Borrowed Light

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘You know this guy?’

  ‘Yes. Not well but … yes.’ She frowned.‘What’s Holman got to do with any of this?’

  ‘Just answer the question, please.’ He paused. ‘How did you get to know him in the first place?’

  ‘He got in touch a while back. He was a client. He wanted to buy company.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I recommended Maarika. Or Kaija as she called herself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she was new at that time – she’d just joined us. And because Johnny fancied the look of her on the website.’

  He bought a couple of sessions, she said, and tried her out. He liked what he’d paid for and became a regular client. Johnny was happy, Maarika was £110 a session better off, Sadler was making a decent commission. Result all round.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then it got messy.’

  ‘What does messy mean?’

  ‘I think Johnny started laying stuff on her, personal stuff, stuff about his marriage, about his life in general. This is more common than you might think, and Maarika never told me everything, but I think they must have started seeing each other, you know, socially.’

  ‘So what was in it for her? For Maarika?’

  ‘Good question. To be honest, I don’t know. Some of these girls can be really vulnerable, and I think that was the case with Maarika. She was round to my place a couple of times, floods of tears. Holman was a manipulator. He knew which strings to pull. God knows why, but she’d fallen in love with him just a little bit. Maybe not love, maybe more pity. D’you know what I mean? Either way, it was in her interests to get rid of the guy. Which is exactly what I told her to do. Forget him. Blank him. Don’t answer his calls. Even if he offers to pay again, tell him to fuck off.’

  ‘And she didn’t?’

  ‘Obviously not. Like I say, I don’t know the details.’

  ‘But he was another nightmare punter?’

  ‘Yeah … in his own way … yeah, definitely.’

  ‘But not the guy on Saturday night?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t think so? Might he have been the guy on Saturday night? The guy that beat her up?’

  ‘I doubt it. Holman’s an arsehole but he doesn’t get heavy.’

  ‘And what about her brother? Max? What did he think?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About Johnny?’

  For the first time Faraday sensed a whisper of caution in Sadler’s voice, the tiniest bump in the road, a couple of cobblestones, no more.

  ‘Max didn’t like Holman, didn’t like the stuff he was laying on his kid sister. You can understand that, can’t you?’

  ‘You’re telling me Holman abused her?’

  ‘Not physically, no, not as far as I know. But psychologically, that’s exactly what he was doing. And that kind of abuse, believe me, can be evil. Maybe that’s what Max saw happening.’

  ‘So why didn’t Max do something about it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. The boy’s a puppy. He might try and look like Marlon Brando, but underneath he’s like Maarika, really sensitive, really soft.’

  Faraday threw a glance at Suttle. More bullshit.

  Ellis got the interview back on track. She wanted to know what Sadler and Max did that night, once they’d calmed Maarika down.

  ‘I made her get dressed. We threw a few things into a bag – toothbrush, change of clothes, all that. Then we took her home.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘Back to Cowes, my place. Where else?’

  ‘And the mystery visitor? The guy who’d done all the damage?’

  ‘Max had a look around outside, just in case, but the guy had gone.’

  ‘Did Maarika mention a car at all?’

  ‘Nothing. She wouldn’t talk about him. We didn’t know what he looked like, how old he was, what colour he was, absolutely nothing. She’d just blanked him, rubbed him out of her life.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  Yates wanted to know what had happened on the Sunday. Sadler said that Maarika had kipped on the sofa. They’d all got up late. Maarika had friends in London and she wanted to get up there as soon as possible. From London, said Sadler, she’d make her way home.

  ‘So who were these friends?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. She wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘And afterwards? Back in Estonia?’

  ‘Pass. Sunday afternoon I gave her a grand in notes and put her on the ferry. She was a bit better by then.’

  ‘And that was that?’

  ‘Exactly. Until your nice detective came along with his auntie, asking all his questions.’

