They were in the town centre now, Faraday following Webster’s instructions as they picked their way through a maze of narrow streets towards neighbouring Bonchurch. En route from Newport the young DC had been enthusing about Pelly’s new boat. Dave Parncutt was a laminator with Cheetah Marine as well as a hang-gliding fanatic, and Webster had accompanied him on a couple of proving trials back last summer when the first of the 7.9-metre boats had put to sea. Faraday was soon lost in the blizzard of technical detail but it seemed that Pelly had made a perfect choice. Symmetrical planing hulls. Low wash characteristics. Steep dead rise. Plus the use of ultralight building materials that coaxed a great deal of power from the twin 225 hp outboards. With a dozen or so asylum seekers aboard, said Webster, Pelly’s pride and joy could do in excess of forty-five knots, comfortably outrunning anything else in the Channel. Not only that, but the twin-hull design enabled him to run the boat directly onto a beach, giving him a huge choice of landing sites. For a people smuggler who also ran fishing charters, it was near-on ideal.
‘How much?’ Faraday had asked.
‘Dunno.’ Webster had grinned again. ‘But if I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t be doing this job.’
The smaller of Cheetah Marine’s factories lay beside a smallholding at the end of a narrow track on the outskirts of Bonchurch. Faraday parked and left Webster to sort out the interviews while he contacted Tracy Barber. For the time being, until one of the Major Crimes DSs shipped across from Pompey, she was holding the fort at the incident room they’d taken over at Ryde police station. Her extension was engaged and Faraday tried another line, getting through to DC Bev Yates. He’d just returned from a visit to the Bembridge harbour master but his news could wait until the evening debrief.
‘Get Tracy to ring me on the mobile when she’s got a moment.’ Faraday was watching Webster as he re-emerged from reception. ‘Nothing urgent.’
Webster accompanied him back to reception. A small, cluttered office beside it had been hurriedly cleared to make space for an extra chair. A poster on the wall featured a blonde in a blue bikini draped over the latest Cheetah offering, and there was a pinboard beside it covered with press cuttings from the last Southampton Boat Show. Looking at the poster, Faraday recognised the distinctive yellow hulls. Bembridge Harbour, he thought. Barely twenty-four hours ago.
‘This is Sean. Dave’s down in Ventnor sorting something out.’
Sean Strevons co-owned the firm. He was a cheerful-looking thirty-something with a paint-stained fleece and an impressive dangle of blond dreadlocks. He apologised for the state of the place and hoped Dave wasn’t in too much trouble. Through the thin partition wall Faraday could hear the thump-thump of a hammer drill.
‘It’s not about Dave,’ Faraday said at once. ‘It’s in relation to a customer of yours. Rob Pelly?’
Mention of the name drew a sigh from Strevons. Faraday asked why.
‘It’s difficult.’ He looked from one face to the other. ‘Is this off the record? Only the island’s a tiny bloody place.’
Faraday told him to go ahead. He wasn’t after a formal statement, not yet anyway.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that you can tell us what you like. We may come back to you for a statement. It’s your right to refuse to make that statement. Though naturally we’d be curious to know why.’
‘What is this?’ Strevons was seriously concerned now.
‘DI Faraday’s from Major Crimes,’ Webster reminded him. ‘I told you just now.’
‘Yeah, but what kind of major crimes?’
Faraday just looked at him, made no attempt to explain.
‘Tell me about Rob Pelly,’ he said at length. ‘I understand he’s bought a boat.’
‘He has, that’s right.’ Strevons swivelled the chair and nodded at the poster. ‘He’s had one of those off us. Brand new 7.9. Nightmare, to tell you the truth.’
‘Nightmare how?’
‘Bloke didn’t have the money.’
Pelly, he explained, had given them a ring back in the spring of last year. He’d heard rumours of the new design and wanted more details. Sean had invited him down from Shanklin and shown him the plans.
‘We were laying down the moulds by then. We gave him the full tour.’
