‘I’ll make you better,’ she said. ‘Promise.’
Winter gazed at her. Next week sounded a wildly optimistic proposition. Just now he’d be lucky to make it to the bathroom. She was talking about Rimbaud, about Harar, about the camels they could rent for expeditions into the mountains, about the local guides who’d show them the best places to camp. In the evenings, back in Harar, there was a wonderful souk, merchants selling carpets and brassware, and a thousand spices. Winter’s eyes began to close. For the second time in days he was close to tears. He could see this place of hers. He could almost smell it. But it was never going to happen. Then came the sound of a mobile, Maddox’s distinctive call tone.
Winter lay back in the chair, nursing the Scotch. There was a pause while Maddox read the number, then she was on her feet, padding across the living room into the privacy of the hall. Winter caught a muffled conversation, then Maddox’s throaty laugh. A minute or two later she was back beside the chair.
‘A friend.’ She bent and touched his glass with hers. ‘Fais-moi confiance, mon chéri.’
Twenty-four
Thursday, 4 March 2004
The weather obliged Faraday to meet Willard off the hovercraft. An area of low pressure had been deepening in mid-Atlantic for a couple of days and now the leaden swirl of cloud was pushing up the Channel. All night the wind had been strengthening, and Faraday had awoken to a hard, driving rain lashing at the window of his tiny hotel room.
An hour later, virtually alone in the transit lounge at the Hoverspeed terminal, he waited for sign of the approaching hovercraft. Barely a fortnight ago he’d struck exactly the same pose in the Southsea terminal across the Solent, gazing out at the churn of waves and tatters of wind-torn bladderwrack. This was the twin brother of the gale that had so nearly halted services to Ryde that stormy morning, and Faraday glanced back towards the enquiry desk, wondering whether they hadn’t bothered to announce a cancellation.
Then, very dimly, he saw the approaching hovercraft, a low squat shape wallowing in through the murk. The nearby pier normally offered shelter from the prevailing westerlies but today the wind tore between the rusting supports, lacing the heaving sea with spume. The bigger waves were smashing against the pier itself, huge explosions of creamy brown surf, and Faraday watched the hovercraft dipping and rolling as the captain clawed his way towards the concrete ramp.
Willard, who’d spent a month last summer on a sailing course, was first off. He ran the twenty metres to the terminal building, bent against the howling wind, then shook himself like a dog once he’d managed to get inside.
‘Brilliant,’ he announced. ‘You pay a fortune at Alton Towers for a ride like that.’
Faraday’s car was parked outside. Willard wanted an update before they went into conference at the police station.
‘We released Pelly last night, sir. Half eight. Bailed him for six weeks. I didn’t try for the extension in the end. Not worth the hassle.’
‘A night in the cells?’
‘No point.’ Faraday shook his head, waiting for a break in the traffic. ‘This is a man who just doesn’t care. He’s telling Dave Michaels this is kids’ stuff compared to some of the things he’s been through. Problem is, we’re starting to believe him.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Zilch. You could drive a bus through the holes in his story, but the longer Dave points that out the less interested he becomes. We’ve never managed to shake him, not as far as his story’s concerned, not once. Eerie, really. It’s like the man already knows he’s home free. How would you explain that?’
‘Christ knows.’ Willard was watching an elderly woman battling her way across the road, oblivious to the traffic. ‘What about his wife?’
‘She went no comment. I put Tracy Barber and the lad Webster in with her. They didn’t get further than her name and address. Tracy said she was really upset, but we can’t do her for that, can we?’
Lajla, he said, had been released last night without charge. She and Pelly had taken a cab back to Shanklin and Faraday himself had watched them drive away. Lajla had been in the back with her husband, her head buried in the folds of his anorak, sobbing.
‘Unwin?’
‘I bailed him as well. We got a full statement. He and his mum took the first hovercraft out. Didn’t even go and see his nan. He’s terrified Pelly’s going to come after him.’
‘He’s probably right.’
‘I doubt it. Pelly’s turned the page. New chapter. New life. We checked with the estate agent this morning. Pelly’s pushing for completion by the end of the month.’