  There was a long silence. Suttle, still sitting beside Faraday, chuckled at the reference to Patsy Lowe. Then someone cleared their throat, maybe Stanton.

  ‘That it then, boys and gals? Only we’re busy people …’

  Yates told him to sit down. In a moment or two they’d take a break, but in the meantime he had one last question. Surely Maarika had relatives in Estonia?

  ‘Of course she does.’

  ‘Do you have an address?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does Max?’

  ‘I’m sure he does. Ask him.’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He won’t say a word.’

  ‘Ah …’ Amused again. ‘Shame, eh?’

  Chapter Thirty

  TUESDAY, 17 FEBRUARY 2009. 16.50

  Alone in his borrowed office at Newport police station, Faraday found time to contact Gabrielle. Hours ago, before the start of the first interview with Lou Sadler, she’d sent him a text: Jeudi seize heures? Chez nous?

  The terseness of the message told him everything he needed to know. He was to report to the Bargemaster’s House at four o’clock on Thursday afternoon, presumably for some kind of preliminary chat with the social worker about the prospect of adopting Leila. No sense that this might present some difficulty for a working detective up to his eyes in a multiple homicide. No awareness that he and Gabrielle had yet to explore the real implications of prising open their lives and making room for a damaged little girl from a culture more foreign than they could possibly imagine. Just a curt tap on the shoulder from someone whose life had shrunk to a tiny bundle of neediness.

  Gabrielle answered on the second ring. Faraday could imagine her in the Burns Unit, probably at Leila’s bedside, doubtless sharing her bedside duties with Riham in the daily tussle for the girl’s attention.

  ‘Chéri? C’est toi?’

  Faraday asked her how things were going. She said they were fine. Leila had spent a couple of hours out of bed, tottering down the corridor to the kids’ playroom, making body-language friends with an older girl from Portsmouth with terrible scald injuries. Life was on the move again, she said. Just like Leila.

  She sounded sunny, optimistic, positive, and Faraday wondered whether it was really his job to cast a shadow over all that. The butterfly in Gabrielle’s life, this exquisite little creature she’d cherished and protected for weeks now, was at last emerging from its chrysalis of pain and torment. Things, Gabrielle was saying, could only get better.

  Faraday looked up to find Suttle at his door. The D/S held up a single finger and tapped his watch. The all-important second interview with Lou Sadler was about to start. Everyone was waiting for him.

  Faraday ducked to the phone again.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he mumbled. ‘À bientôt.’

  Winter had spent most of the day wondering when to phone Jimmy Suttle. A brisk lunch with Bazza at the hotel had finally convinced him that his boss had swapped reality for the land of dreams. Newsnight had at last aired its piece about electoral stirrings in the Pompey undergrowth, and this had sparked more interest from the London broadsheets. The tone of the TV report had been decidedly tongue-in-cheek, and even Bazza had acknowledged that they’d come close to taking the piss, but Leo Kinder had assured him
that every particle of airtime was gold dust, and in the shape of multiple enquiries from The Times and the Daily Telegraph he was undoubtedly right. Both papers were after interviews, seeking to put the possibility of a Pompey referendum in a wider national context, and Kinder had said yes to both.

  As far as Winter was concerned, Bazza had lost the plot, and over a sandwich lunch in his office he’d told him exactly that. Lou Sadler was probably under arrest. Faraday and Parsons had the time, money and manpower to take their investigation in any direction they fancied. A hefty whack of Bazza’s precious toot was there for the finding, and once they’d laid hands on it, which they undoubtedly would, then it would only be a matter of hours before they came knocking on his door. In short, two decades of gleeful criminality were about to come to an end. Did Bazza understand that? Or had the prospect of one day becoming Mr Pompey left him totally brain-dead?

