The Price Of Darkness

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Yeah?’ Winter unbuttoned his car coat. ‘So what did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him exactly what you’d told me. He had the grace to say he was sorry about the cocaine seizure. You should have been warned. He regrets what happened. He asked me to pass that on.’

  ‘Great. What else did he say?’

  ‘I asked him about the deal the pair of you have. Deal was a word he didn’t much like but I think he got my drift.’ She glanced down at some notes on the pad at her elbow. ‘I gather there’s an informal agreement that you return to the job after Custer comes to an end.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s what we agreed. Bazza goes down, along with half his firm, and yours truly is back in harness. He also mentioned some kind of special payment.’

  ‘I see.’ She reached for a pencil, pursed her lips. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’

  ‘Not at all. Do I need a lawyer?’

  ‘Of course you don’t. I hope you trust me.’

  ‘So what’s the question?’

  ‘It’s very simple really.’ She sat back in the chair. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  Winter took his time. The last couple of days he’d been asking himself exactly the same question.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ he said at last. ‘I was extremely pissed off with Mackenzie, that’s the first thing, and I suppose I wanted some kind of …’ he shrugged ‘… payback. I know I’ve made life difficult for him in the past but what happened in the van was way over the top. Then there was the challenge of the thing. I’ve been around a bit. I know you can’t pot guys like Mackenzie by playing the white man. You have to break the rules. You have to get under their skins. You have to come at them from the direction they least expect. It’s only that way you’ll get any kind of result.’

  ‘That’s exactly what Mr Willard said.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. He nicked it from me.’

  Winter’s answer put a smile on her face. She wanted to know more about the deal with Willard.

  ‘There is no more. It was a handshake thing. Like I said last time, the DUI was a set-up. The least he owes me is my job back.’

  ‘And you’d be happy with that?’

  ‘Of course. How many other D/Cs in this town would have taken a scalp like Bazza’s?’

  ‘And what about … ah … repercussions?’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘People close to Mackenzie who might take offence. You think you can deal with that?’

  ‘Of course. It’s the rules of the game. If we’ve been smart enough to pot them, they’re down for the consequences. ’

  ‘But you’re winning these people’s confidence. They trust you. They think you’re genuinely bent.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘So afterwards …’ she was staring at the pencil ‘… they might feel there’s a debt to settle.’

  Winter, at last, realised where this conversation was heading. He waited until her head came up. He wanted eye contact.

  ‘This isn’t about me at all, is it?’ he said softly. ‘This is about you. And Mr Willard.’

  ‘There are issues, certainly, that we should be exploring. ’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘This vulnerability of yours. Afterwards.’

  ‘Sure. And yours too.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m following you.’

  ‘Of course you are. I’m a copper. I accept an invitation to go U/C. I build myself a nice little legend. I’m old, I’m useless, I drink too much, and I’m slung out on my ear. Every Pompey villain knows me. There’s no way I can pretend I’ve never been a cop. But that’s the beauty of it. Half the city thinks I’m bent already. The fact that I end up on Bazza’s books is old news. But then, hey presto, I lay hands on a little evidence or I lay a trap or two, enough to put Bazza away, plus some of his buddies, and there’s a trial, and they all go down, and then months later yours truly, back in the job, gets himself a thorough smacking. Some little Somerstown tyro trying to make a point. Probably half a dozen of them. Naturally, whether I’m dead or just laid out, there’s an inquiry. Who dreamed up this little stunt? Who sanctioned it? Who monitored it? Who failed to anticipate what happened to poor old D/C Winter? And guess where the finger points …’

  ‘Nice speech.’ Parsons mimed applause. ‘We ought to talk specifics.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Like Mr Willard’s offer.’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘He believes that this business last week, the cocaine seizure, has changed the scenario. To put it bluntly, he believes you may be at risk.’

  ‘I’ve been at risk from the start.’

  ‘More at risk.’

