Borrowed Light

by Hurley, Graham

  Winter asked to talk to Kaija. He had to repeat the name three times. Finally, it registered.

  ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘No. Are you calling about her things?’

  ‘Her things?’

  ‘That bag of stuff she left? Only it’s no use to me.’

  Winter bent to the phone, his drink abandoned. He confirmed he’d be calling round for the bag. Kaija, he said, had asked him to pick it up.

  The woman mumbled something he didn’t understand. When he asked for an address, she didn’t seem to hear. He repeated the question, louder, then louder still. The girl behind the bar stopped watching the Robbie Williams video, glanced his way.

  The woman on the phone was back on the line: 6 St Andrew’s Road. He’d have to be quick because she was going out any minute.

  Winter was already on his feet, reaching for his coat. There was a list of taxi firms pinned up beside the door. He still had his mobile in his hand and he began to dial the first number but the girl behind the bar told him not to bother. There was a cab rank round the corner, she said, still watching the video.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THURSDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2009. 18.04

  Colin Leyman was watching the early-evening news when he heard the knock at the front door. He hauled his bulk off the kitchen stool and glanced at his watch. His mate Chris was due at half six. Maybe he’d come early on purpose, he thought. Maybe he fancied a tinny or two before they got down to refighting Marshal Ney’s late-afternoon cavalry charges against Wellington’s redcoats.

  The thought put a smile on his face. He’d spent most of the afternoon putting the finishing touches to his new troop of French cuirassiers. He’d bought them only last week, exquisite little mounted figures, and the painting had taken him an age to get right. He’d copied the uniforms from the best reference book he could find, a volume of engravings he’d picked up in an antiquarian second-hand shop in Albert Road, and he’d double-checked the results against some more prints he’d nailed down on Wikipedia. Chris, he knew, would love them.

  The knocking again, more insistent this time. He shuffled along the narrow hall, hauling up his jeans. There was a blob of blue paint on one of the knees where he’d had an accident with the cuirassiers, and his fingers tracked absently down, scratching at the scab.

  The door to the front room was ajar and he checked inside, making sure everything was exactly the way he wanted Chris to see it: Wellington’s tightly bunched squares of infantry waiting for the French cavalry; the cuirassiers themselves preparing to charge; and the distant figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, caped in scarlet, mounted on a magnificent grey.

  Satisfied, he turned to the front door and pulled it open. Expecting Chris’s carefully trimmed beard, he found himself looking at someone shorter, more squat. There was another figure too, much bigger, standing beside him.

  ‘Colin Leyman?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Your lucky day, son. Compliments of Mr M.’

  For a split second Leyman thought these people were bringing him good news. Then, for no good reason he could fathom, a hand seized his throat and his world began to darken.

  Winter told the taxi driver to wait. Number 6 St Andrews Road was a solid post-war semi-detached on the edges of Cowes. The curtains were closed on the ground floor but there was a light on upstairs. A decent patch of front garden was home to a water feature – a dolphin dancing on its tail – and someone had made an effort with the carefully tended flower beds. Early crocuses, Winter thought, and probably a stand or two of daffs to follow. Even in the gloom of a February evening this would be a nice place to come home to.

  He rang again, then caught the clump-clump of footsteps coming downstairs. Seconds later the door opened. The woman was old, thick cardigan under a green anorak, plaid skirt, a wisp of grey hair escaping from beneath her beret.

  ‘Yes?’ She peered out at him.

  Winter said he was a friend of Kaija. They’d spoken on the phone. He’d come to pick up her stuff.

  The woman seemed pleased to see him. He stepped inside and lingered at the foot of the stairs. The door to the room at the front was open. From what he could see, it looked bare: a boarded-up fireplace, two utility armchairs, a fold-up table, not much else.

  ‘She must have left her phone.’ Winter nodded at the room.

  ‘Who, dear?’

  ‘Kaija. That’s who I rang. You must have heard it.’

  ‘I did.’ She fumbled in the pocket of the cardigan. Kaija’s phone was silver, an Ericsson. The woman handed it over. ‘She left it under her pillow, silly girl.’

