Beyond Reach

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘D/I Faraday?’ Flat London accent.

  Faraday invited her in, tramped down the corridor to fetch a couple of coffees, returned to find her inspecting his modest gallery of bird photographs. The envelope was now propped against his PC.

  ‘Did you take these?’ She was looking at a family of coots.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And this one?’ She tapped a column of gannets plunging into the sea.

  ‘My son’s. That’s an old shot. He got lucky with the focus.’

  ‘It’s bloody good. Clever boy.’

  ‘That’s what he thinks. What’s that?’ Faraday had noticed the envelope.

  ‘Part of the PM file. I understand you’ve had dealings with our Mr Munday.’

  Faraday emptied the contents of the envelope onto his desk. These were post-mortem shots. The one on top offered a close-up of a head, three-quarter profile, the flattened face a blancmange of blood and gristle. Faraday felt a rising wave of nausea. Even Kyle Munday didn’t deserve this.

  ‘Quick, at least,’ he heard himself say.

  ‘Yeah … for sure.’

  She sat down. So far, she said, they’d drawn a blank with witnesses. There was no CCTV at the scene, no tyre marks on the road. Munday’s clothing had been submitted for forensic examination, and the stolen-vehicle examiner attached to the Scenes of Crime team at Cosham was already working on debris recovered from the road.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Bits of an indicator unit and more stuff we think might have come from one of the headlights.’

  Faraday nodded, sliding the post-mortem photos back into the envelope. A single tiny flake of paint or a splinter of glass could identify the make of a vehicle, even its year of manufacture.

  ‘What about the post-mortem?’ Faraday asked.

  ‘Interesting. Have you ever come across a pathologist called Dodman?’

  Faraday shook his head. He’d never heard of him.

  ‘He’s a locum. We’ll have to wait for his report, obviously, but he was prepared to take a punt on what might have happened.’

  Callan described the injuries to Munday’s lower leg and the provisional conclusion that he must have been facing the vehicle head on when it hit him.

  Faraday nodded. According to Melody’s intelligence profile, Munday had a talent for confrontation, pushing even casual encounters to the point when something was bound to kick off. He enjoyed frightening people, loved hurting them. Tim Morrissey, in all probability, had been only one of his victims - though the rest, mercifully, were still alive.

  ‘The guy was a monster,’ Faraday said quietly, eyeing the envelope.

  ‘How did you ID him?’

  ‘The blokes on the scene found a breach-of-the-peace summons in his jeans pocket. There was a driving licence too. Matching the face was a bit of a problem but it was the same name.’

  ‘Next of kin?’

  ‘It turns out he lives with his mum.’ She named a road in Paulsgrove, a sizeable council estate on the slopes of Portsdown Hill. ‘I sent a FLO round. Half past three in the morning. You know how these things go with the death message but she wasn’t best pleased.’ FLO meant Family Liaison Officer.

  ‘She’s a smackhead,’ Faraday told her. ‘And she deals too. She hates us.’

  ‘That’s what the FLO said. She’s driving the woman over to Winchester this morning for the ID. Apparently the house stank. There’s a dog there too. Shit everywhere.’

  ‘That was Munday’s. It’s a pit bull. He used to let it off the leash to savage other dogs. Just for the laugh.’

  Faraday was staring out of the window, trying to imagine what had happened. Southwick Hill Road took traffic from the top of Portsdown Hill to the edges of Cosham, one of the city’s mainland suburbs. The road was steep, maybe a mile in length.

  ‘Whereabouts are we talking, exactly?’ He turned back to Callan.

  ‘About a third of the way up. Past the hospital.’

  ‘Which side of the road?’

  ‘The upside. The south side.’

  Faraday got to his feet and checked the map of the city on the wall beside his desk. The road was at its steepest at the bottom. The big Queen Alexandra hospital on the left-hand side occupied the first quarter of a mile, maybe more. Beyond there was nothing but bare hillside, falling away to the estate below. The vehicle would have been moving up the hill, gathering speed all the time, but giving Munday plenty of time to see it. So why was he standing in the middle of the road? Letting himself get run over?

