‘But she’s broken no law. What did you expect?’
‘I dunno.’ He shrugged. ‘A bit of cooperation would have been nice. Jesus, we could have been punters the way she treated us.’
‘Serves you right.’ Cathy’s laughter had a hollow ring. ‘Where is she now, this Maddox?’
‘Skiing.’ Winter frowned, hunting for the name of the resort. ‘Courchevel?’
Cathy wasn’t interested. She was still looking for ways of squeezing the best out of Plover.
‘So where are we with Singer?’
‘He’s put his hands up to the cocaine. Says it was just personal. Wouldn’t dream of supplying.’
‘Where did it come from?’
‘He won’t tell us but he swears blind it had nothing to do with Richardson. That’s probably bollocks and when the forensic comes back we’ll prove it.’
Winter went on to tell her about the DVDs seized from Camber Court. DC Suttle had spent most of the morning going through the discs and so far there were no pictures of Singer getting the white powder up his nose, but like Wishart the solicitor had recorded some souvenir bedroom footage. Much of it was extremely graphic and if his wife had any kind of hang-ups about anal sex then she was in for a bit of a shock.
‘He’s in enough shit already.’ Winter laughed. ‘Turns out his missus runs the local branch of Relate; spends her life telling other people how to sort out their relationships. Can you imagine her watching this kind of stuff? The marital dick up some tom’s arse?’
‘Does Singer know we’ve got the DVDs?’
‘No, but he will. And there’s something else, too. Jimmy Suttle picked it up the tenth time he went through the blow-job sequence. The girl Cécile’s on the job while Singer’s telling her office secrets.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like the kind of strokes he pulls for his dodgier clientele. The recording isn’t brilliant but if you listen hard you can get the drift and Singer’s definitely pissed enough to be showing off. How he cooks up alibis for his heavy friends. How he coaches these animals to lie their arse off in the dock. How everything’s possible if the price is right.’
‘You’re serious?’
‘Yeah. And under the rules of disclosure, guess who gets to see it?’
‘His defence lawyer.’
‘Precisely. They know what we’ve got so there’s no place for Singer to hide. One call to the Law Society and the man’s fucking history. Sweet or what?’
Winter mentioned a couple of Singer’s clients. The names put the smile back on Cathy’s face. Then came a knock at the door. She looked up to find the squad DS looking for Winter. He’d just taken a call. It sounded urgent. The woman was still on the line.
‘Who is she?’ Winter was eyeing him with interest. The DS consulted a scrap of paper.
‘Maddox?’ he queried.
Tracy Barber and Faraday were killing time in a café in Shanklin. They’d been up to the nursing home to talk to Rob Pelly but he was out on an errand and wouldn’t be back until half past two.
Barber wanted to know where Darren Webster had acquired his tan.
‘Hang-gliding.’ Faraday glanced up from the paper. ‘The boy’s mad about it. Can’t keep him off the cliff-tops.’
‘Are you kidding? Hang-gliding’s for losers. I had a girlfriend once who was silly enough to have a go. One of those sampler weekends, somewhere in mid-Wales. Broke both legs; put her in hospital for six weeks. Poor, sweet girl. Does absolutely nothing for your sex life, an accident like that.’
Tracy Barber snorted at the memory, tidying the remains of her all-day breakfast onto a corner of fried bread. Then she looked up.
‘What’s your situation then, boss? You mind me asking?’
Faraday shook his head, and folded the paper. Coming from someone his own age the question was oddly inoffensive, simply two strangers comparing notes.
Faraday gave her the bare bones. Married young. A widower months later. One son. No replacement spouse.
‘Has that been tough?’
‘Not after a while, no. My son was a handful. The boy was born deaf. That gives you plenty to be going on with, believe me.’
‘How did you ever get through to him?’
‘Sign. Games. Adventures. I suppose we grew up together, in a way. Then there were the birds.’
‘Birds?’
‘Yep. I was at my wits’ end. The boy was four coming on five, and we just weren’t coping, either of us. Then I bumped into a friend of mine; hadn’t seen her for years. Turned out she’d pretty much been through the same thing. The way she coped was through birdwatching. She knew nothing about it, absolutely nothing, but her daughter didn’t either, and she was deaf too. So there was the start to it.’
