The Price Of Darkness

by Hurley, Graham

  Willard was watching him carefully. Something’s gone wrong, Faraday thought.

  ‘This is absolutely in confidence, Joe. The DUI was a set-up. And Winter’s been in play ever since.’

  ‘You’re telling me he’s working for Mackenzie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But half the force know that.’

  ‘Of course they do. And that’s exactly the situation we wanted to create. What half the force don’t know is that in reality he’s still reporting to us.’

  Faraday nodded. It was no surprise. In fact it was exactly what he’d tried to suggest the night Willard bought him supper at his bloody yacht club. My fault, he thought. Hence this conversation.

  ‘So how’s it going?’

  ‘It’s going well, Joe. It’s complicated, as these things always are, but yes, I’d say it’s going well.’

  ‘But there’s a problem?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Concerning Winter?’

  ‘Yes.’ Willard was taking his time, choosing his words with extreme care. ‘To be utterly frank, Joe, I’m not sure we trust him.’

  ‘And you’re telling me that’s a surprise?’

  ‘Of course it isn’t. We always knew what the man’s like. But there are elements in this situation that … how can I put it … are threatening to get out of control.’

  ‘Is that what Winter’s telling you?’

  ‘Not at all. In fact Winter’s telling us very little. Which is in itself a bit of a worry.’

  ‘Who’s handling him?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘But you’re telling me that Winter is?’

  ‘Yes.’ Willard smiled. ‘To put it bluntly, we need a second opinion.’

  Until Bazza arrived it had been an extremely peaceable evening. Marie had rung Winter on the mobile, inviting him to supper. He was to come early. She had a couple of pictures she wanted to show him on the laptop, a couple of things she needed to discuss. Winter had showered, changed, dabbed on a little aftershave and taken a cab to Sandown Road.

  Marie had readied a couple of large bottles of his favourite San Miguel. There was a bowl of cashew nuts and another of cheese and onion crisps in case he had an allergy. He’d followed her through to the den she used as a study and taken the offered seat at the desk. Her laptop was already fired up and Winter found himself looking at an aerial shot of a stretch of coastline. The sea was very blue, the strip of golden beach virtually empty, but inland a thicket of cranes loomed over a sprawl of unfinished buildings.

  ‘It’s a building site,’ Winter murmured.

  ‘You’re right. It’s a development we’re calling La Playa Esmeralda. Just down the coast from Barcelona. Door to door, you could be there in six hours. Bazza once did it in four and a half but that was a cheat because he got a lift in a chopper from Barcelona.’

  She fingered the touch pad. There were more shots, ground level this time. Winter was trying to count the individual buildings, trying to get some sense of the scale of the development, but Marie saved him the trouble.

  ‘There’s a medium-scale apartment block, seventy-odd units, plus a little estate of low-rise with garages and a bit of garden, plus a couple of stand-alones up on the hill here with a bit of a view, and we’ve also got permission for a modest hotel if the thing takes off. That’ll be here, overlooking the beach. What do you think?’

  She’d produced a map. Winter followed her fingernail as she traced the outlines of this latest addition to Mackenzie’s business empire.

  ‘Looks fine. Did you design this lot from scratch?’

  ‘No. The developer went bust a couple of months ago. It turned out he had no money. We’ve bought it off him.’

  ‘Good price?’

  ‘Excellent price. And with most of the infrastructure work already done. We had a surveyor down there last week. He’s crawled over every last inch of the place - sewerage, water supplies, power feeds, foundations, the lot. There’s oodles to do yet but that’s nice too. We can add a few touches of our own. Here.’

  She opened a file and showed Winter some artwork. These were artist’s impressions rather than computer simulations but if the finished development retained even a hint of these surroundings - mature palm trees, extensive lawns, an artfully designed terrace overlooking the apartment block’s pool - then a couple of hundred residents were in for a treat.

  ‘Who thought all this up?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘They’re lovely.’

  Marie was delighted. She gave him a peck on the cheek, poured more beer.

