The Price Of Darkness

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘I don’t think career move would matter to her. The truth is Bazza’s out of his depth with these people. Telly, the media, even the business with the Pole over in Southampton - it’s a different world. Bazza doesn’t speak the language. And that pisses him off.’

  Misty was still interested in Brodie.

  ‘He thinks there’s something not quite right about her. He told me that.’

  ‘What does he mean?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. That’s why I’m asking you, Paul.’

  ‘Maybe he thinks she’s a dyke.’

  ‘No, love. That’s not what he thinks.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I can’t. Because I don’t know.’

  ‘Really?’ She reached for his hand, gave it a little squeeze ‘Baz can smell Filth. He’s got a real nose for it. Have you ever noticed?’

  ‘You’re telling me …?’ Winter did his best to look shocked.

  ‘I’m asking you, Paul. Asking you.’

  ‘Then I don’t know.’

  ‘But you think she might be?’

  ‘Anything’s possible.’

  ‘And if she was, would you ask yourself why you’d never noticed? The famous Paul Winter? Eyes like a hawk?’

  Very slowly it was beginning to dawn on Winter that he wasn’t talking to Misty Gallagher at all.

  ‘He sent you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Who, love?’

  ‘Bazza. He turned up last night and said his piece, and told you to pass it on.’

  She gazed at him a moment, then shook her head. ‘He didn’t even have to, love. Like I said, we know each other inside out. I don’t even have to guess anymore. I know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Know what to do. You’re right, though. He fancies the knickers off this woman and being Bazza he’s honest enough to treat me to the details. He’s been listening in to a couple of her calls. Why? Because he wants to know more about her private life, who she’s shagging, how often, what turns her on, all the usual crap. But what he hears makes him very, very uneasy. And just a little bit pissed off.’

  ‘He thinks she’s undercover?’

  ‘He thinks she might be. And that, as you can imagine, Paul, is more than enough.’

  ‘For what, Mist?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, love. It’s just a word in your ear.’ She bent towards him, cupping his big face in her hands. Then she reached for the menu. ‘Shall we order?’

  By mid-afternoon Suttle found himself looking at Charlie Freeth’s service record. He’d talked to the D/I in charge of Human Resources, keeping details to a minimum. Freeth had come to Polygon’s attention with regard to certain events. D/I Faraday, as SIO, needed a feel for the career this man had made for himself. Within the hour, on the promise that Faraday would sign the accompanying Data Protection form, a twenty-six-page file arrived by e-mail.

  Suttle hurried through it, looking for anything that might add to the profile he was trying to build. Freeth had joined up at the age of twenty-three. Within four years he’d finished his CID apprenticeship and was serving on division at Portsmouth North.

  Suttle sped on, reading quickly through Freeth’s annual assessments. His performance had won cautious applause from a series of D/Is. Freeth, wrote one, had ‘an unusual empathy with certain kinds of offenders’, a kinship which seemed to bear out exactly what Suttle had learned last night. He was a good listener, Winter had said. He knew exactly which buttons to press. Suttle smiled, his eye caught by another plaudit, more barbed this time. D/C Freeth, in the opinion of a different D/I, ‘sometimes needed to be aware of the boundaries between sociology and the discharge of his professional responsibilities’. What exactly did that mean? Had Freeth strayed too far from the path beaten by countless fellow detectives? Had he put social theory in front of hard-earned experience? Had he, in short, gone soft?

  Suttle noted the D/I’s name in case he needed to make further checks. Then, two pages later, he paused. He read the entry twice, reached for his pad again, made a note of the date and the supervising officer. Then he picked up the phone. Faraday was down at Kingston Crescent, summoned by Barrie for a meeting. His terse response suggested this was a bad time to call.

  ‘Apologies, boss, but I thought you ought to know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Freeth did the firearms course.’ His eyes found the date again. ‘Six months before he quit.’

  Winter knew he was crazy to even make the call. They’ll be listening, he told himself. They’ll have wired her landline. They’ll have a scanner tuned to her mobile. They’ll have bodies outside the hotel, ready to tuck in behind her, stay close, watch, report back. He did it anyway. They had a code for exactly this situation, standard U/C protocol, the conversational equivalent of the panic button. The call connected to Brodie’s messaging service.