Faraday smiled, remembering those first trips to the city’s Central Library, walking J-J back home with an armful of bird books. They’d planned it like an expedition, one page after another. First the birds they could see from the Bargemaster’s House, shelduck, mergansers and godwits, then a night with the moorhens and coots that sculled around on the nearby freshwater ponds. After that came the dazzling little egrets that strayed over from Thorney Island, and finally Faraday had discovered the more exotic raptors – merlins and harriers – that put in an occasional appearance over the marshy RSPB reserve at the top of the harbour.
One evening when J-J was still barely seven they’d come across a saker up at Farlington, dive-bombing a flock of terrified seagulls. According to the handbook Faraday carried everywhere the hawk was a stranger to Britain so it must have escaped from a private falconer. They’d watched it together, standing stock-still on top of the seawall that circled the reserve. Back home that night, after his bath, J-J had spent hours pretending to be the saker, dashing round the living room with his arms stuck out, making the strange tuneless cackle that was all he ever managed.
At the time it hadn’t seemed the least bizarre and Faraday remembered the expression on his infant son’s face as he drifted off to sleep. He’d become something else, an escapee from the confines of his silent world, and the magician who’d conjured this miracle was none other than his dad. Some days later, by chance, Faraday had happened across the friend who’d first suggested birding and he’d bought her a thank-you drink in a nearby pub. Fumbling for a phrase that did justice to this transformation, he’d finally settled for what sounded like a hopeless cliché. ‘We’ve found the lock on the door,’ he’d told her. ‘And we’ve both got a key.’
Real-life expeditions followed as J-J got older. To Titchfield Haven for grey herons. To the New Forest for nightjars, spoonbills, cattle egret, Cetti’s warblers – a taste of Europe on the fringe of England. And one unforgettable weekend, to Bempton cliffs up in Yorkshire, for a sky full of gannets plunging into the boiling waves. This was the weekend that introduced J-J, by now fourteen, to the stills camera, an ancient Nikon that had once belonged to his mother. In a heaving boat Faraday’s ever-eager son had got lucky with the focus ring on the big zoom lens and the resulting shot – perfectly composed – was still pinned to the wall board in Faraday’s office: the diving gannet inches from the water, wings tucked in, a feathered arrow in the ceaseless battle for survival.
Barber, the remains of her breakfast long forgotten, was transfixed. She’d heard rumours about the Pompey-based DI with the deaf son but she’d no idea about the kind of relationship they’d managed to build.
‘You did all that? You and your boy?’
‘And more. But we’re talking years here, years and years. It wasn’t all sweetness and light, believe me.’
‘And now? This J-J of yours?’
‘Gone …’ Faraday looked suddenly wistful. ‘He’s twenty-four years old, his own man, stubborn as you like, never wrong, great cook, total nightmare with the washing-up … But, yeah …’ He nodded. ‘Gone.’
‘Do you miss him?’
‘I did to begin with. Not any more.’
‘You still see him?’
‘Of
course. He lives in Pompey so most weeks we bump into each other, catch up, drive each other nuts, father and son. Old story.’
‘He sounds lucky to me. Most dads …’ She shrugged. ‘Not that I’d know.’
‘That’s kind of you but it’s not that simple. Never was, as a matter of fact.’ Faraday got up and glanced at his watch, trying to mask the sudden flood of emotion. ‘Twenty past,’ he said briskly. ‘We ought to be off.’
Five
Monday, 23 February 2004
The Boniface Nursing Home lay in a quiet cul-de-sac a mile or so inland from the sea. This was where Shanklin began to peter out, the muddle of streets and houses giving away to a mosaic of scruffy fields and meadowland before the long green swell of St Boniface Down.
Faraday parked the Mondeo and accompanied Barber up the steep gravel path to the front door. The house seemed to sprawl in all directions. At its heart lay a sturdy red-brick villa, neatly proportioned, with big sash windows on the ground floor and a white-painted wooden balcony running the width of the floor above, but various additions had given the place an air of over-hasty ambition. To Faraday’s eye it looked like the kind of structure a bored child might put together on the sitting-room carpet, paying little attention to whether the various bits really fitted.
