Beyond Reach

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘I’d say reckless. Either that or you were in love.’

  ‘Both. I’d settle for that.’

  He told her about coping with J-J in the early days. Janna’s parents, wealthy Americans, had written him a generous cheque for their new grandson, enabling Faraday to buy the Bargemaster’s House, and there was enough left to afford to have someone look after the new baby when he was on shift. But from the start Faraday had detected something special in his infant son, something slightly odd, and by the time he’d hit his second birthday J-J had been diagnosed profoundly deaf.

  ‘How did you feel?’

  ‘I think it was a relief. I knew what the problem was, what the challenge was. And in a way that made it easier. I was his dad. He was my son, my boy. One way or another we had to start talking to each other.’

  ‘But how could you do that?’

  ‘Through the birds. I met someone having to cope with the same problem. We talked … much like we’re talking now. She’d done it through birds. You build a bridge. You learn sign language. You flap your arms around. You play games. You draw a lot. You make each other laugh. I happened to have this great house by the water. Look out of the window and the birds were everywhere. We were incredibly lucky.’

  It was true. Looking back, Faraday could tally a thousand memories. Of J-J peering out of his buggy, kicking his plump little legs at the sight of a family of grebes in one of the nearby freshwater ponds. Of J-J years later, splashing around on the stony mudflats at low tide, building a nest of seaweed for a pair of oystercatchers that had taken his fancy. Without the gift of hearing, Faraday tried to explain, his son seemed to commune with the birds. He couldn’t imagine birdsong because he had no experience of sound. Yet the world of these creatures was undoubtedly real. They connected. They spoke to him.

  Steph was fascinated. She wanted to know more about the house, about J-J. Did Faraday still live there? With this deaf mute son of his?

  ‘Yes and no. Yes I still live there but J-J’s up in London now.’

  ‘And how is he?’

  ‘Very good question.’ Faraday glanced at his watch again. ‘I had breakfast with him on Sunday morning. He’s built a career. He’s got a roof over his head. He does some pretty extraordinary things. Handicap’s an ugly word. He’d kill you for using it.’

  ‘He’s grown up now?’

  ‘Thirty this year, going on twelve. That’s not arrested development. That’s just mischief.’

  Steph laughed as Faraday got to his feet. Then came the lightest of knocks on the door. In stepped a man in his early forties: jeans, a plaid shirt, and a smear or two of grease on his big hands. The way he looked at Steph, Faraday knew at once they were close.

  ‘This is Harry,’ she said, ‘our star crash investigator. He’s also my brother-in-law. He’s the one who went to Thailand. I took the liberty of asking him to come up. Can you hang on another couple of minutes?’

  ‘No problem at all.’ Faraday sat down again. ‘My pleasure.’

  Chapter four

  TUESDAY, 20 MAY 2008. 11.47

  Winter phoned Mackenzie from the custody suite at the city’s central police station. He’d locked the kids in the Wee Green Bus and belled 999. An area car had arrived in minutes, a decent response time, and at Winter’s suggestion all four kids had been arrested on sus vehicle theft. Because they were so young, the booking-in process was taking an age. The custody Sergeant was a stickler for ticking every single box and laying hands on four Appropriate Adults was proving a bit of a nightmare.

  Stepping into the fingerprint area, Winter waited for Mackenzie to answer. Tuesday mornings he normally reserved for an executive pow-wow with his new hotel manager, a heavily tanned forty-something who’d recently returned from running a block of self-catering apartments in Dubai. Her name was Chandelle and it turned out that Baz had first met her a couple of years back when he was investing a couple of million pounds in one of the Emirates’ new shopping malls.

  It wasn’t immediately obvious why Chandelle should have wanted to swap Dubai for Southsea seafront, but Bazza was shrewd when it came to employing people and his new manager had certainly made an impact. Overnight bookings were up by a hefty percentage and Chandelle’s looks, coupled with her schmoozing talents, had begun to change the hotel’s clientele. In some ways she reminded Winter of Misty Gallagher, Bazza’s long-term mistress. The same frank enjoyment of life. The same talent for convincing every man she met that they were inches away from scoring. No wonder some of the city’s key players - the movers and shakers who always pushed their luck - were beginning to fill the restaurant at lunchtimes.

  ‘How’s it going?’ It was Bazza.

  ‘I’m down the Bridewell.’

  ‘Where?’

  Winter explained what had happened. Bazza dismissed the damage to the Wee Green Bus.

