‘Chéri …’ Gabrielle had seen him at last.
She disentangled herself from J-J and gave him a kiss. Faraday let her lead him into the kitchen, unaccountably relieved. Gabrielle followed, made him sit down at the table, fetched wine, asked whether he’d eaten. He hadn’t seen her all day, hadn’t been in touch since she’d phoned him from the bus, en route to try and find Jax Bonner.
Faraday cocked his head, raised his glass, the question unvoiced. She grinned back, nodding.
‘Oui.’ she said. ‘I found her.’
‘Talked to her?’
‘Oui.’
‘All day?’
‘No. We went to the island. Walked. Watched the birds.’ She broke off.
J-J’s scarecrow body was propped in the open doorway. She signed to him about a place they must have found. He nodded, looked at his father, told him about the saltmarsh south of Bembridge, the path that wound through the bulrushes, how quickly they’d left the kids and the trippers, and how, hours later, they’d been lucky enough to find a spoonbill.
Gabrielle, he said, had thought at first that the bird was a big egret. Same colour, same size. They’d seen it first at a distance, flying low over the marshes, but something about the speed of its wingbeats had told J-J that egret was wrong. Later there’d come another sighting, much closer, and the bird’s long bill with the flattened bit at the end had confirmed J-J’s suspicions. It was only the second time in his life he’d seen a spoonbill and he was glad Gabrielle had been there to share it.
Faraday let this scene wash over him: the music, the warm blush of the wine, his two favourite people within touching distance. J-J understood him. He knew the boy did. He understood his dad’s bleaker moods, his isolation, the moments when he was engulfed by a numbing sense of near-total bewilderment. Those moments had always been there since J-J was still in the nest, but now - on his intermittent visits - he brought a different perspective. Deafness, by some strange irony, had conferred wisdom. By making him more curious, by making him look harder, it had given him a unique entrée into other people’s lives, other people’s heads, other people’s hearts. J-J watched. And J-J knew.
‘You met the girl too?’ Faraday signed.
‘Yes.’ J-J nodded.
‘You talked about Rachel? About her boyfriend?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She hated Rachel,’ J-J signed. ‘She’s full of hate. She hates everything. ’
‘But did she kill her?’
‘No.’ A brisk dismissive movement with the flat of his bony hand.
‘Never.’
Chapter thirty
SUNDAY, 19 AUGUST 2007. 07.26
Jimmy Suttle left Lizzie Hodson in bed. Half past seven on a Sunday morning, he’d agreed with Faraday, was the perfect time to give a Pompey cab driver a shake or two. Apart from anything else, it would signal a certain seriousness.
The cab firm had given the driver’s name as Grant Mason. He drove night shifts throughout the week and then retired to an upstairs flat in a street of terraced houses in Milton. It was raining again when Suttle parked up across the road. Mason’s cab, badged with Speedy’s scarlet logo, was outside his house. Suttle glanced inside as he hurried past. A satnav housing on the dashboard was empty.
Mason, when he finally clattered downstairs to answer the door, had just got out of the shower. Suttle showed him his warrant card and stepped out of the rain. Mason didn’t seem the least bit surprised by this sudden visitation. He nodded at the stairs and told Suttle to put the kettle on. Half the night driving pissed kids back from the clubs in Guildhall Walk had left him with a bit of a thirst.
Dressed in a tracksuit, his hair still wet, Mason joined Suttle in the kitchen. He was small and thin, edging fifty. He had a smoker’s face, his yellowing parchment skin deeply seamed. He stirred three spoonfuls of sugar into his tea and told Suttle he was welcome to a bit of toast.
Suttle wanted to know whether he’d been driving on Wednesday night.
‘Yeah. Course. I drives every night.’
‘And can you remember that shift? In detail?’
‘Yeah. I looked it up. Barbara on the desk, she mentioned it, said you was interested.’
Suttle had talked to Barbara on the phone. Barbara worked for Mackenzie.
‘So talk me through it, Grant.’
