Sabbathman

by Hurley, Graham

  Kingdom shrugged. ‘I believe he was there in Jersey, yes. Whether he pulled the trigger, God knows. But he was definitely there.’

  ‘And Newcastle?’ he gestured vaguely out of the window. ‘Hayling?’

  ‘I haven’t seen the messages, whatever it is the guy wrote. But if it’s as specific as Jersey, then …’ he shrugged again, ‘… yes.’

  Scarman gazed at his desk a moment. ‘Fits,’ he said at last. ‘Fits with the MO. Beautiful job. Thorough recce. Own key. Gloves. Balaclava. No other witnesses. Nice and discreet. In and out …?’

  Kingdom nodded. ‘Class act,’ he agreed.

  Scarman laughed. ‘That’s what Five said.’

  ‘They’re here?’

  ‘Yesterday. They’ve got an outpost in Portsmouth. Couple of blokes in an office near the docks. They liaise a lot with the Immigration people, and the Navy boys.

  ‘And they’ve taken a line? Already?’

  ‘Of course, but you know the way they work. Conclusions first, evidence second–’

  ‘–glory third.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Scarman laughed, ‘plenty of that.’

  ‘And they’re saying Northern Ireland? They think the Provos would pull this sort of stunt?’

  ‘That’s the drift.’

  ‘But why no call? No code-word? Why aren’t they letting the world know how clever they are?’

  Scarman shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t believe it either but when Chief called me up last night and read me the text …’ he tapped the photocopy, ‘… all this guff, I must say I began to wonder.’ He paused, looking Kingdom in the eye. ‘They’re pulling our peckers, aren’t they? Planting something as obvious as “KZ”? Making it look like some crazed ex-squaddie.’ He paused. ‘What would you say, Al? Scale of ten? Gut feeling?’

  Kingdom shook his head, refusing to be tempted. Special Branch and MI5 were meshing closer every month, an uncomfortable shotgun marriage, and although he trusted Scarman he wasn’t keen on gossip trickling back through the system. Allder, after all, had been specific. He was to concentrate on the facts. He was to collate the real evidence. And contact with MI5 was to begin and end with Annie Meredith.

  ‘Couldn’t manage a car, could you?’ Kingdom said, changing the subject, ‘just for a couple of days?’

  ‘With a driver? Could be a problem.’

  ‘No,’ Kingdom shook his head, ‘just me.’

  Scarman gazed at him a moment, not answering. ‘Congratulations,’ he said at last, ‘I understand you’ve made DI.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Kingdom grinned, ‘as of yesterday.’

  ‘Promotion on deposit?’ Scarman said heavily. ‘Or something you’ve actually done?’

  ‘God knows.’

  Kingdom buried the inquiry with an extravagant yawn, apologised, and then stood up. The view from the window, in the limpid autumn air, was sensational: the maze of city centre streets, the jumble of rooflines, the squat grey bulk of the cathedral, and much further away, on the edge of the city, a huge chalk scar in the flank of a distant hill. Kingdom stepped across to the window, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the sun. He could see tiny yellow machines, criss-crossing the chalk, and a milky cloud of dust, hanging over the hill. At the foot of the hill, half-concealed behind a line of trees, was a long queue of traffic, lorries mostly, tiny points of light where the sun lanced off their windscreens.

  Scarman joined him by the window, following his pointing finger.

  ‘Twyford Down,’ he said, ‘our claim to fame.’

  Kingdom glanced across at him. The name was familiar, the ancient hill that lay in the path of the M3’s missing link. Plans to carve the hill in half had become a national issue, a symbol of the juggernaut eighties. Kingdom remembered the news reports, the ragged army of young protestors standing in front of the first bulldozers. They’d talked of Mother Earth, and Iron Age burial sites, and when the security men threw them off they’d simply regrouped and started all over again. Watching, Kingdom had rather admired them. Terrible odds. Real beliefs. And guts, too.

  ‘Those kids,’ Kingdom murmured, ‘they had a name.’

  ‘Dongas.’

  ‘Yeah, Dongas …’ He looked at Scarman, hearing a new note in his voice, raising an eyebrow. ‘So what’s with them?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Scarman frowned. ‘Except …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Carpenter.’ Scarman turned away. ‘He’d taken a view as well.’

