No Lovelier Death

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘We’re dealing with ninety-four individuals,’ he began. ‘Most of them agreed to attend as witnesses. We’ve filled all fourteen custody centres within the force, plus eight more under the mutual aid arrangements. Interviews out-of-county are being handled by their own personnel. We’re obviously processing the rest.’

  ‘How are you prioritising?’ There was an edge of impatience in Parsons’s voice. Busy lady. Lots to do.

  ‘I drew up a matrix first thing. We need to winnow out the chaff. Anyone with obvious signs of injury or blood on their shoes or clothing goes to the top of the list. Likewise anyone with previous. Ideally, I’d have preferred to put the bad eggs in one basket but last night that was impossible. We batched them in the order they came out. That means the possibles and probables are pretty much dispersed. By now, most of the kids will have been released. Potential suspects we’ll bring back to the Bridewell.’

  ‘How many are we talking?’

  Faraday glanced down at his notes. He’d been anticipating exactly this question.

  ‘Nineteen,’ he said carefully. ‘I’m assuming whoever had a hand in the killings probably legged it. But they would have had mates. And they’re the ones we’ll be talking to.’

  ‘Anyone top of the list?’

  ‘Not so far, not to my knowledge, but Jimmy and I won’t be looking at statements until this afternoon.’

  Suttle nodded. It would be his job to comb every statement and begin to match one account against another. Parsons caught his eye.

  ‘You’ve got something to add?’

  ‘Only that I took a phone call from Thames Valley just before we kicked off. They’ve got a girl up in Reading. Samantha Muirhead. It turns out she was Rachel Ault’s best friend. She’s slightly older too. Lives out in the country. Agreed to be a DD.’

  ‘DD?’

  ‘Designated driver. Which means she was sober.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She’s upset, obviously, but if we’re looking for a decent account the D/I up there thinks she’d be a good place to start.’

  ‘You want to re-interview her?’ Parsons was looking at Faraday.

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Is she happy to do that, Jimmy?’

  ‘According to the D/I, yes. Her parents are up there with her. They’re driving her down from Reading. I told him we’d have someone at the Bridewell.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘About now.’

  He’d alerted the Custody Sergeant to expect them. Faraday shot him a look, said they’d talk to the girl together. The Thames Valley D/I had been right. At this stage in the game Mandolin needed an overview.

  Parsons agreed. Already briefed by Faraday, she’d virtually dismissed Mackenzie as a prime suspect. Regretfully, there was every indication that he’d simply been playing the good neighbour. She gave Faraday a nod, asking him for more detail.

  Scenes of Crime, he said, had found blood in Mackenzie’s kitchen. There’d been smears on the lip of a glass beside the sink, and there’d been more blood on a flannel and a towel in the upstairs bathroom, and on one of the pillows in the Mackenzies’ bedroom.

  Challenged to explain these stains, Mackenzie had claimed the blood as his own. To be honest, he couldn’t remember going to the kitchen but he must have fancied a glass of water. Upstairs in the bathroom, still bleeding, he remembered mopping his face with a flannel. Marie kept Ibuprofen in the cabinet over the sink. He’d popped four of them before calling it a night.

  Monitoring the interview from the adjoining suite, Faraday had phoned through to the scene and minutes later the CSI had re-confirmed Mackenzie’s story in every detail. Blood had tracked Mackenzie’s path to bed. Then, still leaking onto the pillow, he’d crashed out.

  Mackenzie’s solicitor, said Faraday, was pushing hard for early release. Swabs from the bloodstains would be dispatched for analysis but full DNA results wouldn’t be back until the end of the week. Under these circumstances there was no point in holding him with a view to any kind of custody extension. His wife, Faraday added, had corroborated every element in her husband’s account.

  Turning to Suttle, Parsons asked about mobiles. He said that sixty-seven had been seized last night, and another fourteen recovered from the house or the garden. Numbers had been tallied for billing purposes, and the lot had gone to the Comms Intelligence Unit at Netley for analysis. He was anticipating a wealth of images, including video, and in the shape of three seized digital cameras Mandolin was looking at another windfall.

