No Lovelier Death

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘She left.’

  ‘Left?’

  ‘Went out through the back door. I got a plan of the property from Jerry. Here …’

  He unfolded a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. Number 11 Sandown Road was surrounded by a largish garden. The kitchen door, said Suttle, opened onto the side of the garden that adjoined number 13. Getting into Mackenzie’s place via the street wasn’t an option because his electronic gates were locked.

  So access had to be over the shared wall.

  ‘And that’s possible?’ Faraday was gazing at the plan.

  ‘Jerry says yes. There’s a pile of wood stacked against the wall next to a little gazebo thing. Just here.’ Someone had marked the position with a pencilled cross. ‘He says it would be easy just to climb on the wood pile and hop over the wall. Especially if you knew the garden well.’

  ‘Which she did.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Faraday nodded.

  ‘And Hughes? The boyfriend?’

  ‘Apparently, around this time he was looking for her. One of the rugby guys said he had a conversation with him. He said Hughes was pretty much out of it too.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘The witness didn’t know.’

  ‘What about the girls in the kitchen?’

  ‘They’d moved on.’

  ‘So no one saw Hughes leave?’

  ‘Apparently not.’ Suttle was looking at the pile of transcripts.

  Faraday pushed his chair back from the desk, easing the cramp in his legs. Hughes and Rachel had had the run of the house for the best part of a fortnight. Hughes would have got to know the place, got to find out about the short cut to next door. Given the chaos at the party house, unable to find Rachel, he might well have concluded that she’d legged it over the garden wall. In a full-scale riot attention would have been turned elsewhere. It was more than possible, therefore, that Hughes had followed her.

  ‘Did anyone else leave?’

  ‘Not that anyone’s saying.’

  ‘Not Berriman?’

  ‘Hard to be certain.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘One witness talked of a tall bloke going out through the front door. She remembered because a neighbour or someone had been on the doorstep having a moan about the noise and some of the chavs were trying to barricade themselves in. The tall bloke wasn’t having it.’

  ‘Did she know Berriman, this witness?’

  ‘That’s not clear.’

  ‘Was she a friend of Rachel’s?’

  ‘She says she was, but one of the interviewers left a note on the transcript. He thinks she was lying. To cover her arse.’

  ‘So it might have not been Berriman? Is that what we’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘And time-wise?’

  ‘That’s not clear either.’

  Faraday frowned. Another thought. ‘How come the girls in the kitchen were so sure of the time?’

  ‘Easy. There was a clock on the wall. It came down during the food fight.’ Suttle was grinning. ‘And it stopped at twenty-five to midnight.’

  Faraday reached for a pad and began to construct a timeline. At around nine the first party guests arrive. An hour or so later Berriman turns up with a bunch of his mates. After that comes a small army of intruders. Soon afterwards the first real sign of trouble.

  By around eleven, kids are trashing the old man’s study. Matt Berriman intervenes. Afterwards he takes Rachel along to the upstairs bathroom, locks the door. They may - or may not - have had sex together. Either way, she’s last seen half an hour later, stepping out into the darkness of the garden. Her boyfriend, Gareth Hughes, appears to be looking for her. Matt Berriman may - or may not - have left by the front door.

  An hour later the Mackenzies arrive back from a dinner party. It’s obvious that events next door are out of control. Bazza intervenes, sparking yet more violence, while his wife makes a treble nine. The call is logged at Netley at 12.39. In the party house Matt Berriman comes to Bazza’s rescue and bundles him out into the street. His wife packs him off home, then waits for the cavalry to arrive.

  At 12.51 the first response units turn up. By one o’clock Marie’s relaxed enough to go home and check on her husband. Minutes later she’s back on the street, looking for a policeman. Two bodies beside her swimming pool. Both of them dead.

  Faraday went through the sequence afresh, testing every link with Suttle. Then he eyed the transcripts again.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Not a lot, boss.’

  ‘How about all the charlie? Where did that come from?’