On the square of paved patio beside the door an elderly woman sat huddled in a wheelchair in the chill sunshine. She answered Barber’s smile with a blank stare, her hands stirring beneath the thick folds of plaid blanket. Faraday rang the doorbell. They had no appointment with Pelly, just the earlier assurance that he’d probably be in.
After a while the door opened. It was a young girl, pretty, no more than eleven. She was wearing jeans and a Busted T-shirt. Her feet were bare.
She peered out at them.
‘Yeah?’
‘Mr Pelly in?’
‘Yeah.’
The girl turned away, leaving them trying to make conversation with the woman in the wheelchair. Tracy was still talking about the weather when a man rounded the corner of the house and strode towards them. He was tall, thin-faced, fit-looking, with a mop of greying hair gathered into a longish pony tail. The paint-splashed jogging bottoms had seen better days and the rest of his wardrobe seemed to have come from an army surplus store, but he had a very definite sense of presence. This wasn’t the bloated lush Faraday had been led to expect. Far from it.
‘Mr Pelly?’
‘That’s me.’
‘DI Faraday. This is DC Barber. We’d appreciate a word if we may.’
Pelly had stationed himself between Faraday and the front door. He ignored the proffered warrant card.
‘Why?’ he queried. ‘What’s this about?’
‘I’d prefer to explain inside if you don’t mind.’ Faraday nodded towards the bent old figure in the wheelchair. ‘Somewhere a bit more private.’
‘This one? She’s lost it.’ Pelly stepped towards the wheelchair and gave the woman’s thin shoulder an affectionate squeeze. ‘Sweet old thing but mad as a coot. Tell her the time of day and she’ll ask you for two sugars. Won’t you, dear?’ He looked down at the face in the wheelchair a moment longer, then turned back to Faraday and shrugged. ‘OK, then. Better be quick, mind. Time’s money.’
Faraday followed Pelly into the house. Even with the lights on, the hall was gloomy. Handrails and other aids had robbed the interior of whatever style it might once have possessed, and as they picked their way through the maze of corridors the smells got ever stronger: rancid cooking oil with a thin top dressing of urine and bleach.
Pelly’s office lay at the back of the house. Invoices and other paperwork spilled from a wire basket on the cluttered desk and a big marker board occupied most of the wall. The board was sectioned into days of the week, each day subdivided into shifts, and a scribbled list of names occupied each of the squares. Judging by the crossings-out, Pelly had a big problem with absentees.
‘So?’ Pelly had made himself comfortable behind the desk. His eyes, more grey than blue, never left Faraday’s face.
Faraday began to sketch out the reason for their visit. He had grounds to believe that Pelly knew a young van driver from Portsmouth, Chris Unwin, who came over to the island from time to time to see his aged gran. True or false?
For a long moment Pelly didn’t answer. Faraday had noticed the blue tattoo on his forearm, a tiny winged dagger. SAS, he thought. No wonder he keeps himself together.
‘Who told you that?’ Pelly muttered at last.
‘Can’t say, I’m afraid.’
Pelly watched him for a moment longer, then leaned forward over the desk. The colour seemed to have drained from his face.
‘Gary, wasn’t it? Little tosser. Go on, deny it. Gary fucking Morgan.’
Faraday refused to rise to the bait. Through the window behind Pelly he could see a child’s swing at the end of a length of threadbare lawn. Beside the swing was some kind of hole that might once have been a sandpit. Beyond, in a carefully dug flower garden, the first daffodils of spring.
‘Shall I tell you something about Mr Morgan?’ It was Pelly again. ‘Put yourself around a bit, and you get to realise there are people in this world you don’t cross. I happen to be one of them. Did twatface take the least bit of notice? Of course he didn’t. So what do you think that made him? Apart from stupid?’
‘You’re telling me you and Morgan had a run-in?’
‘A tiff, yes.’ Pelly barked with laughter. ‘Run-in’s a bit strong.’
‘What happened?’
