‘The mid-afternoon drunks are the worst,’ the receptionist said cheerfully. ‘You lot won’t turn out any more for harassment so we stick them in here with a pile of comics and keep our fingers crossed.’
Ellie Unwin joined them minutes later. She was a tall, attractive woman in her late forties who seemed strangely suited to the uniform. She had full lips and a slightly nervous smile. Tracy Barber eyed her with interest.
Faraday explained briefly that they were trying to trace her son. They’d be grateful for his full name and date of birth.
‘Chrissie? Why?’
‘At this stage, Mrs Unwin, I’m afraid I can’t say.’
‘Is he in trouble?’
‘We hope not.’ He smiled at her, then asked again for a date of birth.
‘Twenty-first of October 1976.’
‘Full name?’
‘Christopher Dudley Unwin.’
‘And when were you last in contact?’
She looked at Faraday a moment, then found a perch on the table and frowned. DC Barber was making notes.
‘A while back,’ she said finally. ‘In fact last summer. July? August? He was up here for some concert or other. Dropped in to see Julie’s new baby.’
Julie was her daughter. She had two young kids of her own and still shared the house with her mother. One day, said Mrs Unwin, she might get the place to herself but she wasn’t counting on it. With kids these days, babies seemed to be a lifestyle option.
‘Have you been in touch with your son since August? Talked on the phone at all? Got a letter? Postcard?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘And he’s my stepson, not my natural son. Not that that should make a difference, of course.’
Faraday and Barber exchanged glances. DNA from Mrs Unwin might have been a useful match for the body in the fridge.
‘What about his father?’ It was Barber.
‘We divorced ten years ago.’
‘Are you still in touch?’
‘No.’
‘His natural mother?’
‘She died years ago. Fell off a mountain in Scotland.’
Faraday, making notes, looked up. Helpful DNA simply wasn’t available.
‘So you haven’t seen Chris since last summer. Is that normal? Not being in touch for so long?’
‘Oh yes, yes, perfectly normal. Chrissie goes months and months and no one hears a peep.’
‘Don’t you wonder where he is? What he’s up to?’
‘Of course I do, always have done, but it makes no difference. He’s twenty-eight now but even when he was younger he just upped sticks and did his own thing. Free spirit, Chrissie. Can’t ever pin him down.’
‘Do you have an address for him, Mrs Unwin?’ It was Barber again.
Ellie Unwin nodded. The address was in her book at home. She could phone through and ask Julie to look. She went back to the treatment room to make the call. When she returned, she handed Tracy Barber a slip of paper.
‘Sorry about the writing,’ she said.
Barber peered at the address, then handed it to Faraday. Number 267 Bath Road, Southsea. Faraday tried to visualise the street, one of a number that straddled the border between Southsea and Portsmouth. Terraced houses, he thought. Nightmare parking and far too many students.
‘Has he lived there long?’
‘Quite a while, I think. Couple of years maybe.’
‘Does he live alone?’
‘Depends. Sometimes he gets lucky but nothing seems to last.’
‘You mean relationships?’
‘Yes.’ She looked from one face to the other, apologetic. ‘To be honest I’m a bit out of my depth here. Chrissie and us … we’re not really that close. It’s not like me and Julie …’
‘So he may have moved on?’
‘Yes.’
‘Without you knowing?’
‘Yes.’
Faraday nodded, wondering if something similar would ever happen to himself and J-J. Just now it seemed inconceivable but more and more families appeared to be coming apart at the seams.
‘What about Chrissie’s grandmother? We understand—’
‘Loves her to bits,’ Ellie Unwin said at once. ‘She’s not a real granny, not a blood granny, but he worships her. Always has.’
She began to talk about the home on the Isle of Wight, how her son made the time and effort to keep in touch, dropping in whenever he could. When he was in his teens and his gran was living by herself in the big family house in Haslemere, he’d often take the train up there and stay for a couple of days. To be frank, she often thought that he preferred Granny’s company to her own.
