Cut to Black faw-5

by Graham Hurley

  Worse and worse, he thought.

  "So where's the good news?"

  "There's new legislation. Under the Proceeds of Crime Act, we'll be able to do him for money laundering. That has always been an option but until now we've had to tie him to a specific narcotics offence before the confiscation powers kick in. With the POCA, we can make a case, seize his assets, and then it's down to him to show us where they all came from."

  "And you think that's possible?"

  "Definitely. And it goes way beyond Mackenzie. He's stashed millions away by buying into properties and businesses and God knows what else, and he couldn't have done any of that without the guys in the suits.

  You need conveyancing. You need binding contracts. You need the mortgages they never serviced. You need to get into all that legal crap. Believe me, there are solicitors in this city who should be packing their bags."

  "You're serious?"

  "Absolutely. Screw Mackenzie under the Proceeds of Crime Act, nail him on a money-laundering offence, and the guys in the suits — solicitors, accountants have some tough questions to answer. They're supposed to blow the whistle on dodgy transactions, and if they don't then they're in the shit as well. Believe me, there's nowhere left to hide."

  Prebble paused. "The way to hurt people like Bazza is to attack their money. If we can make a money-laundering charge stick and nick the money back off him, we've scored a result."

  "What would he pull for money laundering?" Faraday glanced across at Imber.

  "That depends, Joe. He could be looking at fourteen years. But Martin's right. It's the money he cares about. For why? Because this bloody man's spent his whole life stealing a march on the rest of us.

  That's what's put him where he is. That's what's given him the big house, and the cars, and the lifestyle, and the reputation. Take that away, and you're left with a punchy little mush from the backstreets of Copnor. You hear about his daughter's wedding? The lovely Esme?"

  Faraday shook his head. He ought to get out more, he thought.

  Joyce was on her feet again. Another sheaf of photos. Faraday peered down at the first of the shots. An enormous group of men and women were standing in the sunshine. Mackenzie was in the middle, a short, squat figure bursting out of his suit and tails. Beside him, clamped to one arm, was the pretty blonde bride, her veil flung back, beaming at the camera. Faraday recognised the Cathedral in the background.

  Joyce was bending over Faraday, doing the introductions, one technicolour nail moving lightly from face to face. Relatives.

  Extended family. Mates from the old days. Mike Valentine. The owner of Gunwharf's biggest nightclub. Two solicitors. Amanda Gregory. An architect. Two members of the Pompey first team. The general manager of the city's biggest hotel. A research fellow from the university's criminology department. A journalist from the sports pages of the News. The list went on and on, a tally of Portsmouth's finest.

  There was a long silence. Prebble's fingers had strayed to the purpled blotch on his forehead. Imber was still gazing at the photograph. The two men were waiting for Faraday's reaction. Finally he glanced up at Joyce.

  "No coppers?" he enquired drily.

  Chapter nine

  THURSDAY, 20 MARCH 2003, 10.00

  It was DC Suttle's first visit to the city's CCTV control room, a windowless, slightly claustrophobic bunker in the Civic Centre. He stood behind the duty shift leader, staring up at the banks of colour monitors racked side by side while Paul Winter negotiated two cups of coffee and a generous plateful of custard creams.

  "There. See what I mean?"

  The shift leader was demonstrating the reach of a new zoom lens on one of the CCTV cameras in the Commercial Road shopping precinct. A lifelong member of the Seventh Day Adventist church, he'd developed an obsession with the collapse of morality in the city. Portsmouth was awash with teenage mums and here was the living proof.

  Suttle found himself looking at a nubile young girl pushing a double buggy. Her skintight T-shirt stopped two inches above the waistband of her jeans and the piercings in the adolescent roundness of her belly gleamed in the chill March sunshine.

  "Nice," he murmured. "What about her mate?"

  A left wards pan on the camera provoked another diatribe from the shift leader. If Suttle cared to come back on Friday night, any Friday night, he could watch infants like this screwing themselves stupid on the beach across from the clubs on South Parade. The pair of them couldn't be a day over fourteen. It was his taxes paying for all these bloody handouts. What kind of society encouraged schoolgirls to fall pregnant?