  ‘He wants to withdraw me? Abort the whole thing? Only that could be tricky. In fact that would leave me completely in the shit. What do I tell Bazza? That I’ve got a headache? That the money’s crap? That I’m really a copper? Do me a favour, boss. This is like the cocaine thing all over again. In fact it’s worse. Those guys know where I live. They’d nail me to the floor.’

  ‘That’s exactly the point.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  Parsons studied him for a long moment. Then she pushed the notepad to one side.

  ‘I have to be frank. We’ve done a full risk assessment. It’s late in the day, I admit, but at least we’ve got to grips with it.’

  ‘Who’s “we”?’

  ‘Myself and Mr Willard. There’s no question of pulling you out, not at this point in the operation, not unless you insist, and of course that’s absolutely your right, but whatever happens we’re obliged to offer you resettlement.’

  ‘You what?’ Winter was staring at her now. ‘Resettlement?’

  ‘Exactly. We’ll make sure you have the whole package, of course. New ID, new passport, new documentation, new address. Full pension.’

  ‘Pension?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You’d have a choice. Canada, New Zealand or Australia. We’d pay all relocation expenses plus we’d find you suitable accommodation until you’d had a chance to find your feet.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We’d contribute to the capital cost of a house or a flat, whatever you chose. There’d be adjustments, of course, depending on your own financial circumstances, once you’d sold your own place.’ She reached for the pad again, and picked up the pencil. ‘Gunwharf, isn’t it?’

  Winter ignored the question. He was still absorbing the implications of this bombshell.

  ‘The full makeover then. A new me. Put out to grass.’ The phrase made him laugh.

  Parsons didn’t see the joke. ‘Absolutely.’ She nodded. ‘Mr Willard and I both agree it’s an appropriate outcome.’

  ‘And what if I say no?’

  ‘Then we’d have to look at other pathways forward.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like a transfer to another force.’

  ‘In the UK?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘But not Pompey?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So there’s no way I can get back to the job? Like he promised?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Not the way things have panned out. It’s for the best, Paul, believe me.’

  There was a long silence. Winter could hear the clatter of a trolley in the corridor outside. At length Parsons adjusted the collar of the white coat she must have borrowed. Winter felt like asking her for an aspirin.

  ‘I’m fucked,’ he said softly.

  ‘Paul, I’m not hearing this.’

  ‘No?’ He gazed at her, robbed of anything coherent to say. Two weeks undercover. A fortnight on the hardest job he’d ever been asked to sort out. Moments when he was certain they’d sussed him. Moments when he knew he’d be lucky to get away with a beating. And now this. Fucked. Rebottled. Relabelled. Stuffed on a plane and exported to the other side of the world. He shook his head. Looked away. There were tears in his eyes. He didn’t want her t
o see them.

  ‘Naturally, we don’t expect a response immediately, certainly not this afternoon …’ she glanced at her watch ‘… but we’d appreciate some kind of decision soon. Maybe in a couple of days. Would that be asking too much?’

  Winter was still gazing into nowhere. There were two things he held precious in his life. One was the job. The other was Pompey. And here they were. Both gone. He tipped his head back a moment, gazing up at the ceiling. He had to get a grip. Now, above all, he had to make-believe.

  ‘I appreciate it, boss.’ He gave her a smile. ‘It’s nice to know you’ve thought this thing through.’

  He got to his feet and made for the door. Only when he’d opened it did she call him back.

  ‘I’m glad you see it our way, Paul,’ she said. ‘Mr Willard, to be frank, had his doubts.’

  Half an hour later, Bazza returned in the Range Rover. Shreve was in the back, reading a copy of Exchange and Mart. Winter hurried across to the kerb and climbed in. It wasn’t until they’d left the one-way system that Bazza enquired about the scan.

  ‘What did they find?’

  ‘Sod all, Baz.’ Winter felt unaccountably light-headed. ‘And you know why? Because there’s nothing fucking there.’

