Wishart, he said, was the kind of animal who could never leave Maddox alone. If it wasn’t sex, then it was money. If it wasn’t money, then it was a series of other little hints about just how powerful and successful he’d become. Most of the boasts simply passed her by. To be frank, she’d told Winter, she found all the name-dropping – regular Concorde trips, privileged access to MoD ministers, lunch at the Savoy with visiting Pentagon three stars – a bit wearying. But something Wishart had said recently, within the last month, had stuck.
‘What was that, then?’
‘He said he’d had someone killed.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Serious enough for him to be dead, yeah.’
‘And she believed him?’
‘Yeah. She said he was a bit pissed at the time … but yeah.’
‘Did she say who?’
‘No.’
‘Does she know who?’
‘She says not.’
‘Do you believe her?’
For the first time Winter faltered.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Of course I bloody believe her. Even Wishart wouldn’t be crazy enough to give her chapter and verse. But he did tell her it was local.’
‘Here? Pompey?’
‘That’s what Maddox is saying.’
‘Do we know when?’
‘Recently.’
‘Motive?’
‘Fuck knows. Business? Bound to be.’
Suttle was gazing at Winter’s empty plate.
‘Cathy’s hoping we might have turned some more charlie up,’ he said at last. ‘What a nice surprise.’
‘Yeah, but …’
‘But what?’ Suttle had reached for one of Winter’s slices of toast.
‘Just think about it. I tell Cathy what’s happened. I explain we’re looking at a suss homicide. She gets on the phone to Willard and by lunchtime the whole thing’s shipped off to Major Crimes. Is that what we want?’
‘Maybe she doesn’t get on the phone to Willard. Maybe she’s as keen to hang on to it as we are.’
‘She has to tell him, has to. That means it’s his decision, not hers. Do we take that risk?’
‘What’s the alternative?’
‘We freelance it.’
‘Like how?’
‘I get time off. Just now that’s not a problem.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘No. I don’t want to go into it all, but no.’
‘What do you mean, no?’ Suttle was frowning, wanting to know more.
‘Doesn’t matter. Let’s pretend I’m on the sick. That gives me plenty of time to run around. What I’ll still need is someone on the inside, someone to make the phone calls, bell PNC, do the stuff I couldn’t.’
‘And that’s me?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But you’d carry the file?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And take a bow at the end?’
‘Of course not. Team effort. You and me.’
Suttle finished the toast, taking his time. At last he licked his fingers and looked up.
‘You’re talking bollocks, mate. I vote we front up to Cathy, tell her everything. Tenner says she lets us run with it. And you know why? Because she’s got the ACC up her chuff and she badly wants to keep impressing him. All this other stuff just complicates it.’
Winter did his best not to look impressed. He’d known Suttle for just over a year. The lad came from the depths of the New Forest, a huge family in a tiny village near Brockenhurst. A couple of years in uniform had largely been spent in Andover. Neither CID politics nor the city of Portsmouth had ever figured in his brief career and this was the first time Winter had realised just how much he’d taken in. It wasn’t Winter’s deviousness that had put Jimmy Suttle off. It was the fact that there was a better way of achieving the same result.
He pulled the napkin out of his collar and wiped his mouth.
‘You think I’m losing it?’ he muttered, getting up.
St Mary’s Hospital lies on the main road out of Newport, an impressive-looking complex with fine views of Albany prison. Faraday got to the mortuary in time to meet the Home Office pathologist before he began work on the contents of fridge 2, drawer 4.
Simon Pembury was sitting in a side office studying the first post-mortem report. He was a thin, freckle-faced man in his late forties with a hobby farm near Dorchester and a daughter called Susie on whom he doted. He’d come over on the ferry from Southampton first thing, and the plate of custard creams beside the cup of coffee was evidently a substitute for breakfast.
The two men shook hands. Faraday had known Pembury for years and liked him. His work was meticulous. He never committed himself beyond the reach of the known facts and cheerfully resisted every attempt to shape his conclusions to time or any other investigative pressures. He was also deeply impressive in the witness box.