  "Over here."

  Winter dragged Suttle towards a smaller desk by the door. Beside the mugs of coffee were three video cassettes. Winter consulted a map showing the locations of each of the city's CCTV cameras, then slipped the first of the cassettes into a replay machine. Toggling the pictures forward, he hooked a chair towards him with his foot and told Suttle to sit down. Finally, the stream of images slowed, then stopped.

  "See?"

  Suttle bent forward, peering at the screen. In the interests of keeping the tape budget under control, recorded video coverage was restricted to single frames grabbed every two seconds. At 02.31.47, the camera across from the town station had caught the arrival of a white Transit van. As Winter inched the sequence forward, the van did a U-turn on the approach road, and then backed towards the side entrance that led onto the station concourse. On the panel of the van, plainly visible, was the name of a local building firm.

  "Mates of Bazza's," Winter grunted. "Bloke that runs it still turns out for his football team. Not bad for forty-three."

  "We're talking Blue Army?"

  "More grey than blue but yeah." He toggled forward again. "Same bunch of blokes."

  A heavy-set man, jeans, leather jacket, had suddenly appeared from the passenger seat. Several frames later, with the aid of a slighter figure, he was hauling someone out of the back. Then, abruptly, they'd gone.

  "This one I got from the Transport Police."

  The screen went blank as Winter loaded a second cassette. Spooling through, he kept his eye on the digital time code The picture showed the station concourse, grey and empty, a row of shops on the far side barred and shuttered. At 02.32.35, the same two men appeared, jumping forward frame by frame. Supported between them, his feet trailing behind, came the limp body of the youth in the back of the van. As he passed the camera, his face was plainly visible.

  "What's that?" Suttle touched the screen. On the monochrome image, blotches of black masked the lower half of the youth's face.

  "Blood. The big fella is Chris Talbot. Did a couple of stretches for GBH in his 6.57 days. The other one is new to me. Way too young for the 6.57."

  "More mates of Bazza's?"

  "Talbot definitely. Same school, same class probably. He's been around Bazza forever. Famous scrapper. Bazza used to use him for muscle when he couldn't be arsed to do the business himself. Nice bloke once you take the wrapping off. Bright, too. Never lost a pub quiz in his life."

  Suttle was watching the sequence unfold. Once they'd got to the ticket barrier, both men let the youth slump to the concourse. While the younger of the two wiped his hands on his jeans and wandered across to a vending machine, Talbot dug in his pocket and produced a pillowslip.

  Bending low, he mopped the youth's face, then hauled him into a sitting position. Semi-conscious, the youth began to struggle. Two seconds later, his head had flopped sideways, the rest of his body propped against the barrier. By the time the men turned to leave, the wreckage of his face had disappeared inside the pillowslip.

  "That's just in case his mates don't get it." Winter had zoomed the picture until the ghostly white outlines of the youth's head filled the screen. "Remember the way we found young Tracy? Bazza's returning the compliment."

  "But the Scousers didn't do it. Isn't that the story? Tracy wasn't down to them."

  "Exactly. Which might make things tricky. These kids know no fear.


  Getting whacked for something they didn't do won't amuse them in the least."

  Winter got to his feet, handing control of the toggle to Suttle. While Winter bent to the map again, scribbling camera designations in his notebook, Suttle played the rest of the sequence.

  "Look…" Suttle was laughing.

  Winter glanced up. On his way out of the station, Chris Talbot had paused beneath the camera, staring straight up at the lens. After a graceful bow came the raised middle finger. Then the big face split into a gap-toothed grin. Three frames later, both men had gone.

  "You want to go back to the van? See what happened?"

  "No." Winter was already heading for the shift supervisor. "This is a bit of a punt but let's see where it takes us."

  The supervisor dug around in the cupboard where he stored the recorded tapes. Last night's were on the bottom shelf, yet to be rewound. He sorted through them, checking against Winter's list, then extracted four.

  "Edinburgh Road first."