  ‘No one’s saying for sure, but a couple of Rachel’s lot mentioned the name Danny. None of them are brave enough to take a look at a face or two but the name’s still in the frame. I put a call into Drugs Intel, still waiting on a reply. The coke market’s up for grabs just now, the way I hear it.’

  Faraday got to his feet and stepped across to the window. Until Suttle appeared with his bursting files of witness statements, he’d felt remarkably rested after the nightmare of the weekend. Now, confronted yet again with the sheer scale of this investigation, he barely knew where to turn.

  At the centre of everything, burned deep into his brain, were the pale dead faces of the two victims. The statements, later, might prove crucial. But at this stage they were simply a kaleidoscope of impressions, a prism through which you caught fleeting glimpses of the last hours of Rachel Ault’s young life. She was pissed. She was distraught. She hadn’t got a clue what was going on. Was that any kind of way to end it all? In a fog of vodka? Weaving from room to room in a house you thought you knew? Driven to seek some kind of solace, some kind of peace and quiet, next door? Wrecked beyond description?

  For the umpteenth time he tried to imagine a chain of events that could have taken her to Mackenzie’s place, could have led to a confrontation, could have somehow accounted for a knife plunged deep into her belly. In truth there was a multitude of explanations. Jealousy. Revenge. Blind rage. Alcohol. Payback. Whatever. But where to start?

  Faraday shut his eyes a moment. Lately, he knew, the job had started to get the better of him. Now, a vague feeling of inadequacy had sharpened into something much closer to despair. Her face again, her eyes, the way that death had opened her lips. The unvoiced question: why is this happening to me?

  ‘There’s just one other thing, boss …’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘One of the chavs, a girl. She’s there in a couple of the statements - more than that, maybe half a dozen. No one’s giving her a name, and no one appears to have known her, but basically they’re all saying the same thing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That she was scary. Really scary. Shaved head. Face furniture.

  Tats. The lot. Even her mates seemed to be frightened of her.’

  ‘Are we talking girlfriends?’

  ‘Blokes too. No one ever went near her.’

  Faraday nodded. Matt Berriman had mentioned someone similar in Ault’s study. Shaved head. Tattoos. Getting the lads to piss on the family photos.

  ‘Do we have a name?’

  ‘No. It seems she was with a younger kid, a boy. He was the one who tagged all the pictures.’

  ‘With the black aerosol?’

  ‘Yeah. They used a knife too.’

  ‘A knife?’

  ‘Exactly. The lad did the tagging. She did the rest.’

  ‘With the knife?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What kind of knife?’

  ‘No one’s saying.’

  ‘Shame.’

  Faraday remembered the Scenes of Crime shots on Jerry Proctor’s laptop, the shreds of canvas hanging from the artwork on the Aults’ wall. Most of the stuff had been portraits. Faces slashed, he thought. Lives disfigured.

  ‘We need the mobe footage.’ He was thinking aloud. ‘You want to give Netley a ring?’

  Ch
apter nine

  MONDAY, 13 AUGUST 2007. 10.59

  Winter had waited nearly half an hour by the time Matt Berriman stepped into the office at the swimming pool. He looked up from a month-old copy of the News, his patience wearing thin.

  ‘What sort of time do you call this? Channel swimming, is it?’

  Berriman ignored him. He bent low, then stuffed his towel and deodorant into the holdall beneath the desk. Winter had been through the bag already. The weekend’s coverage of the party in the Sun and the Daily Mail. A packet of Rizlas, a wallet of Virginia Gold and a small cube of blow wrapped in silver foil. A pint of milk. A paperback copy of King Lear. And, tucked inside the book, a scrap of paper with a multi-digit number. Out of habit more than hope Winter had made a note of the number. It looked like a phone number but he didn’t recognise the prefix. Later, he might give it a ring.

  Berriman was standing by the door now. Watching him swim, Winter hadn’t realised he was so tall.

  ‘Nikki tell you I was here?’ Winter asked.

  ‘Yeah. She said you wanted a word.’

  ‘She’s right.’ Winter wrinkled his nose. ‘Where do you fancy? Only the smell of chlorine makes my eyes go funny.’