  ‘Behave herself, did she? Kaija?’

  ‘Nice girl.’ She nodded. ‘Very nice girl.’

  ‘How long was she here? Only I haven’t seen her for a while.’

  ‘Not long. Christmas, she came. Yes …’ she sucked her teeth ‘… definitely Christmas. I put an ad in the paper. She came next day. Lovely girl. You can tell her that.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Something else too.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘She hasn’t came back for her deposit. A month’s rent it was, £400. You can tell her that too.’

  Winter nodded. The woman seemed glad to have company. So far so good, he thought.

  ‘When did she go, Kaija? To tell you the truth I’m a bit confused.’

  ‘So am I, dear. I got a phone call a couple of days ago.’

  ‘From Kaija?’

  ‘No, someone else. She didn’t say who she was, just that Kaija definitely wasn’t coming back, and if I wanted to rent the place out again then maybe I should.’ She peered harder at Winter. ‘You don’t want a room, do you?’

  Winter declined the offer. He wanted to know when she’d last seen Kaija.

  The woman frowned, trying to remember.

  ‘Saturday morning,’ she said finally. ‘We had a little conversation about how awful the weather’s been.’

  ‘And Saturday night?’

  ‘I wasn’t here, dear. I stay at my sister’s sometimes, over in Newport. That’s where I’m off to now.’

  ‘And you didn’t see Kaija after that?’

  ‘No. I came back on Sunday but she’d gone.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Yes. She left me a little note. Said her mother had been taken poorly. Back home.’

  Winter asked whether Kaija had any friends who used to come round.

  ‘Just one, dear.’

  ‘Man? Woman?’

  ‘A man. Much older than her. Shorter too. On the small side.’

  ‘That would be Johnny.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She nodded. ‘Johnny.’

  ‘Did he come round a lot?’

  ‘Yes, often. She had a key cut for him. She asked me and I said yes. He used to let himself in, Johnny. He’d get shopping for me sometimes – little things, bread. Nice man.’

  Without warning, she turned on her heel and made off down the hall. Seconds later she returned with a black plastic bin liner, knotted at the top.

  ‘This was in the garden at the back,’ she said. ‘I found it behind the toolshed. It must be Kaija’s.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It was the only thing they left.’ Her eyes strayed to the empty front room.

  ‘They?’

  ‘Those other friends of hers. That woman I mentioned just now? The one who phoned? She was here yesterday. Took everything away with her. Except that.’ She nodded at the bin liner. ‘They must have forgotten.’

  ‘You said “they”.’

  ‘There was a man with her – big fella, long hair, younger. I think he was foreign, like Kaija.’

  ‘And the woman?’

  ‘Tattoos.’ She pulled a face and then touched her shoulder and chest. ‘Here and here. Not right, is it? Not on a woman.’

  Winter smiled, then nodded at the bin liner.

  ‘So what’s inside?’

 
; ‘I don’t know. I haven’t looked. You wouldn’t, would you? When it’s not yours.’

  Winter agreed. Very wise. He extended a hand, said goodbye. The old lady said he was welcome, drop in any time, and she stood at the door watching while he carried the bin liner back to the waiting taxi.

  Winter told the driver to park up round the corner. He was an islander, born and bred. On the way up from the rank they’d talked about the way foreigners were taking the place over. Even on the island, even here, there was something funny going on. The politicians never discussed it because they were scared, but it was happening just the same.

  The taxi came to a halt. In the back Winter was wrestling with the knot. Finally he got the bag open. The driver was watching him in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘Woodsmoke.’ Winter was grinning now. ‘That satnav of yours.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Place called Monkswell Farm?’

  The driver said he knew it. Nice place. Lovely place. Until it burned down.

  Winter was checking his leather jacket. The envelope Mackenzie had given him was still there. So far he’d spent nearly sixty quid on fares and other bits and pieces. He stared out at the estate. It was still barely seven o’clock.

  He asked the driver for a price to Monkswell Farm, then on to the Ryde Hovercraft.