‘It’s Westie, isn’t it? Him? That’s what you’re after?’
The bluntness of the response told Suttle to tread carefully. The going was seldom this easy.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because he’ s a bad man. Not a rascal, a bad man. Always has been, Westie.’
‘You know him well?’
‘I’ve driven him around a bit, as you do. I used to think he was all mouth, Westie, but then you hear things and you get to wonder. Know what I mean?’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Horrible things. Westie used to have these videos sometimes. It was violence, always violence. He’d tell me the plots, what kind of stuff these guys got up to, what you could do with a hammer drill, stuff like that. I could borrow them off him if I wanted. He was generous that way. Half-decent footballer too, in his time. But a psycho, definitely. Me? I prefer cartoons, preferably The Simpsons. Told him too. He thought I was taking the piss.’ He peered at Suttle through a haze of roll-up. ‘Like The Simpsons, do you?’
Suttle began to sense where this conversation was going. He’s rehearsed, he thought. He’s got all this drivel off pat.
‘It wasn’t just the videos, though, was it?’
‘Fuck, no. Listen to people in this town, and Westie’s got a right reputation.’
‘For what?’
‘For hurting people.’
‘For money? Because someone else was paying?’
‘Nah, mate. Because he fancies it. Because he’s made that way.
Sometimes you’ll be in the cab with him and he’ll be chatty as you like, real gentleman, right laugh. He’ll tell you stories from the old days, back when he was on Villa’s books, and a couple of times he even comped me a couple of tickets down the Park. Don’t ask me where he got them. Probably the players. He drinks in them same bars down Gunwharf, knows a couple of them well. At least that’s what he always tells me.’
‘So where does the money come from?’
‘Fuck knows. Me, I always had him down as a gangster. Maybe he flogs toot. Maybe he pimps birds for a living. I know he’s always shagging around because he tells me, every last fucking detail. There’s supposed to be good money in them foreign birds, Chinese crumpet especially. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.’
‘And Wednesday night?’
‘Yeah.’ Mason picked a shred of Golden Virginia from his lower lip. ‘That was a strange one.’
‘Strange how?’
He frowned, taking his time.
‘We’re still talking Westie, right?’
‘Right.’
‘OK, so I gets a job at three in the morning. It’s Westie’s address, the place on the seafront. I get myself down there and give him a tap and he’s out of the door like a shot, bang, like he’s been waiting half the night. He’s got a couple of bags with him, not small bags, and he’s sweating fit to bust. That ain’t Westie. That ain’t the man at all. Westie’s Mr Cool. Westie’s Mr Iceman.’
‘So how come?’
‘Dunno, mate. Not then, anyway. Turns out he wants to go to Gatwick. I tell him that ain’t a problem on account of I spend half my fucking life going to Gatwick. I could sit in the car and close my eyes and the fucking motor would take me to Gatwick. Know what I mean?’
‘Tell me about Westie.’
‘He’s all over the place, doesn’t know what fucking day it is.’
‘Like how?’
‘Like we’re sitting in the car, driving out of town, and I ask him where he’s off to, like you would. It’s an hour and a half to Gatwick. You need a bit of conversation, something to talk abou
t. So one minute he tells me Spain. Then it’s Italy. Then it’s fucking Greece. Then it’s Spain again. So I say Spain’s nice. Whereabouts in Spain? And you know something? He hasn’t a fucking clue. Lloret? Alicante? Doesn’t matter. As long as he gets there, pronto like. So I says to myself, this isn’t Westie going off on holiday. This is Westie in deep fucking shit.’
‘He told you that?’
‘He didn’t have to, mate. It was all over his face. You could fucking practically smell it on him. Westie’s not a bloke who scares easy. He was crapping himself.’
‘But why?’
‘Dunno. I couldn’t work it out. Then he goes all quiet for a bit, won’t say a word. We were up round Arundel by then. That time of night, I take the country roads. Anyway, we’re cruising along and he suddenly tells me to stop. We’re bang in the middle of nowhere, pitch fucking black, and he tells me to pull over. I think he needs to take a piss so naturally I do like he says, pull in. The geezer gets out, Westie, and then disappears.’