  Faraday, collecting his notes, briefly pondered this development. Suttle was right. Kids these days were obsessed by images and material retrieved from phones might well wrap up the investigation. Live by the mobe, he thought grimly, die by the mobe.

  He glanced up to find Parsons on her feet. She wanted another conference late afternoon for a Scenes of Crime update ahead of the full squad meet. In the meantime she’d be briefing the duty Detective Superintendent. Was there anything else that couldn’t wait until five?

  There was a brief silence, broken by D/S Glen Thatcher. His Outside Enquiry teams were already doing house-to-house calls the length of Sandown Road and beyond, hunting for any shred of evidence that might help with the bigger picture. He was looking at Parsons.

  ‘We’re getting a load of grief from the residents.’ He said, ‘Putting it bluntly, they think we were piss poor. Some of these people are well connected. Maybe you should pass the word, boss.’

  The civvy in charge of Media Relations sat at the end of the table. She’d once been a reporter on BBC South. Parsons favoured her with a smile.

  ‘Yours, I think, Debbie. Maybe we should have some kind of strategy in place. Glad you could find time to attend.’

  Nelly Tien’s call found Winter looking for his trousers. After Esme and the kids had departed he’d gone back to bed for a kip. Nelly sounded harassed.

  ‘Mr Mackenzie is about to be released from custody. He wants to know where you are.’

  ‘Gunwharf, love. The flat.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll drive him round.’

  ‘And Marie?’

  ‘She’s sitting beside me. She got out an hour ago.’

  Nelly ended the call without saying goodbye, even more clipped than usual. Trouble, Winter thought, wondering whether he ought to sort out a fresh shirt.

  Bazza and Marie arrived twenty minutes later. Unusually, Bazza had a protective arm around his wife. Under the summer tan she looked nervous and distracted. When Winter asked her whether the Fareham custody suite still had a poster up for last Christmas’s CID bash, she didn’t bother to raise a smile. A night in a custody cell had clearly concentrated her mind. She wanted to get home, she said. She wanted a long hot shower, a decent cup of coffee and a chance to work out what to say to the Aults. But until SOC released their house, even that wasn’t an option.

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘The hotel, mush.’ It was Mackenzie. ‘Where do you think?’

  The Royal Trafalgar was on the seafront. Drug money had restored the place to its pre-war glory. To date, it was Mackenzie’s biggest stake in the city.

  Ignoring the offer of coffee and a doughnut, he told Winter to sit down. The swelling on his face had begun to subside and he’d abandoned the swath of crêpe bandage around his head. Blood had crusted around the wound on his scalp and there was more damage to the knuckles of his left hand. Southpaw, Winter remembered.

  ‘Listen, Paul. We have a problem, all of us. What happened last night was totally out of order. The more I think about it, the worse it fucking gets. You don’t pay good money for an address like that to have a bunch of arsehole kids come and wreck it. And I’m certainly not having some numpty or other dumping bodies beside my pool. Neither should my missus have to put up with a night in the fucking cells. Respect is where this begins and ends. Peter Ault’s a good bloke. I gave the guy my word of honour. I told him I’d look after things and I’ve completely fucking blown it. He’ll be back any day, poor bastard. By then, my old mate,
I want a name. Comprende?’

  ‘Name, Baz?’ This was a new Mackenzie. Accepting responsibility. Administering justice.

  ‘Yeah, name, mush. Or maybe names. I’ve no fucking idea but just sort it, OK? You told me once you were the best fucking cop this town had ever seen. You told me you’d taken more scalps than any other Filth that ever lived. So now’s your chance to prove it. You might start with Matt Berriman, the kid who hauled those animals off me. I used to know his mum. She had a Somerstown address unless she’s moved.’

  Winter was missing something here, and he knew it. He eyed the TV for a moment. Maybe going back to bed hadn’t been such a great idea.

  Marie stirred. She was standing by the window now, gazing out at the harbour.

  ‘One of the bodies by the pool was Rachel,’ she said quietly. ‘We somehow assumed you knew.’