  ‘He was probably pissed,’ Callan said. ‘According to Dodman.’

  ‘Yeah. But maybe it’s more personal too.’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘Maybe he knew this car, whatever it was. Recognised it. Gave it the finger.’ He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Sure. And maybe he didn’t. We just can’t tell.’

  Something in her tone of voice told Faraday to slow down. She was staking her claim, protecting her turf. Our job, she was saying. Our shout.

  ‘You said there were no tyre marks on the road surface?’

  ‘Nothing. We checked again in daylight on Sunday morning.’

  ‘Isn’t that unusual?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘So the vehicle made no attempt to stop? Is that what we’re saying? ’

  ‘It made no attempt to stop quickly. Not quite the same thing.’

  ‘But ran him over?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘And didn’t hang around afterwards?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How long before the body was spotted?’

  ‘We can’t know for sure. But it’s a mainish road, so we’re talking minutes at the most.’

  ‘Time?’

  ‘The treble nine was logged at 01.23.’

  ‘Could have been longer, then? That time of night?’ Faraday had returned to the map. ‘This treble nine. Who made it?’

  ‘The driver who spotted the body. He was with his wife. They live in Wickham. They were en route home after dinner with friends.’

  ‘Going up the hill, then?’

  ‘Yep. Just like the other guy.’

  Faraday nodded. Had this couple been coming down the hill they might have passed the sus target vehicle, might have remembered a detail or two.

  ‘Down here we’ve got plenty of CCTV.’ Faraday tapped the tangle of main roads south of Cosham. ‘That time of night you’re not looking at lots of traffic. If our guy came up from the city, odds are he’s been clocked.’ Faraday glanced round at Callan. ‘How are you for bodies?’

  She returned his gaze, unsmiling. There was a steeliness in her blue eyes that spoke of something more than self-confidence.

  ‘I’ve got two guys at the CCTV centre as we speak.’ She reached for her envelope. ‘If we’re through with the tutorial, I’m off down there now.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought I was here to help.’

  ‘Help how?’

  ‘Help with Munday. The company he kept. The people he pissed off.’

  ‘The people who might have run him over?’

  ‘Exactly. Does that sound outrageous?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She stood up and smoothed her skirt. ‘So let’s stay in touch, eh?’

  Paul Winter instructed Scott Taylor to get off the train at the harbour terminus. Pompey’s town station, at the foot of Commercial Road, had always struck him as faintly depressing, a jungle of iron beams to support the overhead tracks, and an awning on top that filtered a thin grey light over the two platforms. If you’d never been to Pompey in your life, and there was any prospect of you staying, then the harbour station - with its waterside views - offered a far gentler handshake.

  On the phone Taylor had sounded enthusiastic about Tide Turn Trust. Small lean start-up charities, he’d said, could afford to take a risk or two, and after a decade at the coalface with various London local authorities he’d had more than enough of covering his arse. In the flesh, emerging from the station, he looke
d exactly the way Winter had pictured him. Tight jeans. Lean frame. Collarless shirt. A couple of days’ stubble. And a hint of grey in his close-cropped hair.

  Winter drove him to the Royal Trafalgar. Earlier, he’d reserved the best table in the big, ground-floor restaurant. Bazza would be joining them as soon as he was through in the office.

  ‘So tell me more about this trust of yours.’ Taylor was sitting beside the window, his chair half turned to enjoy the view across the Common to the sea.

  Winter filled in the details. How Mackenzie had become involved in a kids’ thrash in the house next door that had turned into a full-scale riot. How a couple of bodies had ended up beside his own swimming pool. How he and Winter, between them, had beaten the Old Bill in terms of finding the culprit. And how the whole experience had convinced Mackenzie that something had to be done about the state of the city’s youth.

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘A handful. The hard core. I don’t know how it is with you but we get real scrotes down here.’

  ‘IC3s?’

  ‘White boys mostly. IC1s.’

  Taylor helped himself to a roll and reached for the butter dish. There was a smile on his face that Winter didn’t much like.