  ‘Kath? It’s me. That bloke from London you thought you’d hooked? Turns out he wasn’t interested.’

  ‘Hooked’ was the key word. ‘Hooked’ was the distress flare he’d fired in Brodie’s direction. ‘Hooked’ told her that she’d probably been blown.

  She phoned back within the hour, said it was a shame. There followed a minute or two of inconsequential conversation before she apologised for having to go and hung up.

  Winter, back in Blake House, tried to imagine her in the basement office at the rear of the Trafalgar. Bazza had made a special effort with a big desk he’d picked up in Albert Road together with a brand new mock-leather swivel chair with Chief Executive on the back. One of the kitchen porters had done a decent job with the white emulsion and Bazza had hung two prints of the Battle of the Nile to give the pokey little room a bit of class. Would Brodie, even now, be packing her attaché case and checking train times to London? Or might her nerve hold for a day or two while she tried to gauge the strength of the threat against her?

  Winter didn’t know, and tried to persuade himself that this threat, this suspicion, didn’t necessarily extend to him. On the contrary, Bazza had evidently been impressed by Winter’s attempts to argue him out of a ruck with Dobroslaw. Paul, he’d told Misty last night, had come on strong, tried to protect his interests, tried to argue him out of doing anything silly. No U/C in his right mind would have done that, Bazza had said, not if they were setting him up for a possible arrest.

  Winter smiled, trying to picture this exchange. The problem with Willard, he thought, is the problem that has dogged U/C operations all along. We underestimate Bazza. We think he’ll never suss what we’re up to when all the time he’s playing a far subtler game of his own. The thought warmed Winter and he toyed with putting in another call to Brodie. Sooner or later he was going to need a clear run, unencumbered, and for that he needed to be sure she was safe.

  The trill of the mobile broke his concentration. It was Mackenzie. He needed Winter over at the hotel. When Winter said it was difficult, that he had another appointment lined up, Mackenzie cut him short.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘Just fucking be there.’

  The girl at reception, obviously expecting Winter, directed him upstairs.

  ‘Room 423.’ She said, returning to her copy of Heat.

  Winter took the lift to the fourth floor. Room 423 was at the end. Pausing outside, he could hear the low mumble of the TV. He knocked then went in. Bazza was sprawled on the bed, watching the horse racing. Brett West stood by the window, leaning against the fall of velvet curtain. The one chair in the room was occupied by Brodie.

  ‘Lock it.’ Bazza didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

  Winter secured the door. Brodie eyed him from the chair. If anything, she looked furious. Class act, Winter thought.

  Bazza killed the sound on the TV, then announced that they had some sorting out to do. A couple of things hadn’t been making much sense to him. He knew what treacherous bastards the Filth could be but he was a fair man and he needed a second opinion.

  ‘That’s you, mush.’ He glanced up
at Winter. ‘In case you were wondering.’

  ‘Delighted, Baz. So what’s this about?’

  ‘Her.’ He nodded at Brodie. ‘Westie’s been on the phone. We’re having a bit of difficulty tracing K-MAX. No one in Los Angeles seems to have heard of it. That makes people like me curious. Which is why Westie went up to town yesterday. Eh, son?’

  ‘That’s right, boss. I went to Snaresbrook, checked out the premises. The place is a shit heap. Belongs to a bunch of Pakis. No one’s been there for weeks.’

  ‘Kath?’ Winter had decided on a tone of mild reproach.

  ‘It’s handy, Paul, and it’s cheap. We’ve discussed all this. The fact is I never got round to doing anything about the place.’

  ‘Sure.’ Winter looked at Mackenzie. ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘The problem, mush, is that no self-respecting agent would go near a dump like that. Westie says there isn’t enough air freshener in the world to get rid of the smell. He’s been in there. He got hold of the key. And you know something? Westie’s someone I trust.’

  Brodie began to protest. ‘You move on. You trade up. It’s a pit stop. And now I’m down here, I’ll buy out of the lease anyway.’