‘What about the bail date?’
‘Good point, sir. But to be honest I can’t see him hanging around for us.’
The formal conference began half an hour later in the office used by the investigation’s DCs. Faraday was in the chair, with DS Dave Michaels offering an overview of statements gathered to date and DS Pete Baker reporting on the ever-diminishing tally of actions still awaiting the attention of the Outside Enquiry Team.
Willard wanted a thorough review of every LOE and was merciless about the small print. Brian Imber, who held the intelligence file, took the Detective Superintendent through each line of inquiry. Forensically, the SOC team had drawn a blank. Nothing in the home, nothing in the garage out the back, nothing in the outhouse Pelly used as a makeshift workshop.
‘What are we trying to stand up here?’ The pad at Willard’s elbow was still blank.
‘We’re thinking Pelly did the guy in the flat downstairs. That’s the one that’s been redecorated. The CSM says they tried everything, the lot. If we’re talking a cleaned-up crime scene, he says Pelly deserves a medal.’
‘We’re saying he took the guy’s head off in there?’
‘Hard to say, sir. The scale of the redecorating tells me there was a lot of blood.’
‘What about disposal of the carpet? Wallpaper? The chair you say he replaced?’
‘We’ve talked to the council people in Newport. There are three tips on the island. Rubbish goes for landfill. Five months later is a hell of a time to start digging, and in any case I’m not sure Pelly would have taken the risk. A bloke who covers his arse the way he’s done might well have stuffed it all in the Volvo and taken it over to the mainland.’
‘And the Volvo?’
‘He says he’s sold it. Bit vague about the new owner.’
‘PNC?’
‘No new details logged.’
‘How does Pelly explain that?’
‘Says he forgot to get the info off the buyer. Told us the guy looked a bit dodgy. Paid cash; shot off. It’s bollocks, of course, but when we challenge him, he just shrugs. Isn’t that right, Dave?’
Michaels nodded. Pelly, he said, was denial on legs. Any more prime suspects like him and he’d be looking for early retirement. The comment raised a ripple of laughter round the table. Willard wasn’t amused.
‘This guy’s taking the piss. Shouldn’t we be doing something about that?’
Faraday could only agree. He asked Imber to take Willard through Pelly’s financial transactions. Imber had prepared a timeline tracing the various sums that had so suddenly appeared in Pelly’s bank account. Over the last couple of days he’d managed to relate the deposits to cross-Channel ferry bookings for which Pelly had retained the receipts. These receipts had formed part of the haul of paperwork seized from his flat and Imber’s painstaking analysis had revealed that each deposit had been made the day after Pelly’s return from abroad.
‘The deposits were in cash?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Sterling?’
‘Euros.’
‘Any indication of where he might have got them?’
Imber shook his head. Pelly had excellent contacts in the Balkans. He’d been going there, off and on, for the last ten years. By his own admission he made money from bringing in asylum seekers – individuals with a genuine case to plead. Some years, he was flush with funds. Other times, like
more recently, he was pushed. Maybe the cash deposits were a windfall from a couple of particularly successful trips. Maybe he’d called in long-standing debts or raised a loan from local backers in Bosnia. Or maybe the paper trail – if Imber ever managed to establish such a thing – would lead directly to the headless corpse at the foot of the cliff, but without a firm ID it would be impossible to check. Once again, by either luck or design, Pelly had fenced off yet another line of enquiry.
Willard stirred. Watching him, Faraday could sense the frustration his boss was beginning to share with the Congress team. No inquiry should be this much of a wind-up. Ever.
‘We need a name, don’t we?’ Willard sat back, tossing his pen onto the pad. ‘That’s where this thing begins and ends. The body.’
Imber began to speculate again about Pelly’s possible links with people smugglers. Checks on the status of the lodgers in his Shanklin and Ventnor properties had drawn a blank. They were all legit, either asylum seekers awaiting adjudication or – in the majority of cases – individuals who’d been granted indefinite leave to remain. Nonetheless, it was perfectly feasible for Pelly to have brought in other refugees who were promptly shipped over to the mainland and driven north. Why else would he have wanted a £ 70,000 boat with forty-five knots on the speedo?
