No Lovelier Death

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘We’ve no choice, Jerry. Unless you’re braver than me.’

  Proctor smothered a yawn, knowing it was true. Then the silence was broken by the sound of the door opening at the end of the corridor. The footsteps this time were rapid. DCI Parsons. Had to be.

  Seconds later she was standing at Faraday’s office door. She must have had a change of clothing in her office because she was wearing a black two-piece, nicely cut, that gave the impression of a waist. Proctor was too tired to hide his smile.

  ‘Looks great, boss. Going anywhere nice?’

  She ignored the dig. She was looking at Faraday.

  ‘How are you doing, Joe?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Names for the interview teams?’

  ‘Next on my list.’

  ‘Good. Run them past me when you’re ready. In the meantime wish me luck.’

  Parsons had produced a slip of paper. It had come from the party house. Faraday glimpsed a line of digits.

  ‘We recovered this from a corkboard in the kitchen.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A number for the Aults. God knows where they are but it seems they’ve got a satphone on board.’

  Chapter three

  SUNDAY, 12 AUGUST 2007. 08.15

  Faraday was asleep when Detective Chief Superintendent Willard appeared at his office door. He awoke to find the bulky figure of the Head of CID conducting a shouted conversation with someone down the corridor. Faraday rubbed his eyes and reached across the desk to open the window. An hour’s kip had made him feel, if anything, worse.

  ‘Sir?’

  Willard had stepped inside now. He had Jerry Proctor’s bulk. The office felt suddenly cramped. He wanted to know where DCI Parsons had gone.

  Faraday did his best to remember. The last time he’d seen Parsons, she was emerging from her office having put the call through to the Aults.

  ‘She went over to Netley, sir. Then she’s going on to Winchester for the PM.’

  The force training HQ at Netley housed all the forensic departments. The post-mortem was scheduled for ten o’clock at the Royal Hants. With luck, Parsons would return with preliminary findings by lunchtime.

  ‘She knows about the TV people?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Did she mention it at all?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  Willard grunted, peering down at the hastily pencilled lists on Faraday’s desk. He was wearing a sober three-piece suit with a Royal Yachting Association tie. A waistcoat in mid-August was a sure sign of an impending media interview.

  ‘Tell her it’s taken care of, OK? Sky and the Beeb are set up at the end of Sandown Road. I’m off down there now. What should I be telling them?’

  It was a good question. Faraday listed the known facts. The party that had got out of control. Umpteen kids in custody centres across the region. Two bodies beside the neighbour’s pool. Two prime suspects under arrest.

  ‘Mackenzie?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And his missus.’

  ‘What’s the strength?’

  ‘Highly doubtful. Even if he was pissed he wouldn’t be that silly.’

  ‘My thoughts entirely. Be nice to have a nose round his property, though. You’ve got the warrant sorted?’

  ‘Suttle’s onto it now. Jerry’ll put his blokes in after they’ve finished round the pool.’

  ‘I hear we’ve found a guy across the road, kept tabs on the incident throughout the evening, even made a log. Is that right?’

  The news startled Faraday. He said he didn’t know. It had been a long night. Twenty-four hours without much sleep wasn’t the best preparation for a job like this.

  Willard wasn’t listening. He’d found the list of interviewing D/Cs Faraday had scribbled before his head had settled softly on the desk.

  ‘What’s the plan here? You’ve been in touch with this lot?’

  ‘First thing, sir, a couple of hours ago. They’re all due a briefing at half eight. I’m putting Yates and Ellis into the Bridewell. The rest of them I’m spreading around.’

  ‘What about Thames Valley? West Sussex? Dorset?’

  ‘I’ve booked conference calls for nine o’clock onwards. In every case they’re bringing in D/Is as coordinators. So far they’ve been bloody helpful: kit seizures, police surgeons, PNC checks, the lot. It’s arm’s length, I’m afraid, but it’s the best we can do. We’re looking to sieve out the bystanders and get some kind of handle on a timeline. The probables and possibles we’ll ship back down here. Unless of course we get a result first off.’