‘That’s my business. But next time you see Mr Morgan just pass him a message, eh? Tell him he was fucking lucky. Tell him next time round I might mean it. Now, if that’s all you’ve come about, I’ll say goodbye. In this game there’s never an end to it.’
‘An end to what, Mr Pelly?’
‘Work.’ He nodded towards the open door. ‘Painting, maintenance, fire equipment, escape routes, seagull shit all over the patio – you name it. I wake up every morning with a list of jobs you wouldn’t believe – and you know why? Because we get inspected to death. They come knocking at my door, these clowns. They’ve got their little clipboards and their fancy IDs, and I bet none of them have done an honest day’s work in their lives.’ He shook his head at the injustice of it all. ‘You know what the last one told me? He’d gone around and done a headcount, got to eighteen bodies, refused to believe I could make a place like this pay on those kinds of numbers. So you know what he said? He said you’ve got a couple stuffed away somewhere, haven’t you? Couple of old biddies you never declared. Not to the taxman. Not to the VAT. Just readies, cash in hand, ghost income. Christ, I just wish it was that simple. You know what I did? I gave him a wrecking bar and a hammer, told him to lift a floorboard or two, any fucking floorboard, check the place out properly. Phantom grannies …’ He turned to stare out of the window. ‘My arse …’
‘This lad Unwin …’ Faraday began. ‘Do you know anyone of that name?’
‘Unwin …’ Pelly put his head back and closed his eyes, muttering the name to himself. Faraday noticed a scar that ran from the hinge of his jaw to the point of his chin, a tiny raised line of tissue. ‘Young Mary.’ Pelly turned back towards Faraday. ‘She’s an Unwin.’
‘She lives here?’
‘Has done for years. Eighty-seven last birthday. Grand old dame. Ideas above her station but I suppose you can blame that on her condition. It’s people like her take the edge off Alzheimer’s. Catch her on the right day and she’s almost sane.’
‘Does she have next of kin?’
‘Everyone has next of kin.’
‘Do you have her records?’
‘Of course I do. I’m in charge of her. I’m her keeper.’
‘May I see them?’
Pelly didn’t answer, not at once. Then he threw back his head and laughed again, a deeply private joke that was lost on Faraday.
‘You people kill me.’ A wave of his hand encompassed them both. ‘You come in here, put your little
questions, lots of pleases and thank yous, very polite, bit of respect, and yet you and I know it’s all a game, don’t we? Of course I’ve got fucking records. But just say I refuse to part with them. Just say I cop a moody because all that stuff’s confidential and tell you to get the fuck out of here. You’d be back, wouldn’t you? You’d be back with your search warrant and your mates and you’d probably tear the fucking place apart.’
‘Why would we want to do that?’ It was Barber.
‘Because that’s the way you are, love. Because that’s the way it works in this khazi of a country. On the surface, sweet reason. Underneath, all kinds of vileness.’ He switched his attention to Faraday. ‘Listen, my friend. I could take you to places in this world that are truly horrible, places not two hours in a plane from here, but you know something? You get to know these shitholes and one thing hits you in the face. No one’s pretending it’s anything but evil. They all own up. Here? Us? We want it both ways. You believe all that Merrie England crap? Merrie England, my arse.’
He got to his feet and bent to an ancient filing cabinet. A couple of seconds in the middle drawer and he’d located the folder he wanted. He tossed it across the desk. Mrs Mary Belinda Unwin.
Faraday reached for his pocketbook. Webster, after all, hadn’t got it wrong. This man was a ticking bomb, primed to explode at the least hint of offence. Faraday opened the folder, aware of Pelly watching him.
‘You want a pen?’ He opened a drawer and slid a biro across the desk, a giveaway from Dinosaurland.
Faraday produced a pen of his own. Mary Unwin’s last address was in south-east London. Her next of kin also lived at 14 Havelock Road.
‘Is Ellie Unwin Mary’s daughter?’
‘Haven’t a clue. Could be.’
Faraday wrote down the address and phone number. Then he looked up.
‘And Chris Unwin? Would he be Ellie’s son?’
Pelly shrugged; didn’t bother to answer. From nowhere he’d produced a string of worry beads, and now he began to slip them between his fingers, first one way, then the other.
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