Borrowed Light

by Hurley, Graham

  Two days later, with minimal information from Bazza, he drove to Gatwick airport and met three successive flights from Malaga, standing in the arrivals hall with a large oblong of cardboard on which he’d inked the word mackenzie. Nobody showed up.

  Operation Gosling, meanwhile, slowly ground to a halt. The Coroner recorded a verdict of unlawful killing with respect to the four bodies recovered from the remains of Monkswell Farm. Forensic examination of the Freezee delivery van produced nothing of evidential value, and exhaustive enquiries in the vicinity of Skelley’s lakeside home failed to unearth any trace of a body. Both Suttle and Parsons remained convinced that Holman had been driven north and dumped in Derwent Water, probably in the middle of the night, but supposition never cut much ice with the CPS lawyers responsible for taking prosecutions to court. In the absence of either Maarika Oobik or the Polish driver, both of whom had vanished, Gosling was effectively treading water. After a couple of months bail conditions were dropped as far as Lou Sadler and Max Oobik were concerned. His passport restored, Oobik left the country within days.

  Sixty-four kilos of cocaine had also disappeared. His health improving by the day, Mackenzie maintained a lively interest in getting a fairer settlement for his nest egg. When Winter denied having the least idea where the toot might have ended up, he refused to believe him. Three hundred and fifty grand, he repeated, was a stitch-up. Winter, still sitting on the contents of Suttle’s intel report, still biding his time, could only agree.

  Then one night, when he judged Bazza’s mood to be near-perfect, Winter raised a name that he thought might conceivably be of interest. Mackenzie had never heard of Martin Skelley, but ignorance was never something that cramped his style. By now he’d dumped his mayoral ambitions and decided to stand as an independent candidate for one of the city’s two parliamentary constituencies. The general election was barely months away. In dire need of campaigning funds, he told Winter they needed to sort the fucker out.

  ‘Fucker?’ Winter enquired.

  ‘Skelley,’ Mackenzie confirmed.

  From Paris, Faraday and Gabrielle returned to the Bargemaster’s House. On his GP’s recommendation, Faraday signed himself up for a three-month intensive counselling course. This did little for his peace of mind but ticked the boxes necessary if he was ever to seriously contemplate a return to work.

  The sessions with the young therapist developed into a bit of a game, and Faraday kept himself amused by making most of his past life up. The only episodes for which he had the remotest affection were the early years with J-J and more recently his relationship with Gabrielle.

  Days when he could talk about her became the high spots of an increasingly bleak existence. He described their life together in great detail and with enormous pride. He understood the size and shape of the mountain they’d climbed together, and he had genuine respect for the decision she’d finally taken once Leila’s treatment was complete. To accompany the child back to Gaza and to try and make some kind of life for themselves was an act – in Faraday’s view – of great courage. One day he’d like to think that the Bargemaster’s House would draw her back, but as the months went by after her departure for the Middle East he had to accept that this possibility was becoming more and more remote. By June her occasional letters had ceased altogether. Nor did she ever use the phone.

  When his doctor, increasingly alarmed, suggested stronger medication, Faraday declined. He also refused to accept that he might be suffering from clinical depression. Everything, he insisted, would pass. And then, fingers crossed, he’d be back to work.

  In midsummer he attended the party Lizzie and Suttle threw to celebrate the birth of their daughter. There he met a colleague of Lizzie’s, a recently divorced journalist from the News. Her name was Gill. They had a brief affair which Faraday brought to an end within a week.

  Days later a letter arrived from the Personnel Department offering Faraday the post of Theme Champions’ Coordinator on the Safer Portsmouth Partnership. The department’s head was keen on the challenge this new departure represented and was confident that Faraday’s wealth of experience would be viewed as a huge asset by the partnership’s various stakeholders. She also pointed out that the hours would be both civilised and predictable, unlike the ceaseless demands of Major Crime.

  That evening Faraday typed a letter to his son, J-J. Faraday said he was glad about some things, sad about others, but on the whole he thought they’d made a great team. The Bargemaster’s House was his for keeps. Take care, son. God bless. He addressed the letter and put it on the small table in the hall. Then he lay on the sofa as the light drained from the harbour, listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.

  At dawn, hours later, Faraday climbed the stairs. It was a flawless August morning, high tide, barely a feather of wind on the harbour. He stood at the bedroom window, staring out over the water, letting the rich spill of sunshine bathe his face. After a while he began to swallow the two dozen codeine tablets he’d bought the previous day, sluicing them down with generous gulps of the Côtes-du-Rhône he’d put aside for Gabrielle’s return.

  Seconds before he lost consciousness he thought he heard the distant call of a solitary curlew but – deep within himself – he knew he couldn’t be sure.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to the following for their time and advice: Marie-Caroline Aubert, John Ashworth, Jos Axon, Dorothy Bone, Janet Bowen, Chloe Bowler, Debbie Cook, Nigel Crockford, Diana Franklin, David Grundy, Andy Harrington, John Holman, Jack Hurley, Cheryl Jewitt, Hamish Laing, Martin Law, Mark Leonard, Heidi Lewis, Terry Lowe, Tina Lowe, Shelly Malan, Peter Mawhood, Clare Sharp, Danielle Stoakes, Eunan Tiernan, Adge Tilke, Serge Vidal, Ian Watt, Alyson West, and Charles Wylie.

  This book came from a journey Lin and I made through Syria, Jordan and Sinai which happened to coincide with the Israeli attack on Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009. After the first sentence, given the circumstances, the story wrote itself. Anyone interested in what happened in Gaza, and in the wider background, might turn to Gaza: Au Coeur de la Tragedie by Yves Bonnet and Albert Farhat, and to Witness in Palestine by the indefatigable Anna Baltzer.

  A special thank you to my editor, Simon Spanton, and to my wife, Lin. No one could ask for a better travelling companion.