‘Funny, really,’ she concluded. ‘These days Mum hasn’t got a clue who Chrissie is most of the time yet it doesn’t seem to make the slightest bit of difference. When I phone up the home sometimes, just to find out how Mum is, they’ll tell me Chrissie’s been over again. Apparently he’ll sit with her for hours, just nattering away to her. Maybe that’s the secret. Maybe we got a bit much for him. Maybe he prefers talking to a virtual stranger.’
Barber asked her whether she had any photos of her son. She thought about the question.
‘You mean something recent?’
‘Yes.’
‘Afraid not. The last one I can think of at the moment is when he was at school. That’s years ago.’
‘No holiday snaps? Nothing from a family get-together? Someone’s wedding, maybe?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Chrissie was never interested in that kind of do.’
‘How about Christmas? Did you hear from him then at all? Card, maybe? Text message?’
‘No.’ She was thinking hard. ‘Definitely not.’ She held her hands wide, embarrassed now. ‘I know it might sound odd but that’s the way it is. Chrissie’s fine. He’ll always be fine. I’m sure he gets into the odd scrape but that boy could charm his way out of a paper bag.’ The smile again, ever more anxious. ‘Know what I mean?’
The Eldon lies on the western edges of Somerstown, a pub favoured by a clientele that changes by the hour. Lunchtimes, it attracts barristers and the odd journalist from the nearby Crown Court. Sitting at a table in the window, Winter could hear the bells of the Guildhall clock as he tucked into a plateful of steak and kidney pie. Noon, he thought, reaching for the brown sauce.
He’d spent the morning with a solicitor from the CPS, tidying up details on a drugs case due in court early next week. Jimmy Suttle, fresh from a morning at his desk in the squad room at Kingston Crescent, would be joining him any minute. For the time being, though, Winter relished the chance to review the last twenty-four hours.
He’d been in the job since he’d left school. The transfer to CID had come relatively early, and twenty years as a detective had given him a profoundly cynical take on human nature. He’d met men who raped and tortured because they felt in the mood. He’d spent profitable hours befriending junkies who’d sell their kids for the price of the next fix. He’d stalked bent traders through jungles of paperwork to discover scams so elegant that they deserved a quiet round of applause. Yet never had he come across anyone quite like Maddox.
Even the name was a challenge. Was Maddox her Christian name? Was it the name of the dynasty that stretched back over generations of Wiltshire landowners? Did it appear in her passport and driving licence? Her bank statements and birth certificate? Or was Maddox a label she’d discovered under some stone or other, taken a fancy to, and now adopted for any purpose it might serve? Back last Friday at Camber Court, with Richardson’s flat being ripped apart by the search team, she’d identified herself as simply Maddox and refused to qualify it in any way. Four days later, as both detective and perhaps friend, Winter was no closer to pinning her down.
It was this elusiveness more than anything else that fascinated him. The way she looked, the way she walked, compelled attention. Pass her in the street and you’d pause to watch her go by. Beautiful? Of course. But something else, too, a sense of detachment, a sense of not q
uite belonging to the busy clutter of anyone else’s life. Whether or not this apartness was a front, a carefully rehearsed pose to keep the world at arm’s length, Winter didn’t know. Last night, in her flat, she’d seemed almost normal. Real bruises. Real pain. But the closer he’d come to her, the stronger grew his conviction that the real Maddox, whoever she might be, was still under lock and key. Naked, she was available to any man with eight hundred quid to blow. But even for that kind of money you’d get scarely a glimpse of the genuine article.
This notion of a counterfeit personality stirred him in all kinds of ways, some of them deeply personal. Winter knew a great deal about the business of camouflage, of adapting his accent, his manner, even his body language, in order to make himself at home in someone else’s head. That was the way you coaxed a man towards confession and a ten-year sentence, and it helped immeasurably if you could pull off the trick without a moment’s self-doubt or compunction. A good detective could ghost his way into anyone’s life, and last night, for the first time, he’d realised that he shared this talent with the likes of Maddox. They both knew how to dissemble, how to bluff, how to hide. And they’d both, for a price, screw more or less anyone.