‘Sure. But a spot of people smuggling suddenly earning him this kind of money?’ Willard gestured at Imber’s figures. ‘You have to be joking.’
There was a long silence. The wind was rattling a loose frame in one of the windows, and Faraday caught the sound of the train that clattered along the pier to the station at the seaward end. Berthing alongside in this weather would be a nightmare for the regular cross-Solent Fast Cat, he thought. Banged-up on the island with the frustrations of Congress, there seemed no escape.
There came a knock at the door. Expecting a tray of coffee from one of the Management Assistants, Faraday glanced up. It was DC Tracy Barber. She was beckoning Faraday into the corridor. She needed a word.
Faraday excused himself. Barber was looking unusually tense.
‘I’ve had a call from Lajla,’ she said. ‘She wants a meet.’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘There isn’t one, except it might be wise if you came too. She doesn’t want to talk at the home. It has to be somewhere else, in Shanklin. I’ve suggested the caff we went to the other day. What do you think?’
Faraday glanced back at the group around the table. Imber was talking again, doubtless giving Willard yet more ammunition for a halt in proceedings. At this rate, Congress would be dead in the water by lunchtime.
Barber was waiting for a decision.
‘She asked for you by name?’
‘Yes. She says she won’t talk to anyone else. I thought you might come as back-up, sir. Stay in the car for a bit. Maybe join us once she’s settled down.’
‘And you think it’s important?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s not pissing us around?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘OK.’ Faraday reached for the door handle. ‘Give me five minutes.’
Winter awoke late. To his astonishment he felt wonderful. The steady thump-thump of the headache had gone. The queasiness it brought had vanished. He rolled over to break the good news but found a note on Maddox’s pillow. ‘Gone into town,’ she’d scribbled. ‘Back later.’ Winter smiled at the line of kisses beneath and then reached for his watch. Nearly half past ten.
He shaved and dressed, resisting the temptation to tiptoe round the edges of this sudden transformation, to disbelieve the evidence of his nerve ends. He’d no idea what governed the complex biochemistry of his brain, what made for good days and bad, but the sight of yesterday’s CT scan had persuaded him that time was precious. The last thing he intended to do was waste it. Cathy and Jimmy Suttle were right. There were more important challenges in life than Maurice Wishart.
He found a couple of eggs in the fridge and half a loaf from Maddox’s last expedition to the supermarket. Twenty minutes later he was looking for his heavy raincoat and his car keys. The rest of the morning nosing round the shops, he thought, then a pie and a pint and fingers crossed that Maddox would make it back in time for a leisurely afternoon between the sheets. Maybe they’d find time to discuss travel arrangements. Maybe not.
He drove down to Portsmouth, exhilarated by the weather. A lid of low grey cloud had clamped itself over the city, ragged at the edges, and the Subaru rocked in the blast of wind as he crossed the harbour on the motorway. Looking out at the nose of Whale Island, he marvelled at the contrast with yesterday. Boats were heaving at their moorings. The motorway itself was ribboned with seaweed. Even the gulls were having a hard time.
The shopping precinct in Commercial Road was virtually deserted. A scatter of shoppers were battling the wind and the rain but in the city’s centre, thought Winter, it might have been an old-style Sunday. Heartened by this new mood of his, he looked for a present for Maddox. Ottakar’s was the obvious place to start but the longer he spent looking at shelf after shelf of books, the more he realised he was out of his depth. Winter’s taste had seldom extended beyond Robert Ludlum and Dean Koontz. The woman who read him poetry in the small hours wouldn’t be impressed.
He abandoned the bookstore and ducked into the shopping mall beside it. He wanted to get her something she’d remember him by, something that belonged in the space they’d made for each other. His first thought was perfume, or body oils, or maybe a scented candle, but nothing he found seemed to do the trick. A succession of bored shopgirls suggested potpourri or little fancy bags of lavender, shrugging dismissively when Winter wagged his head. Finally, gone midday, he found himself in HMV.