  ‘What about the kids? You kill any?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shame. So how come the Old Bill got involved?’

  ‘I belled them, Baz. It’s called citizenship. Wins you lots of big brownie points. All they had to do was turn up and nick the little bastards. How sweet is that?’

  Winter could tell Mackenzie wasn’t convinced. He’d spent his entire adult life proving that crime paid, and collaboration with the Filth made him deeply uneasy. He wanted to know what would happen next.

  ‘They’ll get charged, then bailed. Sooner or later they’ll appear in court. Some ditzy social worker will show up and we’ll all agree they deserve a second chance. I give it a couple of months, Baz.’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Before they’re at it again.’

  One of the Bridewell’s younger P/Cs, a face Winter didn’t recognise, paused by the door. He’d caught the end of the conversation and he mimed applause. Winter gave him a wink, then turned his back to the door.

  Mackenzie wanted to be sure there’d be no comeback from the men in blue.

  ‘Comeback for what, Baz? Nicking cars is hot just now. The guys down here have to hit their performance targets. We just did them a big favour. Believe me, Baz, you’ll be getting a letter from the Chief Constable. A couple more outings like this and you’ll end up Lord Mayor. Result, eh?’

  Mackenzie grunted, far from amused, and Winter tried to picture Chandelle gazing at him across the desk, playing with the beads she wore, her long scarlet fingernails straying across her permanently tanned chest. Bazza kept a suite of his own upstairs and Winter, like every other member of staff, assumed that room service on Tuesday lunchtimes meant exactly that. Bazza had never seen the point of being subtle.

  ‘I had Stu on earlier,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘He’s up in town for most of the week, had a gander at Ezzie’s diary before he left.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She’s booked at the gym late this afternoon. You know the Tatchbury Mount Spa Hotel?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come round after lunch. Half two would be good. I’ll talk you through it.’

  The line went dead and Winter turned round to find the uniformed custody Inspector with a protective arm round the diminutive Billy Lenahan. The Inspector, a Scouse ex-submariner, had always had a soft spot for Winter.

  ‘I’m locking up our little friend here,’ he said. ‘He just tried to nick the PDSA collection box.’

  ‘Evidence?’

  ‘Three witnesses, fingerprints, CCTV.’ He held up a bloodied finger. ‘Plus the little bastard bit me.’

  Faraday ran into DCI Parsons in the car park behind Fratton nick. She was bustling towards her new Audi A5, already late for a lunch with the Head of CID over in Winchester.

  ‘Somewhere nice, I hope.’

  ‘Sandwiches, Joe, if I’m lucky. Have you talked to Callan again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She says the investigation is ongoing.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘She’s telling us to
bugger off.’

  ‘Really?’ A frown signalled Parsons’ displeasure. ‘You briefed her on Melody? Registered our interest?’

  ‘Of course, boss. But I don’t think she’s having it. She’s read the small print. She knows her rights. She’s standing her ground. And to be frank I don’t blame her.’

  Parsons shot Faraday a look. Later, locked in conference with Willard, she’d doubtless table her concerns about the veteran D/I. Major Crime needs new blood, she’d say. It needs youth, energy, 100 per cent commitment. Not some weary has-been unprepared to fight his corner.

  ‘Take another look at the file, Joe. You’ve been away. Maybe something’s slipped your mind. It’ll be there, I guarantee it. Then you can phone her again and have a proper conversation.’

  ‘And Mr Willard?’

  ‘He’s seeing it my way.’ She smiled her little smile. ‘We need to bring this in-house.’

  In his office, Faraday fetched out the Melody file. The last couple of days, back on home turf, he’d realised just how easy it was to lose the plot. Effective detective work depended, above all, on total focus. On the Major Crime Team you were there to unleash the investigative machine, to trawl for evidence, to piece together a story, to weigh one probability against another, and to be aware all the time where this little boat of yours - so painstakingly assembled - might spring a leak.

  Time after time, as a lowly D/C, he’d been astonished at how quickly a good defence barrister could demolish a case in court. A single flaw in the evidence, the merest hint of contradictory statements, the tiniest procedural oversight buried in the CPS file, could - within minutes - swing a jury against a stone-bonker case.

  A stone-bonker case carried the virtual guarantee of a Guilty verdict. To anyone with half a brain it would be obvious where the blame lay. Melody was a brilliant example of a stone-bonker but the squad had struggled from the start with assembling lawyer-proof evidence.