  ‘Theirs?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘What, then?’

  Scarman was back behind the desk. He was scribbling something on a notepad. He passed it across to Kingdom.

  Kingdom looked at it. ‘Who’s Jo Hubbard?’

  ‘Junior Registrar at the A and E centre. The Queen Alexandra Hospital. Down at Portsmouth.’

  ‘What’s she got to do with the Dongas?’

  Scarman didn’t answer for a moment. Then he folded Kingdom’s photocopy and passed it back across the desk. ‘She was on duty when they brought Carpenter in, and she’s got a lot to get off her chest.’ He smiled, his eyes back on the view from the window. ‘About Twyford Down.’

  Kingdom left police headquarters at twenty-five past three, driving a red unmarked Astra on a couple of days’ loan. Before he’d left, Scarman had given him a three-page digest, the fruits of the first Special Branch trawl through Max Carpenter’s public and private lives. He’d also phoned ahead to the Incident Room at Havant Police Station, warning the DCS in charge of the investigation that Kingdom was on his way. Kingdom could tell from the tone of the conversation that Allder had already been in touch from London. It wouldn’t have been Allder’s style to bother with the finer points of interforce protocol, and Kingdom was uncertain how welcome he was going to be. He’d never met Arthur Sperring, the Detective Chief Superintendent in charge of the Carpenter inquiry, but the man hadn’t become Hampshire’s top detective for nothing, and even Rob Scarman chose his words with care.

  ‘King Arthur?’ he’d said, shepherding Kingdom out of the office. ‘Real museum piece.’

  ‘Past it?’

  ‘Christ, no. Anything but.’ Scarman had paused by the lift, punching the down button. ‘Just don’t mention Sheehy.’

  Kingdom arrived at Havant forty minutes later. The police station occupied a corner of a spacious civic development behind the railway station. It was an unexciting sixties building, flat-roofed, enclosing a small courtyard. Two Volvo estates, parked outside, carried the logo of the local TV station. Max Carpenter, it seemed, was still making the news.

  Kingdom showed his ID at the desk and waited to be escorted through. The Carpenter inquiry was being co-ordinated from a suite of rooms on the top floor. The main office lay at the end of the corridor that ran the length of the building. The door was shut and there were two pieces of paper sellotaped beneath the small square window. One of them had been laser-printed. In bold, black capital letters, it said ‘WELCOME TO CAMELOT’. The other was hand-scribbled in red Pentel. ‘SILENCE.’ it read, ‘FILMING IN PROGRESS.’

  Kingdom peered in through the window. The room was oblong. There were blinds on the windows, and a dozen or so small desks arranged around three walls. On each of the desks was a computer terminal, and most of the terminals were manned, the operators bent over thick sheaves of inquiry reports, cross-checking names and addresses, entering details. In the middle of the room, a large, bulky man sat on the edge of a conference table. He was wearing a silver grey suit and a dark red tie. His grey hair was cropped short and his eyes were narrowed as he squinted into the TV lights. A young reporter stood beside a TV camera. She had a clipboard pressed to her chest and she was using her free hand a great deal, the way people do when they’re nervous.

  Kingdom watched the performance for a moment or two, the man in the suit totally impassive, following the question with the merest nod of his head, a suggestion of amusement in his face when he began to answer. The face went with the body
: the big square head, the skin pouched under the eyes, the heavy jowls, the folds of flesh beneath his chin.

  Kingdom glanced at the uniformed constable who’d escorted him upstairs. ‘Arthur Sperring?’ he asked.

  The constable nodded, showing Kingdom into an adjacent office. ‘You’d better wait here, sir,’ he said, ‘I’ll fetch some tea.’

  Sperring emerged from the interview five minutes later. Kingdom could hear the TV crew collapsing the light stands as he stepped into the office and shut the door. Kingdom was sitting behind the desk. He stood up, extending a hand. ‘DI Kingdom, sir. A-T Squad. My guv’nor sends his regards.’

  ‘Micky Allder?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘He was on this morning.’ He paused. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Fine, sir. Thriving.’

  ‘Thank fuck someone is.’ Sperring gestured over his shoulder, an assumption that Kingdom had been briefed about the TV interview. ‘You know the angle those clowns are missing?’