‘Did you?’ It was Jimmy Suttle. He had a pint of lager in one hand and a copy of the News in the other. He pulled out the other chair with his foot and sat down.
‘Did I what?’
‘Shag her? Last night?’
‘Might have done.’ Winter speared the last cube of beef. ‘What do you think?’
Suttle swallowed a mouthful of lager. The best part of a day with Richardson’s DVDs had given him some extremely intimate glimpses of Maddox in action and he still couldn’t picture Winter’s bulk on the receiving end. For one thing, Winter was far too mean to pay for it. For another, Maddox didn’t look like the kind of woman to offer him a freebie. Which probably meant a stand-off.
‘You didn’t,’ he said at last. ‘But you’re regretting it.’
‘Close.’
‘You did. And you’re regretting it.’
‘Afraid not.’
‘What, then?’
‘You want the truth? We watched a couple of French movies and talked about a bloke called Arthur Rimbaud. She told me a bit about herself and then put me to bed.’
‘At her place?’
‘Of course.’
‘And kissed you goodnight?’
‘Maybe.’ Winter reached for the paper napkin. ‘Maybe not.’
Winter had never done coy before, emphatically not with Suttle, and the young DC couldn’t believe it. Whatever spell this woman cast, she certainly had the measure of Paul Winter.
‘She’s in there, isn’t she? Under your skin?’
‘Bollocks.’
‘Proves it.’ Suttle began to laugh. ‘Look at you. French movies? Arthur Thingy? This is student talk. Whatever happened to the fanny rat we all know and love? Talk any woman into bed? Where did all that go?’
‘Good question.’ Winter pushed his plate away and glanced at his watch. ‘I talked to Cathy Lamb this morning. She’s happy we go after him.’
‘Who?’
‘Who?’ Winter looked up in surprise. ‘Wishart, of course.’
Ten minutes on the internet had already given Winter a business address for Simulcra. Wishart ran the company from an office in Baltic House, an unlovely modern colossus at the motorway end of Kingston Crescent. The fact that Wishart was less than a minute’s walk from the nick that housed the Pompey Crime Squad Winter viewed as an exceptionally good omen.
Simulcra was on the seventh floor. An outer office was manned by a middle-aged woman with brutally cropped hair and an expensive tan.
‘Been somewhere nice?’ Winter had already pocketed the warrant card.
‘Bali.’
‘OK, was it?’
‘Lovely. What can I do for you, Mr Winter?’
‘I’d like a word with Mr Wishart.’
‘I’m afraid you can’t.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘He’s in Poland.’
Winter was looking at the framed photo on the wall behind her. Half a dozen men in dinner jackets were seated at a circular table at some function or other, beaming at the camera. Winter recognised a member of the Shadow Cabinet plus a female TV reporter who’d made her name in the first Gulf War. Maurice Wishart was sitting between them.
A phone began to ring. The woman behind the desk was still looking up at Winter. Was there any way she might be able to help him?
‘Not really.’ Winter nodded at the single door that must have led to Wishart’s office. ‘When’s he back, then?’
‘Thursday.’ The woman reached for the phone. ‘Late-morning flight out of Warsaw.’
Suttle stayed in the car while Winter sorted out a search warrant. The duty magistrate was evidently an easy sell because Winter was back behind the wheel within minutes.
‘Showed her the SOC report on Camber Court, plus the arrest docket on Singer. Evidence of cocaine seizures both times. Is it reasonable to conclude that Mr Wishart may also be using the white powder?’ Winter lodged the warrant on the dashboard with a satisfied nod. ‘We think yes.’
Port Solent was tucked into a northern corner of Portsmouth Harbour. On Friday, at Camber Court, Wishart had supplied an address in the big horseshoe-shaped block of flats that dominated one end of the marina. Winter picked his way through the thin drift of midday traffic and joined the motorway out of the city. To the left, across the grey expanse of the harbour, Suttle watched the tiny white sail of a yacht tacking towards Spithead and the open sea.
‘Bit harsh, isn’t it?’ Suttle reached for the warrant. ‘All this for a toot or two?’
