Happy Days

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Bollocks. You believe that? You really believe all that bullshit? Jesus …’ He turned away from the desk and stormed towards the window. Out on Southsea Common Winter could see a couple of girls flying a kite. One was very pretty. He thought of saying something but knew there was no point. Bazza in a mood like this was beyond reach.

  ‘Great fucking timing,’ he muttered. ‘This has to be a spoiler, doesn’t it? There has to be some evil fucker behind all this, some Tory cunt. The Labour lot haven’t got the brains and the Lib Dems are away with the fairies. So who wants to hurt us, mush? Who is it?’

  He was talking to himself, a man cornered by months of spending money he didn’t have, a man desperate to put a name and a face to this monstrous twist of fate. In Bazza’s world, as Winter knew only too well, the blame never settled at his own door.

  ‘Which account is it, Baz?’

  ‘All of them, the lot. He’s telling me there’s nothing left in the pot.’

  ‘We knew that.’

  ‘He means his pot. We’re halfway up the fucking mountain, mush, and he’s just cut the rope. Mortgage payments, direct debits, cheques, credit card payments, the lot, finito. Not another fucking penny, he says. Not one.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We look elsewhere. We work the phones. We call in favours. Stu’s got a quid or two if it really comes to it. Marie too.’

  Winter said nothing. If Bazza was relying on his wife and son-in-law, things had to be really bad.

  At length there came a knock at the door. It was Leo Kinder. For days, in anticipation of this morning’s news, he’d been planning a big press conference to launch the Pompey First campaign. The London papers would be sending stringers. TV and radio were standing by. The News was talking about a big splash on the front page plus a feature inside. This was the raw meat of politics. Even Kinder, Mr Cool, couldn’t mask his excitement.

  ‘You want me to make the calls, Baz?’ Winter asked.

  Mackenzie was still at the window. He didn’t turn round. ‘Of course I fucking do,’ he said.

  Misty Gallagher was on the road again. Three or four mornings a week she drove the fifty miles to Salisbury District Hospital. Trude had been in the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre for nearly three months now. It felt like for ever.

  Misty found a space in the car park and walked to the unit. It was a long modern-looking red-brick building on the edge of the main hospital site with views across the surrounding downland. In the early days she’d had a long conversation with another relative who visited her son daily, and the woman had been keen to stress how lucky they were to have a place like this on their doorstep. Misty had a very different take on ‘lucky’ and ‘doorstep’ but had kept her opinions to herself.

  This morning was Trude’s first visit to the unit’s swimming pool. Misty knew she’d been looking forward to this landmark for weeks. Trude had always loved the water and had swum like a fish since early childhood. Misty signed the visitors’ book and followed the signs to the pool. There was a viewing area on one side, and Misty slipped in through the glass doors, strangely comforted by the familiar smell of chlorine. This, she thought, might be a step back towards a life her daughter could recognise as her own.

  Trude was in the shallow end, attended by a physio called Awaale, an absurdly handsome Somali with a smile that would make anyone feel better. Trudy adored him but Misty knew at once that something was wrong. Her daughter was struggling. She was clinging to Awaale. Every time he tried to make her swim free, she wouldn’t have it.

  After nearly two months of what the medics called spinal shock, Trude had begun to recover some sensation in her arms and lower body. She could feel the difference between hot and cold. She could register pain and pleasure. The bedside physios had done a brilliant job maintaining her muscle tone, and she had a full range of movement in every limb. Week by week, she was even getting back in charge of her bowels and bladder. All of this was brilliant news – she wouldn’t, after all, be paralysed for life – but coordination remained a real challenge. Hence the pool.

  Misty, aware that Trude seemed embarrassed by her presence, retreated from the pool and bought herself a coffee from a nearby machine. There’d been many moments since the nightmare that had been Christmas when she’d doubted her own ability to carry on. The sight of the hideous metal clamp they screwed into her daughter’s skull. The existence of the ‘specialist swallowing team’, gathered around a neighbouring bed. The endless talk of skin integrity, and renal function, and bladder management. Stuff like this was gross, nothing to do with her beautiful Trude, yet here she was, as helpless as a baby and nearly as frightened as Misty herself.