  ‘No chance.’

  Something in Willard’s voice put the ghost of a smile on Faraday’s face. He wants this to run and run, he thought. He’s guaranteed headlines already and he wants some kind of return for all the holes in his budget.

  Willard was checking his watch. He’d call by later in the day. Faraday was to bell him if he needed more leverage with the neighbouring forces.

  He stepped out into the corridor, colliding with one of the civilian indexers from the MIR. The Major Incident Room had been firing up for an hour now, staff hauled in on overtime. Faraday got to his feet. Most of the indexer’s coffee was dripping down the opposite wall. She must have found a new tin, Faraday thought vaguely. Thank Christ for that.

  Willard turned back to him. One more question before he went.

  ‘The judge …’ he said. ‘They’re bound to ask.’

  ‘It’s Peter Ault.’

  ‘I know. Where is he?’

  ‘In the middle of the South Pacific. DCI Parsons raised him a couple of hours ago.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He and his wife are on a friend’s yacht. They’re turning back to their last port of call. He’s estimating Heathrow on Thursday morning. ’

  ‘Sure, Joe. But how does he feel about it all?’

  ‘Feel, sir?’ Faraday was watching the indexer mopping up the coffee. ‘I imagine he’s quite upset.’

  It was the TV news that called Winter back in from the sunshine. With some reluctance he hauled himself out of the new recliner on his balcony and stepped back into the shadowed cool of the big living room. Beyond the picture windows a jet ski from the Harbour Patrol was scrolling lazy circles on a flooding tide and he lingered for a moment, thinking of Bazza’s dead brother, before settling himself on the sofa in front of his new widescreen TV. Plans to commemorate Mark Mackenzie with a jet ski Grand Prix had come to nothing, but he knew he owed this new life of his to Mark’s accident. Every cloud, he thought, reaching for the remote.

  BBC News 24 was promising a live update on overnight events in Southsea and within seconds Winter found himself looking at a pretty Asian reporter framed against the well-heeled villas of Sandown Road.

  Scenes of Crime teams, she said, had moved into two of the properties behind her. In one of them, the party house, investigators were already talking of substantial damage and looting. Entire rooms had been wrecked, furniture overturned, pictures and ornaments smashed, carpets ruined. No one was counting as yet but the bill could easily run to five figures.

  Worse was the tragic news that two young people had been killed, not in the house itself but in the garden of the property next door. Police had yet to release names but were believed to be working on the theory that the party and the double murder were linked. In a huge overnight operation Hampshire police had called on neighbouring forces to help house and interview nearly a hundred partygoers, many of them far from sober. This morning, she said, was a time for sore heads and a deep, deep sense of loss. But where next for this mammoth investigation?

  The shot widened to discover Willard by her side. His tinted lenses had darkened in the bright sunshine, emphasising the pallor of his skin. Ignoring the reporter’s question, he took issue at once with her use of the word ‘looting’. Looting, he said, was associated with natural disasters, with earthquakes, with floods. This was something totally different, something man-made. Many of the young people at last night’s
party appeared not to have been invited. That raised issues of trespass, of housebreaking, of criminal damage, possibly of theft. Add the tragic deaths she’d already mentioned, and the implications were profoundly disturbing. Not just for the friends and family of the victims. But for all of us.

  Scenting a headline, the reporter asked him to explain. Given an invitation like this, Willard couldn’t help himself. He was on live television. On a Sunday morning half of suburban Britain would probably be tuned in. Fighting the temptation to turn directly to the camera, he tallied the real damage these young people had done. Two needless deaths were bad enough but what people might live to remember was the spectacle of an entire city left virtually unpoliced while officers did their best to deal with a bunch of partying thugs.

  These people, in his view, were the tip of a very dangerous iceberg. What we’d seen last night was near-anarchy. Only patient police work - and a huge amount of money - had restored some semblance of law and order. As it was, force resources had been stretched to breaking point. Any more parties like that, and good people, decent people, might find themselves living under a state of siege.