  The driver gave it some thought. ‘Fifty-five, mate. More if you keep me hanging around too long.’

  ‘Have you got a torch?’

  ‘Yeah. Two. Big one or a small one.’ He stirred the engine into life. ‘Take your choice.’

  Colin Leyman’s war-gaming partner, Chris Possett, was late getting across to Eastney. He jumped off the bus and hurried down the road. He was about to ring Leyman’s bell when he realised that the door was open. He pushed at it, peered inside. The hall light was on and he could hear the TV from the kitchen at the back.

  ‘Col?’ He listened for a reply, heard nothing, called again. The One Stop was just round the corner. Thinking Leyman must have gone out for milk or whatever, he stepped inside and made his way down the hall. Then he heard the noise. It was a groaning noise, faint, slightly bubbly. It happened again, louder. It was coming from the front room.

  Possett felt the first cold prickles of fear. Something had happened. He could sense it. Something terrible. He went back to the front door, called Leyman’s name again, then turned to the door to the front room. A tiny strip of light down the side told him that this too was open. He pushed at it, feeling his pulse beginning to race. Leyman was face down, sprawled across the papier mâché battlefield, blood from the wreckage of his mouth pooling in the hollows around a tiny crossroads.

  Possett knelt beside him, eased his head, made sure he could breathe.

  ‘What is it? What happened? Talk to me for fuck’s sake.’

  Leyman’s eyes briefly opened. The effort of trying to speak produced a thin dribble of vomit. Possett bent closer. A single word, he thought. Or maybe two.

  ‘Again, mate. Try again.’

  Leyman shook his head, closed his eyes. Then came a final effort.

  ‘Help me …’ he whispered.

  Faraday was home by eight. He’d spent an hour with Parsons at Kingston Crescent, updating her on Gosling, and had been gratified to learn that the pit stop over the coming weekend had indeed been Personnel’s idea and not her own. As far as she was concerned, Faraday was driving the investigation forward with his normal thoroughness. But if Personnel advised he ease up for a day or two, then she was happy to take the wheel herself. Tomorrow they’d be meeting for the forensic review. After that, she said, his time was his own.

  The Bargemaster’s House, after camping at the hotel in Ryde, truly felt like home. Faraday padded upstairs, threw off his suit, changed into jeans and a sweater, poured himself a drink. The last time he’d been here, banged up with his memories, haunted by what had happened to Hanif, bewildered by a partner who seemed to have disappeared, he’d been a headcase. Now, for reasons he didn’t fully understand, life was beginning to slip back into focus.

  Part of this transformation he put down to Gosling. Suttle in particular was playing a blinder, pushing hard on a door that might unlock the entire investigation, and as the narrative began to shape itself around the missing Kaija Luik he felt that buoyancy, that slowly building wave a Major Crime team can catch and ride. Faraday knew he was still woefully off the pace. He knew that his old sharpness, those instincts that had served him so well in the past, had yet fully to return. But he knew that inside he was still the detective he’d always been, and for that small moment of recognition he was profoundly grateful.

  He’d stopped at the supermarket on the way home. He made himself a tuna and egg risotto and pulled the cork from a bottle of Côtesdu-Rhône. All he needed now, he told himself, was Gabrielle, the old Gabrielle, the Gabrielle who’d be watching him from the other end of the table in the kitchen, telling him about her day, enveloping him in her world, making kind noises about his burned rice, and finally, much later, taking him to bed.

  This was the life they’d jigsawed together, a life that had successfully resisted the demons that plagued so many of his colleagues. It was a life they cracked open from time to time, spilling the richness of the yolk into the trips they made together. Travel, Faraday told himself, was the test of any relationship. Curiosity, a sense of humour and sheer guile would get you through, and in the shape of Gabrielle he’d found all three.