  ‘You used to be a copper. Am I right?’

  ‘Yeah. Who told you that?’

  ‘Nobody. It’s obvious. My line of work, you’re around coppers all the time.’ He bit into the roll, smearing one side of his mouth with butter. ‘So how come you link up with someone like Mackenzie?’

  ‘Because he asked me.’

  ‘And has it worked?’

  ‘Definitely. The money’s great and he doesn’t believe in paperwork. ’

  ‘You’re telling me you’ve got this trust thing going without paperwork ?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. I’ve been babysitting until someone who knows what they’re doing comes along. Someone like you, maybe. You’re right. The paperwork setting up the Trust has been a nightmare. Never again.’

  Winter began to tally the kind of interventions he had in mind for Tide Turn, ways this infant organisation might pour oil on Pompey’s troubled waters. Mentoring schemes for hardened ten-year-olds. Pathways to outward-bound weekends. Some kind of sports involvement. Computer courses.

  Taylor, by the look of him, had heard it all before.

  ‘Waste of time, mate.’ He reached for his napkin and patted his mouth. ‘Why not cut to the chase?’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘Teach them about the drugs biz. Sort out some kind of apprenticeship deal. Turn them into proper dealers. Make them rich.’

  Winter stared at him. For once in his life, he didn’t know what to say. Worse still, Bazza had just appeared, body-checking round the prettiest of the new waitresses, then pausing to murmur something in her ear. She began to laugh. Taylor was watching too.

  ‘Doesn’t change, does he? Old tosser.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Bazza ended his tête-à-tête and headed for the table. The sight of Taylor put a huge smile on his face. He gestured him to his feet, then pumped the extended hand.

  ‘Fuck me,’ he said. ‘What turned you legit?’

  ‘Money. And marriage.’

  ‘Kids?’

  ‘Three, Baz. Another due next week.’

  Mackenzie shook his head, holding Taylor at arm’s length. Then he sank into the spare chair and turned to Winter.

  ‘I never sussed it. You should have told me.’

  ‘Told you what, Baz?’

  ‘The Scott Taylor. You know what they called him at the Den? The Undertaker. We had a million rucks with the Millwall crew and they never let us down, not once. Waterloo, eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, they’d be waiting for us round the back of the concourse. Totally up for it, those animals. Totally reliable.’

  Winter sat back as the two men reminisced. On one occasion Taylor had put Mackenzie in hospital. On another, barely weeks later, Bazza had trapped him at the end of a cul-de-sac and kicked the living shit out of him. Good sport. Great days.

  The pretty waitress was waiting. Mackenzie told her to fetch champagne.

  ‘How many bottles, Mr Mackenzie?’

  ‘Bring two Krugs. Put another one on ice. Take a good look at this man, Kelly. He was famous once.’

  She laughed again, turning on her heel, and Winter watched her leave the restaurant, knowing that this plan of his was heading for disaster. Scott Taylor had come down for a jolly.

  He was right. They were talking drugs now, swapping stories from the late 80s. How Bazza had supplied industrial quantities of Ecstasy to an ever-widening circle of football hooligans. How clever he’d been, keeping the prices near-wholesale, letting guys like Taylor take their own profit along the supply chain. The summer of love, said Taylor, had turned into the winter of serious moolah. By the early 90s, before real life caught up with him, he was taking two-month holidays in the Caribbean and coming back with change in his pocket.

  ‘So where did it all go wrong, mush?’ Bazza wanted to know.

  ‘I fell in love. She’d been to university, for fuck’s sake. She’d got a law degree. Shagged me witless for a couple of years then made me get a proper job. Social work sounded a doss so I gave it a go.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I was wrong about the doss but the rest of it was all right. Turned out I could get on with these kids, which isn’t as common as you might think.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Three kids of our own and a fucking great mortgage.’

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘Pig in shit, mate. Love every minute of it.’

  Winter’s gloom deepened. No way would Taylor be spoiling his precious CV with any kind of association with the likes of Bazza Mackenzie.