  ‘You’ll be wondering why I’m showing you all this. The fact is I’ve been pestering Bazza all week.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘You. We’ll need someone down there, Paul. Not now, of course. But soonish. If you get the right firm, Spanish builders work at a thousand miles an hour. We’ll be looking to have the first clients in by this time next year.’

  ‘You want me to sell for you?’ Winter’s heart sank.

  ‘God, no. We get kids to do that. They’re ten a penny. No, what we’re after is someone to keep an overall eye on the place. There’ll be a general manager of course, but he’ll be Spanish. We’re not asking you to move out there permanently. I know you’d hate leaving this place. But what we need is a regular presence there, someone from the family, someone we trust.’

  ‘Me?’ Winter was astonished.

  ‘You, Paul. And you know why it’s a really great idea? Because security is the key. The kind of people who can afford the prices we’re after are very security-conscious. They want to know they’ll be safe down there. They want to know that there’ll be no trouble from the locals. And they want to know that the younger element within the development, kids really, are going to behave themselves. This isn’t Brits on the piss, Paul. With Playa Esmeralda we’re selling peace of mind. It’s people’s quality of life that concerns us. And little me says you’re the man to sort that out.’

  Winter reached for his glass. The last time he’d been to Spain was years back, with Joannie, his late wife. On that occasion they’d ended up in a crap hotel in Torremolinos. The food was disgusting, the room looked onto an open-air discotheque, and on the third night of an August heatwave the air conditioning packed up. At the time he’d sworn never to set foot in Spain again. Now this.

  ‘I’d have somewhere to live while I’m down there?’

  ‘An apartment of your choice, Paul.’

  ‘An office?’

  ‘Of course. And a car. And whatever secretarial help you need. Bazza has a line into a local agency. Really nice girls.’ She helped herself to a cashew nut. ‘What do you think?’

  Bazza himself appeared minutes later. He’d been held up by the last of a thousand meetings. He sounded, thought Winter, like an overstretched businessman at the end of a particularly heavy week. Which was exactly what he was.

  Marie poured him a Coke with a slug of Bacardi. He took a sip, eyeing the laptop’s screen.

  ‘Nice, eh? Marie give you the tour?’

  ‘She did, Baz, she did.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s great.’

  ‘Fancy it, do you? San Miguel on tap? Bit of bronzy? Couple of hours in the office when you get bored?’

  Without waiting for an answer, Bazza scooped up a pile of mail and began to sort through it. Marie flashed Winter a smile and retreated to the kitchen. The scent of garlic hung in the air. Winter was starving already.

  ‘Shit.’ Bazza was frowning at a document. It looked like some kind of contract. He flipped through page after page, shaking his head, then glanced up.

  ‘Tell me about the Scummers. Brodie says they’re planning to race jet skis round the Isle of Wight. So who’s behind all this? Who’s paying the bills?’

  ‘Still working on it, Baz.’

  ‘You must have got some names.’

  ‘A few, yes.’

  ‘Who are they?’

&
nbsp; Winter tallied a couple of Southampton garage owners. Bazza, buried again in his correspondence, said he hadn’t heard of either. Then Winter paused, trying to get the pronunciation right.

  ‘And some other bloke called Cesar?’ he said. ‘Cesar Dobroslaw?’

  The name brought Bazza’s head up. Winter had seen that expression before.

  ‘Caesar? Polish bloke? Fat bastard? Ships in East European totty by the lorryload? Fuck me, Paul.’ He grinned. ‘This guy’s seriously evil. Result or what?’

  Troubled by his exchange with Willard, Faraday made his way home. It was late again, gone ten o’clock. In between conferences with members of the Billhook team, he’d toyed with making a call to Winter, but in the end decided against it. For one thing, given the Mackenzie situation, he wouldn’t welcome contact with a serving cop. For another, Faraday hadn’t a clue what he was supposed to say. Willard, in his view, had launched this particular operation. Given his choice of U/C, Operation Custer was never going to be less than challenging. Surely it was now up to him, as SIO, to sort it out?