  Chapter five

  SUNDAY, 12 AUGUST 2007. 16.03

  Sam Muirhead and her parents were late getting to the Bridewell. Faraday and Suttle had been waiting fifteen minutes by the time they arrived. The Custody Sergeant brought them into the office he’d made available, and Suttle fetched more chairs while Sam’s mother offered her apologies

  ‘We stopped on the way for a bite to eat. It’s been a bit of a trial, I’m afraid.’

  The father was a thickset man with a firm handshake and a weathered, outdoors complexion. He wanted to know why his daughter had to go through the whole thing again. She’d been as helpful as she could. The detectives in Reading had been pleased with her statement. Surely she could be spared another interview?

  Faraday asked them all to take a seat.

  ‘Your daughter knows about Rachel?’

  ‘Yes. It was on the news coming down. Sam’s pretty upset, to be frank.’

  There was a silence, broken in the end by Sam. She was a tall girl with a long pale face, and she had her mother’s auburn hair. Faraday sensed she’d been crying.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ she said quietly.

  Faraday explained that the interview would take place in one of the special suites across the corridor. Sam said no to the offer of legal representation and shook her head when Suttle suggested her mum or her dad sit in.

  ‘Let’s just do it. Then we can get home.’

  In the interview suite Suttle cued the audio and video tapes. Faraday, after a snatched conversation with the D/I in Reading, knew exactly where to start.

  ‘I understand you knew Rachel pretty well.’

  ‘We were best friends.’

  ‘For a long time?’

  ‘Yes. Years and years.’ She sniffed and tipped her head back. ‘We were like sisters really. That’s what other people said and in a way it was true.’

  ‘So what sort of girl was she?’

  ‘She was brilliant. Brilliant as a friend. Brilliantly clever. Brilliantly kind. Brilliant in all kinds of ways.’

  Faraday consulted his notes then looked up. ‘You mentioned the swimming club this morning. Care to tell me about that?’

  ‘It was something she started young, really young. We were at primary school together. She was swimming even then, you know, proper swimming, not just messing around. She got spotted. A coach from Northsea came along. I think she signed her up, I’m not sure.’

  The Northsea Club was Pompey’s pride and joy. Based at the Victoria Baths, it won honours at every level and had produced a string of contenders for the UK national squad. Rachel, said Sam, had found herself training six days a week, two sessions a day. Her commitment had been awesome. Just like Matt’s.

  ‘Matt who?’

  ‘Matt Berriman.’

  ‘The Matt Berriman who was at the party? The lad who helped the neighbour next door?’

  ‘Yes.’ She seemed surprised. ‘He and Rach have been together for years. Ever since they both started at the swimming club. I’m sorry … I thought you knew that.’

  ‘No.’ Faraday shook his head. ‘Tell us more.’

  ‘Well …’ She was trying to remember. ‘He was a bit older than Rach when they first met. I think he was already at secondary school. St Mark’s.’

  St Mark’s was a troubled comprehensive that straddled the fault line between Portsmouth and Southsea. Socially, Matt and Rachel would have been on different planets.

  Faraday studied her a moment. PNC checks on Berriman at Newbury custody suite had revealed a recent conviction for a motoring offence: 132 mph on the M27 in a borrowed BMW.

  ‘You know Matt?’

  ‘Of course. We all do.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Big. Tall. Ripped.’

  Faraday glanced at Suttle.

  ‘It means fit, boss.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He looked back at Sam. ‘So they were training together? Twice a day? Saw lots of each other?’

  ‘Absolutely. And as they got older they began to go away together.

  There’s a place up in the north somewhere, Sheffield maybe. They do special training weekends if you’re really good. Rach and Matt were both in the national team. They went to London too. She lived for those weekends. She said they were brilliant.’

  ‘They had a relationship?’

  ‘Definitely. Full on.’

  ‘How old was she by then?’

  ‘Fifteen. Rach swam the longer distances, I don’t know exactly which race. Matt was a sprinter. That suited him, believe me. He did everything flat out. He was just immense. One time we were all on the beach, pitch black, and someone dared him to swim round the pier, and he just did it - just stripped off to nothing and did it.’