The new 7.9 series had a basic hull shape with a variety of add-ons. Customers could stipulate exactly what they wanted, from the size of the wheelhouse to the power of the engines aft.
‘What did Pelly want?’
‘He wanted the biggest engines, the basics down below, stainless steel rails all round …’ He frowned, trying to remember, then rummaged in a filing cabinet beside the window. At length, one finger anchored in the file, he sat down again. ‘Full lighting fit – internal, after deck, the lot – plus hydraulic steering and a gantry for the roof mast. When I asked what he wanted the gantry for he said he might be after a radar. We don’t get that very often, believe me.’
Webster had produced his pocketbook and was scribbling notes.
‘Cost?’ asked Faraday.
Strevons consulted the file again.
‘I quoted him £36,000 plus VAT for the hull. Add another £24,500 for the engines, fitted. That’s without VAT. All in, you’re looking at just over seventy grand.’
‘You ask for a deposit?’
‘Five hundred pounds.’
‘What about the rest?’
‘Three stage payments. A third when the building starts. A third when the engines go in. The rest before we deliver.’
‘And Pelly?’
‘He came up with the deposit OK. That was back in June. Then we sent him an invoice for £23K in August because we wanted to start the build. That’s when the problems kicked off. He kept coming up with excuses. Told us to start regardless; he’d sort out something for next week. Basically, he hadn’t got the money.’
‘And had you started?’
‘Yes. He said he was negotiating a remortgage, even showed me some of the correspondence. I believed him.’
‘Was the correspondence forged?’
‘I dunno.’ He shrugged. ‘But we never got the money, not then anyway, and he got quite nasty.’
‘Threats?’
‘Implied threats. Told us the country was full of greedy thieving bastards who needed sorting out. Not us, of course, but we all knew what he meant.’
‘You stopped the build?’
‘Of course. It wasn’t a catastrophe. We simply used the mould on another order. Told him we’d start again the moment we saw the money.’
‘And when was that?’
His eyes flicked back to the file. The cheque for £23,333 had cleared on 11 October. By that time there was a waiting list for 7.9s, but Pelly wasn’t having it. He needed the boat asap and wasn’t in the mood to wait.
Faraday was watching Webster’s racing pen.
‘How did you get round that?’ he asked.
‘We didn’t, not to begin with. He even offered us an extra five grand to queue-jump but we weren’t really sure about his money by then so we were a bit wary. Oddly enough we had a couple of cancellations so he was lucky. The build started the third week in October. He paid the second instalment after Christmas. Then the rest when we delivered towards the end of January.’
‘No problems?’
‘None. He even sent us a thank-you card.’
‘Have you seen him since at all?’
‘No. But then I’m not sure we’d want to.’ He shut the file and tossed it on the desk. ‘Most of the people we deal with are fine. Pelly, excuse my French, was an arsehole.’
‘Did he ever say why he wanted the boat? What he might be using it for?’
‘Fishing. He said he wanted to take charters out. That would make sense, a fit like that, except for the radar.’
‘Did you install a radar?’
‘No, but then we don’t. You haven’t got the height really, not for decent coverage, not unless you’re only interested in ten or fifteen miles
out.’
‘And you think he was?’
‘Must have been. Otherwise he wouldn’t have asked for it.’
Faraday was trying to remember whether Pelly’s new boat carried a radar sweep. He thought not.
‘So what else do you know about Mr Pelly?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You never asked around? When things were getting sticky?’
‘There’s gossip, obviously, but –’ he shrugged ‘– there’s gossip everywhere, place like this.’
‘What does the gossip say?’
‘I’m not sure I can tell you that.’
‘Why don’t you try?’ Faraday offered him a chilly smile. ‘I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important.’
‘No …’ Strevons swivelled the chair again, avoiding Faraday’s gaze. ‘I don’t suppose you would.’
At length he said he’d heard rumours of people smuggling. The property Pelly was trying to remortgage was in Ventnor. Strevons knew it well.
‘And?’