  ‘Who says you’re staying?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Really?’ Mackenzie found that amusing. ‘I’ll say one thing, Kath. You’ve got fucking bigger bollocks than I have. In your shoes I’d be bricking myself. Westie here does a party piece with a couple of Stanley knives taped together. Thing is, a double cut like that is virtually unstitchable. Most of the time he practises on blokes. Don’t get me wrong, love, but he’s been dying to try it out on someone as pretty as you. Eh, Westie?’

  ‘That’s right, boss.’

  ‘So tell her the rest.’

  Westie was smiling now. He produced a small silver object, gaffer-taped at one end. He showed it to Brodie, enjoying his new role. Magician. Enforcer. Full-time nightmare.

  ‘You know what this is, love?’

  ‘No idea.’ Brodie barely spared it a glance.

  ‘It’s a tracking device. Stick it under your motor and we know exactly where you are. Private dicks use them all the time. Rich blokes checking up on their wives. Works a treat.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Winter saw the first tiny flicker of doubt in her eyes.

  ‘Yeah. So what were you doing on Saturday morning? ’

  ‘Saturday?’ She frowned. ‘I was at the hotel.’

  ‘All morning?’

  ‘No. I went shopping.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Southsea.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You had the car out. Try again.’

  ‘Pass. You tell me.’

  ‘You were in Titchfield. You want the address? Seventy-seven Ingleside Avenue. And you know who lives there? This lady. Boss? You want to do the honours?’

  Westie extracted three photos from a file and passed them to Mackenzie. He studied the photos a moment, then offered them to Winter.

  ‘Paul? You want to give us a name?’

  Winter glanced at each of the photos. According to Bazza, Westie had shot them Saturday lunchtime after Brodie had driven back to Portsmouth. The woman in the bulky anorak lived at number 77 Ingleside Avenue. In the photos she was hurrying along a pavement beside a parade of shops. The anorak was blotched with rain and her head was down in two of the shots but the last one showed her face. It was unmistakable. Winter had known for days that this moment would come. And here it was.

  ‘Her name’s Gale Parsons,’ he said. ‘Last time I knew, she was a D/I on Covert Ops.’

  ‘Spot on, Paul. Fucking result, mush.’ He nodded at the door. ‘You can piss off now.’

  Winter shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not, Baz.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said I’m afraid not. Not until you tell me what happens next.’

  ‘That’s none of your business, mush.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because in a situation like this you need some decent advice. Driving me round in a builder’s van half the night is one thing. Lay a hand on this woman, no matter what you feel about her, and you’ll be spending the next fifteen years keeping the bum bandits out of your arse.’

  ‘Yeah? How’s that?’

  ‘Two reasons, Baz. One, I’ll grass you up. And two, you’ll have walked straight into whatever hole these people have just dug you.’

  ‘Grass me up? How come? You’re with us now, mush. Different side of the fence. Different set of fucking rules.’

  ‘You’re off your head, Baz. What are you going to do? Let Westie slice her up? If you do that you’ll have to have her killed. Got rid of. Dumped somewhere. If she’s really a copper, you’ll never hear the end of it. You know that. I know that. I signed up for a spot of free enterprise, not this garbage. Sadism’s not my game, Baz. Never has been.’

  ‘But you said grass, mush. That’s the word you used.’

  ‘Grass, shop, whatever. I’m saving you from a big mistake, Baz. We open the door, Brodie walks, and we all get on with our lives. Do you really need me to tell you that? Or are you back on the fucking powder?’

  For a moment Winter thought he’d overplayed his hand. He could see the quickening pulse in Bazza’s neck. Nothing would have pleased Westie more than a spot of recreational ultra-violence. He was on his toes now, the company Rottweiler scenting blood.

  Brodie seemed to have lost interest. She was still in the chair, composed again. Her head was turned towards the window. She didn’t even attempt to defend herself.

  The silence stretched and stretched. Finally Bazza swung his legs off the bed and walked across to Brodie’s chair. Briefly Winter toyed with opening the door himself, with summoning help, with bringing this whole charade to a halt. Then Bazza’s hand settled on Brodie’s jaw. He turned her face to his, bent low.