  Bazza, typically, had barely listened. Things were on the up, he said. Winter was a wily old dog and had as much to lose as everyone else. There’d be a way out of this, because that’s the way it had always been, and this was no time to lose your fucking nerve. At the end of the snack, Winter’s sandwich barely touched, Bazza had told him to sort it. He’d got the police thing wrong. It wasn’t a question of waiting for those bastards to come calling. He wanted Winter to find all that toot, turn it into money and have a big fat cheque ready for next week.

  Next week? Winter hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.

  ‘Thursday, mush. Rikki’s found the spic politico we need to pay off. I’m flying her over and, believe me, she won’t expect to go home empty-handed.’ Bazza was on his feet, preparing himself for yet another confab with Leo Kinder. ‘Comprendes?’

  Back in his apartment, Winter eyed the phone. Jimmy Suttle, he told himself. Has to be.

  *

  Suttle joined Faraday for another session in the monitoring room. Lou Sadler had spent most of the last forty minutes with her brief. Faraday had glimpsed them a couple of times in the glass-walled office reserved for visiting solicitors and had been struck by the rapport between them. Under difficult circumstances, Benny Stanton had the knack of making her laugh, something she clearly appreciated.

  Now she was back in the interview room waiting for Yates and Ellis to sort themselves out. After failing to breach Oobik’s defences, Faraday knew that a great deal hung on the next couple of hours.

  Ellis launched the first salvo of questions. She wanted to be clear about the boat trailer housed next door to the stables at Upcourt Farm. Where was it normally kept?

  ‘In the empty shed next to the horses.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘Security.’ Faraday sensed a shrug. ‘Protection from the weather.’

  ‘So was it always in there?’

  ‘Normally, yes.’

  ‘So why was it out in the open last Monday? And last Tuesday? And the day after that?’

  Faraday shot a look at Suttle. This information had come from Eva, the elderly woman from Upcourt Farm who walked her dog every morning. Suttle was convinced that the trailer had been wheeled out to make room for Robbie Difford’s Corsa.

  Lou Sadler offered a different interpretation. The same fluency, the same easy lies.

  ‘This time of the year we pull the RIB out for a refurb,’ she said. ‘It’s all weather-dependent, obviously, but I asked Max to have the thing out and ready in case I came up to tow it away and he wasn’t there.’

  ‘But it was out in the open three days running.’

  ‘I know. The weather was shit.’

  She was right. For most of last week it had never stopped raining. Faraday shook his head. Even the elements were on her side.

  ‘So what happened on the Thursday?’ Ellis hadn’t given up.

  ‘I asked Max to put it back under cover. I was busy from then on. The RIB would have to wait.’

  Suttle was on the phone to Meg Stanley. Sadler’s Megane had been seized last night for full forensic examination. He’d seen it himself in the car park behind her apartment but he needed confirmation that the cabriolet had a tow bar.

  ‘And?’ Faraday was looking at him.

  ‘She’ll check and phone back.’

  ‘Good lad.’ Faraday patted his arm, bending to the speaker again.

  Ellis had moved on to the issue of Oobik’s caravan. It seemed he’d spent a great deal of time giving the inside a thorough clean. Recovered evidence indicated that he’d even got rid of the carpet. Why might that have been?

  Sadler laughed. She enjoyed questions like these. She couldn’t wait to play the housewife.

  ‘Did you ever see that carpet?’

  ‘Obviously not, Ms Sadler.’

  ‘It was vile, a kind of mustardy colour with blotches. I always wondered whether he’d spewed all over it and never bothered to clean up, you know what I mean?’

  Ellis didn’t. She asked about the rest of the work Max had done.

  ‘I’ve no idea, love. I think he probably started with the carpet and then got the bug. It’s spring, isn’t it? You have a clear-out, splash a bit of paint around, brighten things up. And you’re right, he did an incredible job. I was amazed. I told him he could start on my place next, but I don’t think he was that keen. Funny about men, isn’t it? They never last the pace.’ She laughed again.

  ‘We think he used twenty-seven dustbin liners.’ It was Yates this time.

  ‘Really? Who’s counting?’