‘It’s full of foreigners. It’s the talk of the local pubs. I’m talking proper foreigners. Not blokes from the mainland.’
‘You think Pelly brought them in?’
‘I don’t know. It’s gossip. Like I say.’
‘Of course. But let’s assume the rumours are true. Let’s assume he has a boat already. A …’ Faraday shot a look at Webster.
‘Tidemaster.’
‘Tidemaster. Let’s pretend he wants something better. What would he buy?’
Strevons looked at him for a moment, recognising the corner into which he’d just been backed. Then he had the grace to smile.
‘You’re right,’ he said softly. ‘One of ours would be perfect.’
Twelve
Thursday, 26 February 2004
The Coroner’s office was on the third floor of Portsmouth’s Guildhall, a monumental piece of Victorian architecture that dominated the busy square at the city’s heart. One of the three Coroner’s Officers was a bulky curmudgeon called Bill Prosper. Prosper was an ex-policeman, and an old enemy of Winter’s. They’d been on the same relief together way back and as a direct consequence Prosper viewed Winter as a permanent stain on the force’s reputation. If he’d found Winter in the laundry basket, he’d once told a colleague, he’d have taken him to the dry cleaners for a thorough going-over.
‘This is Jimmy Suttle.’ Winter knew exactly how to wind Prosper up: ‘I’m teaching him how to be a proper detective.’
Prosper threw a look at Suttle and then nodded at a desk in the corner of the big open-plan office where a significant bundle of buff files awaited their attention.
‘Sixty-seven and counting,’ he said. ‘And that’s only October.’
‘You’ve got coffee here?’
‘There’s a machine in the passage. Help yourself but go easy on the milk.’
Winter and Suttle exchanged glances. Winter had already been on the phone to Prosper, wanting a steer on those October fatalities that might warrant further attention. Prosper, whose working life had long adjusted to the glum excitements that followed a sudden death, had accused him of having a laugh.
Every day the office was dealing with seven or eight deaths uncertified by either a hospital or a GP. Some of them were down to drugs or alcohol. Others were industrial accidents, blokes who’d ignored safety regulations and paid the price, or broken bodies recovered from the pavement after taking a header from a tower block or a multi-storey car park. A handful, especially in winter, were scooped up from some beach or other, their dead lungs full of water. Each of these bodies was subjected to post-mortem examination. Most turned out to have died from natural causes or because the individual concerned had decided to throw in the towel. A tiny handful were flagged by the pathologist for further police investigation but no one during October qualified for this select little file on Prosper’s computer screen. Mere Coroner’s Officers, though, could always be wrong. So drop by, he’d told Winter, and help yourself.
Winter divided the files in half while Suttle sorted out the coffees. For the rest of the morning they worked slowly through their respective piles, an increasingly dispiriting task. Early on, Suttle discovered a woman of forty-three who’d been found naked and lifeless on the stairs by her suspiciously unmoved partner. Turned out she’d been a junkie for half her life and had choked to death after a syringeful of especially potent smack. Winter, meanwhile, briefly pondered the case of an eighteen-year-old scaffolder who’d visited a number of Fulham pubs after a Pompey away win, necked half a bottle of Jim Beam on the journey home, and celebrated by opening the door and hanging out as the train sped through Rowlands Castle station. A London-bound express on the other line had taken his head off.
Neither victim seemed to offer any conceivable link to Wishart and nor did any of the other deaths that had required the attentions of the duty pathologist. By lunchtime Winter was back at Prosper’s desk.
‘You want September or November?’ Prosper was enjoying this. ‘Only I’ve had a quick shufti through both.’
‘And?’
‘Bugger all.’
He was right. All afternoon, case by case, Winter and Suttle hunted for any trace of a contract hit. Most of these people, all too obviously, were predisposed towards an early end, either because of self-abuse or inattention or recklessness, or the kind of enveloping despair that led to suicide. Others, in the considered view of the Coroner, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t the North End mother of three’s fault that the driver of an Astra lost control after a tyre burst, mounted the pavement, and wiped her out. Nor could the Filipino sailor at Flathouse Quay, who turned out to be deaf, have been expected to hear the warning peep-peep of the 38-tonne artic that crushed him to death as it reversed. These bad-luck fatalities were regrettable, tragic even, but of absolutely no use if you were looking for evidence of body parts from the grenade that Maddox had so casually lobbed into Operation Plover.
