. Be gentle though, boss. She’s not in a good place just now.’

  Parsons, it turned out, had recently lost her dog. She had a boisterous black Labrador called Nelson and he’d come to grief under the wheels of a bus in Fareham High Street. Nelson was allegedly the closest Parsons came to any kind of private life and it seemed that photos of the animal still decorated her office at Fratton nick.

  ‘She took a bit of leave, boss. Fun week in Madeira.’

  Faraday smiled. DCI Gail Parsons had been his immediate boss for a couple of years now, a small combative woman with a carefully thought-through career plan and an impressive chest. The last time Faraday had seen her, a week before Christmas, she’d been spending every night reading up for her next set of promotion exams. That she’d make superintendent by the age of forty was in Faraday’s view never in doubt. Whether she’d ever give herself time to enjoy the job was a wholly different question.

  ‘So tell me …’ Faraday settled in a chair and nodded at the pile of notes on Suttle’s borrowed desk. ‘Where are we?’

  Suttle sat back, taking his time. Now twenty-nine, he’d been on Major Crime for a number of years, winning a reputation for intelligence, charm and the kind of dogged thoroughness that can prise open an otherwise difficult investigation and tease out a result. Tall, with a mop of red curly hair, he’d partnered Winter for a year or two, a relationship that had taught him a great deal about the blacker arts of crime detection. He was also brave, a quality that had nearly done for him when he’d tackled a drug dealer in Southsea and got himself knifed in the process. Lately, thanks to a long period of convalescence behind a desk, he’d become the must-have Intelligence Officer on Major Crime operations.

  ‘Remember Johnny Holman?’ he said at last.

  The name sank like a stone through Faraday’s memory. He frowned, shut his eyes, tried to conjure a face, an MO, the usual scatter of previous.

  ‘Pompey boy?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Ran with the 6.57?’

  ‘Spot on.’ The 6.57 had been the hard core of Pompey’s travelling away support, exporting serious violence wherever it was required.

  ‘Off the scene now? Semi-retired?’

  ‘Yeah. And as of yesterday probably dead.’

  Faraday raised an eyebrow, wondering which of the body bags in the mortuary might have contained Johnny Holman. In truth he could remember very little about Holman, but that wasn’t something he was about to share with Suttle.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Hard to say, boss. Time-wise we’re talking the small hours of Saturday night/Sunday morning. This is down the south of the island, out towards Freshwater. The place that caught fire is called Monkswell Farm. It’s not a real farm, not a working farm, just the kind of pad you might retire to if you suddenly came into a whack of money and you fancied somewhere nice and peaceful.’

  Holman, he explained, had always been a motorcycle nut. Most of his life he’d scraped a living from various jobs, mainly in the auto trade. What money came his way he’d invested in a big Suzuki, and his favourite gig was an annual visit to the Isle of Man to test his riding skills against the hairier corners on the TT circuit.

  ‘This is something he seems to have taken pretty seriously, as you would. According to the people I’ve been talking to, he was a decent rider.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He used to stay for the best part of a week. This is several years ago. On the Thursday he was putting in another lap, nothing silly, and some old guy pulled out in front of him. Never looked, never checked, bang, finito.’

  Holman, he said, was rushed to hospital in Douglas. They saved his life but it took the best part of three months to put him back together again.

  From his hospital bed Holman hired a Manchester firm to chase an insurance settlement. They scored big time. A million plus. Enough, easily, to buy Monkswell Farm with enough left over for a few beers.

  ‘But that’s where it started going wrong.’

  ‘The farm?’

  ‘The beers. Holman had always been a drinker, famous for it. While most of the 6.57 were out of their heads on toot, Holman stuck to the Stella. After the accident it became a bit of a thing with him. Maybe he was still in pain. Maybe it was his
way of coping. Fuck knows. All we know is it started getting the better of him. Too much time, too much money, pissed out of his head by lunchtime.’

  ‘You’ve talked to people about this?’

  ‘Yeah. He was a popular guy – at least he was once. He was a bit on the small side too. Women used to mother him.’

  He had a son, Grant, Suttle said. The boy was twenty plus by now and had moved away somewhere.

  ‘So we’re putting Holman in the farmhouse? The night it burned down?’

  ‘That’s our assumption.’

  ‘And who else?’

  ‘There’s a woman called Julie. Julie Crocker. She used to be a Pompey barmaid, well known around the town, bit of a looker in her day.’

  ‘And she hooked up with Holman?’

  ‘Yeah. Apparently she’d known him most of her life, had a scene or two with him, but after the accident she was the one who went over there to the island and sat by his bed and tried to make it all better again.’

  After Holman’s discharge, he said, she helped him find the kind of place he had in mind and ended up moving in with him.

  ‘That’s her and her two daughters, Kim and Jess. Kim was seventeen, very pretty, lippy with it, tons of attitude, bit of a nightmare. The other one, Jess, was younger, fourteen, apparently Johnny’s favourite.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘We’re assuming they were all in residence. All four of them were listed at that address. The local boys were running round all yesterday. They’ve recovered a vehicle from the property, a Land Rover. It’s registered to Holman.’

  Faraday nodded. As ever, Suttle was shaping the first tranche of intel into bite-sized chunks, easily digestible. Most of this stuff was open source, with a light sprinkling of background gossip from the more reliable informants. In the hunt for motive, assuming four homicides, he’d have to dig deeper.

  ‘Timeline?’

  ‘I’ve a feeling Holman may have been away at some point last week, but I’ve got to check it out. What we know for certain is that he’s back by the Thursday because the postman delivers a parcel and he signs for it. Two days later, the Saturday, the youngest girl comes into Newport around lunchtime and hangs out with a couple of mates. They’re all planning to crash some party or other and young Jessie has plans to kip over at a mate’s place. I’m not sure why, but that plan never works out.’