  They went to a nearby café, La Parisenne, tucked into a triangle of pavement beside the torrent of city-centre traffic. It was Berriman’s choice. He took a table in the sunshine while Winter fetched cappuccinos and a couple of pastries from the counter inside. For mid-morning, the place was packed.

  Back outside, Winter eased the collar of his shirt. It was hotter than he’d expected. He was beginning to sweat.

  ‘Full of bloody students, isn’t it?’ He gazed round at the other tables. ‘Beats me where they get the money.’

  ‘Most of them are foreign.’

  ‘This lot?’

  ‘Yeah. Nik says you’re a cop.’ Berriman had wolfed the first chocolate croissant and was reaching for the other one. ‘D’you mind?’

  ‘Not at all, son. All that exercise.’ He sat back. ‘Nik’s wrong. I was a cop. It makes a difference.’

  ‘Yeah? How does that work?’

  ‘It means I know what to look for. It also means someone else pays my wages.’

  ‘Nik says it’s Mackenzie.’

  ‘Nik is right.’

  ‘He’s a bit of legend, that man. Doesn’t put up with any shit. You mind if I give him a ring? Only he tried to phone when I was in the pool.’

  Without waiting for an answer, he produced a mobile and keyed in a number. Seconds later he was talking to Mackenzie. Winter could hear the rasp of Bazza’s voice above the kerbside growl of a nearby delivery truck.

  Berriman listened while Mackenzie offered his sympathies. It had been a shit weekend for one and all. Rachel was a nice girl. Must hurt like fuck to lose her like that.

  ‘You’re right. I appreciate it.’

  ‘Your mum says you’ve been with the Old Bill. Don’t let those bastards grind you down. Talk to my mate Paul. He knows most of them better than their mums do.’

  ‘Would that be Paul Winter?’

  ‘Yeah. Fat bastard. Needs to lose a few pounds. Not that he ever fucking listens.’

  ‘I’m looking at him now.’

  ‘You are?’ The news made Mackenzie cackle with laughter. ‘Make sure the old cunt picks up the tab then. Not that he’s paying.’

  The line went dead. There was a smile on Berriman’s face. ‘Respect.’ He nodded at Winter then looked at his empty plate.

  ‘How about another couple of those croissants?’

  Faraday was on the phone to Gail Parsons when Suttle dropped by his office in Major Crime. The DCI was up in London with Willard, attending an emergency get-together at the Home Office. Media coverage of the weekend’s events in Sandown Road had alarmed Downing Street and one of Brown’s special advisers wanted a full report on the new Prime Minister’s desk by close of play. There was talk of a new task force to explore something Parsons called the urban interface. Faraday hadn’t got a clue what she was talking about but assumed it wouldn’t do her career prospects any harm. Just now she needed to know whether there was anything tasty she could put in the Home Office pot.

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid.’ Faraday summarised the new intelligence about Rachel leaving the party. The assumption was that Hughes had also found his way next door.

  ‘And that’s all? Ninety-four interviews and that’s it?’ She sounded disappointed, and Faraday found himself wondering what kinds of promises she’d been making. All those extra bodies she’d won from Willard came at a price.

  ‘It’s early days, boss. If anything happens, you’ll be the first to know.’

  ‘You don’t sound hopeful.’

  ‘I hope I sound realistic.’

  ‘Realistic’s fine, Joe. Realistic has its place. Up here they deal in fairy dust. As you well know.’

  Faraday, waving Suttle into the spare chair, started to laugh. So far he’d never associated Parsons with a sense of humour. She must have the door closed, he thought. And she must be more than desperate.

  ‘I’ll bell you,’ he said. ‘If anything turns up.’

  She began to protest again, telling him to look harder, make a few calls, talk to Jerry Proctor, unearth anything for God’s sake that might keep these people off her back. Then, without warning, he was looking at a photograph that Suttle had slipped onto his desk. The resolution wasn’t perfect and one corner of the shot had gone inexplicably black but there was absolutely no doubt about the face. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been dead beside a swimming pool. Now this.

  He peered hard at the digital readout across the bottom. 23.08, it read. 4/8/07.