  Faraday knew, of course, that this was whistling in the wind. The whole point of being Head of CID was that you made the rules. Rule number one with U/C operations was the absolute need for secrecy. Only a handful of individuals ever needed to be in the loop and extending that loop incurred considerable risks. But if Willard genuinely thought that Custer was in trouble, and that the only way forward lay in hazarding the operation’s integrity still further, then so be it. Sooner or later, whatever his reservations, Faraday would have to pick up the phone. Not now though. Not until he’d worked out something sensible to say.

  He swung the Mondeo into the cul-de-sac that led to the Bargemaster’s House. Gabrielle, for the last two days, had been in London. Faraday had talked to her a couple of times, glad to be part of a conversation that hadn’t revolved round contract killers or errant teenage car thieves. She’d been meeting academic colleagues from the Department of Anthropology at Imperial College. These were people with whom she’d only ever had e-mail relationships and it had been great, she’d said, to be able to put faces to names. They’d been enthusiastic about her work with the Vietnamese hill tribes and promised full peer review of her new book in a number of leading journals. They’d also made a fuss of her, dragging her out to a highly recommended Thai restaurant in the depths of Bloomsbury.

  Faraday found her in the kitchen, slicing a line of bird chillies. Barefoot on the cold lino, she broke off to kiss him. There was a saucepan of something wonderful bubbling on the stove and she’d readied a bottle of South African Pinotage for his return. After two days of snacking from the fridge, two days of no one to bounce off, Faraday realised how much she’d become a part of his life.

  ‘I missed you,’ he said, dumping his briefcase and finding himself a stool. ‘How was it in London?’

  ‘Good. Today I meet the professor. He was very kind, very généreux. One day I think he might offer me a job.’

  ‘Congratulations. Would you want to work in England?’

  ‘Me? Would I like to work in England?’ She smiled, emptying the sliced chillies into the saucepan. ‘Maybe that’s not for me to answer.’

  ‘No?’ Faraday was tired. For once he didn’t pick up the inflection in her voice. She glanced across at him, a little reproachful.

  ‘It’s for you, chéri. Would you like me to work in England?’

  Faraday said he couldn’t think of anything nicer. Except maybe moving to France.

  ‘You’re serious? Toi? Un flic en France?’

  ‘Not a cop, no. Maybe a human being.’

  The comment brought a smile to her face. She said he was famous. The famous Mr Faraday. Someone at the university had brought her a picture from the newspaper. She had it in her bag. Abandoning the stove, she stepped next door. Seconds later Faraday found himself looking at a black and white shot from the Evening Standard. A group of detectives were standing in Goldsmith Avenue. Behind them, beyond the barrier tape, the empty ministerial Rover.

  ‘You, chéri.’ She pointed him out. Faraday barely recognised the hunched, greying figure. He looked even older than he felt. ‘Famous. Everyone in London is talking about it. Célèbre.’

  ‘France.’ Faraday reached up and kissed her again. ‘Definitely.’

  They ate an hour or so later. It was nearly midnight, and as soon as they’d finished Faraday had an irresistible urge to go outside and stand by the harbour. Driving home, he’d spotted the fullness of the moon away to the south-east. By now, with luck, it would be high water.

  It was. He led Gabrielle by the hand. A line of wooden steps accessed the tiny ribbon of pebbly beach. Away in the darkness he could visualise the birds huddled in their roosts. Then came the long haunting call of a curlew. Gabrielle had her arms around him. He could smell her, feel the warmth of her body through the thin cotton of his shirt. Happiness, he thought, could be such a simple proposition.

  They stood together for a long moment. Miles above, in the thin moonlight, the whine of a passing jet.

  ‘I didn’t tell you, chéri…’ She gave him a squeeze.

  ‘Quoi?’

  ‘J-J sent me a text. He’s buying a house. In London.’