‘Susie OK?’
‘Never better. First year at Durham. Absolutely loves it.’ He brushed crumbs from the PM report, found his place in the dense lines of text. ‘This looks like it might be challenging.’
Faraday could only agree. He briefed Pembury on what little progress the inquiry had made to date. One possible lead on a name, and perhaps a time frame, but little else.
‘When are you thinking?’
‘Round October. If we’re looking at the right person.’
‘Age?’
‘Twenty-eight.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Not really. We’ve talked to his stepmother but she was pretty clueless. We’ve yet to trace an address. Friends are thin on the ground. It’s a puzzle, frankly.’
‘No impact injuries …’ Pembury’s finger was back in the PM report. ‘Shame.’
‘Quite. If he’d come off the cliff, we’d at least be looking at a sequence of events. The way it is, he has to have been washed up.’
Faraday offered the thought as a speculation. Pembury nodded his agreement.
‘But no head,’ he said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Hmm …’ He reached for another custard cream, then nodded at the report. ‘This looks pretty thorough to me. Any length of time in the oggin, you’re going to have problems with appendages. Fish eat the dangly bits. Crabs, too, if he ends up in the shallows. No identifying marks, I see. No tattoos, no scars, no evidence of stab wounds or contusions. So …’ He looked up. ‘What’s your thinking about the head?’
‘We need to know whether it was removed.’
‘Of course. And we’ll do our best. But why remove the head and leave the hands? Prints would be as useful as dental ID.’
‘I know. And I can’t explain that. Not yet, anyway.’
‘OK.’
Pembury got to his feet and glanced at his watch. One of the technicians had appeared at the door with word that the body was ready on the slab. There was more coffee if Pembury needed it but they had a traffic jam of routine post-mortems already delayed until the afternoon, and the technician would be grateful for an early start.
Pembury accompanied Faraday into the corridor that led to the post-mortem room. The cervical bones, he said, might offer evidence of cut or saw marks. They’d need to be detached, cleaned and then subjected to detailed examination under an electron microscope. The process would take at least three days.
‘That’s fine. We’re still waiting on the tox results.’
Liver tissue, residual urine and stomach contents from the first post-mortem had been sent away for toxicological analysis. The results wouldn’t be back for another week.
Pembury stepped into the changing room, leaving Faraday in the corridor. The soft whirr of the extractor fans and the sharp acid smells of disinfectant never failed to put him on edge. Faraday must have attended more than a hundred post-mortems in his career, from cot-death babies to pensioners battered to death for the price of a bus fare home, but he was still fascinated by the skills which people like Pembury brought to the gleaming metal slab.
Standing at the open door, Faraday could see the grey bulk of the corpse that had been hoisted from the foot of Tennyson Down. For the rest of the morning it would be Pembury’s job to try and tease a story, a narrative, from the handful of anatomical clues that awaited him, to reduce flesh, sinew and bone to the bare lines of clinical data that might propel the investigation forward. With luck he’d find the telltale marks on the bones of the neck that would trigger microscopic analysis. The evidence might finally be strong enough to support speculation about the kind of knife or saw that Faraday’s team should be looking for. Fingers crossed, the next couple of hours would take the inquiry into a new phase.
Behind him Faraday heard a door open. Then came the elastic snap of latex as Pembury adjusted his surgical gloves. He accepted a mask from the waiting technician, then eyed Faraday for a moment before nodding at the body on the slab.
‘Shall we?’
DI Cathy Lamb, as Suttle had predicted, was delighted by Winter’s news.
‘How firm is this?’
‘He definitely told her. The guy became a problem. The problem had to be resolved. Resolved as in sorted. Resolved as in dead and buried. That’s what money’s for.’
‘This is verbatim?’
‘Near as.’
‘So how come she’s telling you?’