  Faraday frowned. Round Southsea Pier couldn’t be more than a couple of hundred metres. Nothing surely to a swimmer like Matt?

  ‘It was December. Christmas Eve.’

  ‘Ah …’

  Sam, for the first time, smiled. The smile widened into a grin. Memories of the young Matt Berriman had brought her to life.

  ‘So how long did this relationship last?’

  ‘Until six weeks ago.’

  ‘Really?’ Faraday leaned forward. There’d been no mention of this from the Thames Valley D/I. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘She met Gareth.’

  ‘Gareth Hughes?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve known Gareth for a while. We’re in the sixth form together at PGS.’ She hesitated. ‘Or we were …’

  Faraday scribbled himself a note. Portsmouth Grammar School, like the Girls’ High, was fee-paying.

  ‘Tell me about Gareth.’

  ‘He was different to Matt, nowhere near as sporty. He wasn’t spastic, nothing like that, and he wasn’t a boff either, but he was much more …’ she frowned, hunting for the word ‘… sensible than Matt. There’d been some problems between her and Matt. Rach was trying to nail down all the stuff she had to do for the Oxford entrance exam and Matt definitely wasn’t helping.’

  ‘Like how?’

  ‘Like he’d buy tickets for a big festival, the whole weekend, expensive tickets, tickets he could no way afford, and when Rach said she couldn’t spare the time he’d get really … you know … difficult. He really knew how to make her feel guilty too, and in the end she’d always give in and then regret it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he was just getting wilder and wilder. He was into all kinds of stuff. He just had to try everything, which obviously made things hard for Rach.’

  ‘And the swimming? The training?’

  ‘That was the other thing. Matt had pretty much given up. Rach was the same, though for different reasons.’

  ‘And did she get into Oxford?’

  ‘Yeah. In fact she got a scholarship. That’s why her dad gave her a car.’ She began to sniff and then fumbled for a Kleenex. ‘Shit, this is really hard.’

  Faraday gave her a moment or two to blow her nose. Then he wanted to know about the party. Whose idea had it been?

  ‘Rach’s. She just wanted a bunch of friends around, people who maybe didn’t know Gareth that well.’


  ‘So how did she sort out the invites?’ It was Suttle this time.

  ‘She’s got a page on Facebook. You can have a best mates list. You can tell everyone whether you’re in a relationship or not. You can do all kinds of stuff. She just sent word round all her mates.’

  ‘Including Matt?’

  ‘Must have. Matt had been on her Facebook page, obviously. Rach was incredibly bright, like I’ve said, but I think she just forgot to take him off the list. Either that, or she couldn’t bear to. She could be really silly sometimes about that kind of stuff, really soft in the head.’

  ‘So that was how he got to find out about the party? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes. Must have been.’

  ‘And how was the invite worded? Do you know?’

  ‘I can’t remember. You could check it out. It was something about Rach’s new squeeze. She made a joke of it really. It was just supposed to be really casual, a chance for people to come and crash for the night, you know. Big old house, loads of space, DVDs, music, stuff to drink. It was no big deal, honestly …’ She tailed off.

  ‘Do you think Matt might have spread the word? Because of Gareth?’

  ‘Out of jealousy, you mean? I’ve no idea. He could have done, I suppose, but it would surprise me because he’s not that organised really. With Matt it was always last-minute stuff … impulse … you know what I mean?’

  ‘But did he miss her? To your knowledge.’

  For the first time there was hesitation in her face.

  ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘He did.’

  ‘He wanted to get back with her?’

  ‘Yes, definitely.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘I knew.’

  ‘How?’ Faraday this time.

  The wariness again. A longer silence.

  ‘Because he told me.’

  A week ago, she said, she’d bumped into Matt at Gunwharf. He was with a couple of mates. He’d sent them packing and insisted on buying her a coffee. He’d just been done for some stupid driving offence and the woman he’d borrowed the car from had gone bonkers.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’d taken the car without asking. And he wasn’t insured.’