  The champagne arrived. For a moment or two Winter thought Mackenzie was going to neck it straight from the bottle but then the waitress turned up again with three glasses. She poured the Krug and headed for safety.

  ‘Here’s to crime.’ Bazza winked at Taylor. ‘Happy fucking days.’

  The lunch lasted until four o’clock. Every time Winter got up and made his excuses Mackenzie waved him back into his chair. Like Taylor, Baz had always loathed the Filth but Mr W had been far and away the best of them, much too streetwise to be a fucking cop, and Baz had finally squared the circle by making him an offer he couldn’t refuse. By that time, he told Taylor, Winter himself had seen the light. The Old Bill in this city were shit, a bunch of total tossers, and it had been a pleasure to offer Mr W a proper home for his talents. Since then, despite a hitch or two, they’d had some great times. The business was turning over more dosh than he’d ever need and every last penny was legit. There was no one out there, no one, who could touch him.

  ‘Eh, Paulie?’

  They were standing on the front steps of the hotel. The waiting taxi would be taking Taylor back to the station. Any thought of discussing Tide Turn Trust had long gone. Winter was right. With the best of intentions he’d organised a tribute lunch dedicated to the memory of the 6.57 crew.

  Bazza was giving Taylor a hug. Any time, mush. You know where we are. Bring the wife. Bring the fucking kids. Bring anyone.

  Taylor stepped into the taxi. Like so many of Mackenzie’s inner circle, he seemed to have a limitless capacity for alcohol. He gave them both a wave as the taxi sped away. Then Bazza turned to Winter.

  ‘Brilliant, mush. Remind me … why the fuck did he come down?’

  Chapter three

  TUESDAY, 20 MAY 2008. 09.23

  Faraday gave up waiting for Suttle to appear at his office door. He reached for the phone, dialled his home number. At length, it answered.

  ‘Jimmy?’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘I’m on a rest day. Palliser.’

  Operation Palliser was investigating the slaughter of a Somali drug dealer, found dead in a lavatory on the seafront. The killing had happene
d when Faraday was on leave and Jimmy Suttle had probably worked both weekends.

  Faraday was staring at his PC. An email from Sergeant Steph Callan was tagged ‘Urgent’. She wanted another meet. This time, Faraday knew he had to play a stronger hand.

  ‘We need to talk about Melody, Jimmy.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as.’

  ‘We’re off to Chichester this morning. Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No.’ Faraday checked his watch. ‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’

  Jimmy Suttle lived in an area called Milton, street after street of terraced houses that webbed the south-east corner of the city. Recently promoted Detective Sergeant, he’d managed to retain his desk in the Major Crime intelligence cell. This hadn’t gone down at all well with the long queue of other D/Ss eager for a spell on Major Crime, but Faraday had put his case to DCI Parsons, and Parsons - with some reluctance - had undertaken to get the appointment past Willard. Strictly speaking, Suttle should be transferred back to local CID work. Only his very obvious intel talents kept him in Major Crime.

  Suttle had the kettle on. For the best part of a year he’d been sharing the ground-floor flat with Lizzie Hodson, a reporter on the News. The moment Faraday stepped in through the front door she’d beaten a tactful retreat to the front room.

  ‘Kyle Munday’s dead.’ Faraday explained the hit-and-run. ‘Parsons thinks the investigation belongs to Melody. She might be right but it’s down to me to argue the case. There’s a sergeant on the Road Death team who doesn’t see it our way. Surprise, surprise.’

  Suttle was still digesting the news about Munday. Back in November, weeks of patient intelligence work had built profiles of the potential suspects who had crossed the dead teenager’s path. It had been Suttle’s job to rank these suspects and he’d never had a moment’s doubt that Kyle Munday occupied pole position.

  ‘You think there’s linkage here? Someone paying off a debt?’

  ‘That has to be our supposition.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Parsons wants the job in-house.’

  ‘Sure. But who are we looking at? Tim Morrissey was a mouse. He never ran with the kind of guys who’d sort Munday out. In fact he never ran with anyone.’