They were sitting in the DI’s office in the Portsmouth Crime Squad suite at Kingston Crescent. The Major Crimes set-up was only a floor above but Winter could sense already that DI Lamb wouldn’t be climbing the stairs for an appointment with Detective Superintendent Willard. At least not yet.
‘Well?’ Cathy was still waiting for an answer.
‘She trusts me.’ Winter flashed her a smile. ‘We have a relationship.’
‘Appropriate, I hope.’
‘Completely. She tells me all about her punters. I wonder whether she’ll accept post-dated cheques. If it was closer to Christmas, I’d be hopeful. She strikes me as a generous woman.’
Cathy knew better than to press Winter. There’d never been the remotest possibility that he’d garnish meetings like this with the truth about the many short cuts he took, and she’d long since abandoned any attempts to enquire further. You judged Winter by the scalps he left at your door. Quite how he came by them didn’t bear contemplation.
‘You’ll start with the Coroner’s Officer?’
‘Of course, boss.’ Suttle was studying his pocketbook. ‘I put a call in just now. He’s ringing back.’
Lamb nodded, running through the other options in her head. Every detective carried a subconscious tally of dodgy deaths, bodies found in circumstances that might warrant a question or two, and just now she couldn’t think of anything recent that fitted the time frame.
‘We’re sure about October?’ She was looking at Winter.
‘That’s what she said. He told her just before Christmas, referred to a couple of months ago. That’s October on my calendar.’
‘And she’s absolutely certain he wasn’t –’ she frowned ‘– just making it up?’
‘She says not. Richardson had laid on a special pre-Yuletide spread. They all got a bit more pissed than usual.’
‘Wishart told everyone?’
‘No, no. He and Maddox were in bed afterwards. He’d bought her a ring for Christmas – huge diamond; must have cost the earth.’
‘You’ve seen it?’
‘She showed me. She still keeps it in the box, never wears it.’
‘Why not?’
‘She won’t. She thinks he’s trying to lock her away. She’s not having it.’
‘And it was this particular night he mentioned killing someone?’
‘Buying a contract, yeah. I think that’s what got to her. Wishart’s playing Santa, gives her this monster ring, and then tells her what happens to people who don’t quite see things his way. He was sending a message. That’s her take on it.’
‘Wishart tried to frighten her? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes.’
‘And succeeded?’
‘Obviously.’
‘Why obviously?’
‘Because she’s now told me.’
Lamb brooded for a moment. Winter had been saving Wishart’s assault on Maddox until later but now began to wonder. Suttle spared him the effort.
‘Wishart beat her up,’ he told Lamb. ‘At the weekend.’
‘Badly?’ Lamb was looking at Winter.
‘Badly enough,’ Winter conceded.
‘And you don’t think that’s germane? You don’t think the girl’s after a little revenge? Shit, Paul. What else haven’t you told me?’
Winter threw his hands up, the soul of injured innocence. Suttle was right. Wishart was extremely heavy, jealous as fuck; wanted to spend his life writing Maddox huge cheques in exchange for sole ownership. He was also someone who was used to getting his own way; didn’t take no for an answer.
‘And Maddox?’
‘Is still saying no.’
‘To sex?’
‘To becoming Wishart’s property. The sex isn’t a problem but Wishart wants all of her, no other punters on the side, exclusive access.’
‘And you?’
‘Me?’
‘How do you fit into her life? Getting all this stuff out of her?’
‘I don’t, Cath. Maybe I’d like to, but I don’t. She’s damaged goods. She’s brainy, she’s beautiful, she’s reckless as fuck, she gets off on playing Mata Hari three times a week, but deep down I don’t think she’s got a clue who she really is. She started this thing as a game. She wrote the rules. She thought the punters did her bidding. But with Wishart it’s not like that at all. The bloke’s a monster. I told you. He scares her shitless.’