  She finished the coffee and walked through to the day room to wait for Trude’s return, shoulders back, head erect, telling herself to get a grip. They weren’t out of the woods yet, far from it, but compared to the early days – as Winter kept pointing out – Trude was definitely on the mend.

  She was there within minutes, wheeling herself in through the door with Awaale providing the lightest of course corrections from behind. Misty was as smitten as Trude. Awaale beamed down at them both.

  ‘She did great, Mrs G.’

  Misty knew at once that Trude had been crying. She turned her head away.

  ‘I was crap,’ she muttered. ‘This is never going to work.’

  Operation Gehenna had a new safe house. The ex-D/I who’d gone to Uganda was now back in Soberton Heath, and Winter had been summoned to an address in St Cross, a wealthy enclave on the southern approaches to Winchester. This was handy for Willard, whose office at headquarters was five minutes up the road. The Head of CID was waiting for Winter in the kitchen of what resembled a Victorian rectory. The place was fully furnished, though Winter’s taste didn’t run to flock wallpaper and heavy drapes. He’d been in upmarket Indian restaurants that felt a bit like this and he wasn’t impressed.

  Willard had the kettle on. He assumed Winter wanted coffee. Winter, who hadn’t seen Willard since the day of Faraday’s funeral, was surprised by the change in his appearance. He seemed to have lost a bit of weight and there was something new – almost wolfish – in his face. According to Suttle, Willard had completed the ACPO course and was heavily tipped for an Assistant Chief Constable post in the West Midlands. The Brummies, Winter thought, were in for a bit of a shake-up.

  Parsons and Suttle turned up minutes later. Willard had already cleared a space in the dining room. The big window looked out onto a blaze of daffodils, but Willard had pulled the curtains against the world outside. They sat around the table beneath an elaborate chandelier. It might have been the middle of the night.

  Willard kicked off. To Winter’s surprise, he already appeared to know about Mackenzie’s exchange with the bank.

  ‘You’re telling me you set that up?’

  Willard ignored the question. Far more important was Mackenzie’s reaction.

  ‘He kicked off big time,’ Winter said. ‘Just the way I told you he would.’

  ‘But what’s he going to do for money?’

  ‘He’s phoning around, calling in favours, leaning on old mates. He’s trying to set up a fighting fund. Baz thinks he’s back in the 6.57. The one thing he won’t do is give up.’

  ‘Excellent. And his chances of success?’

  ‘Nil. Add up all the liabilities, all the outgoings, all the unpaid bills, and we’re talking six figures. And that’s before the campaign kicked off.’

  ‘So he’s still going ahead?’

  ‘Of course he is.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Skelley.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘That’s down to me.’

  Willard nodded, then shot a look at Suttle.

  ‘You told Mackenzie about this guy Beginski?’ Suttle began. ‘Like I asked?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And did he bite?’

  ‘Of course he did. I put it the way you suggested. I said Beginski was a Polack driver, used to
work for Freezee. I told him he was very likely the guy Skelley had asked to drive Johnny’s body up to the Lake District. That’s why he got a big fucking pay-off and did a runner back to Poland. Johnny was what did it for Baz. He accepts he’s probably dead and now he’s thinking all that’s down to Skelley, which is where it becomes personal. That’s why I’m off up to London.’

  Suttle nodded. Johnny Holman had been an old mate from Mackenzie’s 6.57 days, a washed-up drunk baby-sitting two and a half million quid’s worth of Bazza’s precious rainy-day toot.

  Winter wanted to know where Operation Gehenna was heading next. At Suttle’s direction he’d explained to Bazza that Beginski had boasted about the size of the pay-out from Skelley and that his mates had naturally been pissed-off. What did Suttle want him to do now?

  ‘There’s a woman you need to meet,’ said Suttle. ‘Her name’s Irenka. She’s half-Polish. She runs an agency in Isleworth, Home From Home. She sorts out accommodation for Polish workers. It turns out she’s Pavel Beginski’s sister.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We think she might know where he is.’