  Edinburgh Road was a stone's throw from the station. Winter spooled back the tape until the time code read 02.31.00, then jabbed a finger at the screen. As the images hop scotched backwards, Suttle watched the same white van reverse towards a set of traffic lights.

  "Where next?"

  "My money's on Portsea." Winter was already loading the next tape.

  "The Scouse kid may have been there last night on business and gone on to Gunwharf afterwards with a wad of cash. Talbot drinks at Forty Below. Maybe they clocked him there, followed him back to a car. He'd have parked locally. No way would he pay Gunwharf prices."

  Portsea was a couple of square miles of council flats and Victorian terraced housing that lapped against the walls of the new Gunwharf development. The area scored heavily on every major index of deprivation, and offered drug dealers rich pickings.

  The first of the three new tapes tracked the white van halfway down Queen Street, the spine of Portsea's bony cadaver. On the second tape, the white van disappeared into the maze of streets that stretched west towards the harbour. Winter toggled back and forth, getting his bearings. Finally, he rewound the tape, ejected it, and stood up.

  Suttle had learned to interpret Winter's many smiles. This one spoke of immense satisfaction.

  "Southampton Row or Kent Street." He glanced at his watch. "Ten quid says we'll find his motor."

  It was nearly 10.15 by the time Eadie Sykes made it to the Ambrym offices. Amongst the messages waiting for her on the answer phone was a brief call from a DC Rick Stapleton. He was working out of the CID office at Southsea police station and he'd appreciate it if she could get in touch as soon as possible. He left two numbers, one a mobile, one a landline. Eadie scribbled down the numbers and then replayed the message. Stapleton sounded friendly enough, even apologetic, but a year with Faraday had taught Eadie a great deal about the CID mindset.

  The master tapes from last night were still in her day sack. She turned on the editing suite she used for making copies and sorted out a couple of brand new cassettes. By the time she returned from the tiny kitchen along the corridor with a mug of coffee, the first tape had been playing for nearly five minutes.

  She settled in the swivel chair she used for editing, fascinated yet again by the way she'd managed to coax a bizarre kind of truth from Daniel Kelly. She'd been lucky to find him in such a state. She knew that. Circumstances had delivered him on a plate, desperate to trade anything for that one sweet moment of oblivion, yet there was an anger and a righteousness in his defence of what he'd made of his life. He really did believe that smack was his one and only friend, his sole source of comfort in a bitterly hostile world, yet the physical results of that friendship were impossible to miss. The wildness in his eyes.

  The sudden fever-like shuddering he fought so hard to control. The constant itch that passed for a life. He had a rare talent for shaping a phrase but body language like this gave the lie to all his passionate rationales. Add the sequences that followed and in Eadie's view there wasn't a child on earth who wouldn't draw the obvious conclusion: surrender to smack and you'll end up wrecked.

  The interview over, Eadie slipped in the second tape and reached for the phone. While the number rang, she watched Daniel in his kitchen preparing his fix. The desperation had eased. His lover had returned.

  He was back on home territory, back in a world he understood, locked into those moments of foreplay that guaranteed the pain would go away.

  The number answered. Eadie asked to speak to the coroner. Seconds later, he was on the line.

  "Martin? It's Eadie Sykes."

  Eadie reached forward, turning down the volume on the editing machine.

  Martin Eckersley was relatively new to the city. Eadie had met him several months ago, finding a powerful ally in her bid to raise funding for the video. Like her, he worried about the remorseless spread of hard drugs. And like her, he believed in telling kids the truth about their real-life consequences. Just now, he was playing catch-up on a suspicious overnight death in Leigh Park. Why didn't they meet for a quick bite at lunchtime? Earlier rather than later?

  Eckersley occupied an office in the city centre. Eadie named a cafe-bar several doors away, promising not to waste his precious time.

  "No problem. Table in the back corner? I'll be there at half twelve."

  The line went dead and Eadie looked up to find J-J standing in the open doorway. He looked drawn and pale, even gaunter than usual, and for a crazy moment she wondered whether he hadn't helped himself to one of Daniel Kelly's wraps.