  He thought of her now, sharing breakfast only weeks ago in a deserted Sinai village. From nowhere Hanif had found watermelon, honey, flatbreads and a jug of freshly made yoghurt. They’d squatted among assorted debris in the shade of a gnarled acacia tree beside the village well, tossing corners of bread to a stray dog, making lazy plans for an afternoon of birding in the mountains. During the day Gabrielle wore a wide-brimmed straw hat. It had been everywhere with her, folded into rucksacks, stuffed into crannies on countless buses, trailed through remote country markets where a white face was rare. Faraday had a thousand photos of that hat, and of the sudden smile that brightened the shadow it cast, but the image he treasured above all was the photo he’d taken that morning beside the well. They were themselves. They had each other. Life was blissfully simple. Yet that same night it was all going to end.

  He took the remains of the bottle upstairs, stirred his PC into life and scrolled through his emails. He answered the handful he regarded as important and then stood at the window, staring out at the harbour. As far as he could judge, Gabrielle had yet to set foot in the Bargemaster’s House since her return to the UK. Her clothes, her laptop, the books she’d been devouring were exactly the way she’d left them before their departure to the Middle East. Tomorrow he’d pack the kind of clothes she might need, sort out a few of the books, make sure he remembered her laptop. Then he’d take them over to the hospital on Saturday, spend the whole day with her, try and fathom exactly what kind of perch she’d found for herself. He smiled at his reflection in the glass of the window, his fingertips tracing the contours of the face that had been through the windscreen, then he tipped back his head and swallowed the last of the wine.

  A puncture delayed Winter en route to Monkswell Farm. The taxi was deep in the countryside south of Newport, a succession of bends that came out of nowhere, when the driver brought the Subaru to a halt beside a farm gate. The steering, he said, was all over the place.

  He and Winter circled the car, checking each tyre. The front onside was flat. Winter, who’d once owned a Subaru, held the torch while the driver wrestled with the jack and the wheel brace. Two of the nuts had rusted and they took turns trying to free them. It was Winter, in the end, who did most of the work, and by the time they’d swapped the dud tyre for the spare, nearly an hour later, they were mates.

  ‘You’re sure I’m not keeping you?’ The driver was worried about the hovercraft from Ryde.

  ‘No problem. If I have to, I’ll stay over.’

  �
��You’re sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  They motored on in companionable silence. Then the driver, who said his name was Petroc, wanted to know what Winter did for a living.

  ‘I’m a cop.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The way you handle yourself. Calling in on the old lady. The bag. Stands to reason.’

  Winter laughed. Maybe he was right. Once a cop always a cop.

  According to the satnav they were close now, barely half a mile to go. Winter leaned forward, his arms crossed on the back of the front passenger seat.

  ‘Do us a favour, Petroc?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We were never here, right?’

  Petroc nodded, then hauled the taxi left. A farm gate loomed up at the bottom of the track. Winter told him to switch the lights out and wait until he came back.

  ‘You’ll need the torch.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Winter eased the gate open and followed the beam of the big torch towards the remains of the farmhouse in the hollow beyond. The ground beneath his feet was muddy and wet, and twice he found himself on his arse. He could smell the fire by now: even five days later it left a damp bitter aftertaste in the back of his throat. At the house he stopped to flick the torch up, tracking the beam across the smoke-stained walls, the black oblongs where the windows had once been, the yawning gap that was the front door.

  It was a cold night, and the wind blew rags of cloud across a full moon. With the torch off, Winter stood motionless, letting the house swim out of the darkness, feeling the wind on his face, hearing the call of an owl in the trees to his left. Then he started to pick his way forward again, skirting round the property, following what seemed to be a well-beaten path. Scenes of Crime, he thought, had done a good clear-up job. No crushed polystyrene cups. No forgotten scraps of paper. Not a trace of the dozens of men and women who must have tried to tease a story out of the remains of Monkswell Farm.

  At what he judged to be the back of the property he paused and switched on the torch again. A patch of turned earth and a stand of canes indicated some kind of garden. Beyond was a trellis for runner beans. He turned round, getting his bearings, aware of the two brick chimneys, survivors from the fire, towering above the carcass of the farmhouse. Then he moved slowly away, out into the garden, sweeping the torch left and right. Beyond the runner beans was something that looked like a shed. Beside it, a yawning hole.