  ‘Fuck.’ Winter was impressed.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So what’s she saying?’

  ‘Nothing. Not to us, anyway.’

  Winter stared at Suttle, trying to juggle the implications.

  ‘So I’m a cop now. Is that it?’

  Even Willard laughed. Winter hadn’t finished. He’d been aware of Beginski for some time, ever since Suttle slipped him the intel file on Martin Skelley. But the fact that he had a sister was something new.

  ‘So how come you lot know about this Irenka?’

  ‘We ran various checks.’ Suttle said. ‘Cross-matched Beginski to other databases.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘HMRC. DWP.’ Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Department of Work and Pensions.

  ‘And you’re telling me they’ve got the same surname? Brother and sister?’

  ‘Yeah. It seems she’s never married.’

  ‘Lucky, eh?’

  ‘For her?’

  ‘For you lot. Bit of a break, I’d say.’

  Suttle nodded and shot an amused glance at Parsons. Winter had never been an easy sell, and nothing had changed.

  Winter wanted to know where to find the woman.

  Suttle passed across an address in Isleworth. ‘I think it’s pretty basic,’ he said. ‘Maybe just a couple of rented rooms.’

  ‘You haven’t checked it out?’

  ‘No. We thought you might do that. The lead only came in a couple of days ago.’

  Winter was still looking at the address. His plan for the afternoon wrote itself. Find Irenka. Get some kind of lead on Beginski’s whereabouts. And sort whether he might be up for a conversation. If he’d burned through his pay-off and could do Skelley real damage, then he might want more. And if that was the case then Winter would be only too happy to act as his agent.

  Winter sat back, took his time. Everyone round the table was waiting.

  ‘This is kosher, right?’ Winter was looking at Willard.

  ‘What’s kosher?’

  ‘The woman. Irenka.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.’

  Willard smiled, then glanced at Suttle.

  ‘She’s kosher, sir.’ Suttle nodded. ‘One hundred per cent.’

  Willard nodded and reached for his briefcase. He was looking at Winter again. He didn’t bother to hide his amusement.

  ‘Happy now?’ he said.

  It was early afternoon by the time Mackenzie finished his first round of phone calls. One by one he’d drawn a line through the long list of names on his pad. These were people who only hours ago he’d have relied on for a grand or two or maybe even more, but most of them had already kicked in modest sums for a couple of Pompey First fund-raisers during the spring, and given the current squeeze none of them were up for more. As he got towards the bottom of the list, his pen strokes became angrier, and by the time Kinder and Makins joined him for a pre-launch meet in his office at the Royal Trafalgar, his mood was grim.

  Kinder told him they were looking at 90 per cent acceptance for the five o’clock launch. They were using the big function room downstairs. Staff were already bannering the stage Mackenzie would be using, and Kinder had just taken receipt of the specially commissioned colour blow-ups from the framers. These shots featured Bazza in a number of Pompey settings from the Fratton End at the Chelsea game to the top of the Round Tower overlooking the harbour mouth. In every case Baz was locked in conversation with a bunch of punters. These were Pompey faces, Bazza’s people, the men and women he’d be only too happy to serve, and on most of the shots the strap line was the same: Pompey First … because we all deserve better.

  Kinder had brought what he judged to be the best of the photos with him and now he propped it against the door. BazzaMac, as some of the bloggers were beginning to call him, was standing in the empty bowl of Hilsea Lido, a 1930s open-air swimming pool at the top of the city. This had always been a must-visit attraction on hot summer days, especially popular with young families, and for thousands of older voters it represented a Pompey that was close to disappearing. In recent years the council had abandoned plans for a major refurb, and only a vigorous local campaign had saved the place from demolition.

  Mackenzie leaned forward over his desk, staring at the shot. Kinder’s photographer had got him to spread his arms wide and asked for a gesture of despair. Mackenzie, who had no time for despair, had found the photo shoot a pain in the arse, but now he saw what the photographer had been getting at. Across the bottom of the shot ran a different strapline: Pompey First … before it’s too late.

  ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Fucking great.’

  His mood began to lift. Kinder ran quickly through the plan for the late-afternoon media launch. When he got to the drinks, Mackenzie told him to cancel the champagne. Kinder raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  ‘Too flash,’ Mackenzie grunted. ‘Make it tea and coffee. This is the austerity election. We don’t need Moët.’

  He reached for the speech Kinder had prepared him. Kinder pointed out an extra paragraph he’d added after monitoring the lunchtime news round-ups. Pompey First, he wanted Bazza to announce, was the Big Society in action. Not some puppet show controlled by the faceless honchos up in London but the real thing. Local votes, local voices, plus a big fat local vibe. Your Pompey, not theirs.

  No problem. Mackenzie put the speech to one side. He wanted an update on the Future-Proofing Conference. This had been on standby for nearly a month. Kinder had lined up a panel of speakers from across Europe to descend on the city for a two-day brainstorm: an Italian architect who specialised in the use of public space, an academic from Frankfurt who knew all about tram systems, a Swedish engineer with some radical thoughts on green energy, plus a handful of English experts with international reputations in the field of urban planning. The conference, said Kinder, would attract national media attention and add a coat or two of gloss to the Pompey First campaign. These guys on the south coast, went the implicit message, aren’t the country bumpkins you might think they are. They care about their city’s future. And they’re doing something about it.

  ‘I need costings, Leo.’

  ‘You’ve got them. We’ve budgeted twenty grand with a 2K buffer.’

  ‘Which takes care of what?’

  ‘Transport, fees, accommodation, hire of the venue, entertainment, plus various sundries.’

  ‘Halve it. We can hold the conference here. Fly them economy. And forget the accommodation costs.’

  ‘How does that work?’

  ‘I’ll shift it to another budget, pretend they’re just regular guests.’

  ‘We can’t do that, Baz. You know we can’t.’

  ‘I can do whatever I fucking like, Leo. OK?’

  Kinder locked eyes for a moment, then shrugged. After the election was over he woul
d have to submit full accounts to the Electoral Commission. Exceeding the allowance for expenses was a criminal offence. Already, given what they’d spent since the turn of the year, they were dangerously close to the limit. The New Year’s Eve firework display had cost seven thousand. An earlier conference on juvenile delinquency, a showcase for Tide Turn Trust, another eighteen. Given these constraints, he could hardly object to reductions in the budget, but hiding expenditure away was madness. He’d dealt with the Electoral Commission before. They weren’t stupid.

  Mackenzie wanted a schedule for the first week of campaigning. Kinder opened a file and studied it for a moment. They were kicking off tomorrow with a visit to the QA site. Two hundred and fifty-six million pounds had bought a new superhospital, the jewel in Pompey’s crown, but Pompey First was calling for better coordination between patients’ groups, hospitals and GPs.

  ‘You got a brief on that?’

  ‘It’s joined-up care, Baz. No point buying a Bentley and putting the wrong fuel in.’

  ‘What else?’ Mackenzie jotted himself a note.

  ‘Friday we’re hitting the Cosham Shopping Centre. Loads of balloons plus some local kids. They call themselves the Silver Majorettes. Business rates are going up from 2K to 10K. Footfall’s down 40 per cent. Most of the shopkeepers are suicidal, and there are lots of regulars who see it their way. Hundreds of votes, Baz.’

  ‘And the weekend?’ He made another note.

  ‘There’s a huge gig at the Student Union on Saturday night. We’ve bunged some money in.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Five hundred.’

  ‘Halve it.’

  ‘Too late, Baz.’

  ‘Get a rebate then. Any fucking thing.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Kinder was close to losing it. ‘We pledge five hundred? They spend the money? Then we want half back? How does that play in the News? Students are key, Baz. You know that.’

  ‘Students are dossers.’

  ‘Whatever. But we need them. Andy?’

  Makins agreed. On the back of the video work, he’d persuaded a bunch of guys from the uni to organise a registration drive. A lot of the students lived in the north of the city and the reg rate was beginning to pick up.