Music, he knew at once, would be a no-no. Maddox was unlikely to share his passion for Tom Jones and the Everly Brothers. Neither was he confident enough to make any kind of stab at classical music. Lately, he’d found himself listening to Beethoven, surprised by how easy it was to surrender to the music, and there were half-decent bits of Rachmaninov, but he knew that neither was quite right. It had to be something else, something that would bring a smile to her face.
In the section devoted to DVDs, inspecting a rack of all-time classic movies, he knew he’d found it. Only days ago he and Maddox had watched The Bridges of Madison County together. Then she’d sorted out a couple of French films. A movie, therefore. Had to be.
He began to browse through the titles, enjoying the short cuts they offered to half-forgotten moments in his own youth. He’d been in his teens the first time he’d seen The Dam Busters, and he remembered sitting in the flickering darkness with his first girlfriend, bullshitting her with tales of joining the RAF. Klute was another favourite, a seventies cop movie with Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland in the lead roles. Watching Klute was the moment which had first planted the thought in Winter’s brain that he might become a cop himself. Sutherland had played a detective who’d fallen for a hooker, and with a slight shock Winter realised just how closely real life now mirrored the plot. He smiled to himself, browsing through more titles, wondering if Klute might have made it onto DVD. Then he paused. Casablanca. Perfect.
Winter felt for his mobile and put a call through to Maddox. Her phone was switched off so he thought for a moment or two, then sent her a text: ‘This afternoon? Usual place? Usual time?’ He added a couple of kisses and took the DVD to the counter. A minute or so later Maddox’s reply arrived. ‘Out with a friend,’ she’d written. ‘Chez toi, four o’clock? A bientôt.’ Winter read the text, beamed at the girl behind the counter, then checked his watch. He still had three hours before getting back for Maddox. He had no DVD at home so he’d borrow Maddox’s flat for a couple of hours of Bogart and Bergman before heading back to Bedhampton. He produced his mobile again and sent a follow-up text. ‘Here’s looking at YOU kid,’ he wrote, tucking the DVD in the pocket of his coat.
Faraday sat in the Mondeo, perfect lin
e of sight on Munchies Café. Lajla had arrived minutes before, a small, thin figure cocooned in a big quilted anorak. Now she sat in the window, half hidden by condensation on the cold glass, deep in conversation with Tracy Barber. When Tracy judged the time to be right she’d come to the door and give Faraday a wave. Faraday settled down for a long wait.
On the eastern side of the island, Shanklin was protected from the worst of the weather, but out in the bay whitecaps were rolling towards a scatter of moored cargo ships, sheltering from the storm. It had stopped raining now, and barely feet from the boiling surf black-headed gulls were hanging motionless in the teeth of the wind, surveying the debris thrown up on the beach, looking for likely morsels. Faraday watched them for a moment, marvelling at the way they could ride the strongest gusts with seeming ease. If only, he thought.
On the drive over he’d been aware of Tracy Barber pumping him for the direction that Congress might take next. He’d fended her off with a shrug, telling her the truth – that it wouldn’t be his decision – but he knew she hadn’t really believed him. He’d watched her closely over the past couple of weeks, impressed by her diligence and her determination. Faraday himself had never served in Special Branch, never been obliged to deal in the currency of political intelligence, but he was aware of the extra perspective a posting like that could impart.
Barber, it turned out, had spent nearly half her service in SB, and it showed. She had a good analytical brain, a natural flair for making connections that others might miss, and – more to the point – she was excellent in tricky face-to-face situations like these. Faraday watched her now, a blurred figure behind the glass, bending into the conversation, making a point, relaxing, then extending a reassuring hand. Lajla must like her, Faraday thought. More than that, she might trust her.
Faraday turned on the radio, found himself some music. Ten minutes or so later Barber appeared at the café door. Faraday got out and locked the car. Hurrying into the café, he was grateful for the warm fug after the chilly blast of the wind.
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