  Eighteen

  FRIDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2006. 05.43

  Robbed of sleep, Faraday finally slipped out of bed, groped for his dressing gown, and tiptoed out onto the landing. J-J’s bedroom was at the far end. He switched on the light and closed the door behind him. His son, as usual, had left the room in chaos. The bed was unmade and a cup of cold tea lay beside the brimming ashtray on the window sill. There was a heap of dirty laundry behind the door and the contents of his rucksack spilled across the carpet. Days after J-J’s departure, Faraday could still detect the bitter-sweet scent of marijuana.

  Faraday surveyed the wreckage for a moment or two, uncertain where to begin. He hated having to do this, hated even the thought of prying into J-J’s private life, but last night’s news left him no option. If his son was sharing something as momentous as the purchase of a house with Gabrielle rather than his father, then there had to be something seriously awry.

  He made a start on two pairs of jeans. From the pockets of one he disinterred a book of Russian matches, a couple of metro tickets, a handful of coins and the stump of a pencil. From the other came a ball of tissue, more coins, a scrap of paper with a scribbled name and phone number and a neat little fold-up map of central Moscow. He put the phone number to one side and sorted quickly through the rest of the clothes. Socks, T-shirts, vests yielded nothing. Likewise two pairs of trainers and a sturdy pair of boots.

  Faraday eyed the scatter of paperbacks beside the rucksack. The Lonely Planet Guide to Russia. A battered copy of a Martin Cruz Smith thriller. A brand new edition of Crime and Punishment that looked untouched. Three books of Manga. He flicked through each of these, holding them upside down, hoping for a letter, a note, maybe even a receipt - anything that might shed light on his son’s sudden wealth. In one of the Manga books he found a couple of the postcards to which J-J had attributed his windfall. They both featured shots taken in a cemetery and Faraday studied them a moment. The images were stark, arresting, deeply unusual, but how many of these would you need to sell to earn yourself $70,000? He shook his head, knowing that J-J had been lying. But why?

  He began to dig around in the rucksack. At the bottom was a litter of miscellaneous rubbish - more scraps of paper, a box of toothpicks, four packs of Russian condoms, two wafers of chewing gum, a single crusty sock. He emptied the contents onto the carpet, wondering why J-J could possibly need a dozen hairclips, when something else fell out of one of the rucksack’s side pockets. It was a small digital camera in a soft leather pouch. He looked at it a moment. Inside the pouch, tucked beside the camera, was a memory card wrapped in cling film.

  The camera was an Olympus. Faraday found the power button and turned it on. Prompts on the tiny screen took him through a couple of dozen stored shots, faces mainly, beaming a
t the camera. The venue seemed to be some kind of bar. Many of the shots featured J-J himself. He had a bottle in one hand while the other was draped round an assortment of friends. He looked drunk and happy. Faraday peered at the digital readout. 03.09.06 / 23.13. This must have been his leaving party, he thought, a chance for J-J’s mates to say goodbye. Next day, thick-headed, this son of his would have been heading out to the airport.

  The rest of the memory card was empty. Faraday stripped the cling film from the other card and loaded it into the camera. The first shot, from street level, showed a block of flats. Next came a railway station, somewhere out in the suburbs, with an electric train disgorging hundreds of commuters. Then, suddenly, Faraday found himself looking at a woman in early middle age. Naked, she was sitting on a bed with her back against a bolster. She had a full body, big breasts, and a smile that spoke of recent sex. One hand held a tumbler of something pale and fizzy. The other, between her splayed legs, was displaying her genitalia. Faraday gazed at the image. The detective in him was trying to fathom the link between the station and this moment of post-coital celebration. The father in him was starting to wonder what else J-J had got up to.

  He flicked on through the memory card. Many of the shots were close-ups. The woman had scarlet nails and a dedicated sense of adventure. Whatever pleasure she derived from an empty bottle of vodka and a series of other implements was difficult to gauge because these shots rarely included her face, but she was clearly determined to leave J-J with a reminder of what he was missing once he got home. Towards the end of the card J-J must have put the camera on remote and lodged it elsewhere in the room because there were now two people on the bed, J-J on his knees, his thin white body arched back, while the woman took him in her mouth. Faraday was still trying to cope with the strangeness of seeing his son like this when he heard the door open behind him.