  ‘We are, Ms Sadler. The question is, why?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him.’

  ‘We’re asking you.’

  ‘No idea. He had a load of stuff in that caravan aside from the carpet.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  ‘Just stuff, general stuff, clutter – you know, the kind of crap none of us notice until it gets on top of you. Maybe it was that.’

  ‘You haven’t answered the question, Ms Sadler. I want you to be specific. I want you to remember the inside of that caravan. Tell me the way it was before he had the clear-out.’

  ‘To be honest, I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because, like I just said, I never went in there with a pencil and paper and wrote it all down. That wasn’t the way it worked. You just get a general impression. The place was a mess. To be honest, I never fancied it. Not compared to my place.’

  ‘Fancied it?’

  ‘For sex. For friendship. For being together. Why freeze your arse off in that khazi of a caravan when you’ve clean sheets and central heating down the road? Doesn’t make sense, does it?’

  Faraday shook his head. Yates had done exactly the right thing, pressing her to be specific, hoping she’d trip up over tiny details, praying she’d expose this glib little fantasy for what it really was: a tissue of lies. But every time Yates or Ellis threatened to lay a hand on her, she simply danced away, wrapping this life of theirs in cosy generalities that were difficult to challenge. No wonder she’d spent so much time rehearsing with Benny Stanton. No wonder he’d put a smile on her face.

  Yates had moved on to the visits Sadler had made to Mrs Percival’s place. The first, with Max, had been to rescue Maarika from her mystery attacker. The second had taken place days later. Yates wanted to know why.

  ‘We went to pick up the rest of her stuff.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  ‘Clothes, a few books, some shoes.’

  ‘Had she asked you to do this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you say she left for London almost immediately.’

  ‘She did. But there was always a chance she’d be back. Or that’s what she said.’

  ‘No, it’s not, Ms Sadler. You told us earlier that she just wanted to get away.’ Faraday heard the rustle of paper as Yates consulted his notes. ‘Get me out, she kept saying. Just please get me out. I want to go home. I want to get out. That’s what you told us.’

  ‘It’s true. That’s exactly what she said.’

  ‘
Then how come she’d ever want to make time to come back? Just for a bunch of old clothes?’

  ‘Because she might. These girls are volatile. They change their minds all the time. We’d helped her to get out of the place. The least we owed her was to make a proper job of it.’

  ‘Did you know exactly what you were looking for? At the time?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Did she ever mention a mobile she might have left behind? Or a bag full of clothes?’

  ‘No. We just went round to clear out what we could see. The old lady who owned the place wanted to re-let, obviously. That was another reason for leaving the place empty.’ She paused. ‘Am I missing something here? Is it a crime to be helpful?’

  Yates ignored this. ‘There was a third visit, wasn’t there? Yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘I realised the old lady would still be holding Maarika’s deposit. I hadn’t thought about it before.’

  ‘So you picked it up?’

  ‘Yeah. Four hundred quid. If Maarika comes back, no problem. If she doesn’t, I’ll give it to Max.’

  ‘Keep it in the family?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And was there anything else you needed to pick up?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘No.’ She frowned. ‘Not that I can remember.’

  ‘Not a bin bag full of clothes?’

  There was a silence. Suttle was bent towards the speaker. He’d talked to Mrs Percival yesterday. According to her, Lou Sadler had wanted to know about the bin bag.

  ‘Oh, that …’ Sadler was laughing. ‘She said someone had come round for it.’

  ‘Someone?’

  ‘She didn’t know his name.’

  ‘And did that bother you?’

  ‘Christ, no. I assumed it was some friend of Maarika’s. Saved me having to hang on to the stuff in case she ever came back.’

  ‘One more chore off your list?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Yates’ question had a flipness born of desperation. Faraday didn’t blame him. This woman was running rings round them. At the pre-interview meet they’d agreed to concentrate on six points of potential weakness. Already they were halfway down the list and had yet to lay a glove on her.