  The frankness of his admission surprised even Winter. He looked round the apartment. Was it time to change the locks on the front door? Buy himself a Rottweiler? Borrow some of Bazza’s more inventive heavies? He turned back to the TV but Willard had said his piece and the smile on the reporter’s face told Winter she’d got her scoop. TOP COP WARNS OF ANARCHY. KIDS RULE, OK? COP WARNS OF ANARCHY. KIDS RULE, OK?

  The picture cut to a pre-edited piece shot an hour or so earlier. A couple of suited CSIs were carrying forensic gear in through Bazza’s front door. Winter recognised the steel-grey case that housed a Quasar. This was a wonderful bit of kit that used a special light frequency to bring out latent marks - blood, fluids, fingerprints - invisible to the naked eye, and it meant that Bazza might be in deeper shit than he’d previously thought. What if he’d dragged a couple of scrotes in from next door and given them a slapping? What if a lesson like that had got out of hand? What if Marie had got her Marigolds out, swabbed away the blood but left a tiny trace or two for the man with the Quasar?

  He thought about the possibility for a moment or two, watching pictures of a P/C sweeping broken glass from the pavement of the house next door, then dismissed it. He’d no idea who’d be SIO on the developing investigation but in his or her place he’d jump at the chance of getting a Section 8 warrant on Bazza’s pad. The sense of grievance after the collapse of Operation Tumbril would still be there, lingering like a bad smell in certain CID offices. The chance to settle a debt or two would be irresistible. Paperwork that might offer a way into Bazza’s ever-expanding empire. Bank statements that might contain evidence of fraud or corruption. Even a line or two of recreational Class A drugs. None of these would have any conceivable link to last night’s events but that, as Winter knew only too well, didn’t matter. Anything to give Bazza’s perch a poke. Anything to make the cocky bastard wobble.

  The reporter at last signed off and Winter wandered through to his kitchen, knowing already that any kind of fishing expedition at 13 Sandown Road was doomed. The best part of a year on Bazza’s payroll had taught him how disciplined the man had become, and how careful. The days of hands-on involvement in the drugs biz were well and truly over, and while Bazza still enjoyed keeping a benevolent eye on some of the younger players on the scene he was far too busy making legitimate money to take the slightest risk with his growing reputation.

  In the early days of Winter’s contract, back in the late autumn, he’d been dispatched to a residential development on the Costa Dorada south of Barcelona. The project had always been more Marie’s baby than Bazza’s. She’d bought it for a song after the collapse of a Spanish property company, and finished it with an eye to attracting modestly well-off retired couples. As well as sunshine and cheap booze she was selling peace of mind, and it had been Winter’s job to sort out security on the place.

  He’d stayed a couple of months, occupying a freezing makeshift office beside the unfilled pool, but after successfully bonding with an ex-inspector from the Policia Municipal who’d been more than happy to supply some local muscle, he’d quickly tired of whinging sixty-five-year-olds who’d run out of HP sauce and drunken ex-squaddies who desperately wanted a new best friend. By Christmas, he’d become a kind of welfare officer, a job description that in no way matched the excitements of the life he’d left behind. On the phone, minutes after receipt of his plaintive email, Marie had tried to make a joke of it and then offered her apologies. Bazza, she said, was cooking up another little idea. Less than a week later, Winter was on the plane home, director-designate of Mackenzie Confidential.

  Just the title had won Winter’s heart. It was billed as ‘the ultimate screening service’, and the glossy brochure offered in-depth pre-contract recruitment checks, full-spectrum competitor analysis, a range of supplier information and bespoke customer profiles. On signature of a two-year contract, local entrepreneurs - big or small - could take the risk out of free enterprise. Whenever a hotelier had a moment’s doubt about a new chef, or a block booking, or the bona fides of the Pompey builder who’d put in a bid for the planned rear extension, then all he had to do was lift the phone and talk to Mackenzie Confidential.