‘Disappears where?’
‘Dunno, do I? He’s wearing one of them white raincoats. One minute I see him by the verge, like, as you’d expect. Then he’s found a hole in the hedge or something and he’s gone.’
‘For long?’
‘Dunno. Five minutes?’
‘Doing what?’
‘Haven’t a clue, mush.’
‘But you’d ask him, wouldn’t you? When he came back?’
‘Course.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘Nothing. He just told me to get a move on. It’s getting on towards four by now. It’s a funny time to be in a hurry but I’m not paid to give anyone aggro, especially not someone like Westie.’
‘You think he left something behind the hedge? Buried it?’
‘Dunno. His hands were wet. He kept rubbing them on his trousers.’
‘And can you remember where this place was?’
‘Give or take, yeah. It’s on that road between Slindon and Storrington.’
‘But give or take what?’
‘A mile or so. Maybe less. Like I say, it was pitch black.’
‘But you’ve got the lights on.’
‘Sure.’
‘And you go to Gatwick a lot. You just told me.’
‘Yeah, but that’s normal hours, daylight hours, when normal fucking people want to get to the airport. If there’s traffic about, I takes the motorway. Them little country roads can be murder.’ He looked up, the ghost of a smile on his face. ‘Know what I mean, mush?’
Suttle knew it was nonsense. Clever nonsense, but still nonsense. Someone had marked his card, had a quiet word or two, agreed a script. Westie was an animal. He worked freelance. He made a fortune from pimping foreign toms. He led a colourful life, got himself talked about, hurt people when he was in the mood. Then Wednesday, out of the blue, he does something very silly. Suddenly, he has to get out of the country. But not before an unscheduled stop on a quiet back road miles from anywhere. In real life Grant Mason would never have dared talk about Westie in this kind of detail. Not unless he’d been told to. And not unless he knew Westie would never be back.
‘Did he tell you anything else? Westie?’
‘Just that he was fucking happy to be off.’
‘Nothing about Wednesday night? What he might have been up to?’
‘No, mush. And I didn’t ask neither.’
‘Did you hear about Danny Cooper, by any chance?’
‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘It was in the News. Bit of a dealer, wasn’t he? The way I hear it?’ He shook his head, reached for his mug. ‘You gotta watch yourself in this town, mush. I always said so.’
Suttle sat back, looking for loose ends, anything he could tuck away for later.
‘How did he pay you, Westie?’
‘Cash, like always. And a fucking great tip.’
‘How much?’
‘A score. And he was a mean bastard normally.’
‘You give him a receipt?’
‘You’re joking. Westie didn’t do receipts.’
‘Did you get the impression he was carrying a lot of money?’
‘Haven’t a clue, mush. And that’s another question you wouldn’t ask.’ He yawned. ‘You gonna make anything out of this? Write anything down? Only I’m off to bed soon.’
Suttle shook his head. Someone might be back to take a formal statement, he said, but it wouldn’t happen for a couple of days. Mason got to his feet. He looked, if anything, disappointed.
‘How about that place we stopped? You want me to try and find it?’
‘Might do. Depends.’
‘Yeah? Just say the word, mush.’
Suttle was looking round the tiny living room. He asked whether Mason used a satnav.
‘Yeah. We all do. Cabby’s best mate.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In that drawer. Why?’
‘I need to take it away. I’m sure the firm will sort a replacement until you get it back. That OK with you?’
For a moment Suttle thought he detected a tiny flicker of alarm. Then Mason shrugged.
‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘Be my guest.’
Suttle got the satnav from the drawer. It was a TomTom, state of the art. Careful analysis of the built-in memory could retrieve every detail of Mason’s recent trips. Suttle slipped it into his pocket and let Mason lead the way down the narrow hallway to the front door. The cabby pulled it open, stood aside.