  ‘You know what you should have done, love, don’t you?’

  ‘Sorry I disappointed you.’ She had the coldest smile. ‘But if you’d asked me again, I’d still have said no.’

  ‘Shame. You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  ‘All the boys say that.’

  ‘I bet they fucking do. Except this one means it.’ Her held her gaze for a long moment. Then his voice became a whisper. ‘You’ve got ten minutes to get out of my life, love. If you’re not gone by then I’ll let Westie fill his boots. Comprende?’

  She nodded and got to her feet. Winter unlocked the door, stepping aside to let her pass. The last he saw of her, she was heading for the lift at the end of the corridor. She didn’t look back.

  It was gone five o’clock when Jimmy Suttle finally managed to get through to Charlie Freeth’s partner. Slightly out of breath, she was curious to know why a policeman wanted to talk to her. She had a stack of homework to sort out and the washing machine was still out of action so she was due a visit to the launderette.

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘And you won’t tell me what it’s about?’

  ‘We’d prefer to talk face to face.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Myself and my boss, Miss …’ Suttle paused, realising he didn’t know her surname.

  ‘Greetham,’ she said.

  ‘Greetham? As in Frank Greetham?’

  ‘That’s right. You know about my dad?’

  ‘Sure.’ Suttle had caught Faraday’s eye across the desk. ‘Sure I do.’

  Twenty-two

  MONDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2006. 17.35

  Julie Greetham, Faraday sensed at once, had closed a door on the world. She peered into the late-afternoon sunshine, shielding her eyes against the glare. She was a slight, fine-boned woman in her mid-thirties. The cropped hair was already greying and there was something very defensive in the way she held herself, as if she’d recently pulled a muscle.

  ‘You’ve come then?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Ms Greetham. Bad pennies.’ Su
ttle, already, was doing his best to cheer her up. He senses it too, Faraday thought. The drawn, pale face. The flatness in the voice.

  They followed her inside, down the narrow hall. The house was bigger than it looked from the street. A couple of steps led down to a long, dark room at the back with a kitchen at the far end. There was still a cereal bowl and a packet of Weetabix on the breakfast bar and when Faraday turned to close the door he found himself gazing at an enormous heap of laundry. On top was a pair of Calvin Klein boxers.

  Suttle was inspecting a wallboard full of photos at the far end of the room. His eye was caught by a knot of kids wading across a stream. Some of these faces he’d seen before.

  ‘Was this taken at Tile Barn?’ He pointed to another shot, three young girls mugging for the camera.

  ‘Yeah.’ Julie’s face brightened for a moment. ‘That was back in the spring. That one I took myself.’

  ‘Is Dermott O’Keefe in any of these?’

  ‘Dermott? Yes.’

  She pointed out a thin-faced, frail-looking adolescent posed outside a two-man tent. The jeans were at least a size too big but the grey hoodie looked familiar and there was laughter in his eyes. Suttle asked whether he might borrow the shot. The school photo he’d acquired from O’Keefe’s mother was three years out of date.

  ‘Is that why you’re here? Because of Dermott?’

  ‘It’s one of the reasons, yes. We’re trying to find him. He seems to have gone to ground.’

  ‘You say one of the reasons. What are the others?’

  ‘Boss?’

  Faraday had found himself a stool at the breakfast bar. This woman’s father had committed suicide barely weeks ago. Frank Greetham had spent his working life with Gullifant’s and the collapse of the firm had left him under enormous pressure. Half an hour ago, before they’d left the incident room, Suttle had been on to the Coroner, wanting the details, and the uniformed P/C who served as the Coroner’s Officer had read him the contents of the note left on the dashboard of the Toyota in which Frank Greetham had killed himself. By the time you read this I’ll be dead, thank God. He’d written. If I was younger, and braver, I might have done something about it. People like you shouldn’t be allowed. Unusually in these circumstances, the note had an addressee. Mr J. Mallinder. If one was looking for a motive for the developer’s murder, thought Faraday, then surely this was it: the family settling a debt or two, as if another death would offer some meagre compensation for the abrupt disappearance of a lifetime’s savings.