‘You’re sure she’s not making this up?’
Suttle and Winter were walking back to the car park. Winter had another headache coming on.
‘Positive,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t piss about. Not with stuff like this.’
‘How do you know?’
It was a good question and Winter pondered the merits of an honest answer for long enough to give Suttle the opening he needed. They were halfway up the dank staircase that led to Floor E in the multistorey. Suttle caught Winter by the arm as he turned for the next flight of concrete steps.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You remember you once gave me a bollocking about getting involved with the punters?’
‘The what?’ Winter was out of breath.
‘The clientele? Young Trudy? Remember what you said?’
Winter wouldn’t meet his gaze. Trudy Gallagher was a nubile seventeen-year-old, the love child Bazza Mackenzie had always called his own. Last year Suttle had given her a knobbing and paid the price.
‘That was different,’ Winter muttered.
‘Different how?’ Suttle had backed Winter against the wall. From several storeys below came the squeal of a door opening and then womens’ voices echoing up the stairwell.
‘Screwing Trude was totally out of order. You were bloody lucky they only put you in hospital.’
‘And screwing Maddox? Some fucked-up tom with more money than sense?’
‘Different,’ Winter insisted. ‘For starters I’m not screwing her.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Well you should, son.’ Winter at last looked him in the eye. ‘If I could, I would. Truth is, I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’ Winter shook his head, aware of the swelling cackle of conversation as the women mounted the stairs below them. ‘It just doesn’t happen.’
‘Why not?’ Suttle’s concern was genuine. ‘Love job, is it?’
‘Christ knows. If I could remember what love felt like, I’d tell you. Just now …’ He
shrugged, gazing at the wall opposite, trying to focus on the zigzags of graffiti behind the curtain of bubbles, trying to rescue some shred of self-respect from this small moment of truth.
‘Trust me.’ Suttle’s face was inches from Winter’s. ‘I’m trying to help.’
‘Help? Help how?’
‘You’re sick, mate. I can see it. Something’s happened, something’s gone wrong, and I just want to know what. Maybe I can help. Could you handle that?’
Winter could feel the knobbly chill of the concrete on the back of his head. The women were in sight now, three of them staring up through the banisters, laden with shopping, not knowing what to do. Suttle was still in Winter’s face, still demanding an answer. Winter summoned the beginnings of a smile, pushing him gently away.
‘Thanks for the thought, son.’ He fumbled for his car keys. ‘Maybe you’d better drive, eh?’
Faraday and Webster were back at Ryde police station by late afternoon. After the interview at Cheetah Marine Webster had given Faraday the tour of Pelly’s alleged properties on the eastern side of the island, the list of half a dozen addresses he’d acquired from the informant, Gary Morgan. For the most part these were modest red-brick terraced houses tucked away in side streets, and Faraday had been surprised by the evidence of Pelly’s care for the properties. In every case the exterior woodwork – front door, window frames – had been repainted, always in the same shade of green. Every window was curtained, and the tiny rectangles of front garden were free of the usual debris of spilling refuse bags and sodden mattresses. There was even a new-looking satellite dish bolted onto the front wall of each house a foot or two beneath the eaves.
Parked opposite a house in the back streets of Sandown, watching a couple of men emerge from the front door, Faraday had speculated on the implications of this little surprise. He’d never heard of a man in Pelly’s situation going to such lengths. For someone allegedly making a fortune from other people’s misery, he was certainly spending a bob or two keeping his empire in good shape, a hint of philanthropy that sat uneasily with accusations of ruthlessness, violence and naked greed.
‘If he’s making so much money, how come he couldn’t afford the new boat? To begin with, at least?’
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