  Kingdom shook his head. The reporter was standing outside in the corridor. Face-on, she was very pretty.

  ‘Haven’t a clue, sir.’

  Sperring waved Kingdom out of his way and sank into the chair behind the desk. Like many big men, he wore an air of almost permanent irritation. He growled something Kingdom didn’t catch, and then he rubbed his face. His flesh tones were awful, more grey than white, with blotches of colour where the veins had broken on both cheeks. He fumbled for a cigarette and pushed the packet of Kingdom.

  ‘Carpenter,’ he said briskly, ‘was an arsehole.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s been trying to shaft us for years. Him and his fat friend.’

  Sperring didn’t wait for a response but began to rummage through a wire tray at his elbow. Towards the bottom, he found a Police Federation leaflet. On the front, in heavy black capitals, it said SHEEHY: THE TRUTH. Kingdom took it, beginning to understand. Patrick Sheehy was an industrialist who’d made his name heading the British-American Tobacco Company and the government had asked him to run his management slide-rule over the police. His report, recently published, had argued that the police were over-paid and under-motivated, and one of his prime targets had been officers in the senior ranks. The service, according to Sheehy, was top-heavy. There should be no more guarantees, no more jobs for life. The buzzwords now were ‘performance’ and ‘value for money’, and old-style coppers like Sperring were still in shock.

  Kingdom looked up. ‘You feel that strongly?’

  ‘Dead fucking right. As I understand it, Carpenter’s the pillock who suggested Sheehy in the first place. They needed someone to set the dogs on us and Carpenter obliged. He’s the one who put his name forward. Some bloke who’d been flogging cigarettes all his life. What would he know about coppering, eh?’ Sperring nodded at the packet of cigarettes, still lying on the desk. ‘Spends his entire career poisoning us with these fucking things, then has the nerve to pass judgment on what we do. What does he think we are? Box of filter tips?’

  ‘And Carpenter?’

  ‘Deserved everything he got. Live by the axe. Die by the fucking axe.’

  ‘You said that?’ Kingdom nodded towards the reporter, still standing in the corridor outside. ‘On the record?’

  ‘Christ, no.’

  ‘But you’re serious? You mean it?’

  ‘Of course I do. Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone?’ He narrowed his eyes, the way he’d done in front of the camera. ‘I’m telling you, son, anyone looking for a motive for Carpenter should start here, with me, with my boys. I can think of a hundred blokes who’d have taken a pop at him. Good fucking riddance, I say …’ He let the sentence expire in a thin stream of blue smoke. Then he laughed, a gravelly noise deep in his throat, and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘of course I don’t mean it. But it just goes to show, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Show what?’

  ‘Divine retribution.’ He laughed again, ‘Bless Him.’ Sperring tipped his head back, drawing down the next lungful of smoke, another tiny victory for Mr Sheehy. Then his eyes settled on Kingdom again. ‘So what do you want, son?’ he said, ‘How can I help you?’

  Kingdom framed a careful answer, knowing now that Allder had already been in touch. When he mentioned Sabbathman, Sperring looked interested.

  ‘What do you make of that, then?’

  Kingdom shrugged. ‘Dunno, sir,’ he said, ‘yet.’

  ‘But you think it might be a runner?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Single bloke? Nutter? Appears every Sunday? Has a pop?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Kingdom paused. ‘Have you talked to Jersey at all?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Sperring nodded. ‘They’re definitely interested but then they would be, wouldn’t they? So far they’ve got fuck all. Just Blanche in the fridge. You ever been to Jersey? The place runs on imported money. They need a name, any name, something to get them off the hook. Sabbathman, whatever he’s called, does just fine. Just fine. Perfect. A real gift.’

  ‘And here?’

  Sperring took another lungful of Silk Cut and leaned forward, tapping ash into Kingdom’s empty cup.

  ‘You should go out to Hayling and take a look,’ he said. ‘My blokes next door will tell you how to find the place. It’s a nice house, hundred grand easy, nice neighbourhood too. They stick together, those kind of people. Hayling’s a village, especially down their end. It’s not easy, getting in and out, shooting a guy. Not easy at all.’