  Sixteen

  THURSDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2006. 08.01

  Jimmy Suttle, much to his embarrassment, was late for the breakfast meet. She was already waiting for him at the table at the back of the café. She must have been there a while because she’d nearly finished the Guardian quick crossword. She spared him a brief glance as he sank into the other chair.

  ‘Disorder. Five letters.’

  ‘Chaos.’

  ‘Very good.’ She pencilled the answer in. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Knackered.’

  He’d known Lizzie Hodson, on and off, for the best part of a year. Small and baby-faced with a first-class honours degree in political science, she was a surprise addition to the News reportorial staff, but Suttle had always believed her when she said she loved the city, and her passion for the job itself had never been in dispute. Dogged, nosy and unforgiving, he’d often told her she’d make a great detective.

  Now she carefully folded the paper and stowed it in her rucksack.

  ‘So how much do you know?’ she asked.

  ‘The basics. A chain of ironmongers. A dozen or so shops across the south. Sold as a going concern three years ago. Collapsed soon afterwards. Does that sound about right?’

  She nodded. He’d phoned her last night. Another contact at the News had mentioned an investigative piece she’d done on Gullifant’s, the week the company went bust. He’d tried to access the feature from the News website but without success. Hence his offer to buy breakfast.

  ‘Full fried? The works?’ Suttle was studying the menu.

  She shook her head. She’d had a bowl of muesli first thing. Another coffee would be good. No sugar.

  ‘You mind if I … ?’ He gestured at the menu. He was starving.

  ‘Go ahead. Did you get the flat in the end?’

  ‘Yeah. I exchanged last week.’

  ‘The place in North End? The one you showed me?’

  ‘Yeah. I held off for a bit because I thought I was in for a decent settlement after last year but in the end it was only four grand so the mortgage turned out bigger than I wanted.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  Suttle gave the woman behind the counter a wave. All-day breakfast. Pot of tea. Then he turned back to Hodson. They’d gone out a couple of times when he was still convalescing after getting himself stabbed and he’d shared his hopes of a big whack of money from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. At the time he’d enjoyed her company and been slightly disappointed at her reluctance to take the relationship any further. She was sharp and funny. More to the point, she cared a great deal about the job she did.

  ‘You want to tell me about Gullifant’s?’ he queried. ‘I know you’re pushed for time.’

  She nodded. Most days she had to be in the newsroom by half eight for the prospects meet but this morning she could stretch that by a quarter of an hour, max.

  ‘This was a Pompey firm,’ she said. ‘Born and bred. The founder was a guy called Ernest Gullifant, sweet old thing by all accounts. I managed to lay hands on an old sepia shot of him outside the shop. Fratton Road. Number forty-three. It’s a nail bar now.’

  Gullifant’s, she said, had been a hardware store. The business had stayed in the family for generation after generation. By the early eighties there were two other branches, one in Copnor, another in Southsea. They sold everything from paint and hanks of rope to electrical fittings and gardening equipment. Then, in 1983, control had passed to Simon Gullifant.

  ‘He was young, barely out of his twenties. He was also the first of them to go to university. He was ambitious. He wanted to grow the business. He had big ideas. If you want to put your finger on where it all went wrong, it was probably then.’

  Simon, she said, had raised capital by selling forty-five per cent of the shares in the company. This funded an expansion across the south. He opened a further ten hardware stores in towns like Farnham, Midhurst and Petworth, each of them badged with the Gullifant’s guarantee of personal service.

  ‘Bottom line, he was selling tradition. These were shops where someone looked after you. You could be as ditzy as you liked. You could be a clueless housewife or some brain-dead student but there’d be a bloke with lots of patience and a nice smile behind the counter who’d explain exactly what you needed. And location-wise they were accessible, right in the middle of town.’

  ‘Sounds great. Where’s the catch?’