  The service didn’t come cheap, as Mackenzie was the first to admit, but from the off Winter had loved the challenge of the job. He’d spent most of his working life being paid to be nosy and this, in essence, was no different. Except the paperwork never got out of hand, there was no one down the corridor to make life difficult for him, and when push came to shove he could always call on one or other of Mackenzie’s lifelong buddies to apply a little extra pressure.

  He grinned, reaching for the kettle. He’d known already that personal data was as available as apples in an orchard. Find the right guy, pay him the right money, and there was nothing you couldn’t nail down about an individual. He’d started trading in February and word about Mackenzie Confidential had quickly spread around the city. Paul Winter. Ex-cop. Brilliant connections. Sharp as you like. And a laugh too.

  To Bazza’s delight, the contracts had come rolling in and by early summer Mackenzie Confidential had spawned Mackenzie Sunrise (‘buying your new life abroad’), Mackenzie Poolside (‘taking the risk out of foreign relocation’) and Mackenzie Courier (‘distance no object’). The latter was the love child of Bazza’s drug smuggling operations back in the nineties - importing vast quantities of cocaine from middlemen in the Dutch Antilles - and Winter found himself employing faces he’d last seen in court. This time, though, they were dealing with totally legitimate high-value items, hand-carried to any corner of the globe, and although some of the veterans complained of boredom on the longer flights, the profit margins - like the pay - made up for everything.

  Sunrise and Poolside had naturally involved a lot of foreign travel on Winter’s part, and lately he’d begin to tire of the drive to Gatwick, but he’d discovered that his natural ruthlessness coupled with a seeming affability was the perfect combination if you fancied your prospects as a tyro businessman, and it pleased him a great deal when even Bazza himself had been surprised at his success. The Lexus had been one way of saying thank you. Rumours of an invite to Misty Gallagher’s, over on Hayling Island, might well turn out to be another. Either way, Winter was warmed by the prospect of the coming months.

  Spooning sugar into his tea, he kept an eye on the TV through the open kitchen door. Already, Willard’s comments had sparked a modest studio debate on BBC News 24. A woman from a London-based charity for delinquent kids was talking about problem families. We reap what we sow, she was saying. We worship money, and power, and easy pickings. We live in a help-yourself society and we measure happiness by the thickness of our wallets. Too right, thought Winter, beaming at the set.

  Faraday was late getting to the Bridewell for the first of the interviews. The conference calls had taken longer than he’d anticipated and the opening
session with Bazza Mackenzie was well under way when he slipped into the monitoring room alongside the interview suite.

  The Tactical Interview Adviser was sitting at the table, scribbling himself a note. Mackenzie’s battered image hung on the monitor set cabled to a camera next door. Beside him sat his lawyer, Nelly Tien.

  Mackenzie had put on a little weight since Faraday had last seen him and he must have been somewhere hot because his face was heavily tanned under a night’s stubble. A crêpe bandage around the top of his head hid the worst of the damage but a bruise had virtually closed his left eye and there was more bruising on the side of his neck. He was on the small side, five seven, five eight, and Faraday wondered whether the overlarge tracksuit that hung from his shoulders was a deliberate act of malice by the Custody Sergeant. The clothes he’d been wearing at arrest, liberally splashed with blood, had already been bagged and tagged, awaiting dispatch for analysis by the Forensic Science Service.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Faraday took a seat beside the TIA.

  ‘It’s going nowhere, boss. He couldn’t be more helpful. Names, times, the whole nine yards.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Kids in the house next door. Turns out he knows half of them.’

  ‘And what’s he saying?’

  ‘He’s saying they were out of their heads. And he’s saying they were …’ he glanced down at his notes ‘“… a fucking disgrace”.’

  Mackenzie, according to his own account, had arrived back at Sandown Road a bit past midnight. He’d been to a dinner party with his missus. He’d had a few to drink and she was driving. As soon as he got out of the Range Rover, he’d realised what had kicked off. He’d never fancied young Rachel’s party idea and now it had all turned to ratshit. Marie had told him to leave it but there was no way that was going to happen. He’d given his mate his word. The kids needed sorting.