‘Cathy’s up for it. She’s been talking to Alcott. The suits are pissed off about Tumbril and want to make a point or two about all those fucking Rotarians who think they’re beyond the law. Nicking Singer chuffed Alcott to bits.’ Winter nodded. ‘Payback time.’
Suttle scanned the warrant. Operation Tumbril had become the talk of every canteen in the county, a million quid’s worth of covert investigation that hadn’t produced a single arrest. There were accountants and solicitors in Pompey who were still raising a glass to Bazza Mackenzie for seeing off the Tumbril squad.
‘We think Wishart’s linked to Mackenzie?’
‘I doubt it. If he uses charlie it may ultimately come from Bazza but that’s not the point. It’s broader than that. Put twats like Singer and Wishart in front of the magistrates and you’ll get front page in the News, guaranteed. These guys aren’t immune. That’s Cathy’s line, anyway.’
‘So we’re sending a message?’
‘Exactly.’
Winter brought his Subaru to a halt in the big car park at Port Solent, and opened the boot. A sledgehammer lay inside, long-handled with tape wound around the shaft. These days, forcing an entry called for a battering ram, backup, gauntlets, a hard hat and half a day on the computer with the Risk Assessment form, but Winter had never seen the point of all these complications. Now, he lifted the sledgehammer out with a grunt and gave it to Suttle. The long curve of the apartment block loomed beyond the bars and restaurants that lined the marina basin.
Suttle shouldered the sledgehammer.
‘Isn’t this a bit hasty?’ he queried. ‘Shouldn’t we at least knock first?’
‘No point.’ Winter was locking the car. ‘He’s not going to hear us in bloody Poland, is he?’
Wishart’s flat was on the third floor. Winter led the way along the corridor, tallying off the numbers. Three doors from the end, he paused, rapped twice, waited for a moment or two, then stepped back to give Suttle the space he’d need.
‘You want me to bosh it?’
‘Yeah.’
Suttle eyed the two keyholes. Mortice locks were always trickier. Backing off from the door, he swung the sledgehammer. The first impact splintered the wood around the mortice. On the second, the door shifted slightly as the lock gave. The noise was deafening, echoin
g down the corridor. Already Winter could hear the rattle of nearby chains as other residents unlocked their own doors to investigate.
‘Now the Yale.’
Suttle aimed the ram at the little brass disc. He was beginning to sweat with the effort. This time a single blow was enough. The door burst open.
‘What on earth’s going on?’
A woman in her sixties had appeared behind them in the corridor. She was wearing a turquoise shell suit and a pair of slippers. The Pekinese under one arm had a scarlet bow.
‘CID, madam.’ Winter gave the dog a tickle under its chin. ‘Drugs Squad.’
Without waiting for a reaction, he waved Suttle into the apartment and pushed the door shut behind them. When it swung open again, he put a chair under the handle.
‘Nice.’ Suttle had dropped the sledgehammer on the sofa. Now he was at the window, checking out the view. ‘You think he’s got one of those?’
Winter followed his pointing finger. Dozens of yachts and motor cruisers stirred beside rows of wooden pontoons.
‘Derek?’ Winter was on his mobile to the Duty Inspector. ‘DC Winter. Crime Squad. We’ve just done a door at Port Solent. You need to take a look for the damage report.’ He gave the address and hung up before turning round to inspect the rest of the place.
The living room was generous and Wishart had been careful not to clutter the big, open stretch of cool grey carpet. The sofa occupied one corner, positioned for the view and the big digital TV, and there was a modest dining table against the wall opposite. Beside the sofa, magazines lay piled on a small occasional table, and Winter flicked through them. Copies of The Economist, Jane’s Defence Weekly and Flight International. Night-time reading for the busy entrepreneur who couldn’t leave his job at the office.
‘Guess who …’ Suttle had found a photograph, housed in a stand-up frame. Winter stepped across and took a look. Maddox.
‘Where was this?’
‘By the CD player.’ Suttle nodded at the stack of audio equipment in the corner.
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