  ‘Timing. Retail was changing. Everyone was moving out to the trading estates.’

  ‘But surely that’s what this Gullifant guy had anticipated? ’

  ‘You’re right, but pretty quickly he found out why. The big players were building these huge out-of-town retail sheds. They offered parking, convenience, coffee - all that stuff - plus they had huge buying power so they could afford to knock the merchandise out at killer prices. Simon Gullifant stuck at it for the best part of twenty years but, looking back, he never had a prayer.’

  Year on year the losses mounted. An expensive advertising campaign failed to attract more punters. A couple of the worst-performing stores were closed. Thirty or so workers were made redundant. A vast hole appeared in the pension fund. And by 2002 an increasingly harassed Simon Gullifant - by now in his early fifties - was only too eager to listen to overtures from a Croydon-based development company.

  ‘Benskin, Mallinder?’

  ‘Exactly. These guys were sharp. They were tuned in. They recognised a car wreck when they saw one, but they’d done their homework and knew that some of the Gullifant’s freeholds were potentially worth a fortune. Largely because they’d hold the key to town-centre redevelopments.’

  Farnham, she said, was one example. Dorking was another. Suttle, eyeing his breakfast, wanted to know why Gullifant hadn’t spotted this.

  ‘He was tired, Jimmy. He’d had enough. He had a price in mind for the whole business, the whole chain, and if this Croydon bunch could meet it he’d be more than happy. He wanted to buy himself a yacht. He wanted to set his family up and sail away.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Benskin, Mallinder gave him more or less what he was after. Gullifant was happy as Larry, though in terms of what happened later it turned out to be a steal.’

  ‘And the shops?’

  ‘Here’s the killer. Benskin, Mallinder had bought Gullifant’s through a stand-alone company they’d created specially. They called it Redmayne. It was a condition of sale that they continue trading but they just ran it into the ground. Stock levels were all over the place. Service was crap. There was no budget for advertising or price reductions. Gullifant’s just curled up and died.’

  In 2005, she said, Redmayne went into receivership. Over the last two trading years
, she said, they’d booked cumulative losses of nearly four million pounds. Survivors from the old Gullifant’s workforce collected their P45s. Even worse, they learned that the company pension fund would be able to pay out barely fifteen per cent of their expected benefits.

  ‘Some of these people had been with the firm all their working lives. A handful of them came from Pompey. The more I found out, the more I knew I was looking at a really substantial piece. Nothing sells like bad news, and if you’d been behind the counter at Gullifant’s all your life, the news couldn’t get much worse. Here …’ She extracted an envelope from her rucksack and handed it across. Suttle found himself looking at a photocopy of the piece she’d written. The headline read Thanks for Nothing.

  ‘So what about Benskin, Mallinder?’

  ‘They cleaned up. They bought the freeholds from Redmayne and popped them in the bank. The sale of just three of them, when the moment was right, has covered their entire investment in Gullifant’s. The rest will be bunce.’ She laid a cold hand on Suttle’s wrist. ‘Capitalism in action, Jimmy. Never fails.’

  ‘And the pension fund? That’s not their responsibility? ’

  ‘It turns out not. This is a bit technical but their sense of timing was perfect. The rules changed on the first of April 2005. After that, Redmayne would have had a problem.’

  ‘So when did they go bust?’

  ‘March the 27th.’ She smiled again. ‘Neat, isn’t it?’

  Winter was treating himself to a mid-morning coffee. He’d been living in Gunwharf now for the best part of two years and from the huge choice of waterfront café-bars and restaurants, this was his favourite. The table in the sunshine beside the window. The waitress who took the trouble to give him a smile. The French pastries that came with his cappuccino. And above all the view.

  He was gazing at it now, soaking it in. It was like a lotion, he’d decided. It made him tingle inside. It brought a smile to his face. It made him feel like the person he really wanted to be. Bottle a view like this, he told himself, and you’d make a fortune.