Suttle stepped into the rain again then shot Mason a look.
‘Seen Bazza recently?’
‘No, mate.’ He returned Suttle’s smile. ‘A rare pleasure, believe me.’
Bazza’s party was back at Southampton airport by half past ten. An early start from Malaga had been low on conversation. Tosh and Rob were battling industrial-size hangovers while Bazza himself seemed oddly preoccupied. When Winter asked him whether it had been a good night, he rolled his eyes.
‘You were better of out of it, mush. I’m getting too old for guys like these. Boys on the piss. Russian fanny. Horrible.’
Winter slept most of the way back, waking up as the little jet bucketed down through low cloud to make a bumpy landing. After a hopeless attempt to get to sleep in his hotel room he’d spent most of the night prowling the streets of Malaga. He’d stopped at every gallery and knick-knack shop, peering in through the window, looking for the name Renate, without the first idea of what he’d do if he found a painting of hers or some other fancy piece of art. Did he owe her memory the asking price? Would parting with money do anything to ease the ache in his heart?
At the airport Bazza settled the balance of the fee for the jet and then walked Winter to the car park. Tosh and Rob, revived by champagne on the way home, were off to The Rose Bowl for the cricket.
‘Don’t even think about it, Paul.’
They were on the motorway in Bazza’s new Mercedes, heading back towards Pompey. Bazza rarely called Winter by his Christian name.
‘Think about what?’
‘Yesterday. That poxy bar place. Tommy’s little party piece. It’s business, mate. You win some, you lose some.’
‘And she lost.’
‘Yeah. She did. It doesn’t cover us with glory but I tell you what, it’s a whole lot better than the alternative.’
‘Which is?’
‘The woman still alive, still with a tongue in her head.’
‘She said she’d keep her mouth shut. In fact that was the last thing she said. Ever.’
‘Yeah, mush, but they all say that. She might have been fond of Westie. She’d only known him a couple of days so she might not have sussed what a clown the man is.’
‘Was, Baz. Past tense.’
‘Sure. But that’s my point. Tommy lets her get away with it. She finds her way home. She lies awake all night, thinking about Westie, what a great shag he was, what a great find, what a great future they might have had, all that bollocks, then - bam - she’s down the nick next morning singing her heart
out. Fat guy with no hair. Bought me a beer. Supposed to have a whack of money in a bag. English, definitely.
Came in on a flight yesterday. Probably gone already. Seemed to know Westie. You can write every line of it, mush. And it ends with a knock on your fucking door. You were protecting yourself, mate. Think of it that way. And you need never see Tommy again in your whole life.’ He glanced across. ‘Cushty or what?’
Winter said nothing. Bazza was right. Of course he was right.
‘What do we do about Westie’s album?’ he said at last.
‘Leave that to me, mush.’
‘That’s not an answer, Baz. I need to know. We’re in the shit as it is.’
‘Like how?’
‘Like they’re not going to give up on Danny Cooper. Like they’ve still got to put someone alongside Rachel and her fucking boyfriend.’
‘Cooper?’ Bazza seemed to be having trouble remembering the name. ‘What’s all that got to do with us? The Alfa’s history. I checked last night. Crushed down nicely and already off to a smelting yard. There’s nothing in that khazi of a flat that links to us. I only ever paid Westie in cash. There’s no cheques, no bank transfers, nothing.’
‘So what about the album?’
‘Fuck the album. I know every one of those faces. Every single one.
They also know me. Westies are two a penny. I can pick another up by lunchtime. They know that, those people. There’s no way they’d let themselves down.’
‘Simple as that?’
‘Simpler, mush. Look for problems, and you’ll have a sad old life.’ He gave a dawdler a blast on the horn and then swept by on the inside lane. ‘You’ve got a point about Rachel, though. I’d like that tidied up, mush, pronto.’
Parsons called a meeting of the Mandolin principals for Sunday lunchtime. Unlike Friday night, there was nothing to eat.
No Lovelier Death Page 37