Even Winter was surprised by the vehemence of this little outburst. He sat back in the chair, eyeing Cathy Lamb, annoyed with himself for letting Maddox get to him like this. For her part, Cathy let the moment pass. With all her reservations about Winter, she recognised when something really mattered to him. Just now, for whatever reason, that something was Maddox, and if he was right, if a homicide charge lay at the end of whatever happened next, then she was prepared – as ever – to take him on trust.
She looked at him a moment longer, then nodded at the door.
‘Go for it,’ she said. ‘But no surprises, eh?’
Faraday was at Newport police station by early afternoon. He found DI Colin Irving in his office, bent over the quarterly overtime budget. Faraday settled himself in the chair across the desk, aware that he still carried the smell of the mortuary.
‘Has Willard been on?’
‘Yes.’
‘About Darren Webster?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘Of course I bloody do.’ Irving still didn’t look up. ‘He’s in the CID office. Awaiting your instructions.’
‘Thanks.’ Faraday got to his feet, then paused by the open door. ‘It’s Operation Congress, by the way. For when you put the invoice in.’
Webster was ready to leave at once. He followed Faraday down the rear stairs and out to the car park at the back. A ledge of thick cloud to the west carried the promise of yet more rain.
‘Where to, sir?’ Webster was trying to sort out the seat belt in Faraday’s Mondeo.
‘Ventnor. That mate of yours at Cheetah Marine.’
‘Dave Parncutt? No problem.’ He finally managed to strap himself in. ‘By the way, sir. I owe you an apology.’
‘You’re right.’ Faraday nodded. ‘You do … Detective Constable.’
*
Ventnor lies at the bottom of the Isle of Wight, a once-genteel Victorian spa resort curtained from the rest of the island by the dramatic fold of St Boniface Down. In the tourist brochures the town laid regular claim to being one of the UK’s sunniest spots. It boasted some fine Victorian terraces, a brace of folksy museums, atmospheric beachside pubs and a botanical garden that turned all that sunshine into a display of blooms unrivalled on the south coa
st. Webster, who’d been born in neighbouring Bonchurch, had a different story to tell.
‘Cowboy town.’ He was grinning. ‘You want anything from serious gear to ripped-off antiques, this is the place to come. The rest of it is packaging.’
‘You like it?’
‘Love it. Always have.’
They were coasting down the zigzag that plunged towards the sea. Beneath them the crescent of pebble beach was dulled by the blanket of cloud that now shrouded the entire island. On a sunny day, thought Faraday, this view would be sensational.
‘The main factory’s back on the industrial estate.’ Webster nodded over his shoulder. ‘But we need to go to the farm. That’s along at Bonchurch.’
Faraday was still looking at the beach. A tiny curl of breakwater, a carefully dumped jumble of huge rocks, reached south into the sea. A second arm completed the harbour. The work looked new, construction still under way.
‘Ventnor Haven.’ Webster glanced at a text on his mobile. ‘We used to have a pier down there, sweet little thing, but you can’t move for developers these days. If there’s money in it, it’ll happen.’
Faraday was thinking about Pelly’s boat. Apart from the yachtie madness of Cowes and the picturesque little harbour at Yarmouth way over to the west, Bembridge was the island’s only anchorage.
‘There’ll be moorings here?’
‘Pontoons, more like. Cost you an arm and a leg when they get round to sorting out a tariff.’
‘And Bembridge?’
‘There’s a marina there as well. In fact there are two. But it’s way cheaper to buy a mooring on the harbour itself.’
‘How much?’
‘Depends.’ He glanced at Faraday. ‘You mean Pelly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hundred and fifty a year. He’d never come here. Not with half the town watching his every move.’
Faraday saw the point. Ventnor was built like a Victorian music hall, tier after tier of terraced houses rising from the promenade, every window offering a perfect view of the beach and the new anchorage. If you were after sharing your secrets, you couldn’t do better than this claustrophobic little spa. If you wanted something more anonymous, you’d undoubtedly settle for the wider spaces of Bembridge Harbour.
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