  ‘Was the door locked? That morning?’

  ‘Yes, she swears it was. He was very particular, our Max. Hated interruptions.’

  ‘And no sign of forced entry?’

  ‘Nothing. Not a dicky bird. Not a single mark. Matey had a key. Assuming he exists …’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Sperring spread his hands wide. ‘It could have been her. Fuck knows, of course it could. He’s married. He won’t leave his wife, his kids. He’s told her that. He’s made no bones about it. OK, he’ll turn up when it suits him. He’ll do the business, tell her she’s wonderful, tell her she’s the most important woman in his life. But what’s that when you’re on short rations? Eh? Couple of hours a week?’ He paused. ‘People have killed for much less. As we all fucking know.’

  ‘Was she that keen?’

  ‘Yes, according to the letters.’

  ‘Whose letters?’

  ‘His. We’ve got about a dozen. They go back a fair way, about a year and a half. He doesn’t actually spell it out, but you can tell. She’s dying for it. When he can be bothered.’

  ‘And what’s her version?’

  ‘She hasn’t said much but she obviously loved the bloke, crazy about him, no question. Terrible taste, but we can’t do her for that.’

  ‘And the weapon?’

  ‘Fuck knows. Definitely a hand-gun, probably an automatic, but it’s a goner. If it was her, she could have done anything with it. You can make a lot of plans in eighteen months.’

  ‘Forensic? Anything on her hands?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘And nothing in the house? No traces of gun oil? Some place she might have hidden a weapon? Nothing like that?’

  ‘No.’ He paused. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You’re still looking?’

  ‘Of course we fucking are. We want a result, don’t we?’

  There was a long silence and Kingdom remembered Allder, how confident he’d been, Carpenter cut down by the lone assassin, the mysterious Sabbathman.

  ‘You really think she might have done it?’ he said at last.

  ‘I don’t think anything. All I know is nobody saw anyone come or go. Now that’s pretty extraordinary, son, whichever way you look at it.’

  ‘So why haven’t you pulled her in?’

  ‘Clare Baxter? With her connections? On the evidence we’ve got? Are you serious, son?’

  Kingdom didn’t answer for a moment, eyeing the ash floating in the remains of his tea.

  ‘How about Carpent
er’s wife?’ he said at last. ‘She’d have plenty of motive. If she knew.’

  ‘She says she didn’t.’

  ‘You believe her?’

  Sperring frowned. Like most detectives, black and white answers weren’t really his style. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s an honest woman. She’s naive, too. She trusted him.’

  ‘But where was she? When it happened?’

  Sperring glanced up. For the first time, he was smiling. ‘Half-past ten?’ he said. ‘Sunday morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Church. With the kids.’ The smile widened. ‘Not too many witnesses. But enough.’

  ‘A hit-man, then? A contract? Someone she paid to do it?’

  Sperring looked briefly pained. Then he got up and brushed the ash from his trousers.

  ‘You London blokes are all the same,’ he said, yawning. ‘You think life’s one long fucking movie.’

  Before he left the police station, Kingdom returned to the Incident Room. Sperring put him in the hands of a young detective sergeant and the DS took him across the room to a big street map pinned to a board. The map showed the whole of Hayling Island. The island itself was about five miles by three, a wedge of land, wider at the coastal end, cut off to the north by a tidal creek. Access to the mainland was by a single road bridge. Immediately to the west, across the mouth of Langstone Harbour, lay the city of Portsmouth. To the east, across another harbour mouth, was the long curve of sand and shingle that led to Selsey Bill.

  Kingdom studied the map a moment. There were coloured pins dotted round a grid of roads on the south-west corner of the island. A black pin marked the murder site. The name of the road was Sinah Lane. The house, according to photos displayed on the wall beside the board, was called ‘Little Douglas’. Kingdom looked at the pins, recognising the pattern of house-to-house calls, an ever-widening circle that would expand and expand until Arthur Sperring chose to call a halt. To the west of Sinah Lane, about a quarter of a mile away, was a holiday camp. Kingdom nodded at it.

  ‘Nothing there?’

  ‘We’re still checking. They’ve got individual units, chalet places. You rent them for a week or a fortnight, depending. We’re going through the bookings at the moment.’