  J-J couldn't tear his eyes off the screen. At the third attempt, the needle found the vein. Eadie was watching him carefully, knowing that sooner or later she had to break the news. Emotionally, J-J was one of the most exposed people she'd ever met. In professional terms, she'd managed to turn that to their mutual advantage potential interviewees warmed to J-J's openness, his absolute lack of guile but there'd occasionally come bleaker moments when situations had overwhelmed him.

  Last night had been one of them. The news that Daniel was dead would doubtless be another.

  On screen, Daniel was stumbling down the hall towards the bedroom. J-J stiffened as he watched the student at the open door, gazing down at the clutter on the floor, trying to puzzle his way around the abandoned duvet. The empty syringe in his forearm was plainly visible, the pale flesh ribboned with a single scarlet thread.

  Eadie waited until the sequence came to an end, then reached forward and turned off the machine. The recognised sign for someone dying is a downward movement, both hands, fingers shaped like a revolver. Instead, Eadie opted instead for a single finger across her throat. Under the circumstances, as a form of suicide, it seemed strangely appropriate.

  "So what happened?" J-J was still staring at the blank screen.

  "Sarah found him. After we'd gone."

  "How long after?"

  "Hours after." She paused. "It wasn't our fault."

  Eadie got to her feet, interposing her body between J-J and the monitor, but the moment she put her arms round him she knew it was a mistake. She could feel the stiffness in him, the hostility. He wanted no part of this. Not last night. And not now. She looked up at him, wondering what else she could say, what might soften this terrible news, but J-J had already broken free.

  "You want a coffee? Something to eat?"

  J-J shook his head, his eyes returning to the screen.

  "Where is he now? Daniel?"

  "At the mortuary. St. Mary's."

  He nodded, absorbing the news.

  "They'll cut him up?" One bony hand touched his eye, then circled his stomach. "Look inside?"

  "Yes."

  "Then what?"

  "I don't know."

  J-J collapsed into the editing chair. Then he looked up at her and for the first time in their relationship Eadie saw a new expression in his eyes. He didn't trust her. She held his gaze for a moment, stony-faced, aware of a mounting anger of her own, a small, hot spark that seemed to grow and gro
w.

  The numbers she'd scribbled earlier were on a pad beside her day sack.

  She reached for the phone, turning her back on J-J, recognising the voice that answered.

  "Rick Stapleton? Eadie Sykes."

  The detective took a second or two to place the name. Then he said he'd appreciate half an hour of her time. He understood she'd been involved in some kind of video shoot with a Mr. Daniel Kelly. He needed to check out one or two things, maybe take a statement.

  "Of course." Eadie checked the video dubs were complete, then glanced at her watch. "Will this morning be OK? My office?"

  She gave him the Ambrym address, and agreed 11.30. By the time she put the phone down and turned round, J-J had gone.

  DC Suttle found the young Scouser's car at the end of Jellicoe Place, a grim cul-de-sac off Southampton Row. A red Cavalier with rusting sills and a dented bonnet, it was parked at an angle with one rear wheel on the pavement. For more than an hour he and Winter had been phoning in registration numbers for PNC checks, working slowly through the Portsea estate. M492XBK, to Suttle's delight, had produced a double hit.

  Winter was at the open end of the cul-de-sac, waiting for news on a nearby J reg Sierra.

  Suttle was pointing to the Cavalier. "Nicked last month from a car park in Birkenhead. Plus it's been flagged by Major Crimes."

  At the mention of Major Crimes, Winter abandoned his mobile conversation with the PNC clerk. Like every other detective in Portsmouth, he'd been aware of the hit and run that had hospitalised Nick Hayder. Clues to the registration had been circulated to every officer in the city, together with a heads-up on the possible make.

  "The fucking Cavalier." He whistled softly. "Bingo."

  Suttle returned to the car and peered in through the windows, Winter beside him. The interior was a mess: two pairs of trainers, a copy of the Daily Star, an open box of Shopper's Choice tissues, empty cans of Stella, a discarded pizza box, a litter of CDs, and tucked behind the driver's seat a bag of what looked like laundry. The radio was missing from the hole in the dash and the tax disc was eight months out of date.