  Parsons was still telling him to get his act together. Glancing up at Suttle, he told her to hang on a moment.

  ‘Where did this come from?’

  ‘Scenes of Crime recovered it from Rachel’s bedroom first thing.

  Jerry had it shipped it across to Netley and asked for priority. It turns out to be Gareth Hughes’s phone.’

  Faraday was still staring at the photograph. Someone’s penis filled Rachel’s mouth. She had her eyes closed and she seemed to be smiling, though it was hard to tell. The shot had been taken from above, presumably by whoever she was pleasuring. Light gleamed from wall tiles at the back.

  ‘So that’s Gareth Hughes?’

  ‘I’d say not, boss. Hughes was ginger.’

  Faraday looked harder. Suttle was right. The pubic hair was clearly black.

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘We’re still working on it but a copy of this has gone to the blokes doing the Aults’ house. They’ve matched the background against the upstairs bathroom. It’s a perfect fit.’

  Faraday nodded. The old man’s study, he thought. The kids pissing all over the family’s precious photos. Matt Berriman hauling them off. Then taking Rachel along to the bathroom for a quiet chat.

  ‘So how did this get on to Hughes’s phone?’

  ‘It was mailed from another mobe.’

  ‘Did we seize a mobe from Berriman?’

  ‘No. I checked. But we’ve got the sender’s number and Netley’s checking with the headquarters Phone Unit. They should come up with caller ID.’

  ‘So Berriman could have given his phone to someone else? Someone who left early? Just in case?’

  ‘Could be. Or he hid it after we turned up mob-handed. He knows the house, remember. Either way, this is a guy who thinks things through. Which, in my book, makes him sus.’

  ‘It does, son. It does.’

  At last he returned to Parsons. She was still on the phone. By now he was beaming.

  ‘Bit of a turn-up, boss. Are you sitting down?’

  Winter was interested in Berriman’s choice of reading. Berriman had rolled himself a spliff from the contents of the holdall and the bag still lay open on the pavement beside the table.

  ‘Shakespeare?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Just for pleasure?’

  ‘No.�
�� He produced a lighter, expelled a plume of smoke. Heads turned downwind.

  Winter wanted to know more. A Somerstown boy tucked up with King Lear? The combination was hard to believe.

  ‘You should get a life then, Mr W. I know blokes who read this stuff every day of the week.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘Not at all. Why me? Why now? Because it was Rach’s idea.’

  ‘She put you up to it?’

  ‘She said I ought to go back into education. She suggested sports management. I don’t think she meant to patronise me but that’s the way it felt.’

  ‘So you went for the Bard?’ Winter nodded down at the book. ‘Just to make it hard for yourself?’

  ‘Sure.’ Berriman ignored the dig. ‘It’s a degree course. Comparative Drama. Shakespeare. Ibsen. Arthur Miller. All the greats.’

  ‘Here? At the uni?’

  ‘Yeah. I talked to the admissions people and they said I had a year to get my shit together. A couple of half-decent A levels and I’d be in. It’s cheaper here, for one thing. Plus Oxford’s not that far away.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘So you hadn’t given up? On Rachel?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Because you knew you could get her back?’

  ‘Yes.’ He didn’t take the answer any further.

  Winter glanced down at the paperback again, trying to measure the journey Berriman would have to make from a handful of GCSEs to full-time study. Was it a fantasy? Some half-arsed bid to get back inside Rachel Ault’s knickers? Or did he mean to stay the course? He looked up, watching Berriman making another call. 22.3 seconds, he thought. After five years thrashing up and down that fucking pool.

  At length Winter took the conversation back to the party. His guvnor, Bazza Mackenzie, was less than pleased at what had happened. It was Winter’s job to come up with some answers. Preferably before Thursday.

  ‘Why Thursday?’

  ‘Because that’s when Rachel’s mum and dad arrive back. Baz phoned them last night. The father’s in a terrible state.’

  ‘I know. I phoned them myself. I’m not sure answers are what he’s after. What he’s after is his daughter back. How do you get round that?’