  Faraday opened the file and began to leaf through it. Jimmy Suttle, with his usual thoroughness, had assembled a timeline that began with the victim’s mother, Jeanette Morrissey. She’d first become aware of Munday’s interest in her son Tim when he’d arrived home in the early summer without the rucksack he used to carry his books. At first he claimed to have lost it. Then he said he’d left it on the bus. Only when she accused him of lying did he admit that kids from his class - one of them Munday’s younger brother - had tossed the contents into one of the neighbourhood bottle banks and then used lighter fuel to set fire to the rucksack itself.

  Three of the books had belonged to the school. Tim would have to foot the bill for replacements. But the fourth had been precious, a signed edition of a Terry Pratchett novel, and his obvious distress at its loss had delighted his tormentors. From that point on, said his mother, Tim had become the easiest of targets, and when word spread that he’d contacted the council to try and access the bottle bank the news simply whetted the kids’ appetite for more wind-ups.

  They’d begun to lay little traps on his way home, chasing him up the street, pelting him with stones nicked from a nearby rockery. They bribed the class minger to try and get inside his trousers on the back seat of the bus. They ambushed him outside his piano teacher’s house, tearing up the sheet music she’d just given him and then videoing his frenzied attempts to prevent the wind scattering it all down the street. In a footnote Suttle had described this kind of behaviour as predatory, and he was right, but the months of bullying and abuse during the summer were merely a prelude to what followed.

  The key, once again, was Kyle Munday. He’d just served ten months for assault, hospitalising a young Asian taxi driver who’d got on his nerves, and he was back on the estate, keen to re-establish himself at the top of the pecking order. Tim Morrissey, with his fancy ideas about becoming a jazz pianist, struck him as the perfect target. Munday’s young lieutenants, the kids who trailed like comet dust in his wake, had made a decent enough start but Morrissey’s obvious vulnerability justified a step-change in the violence. Someone like that - bright, talented, hard-working - had to be taught a lesson. And Munday, with his bitten nails and dragon tats, was only too happy to oblige.

  The hand-stamping had been his idea. On Friday evenings, like the good boy he was, Morrissey fetched fish and chips for his mum from the Happy Friar. Munday and half a dozen of the younger kids were already pissed on White Lightning from the corner shop up the road. They were hanging around outside the chippy but they let Morrissey through because that way they got a free meal as well as a laugh or two. When he came out, according to a woman who lived across the road, they followed him along the parade of shops, trying to trip him up, laughing and jeering as he began to run. Beyond the postbox, towards the end of the parade, she lost sight of what happened next but ten minutes later the kids and the tall one who was older were swaggering back along the parade, helping themselves to fish and chips from the two wrappers Morrissey had been carrying, treating passers-by to the usual volley of abuse.

  By that time, according to Suttle’s timeline, Tim Morrissey was taking the long route home, hugging the inside of the pavement, his head down, his arms crossed, his broken hands pressed against his ribcage. His mother, horrified, had driven him to A & E, demanding that the damage be photographed as well as X-rayed, dialling 999 on her mobile to bring a patrol car up to the hospital.

  The photos and X-rays formed part of the file. As it turned out, Morrissey had been lucky. Four broken fingers, lacerations to both hands, but nothing that wouldn’t - in the fullness of time - heal itself. That, though, wasn’t the problem. An attack this organised, this vile, this vindictive, had shattered what little confidence the boy had left. He’d had enough of school, or study, of playing the piano. From now on, in his mother’s phrase, he wanted to draw the curtains and spend the rest of his life in bed. Munday, in other words, had won.

  The attending officer at A & E had got nothing out of Morrissey. Three days later, again at his mother’s insistence, an area car called at the family address. This time he volunteered a statement. It turned out to be a death sentence.

  Faraday leafed forward through the file until he found the statement. It was, as usual, transcribed by the interviewing officer but no amount of police-speak could disguise the boy’s gathering sense of hopelessness and terror as he realised what lay in store for him. They’d taken the fish and chips off him. They’d pushed him to the ground, sat on his back, shoved his face into the wet gravel behind the parade of shops, given him a kick or two in the ribs and legs before Munday set about his hands. He’d jumped on them, rubber-soled Doc Martens, full force. Morrissey’s hands were precious to him. He’d tried to scream, to struggle, to somehow get free, but there were too many of them and what few shouts he’d managed had gone unanswered. Then, all of a sudden, the weight on his back had disappeared and all he could hear was the thunder of his heart and the sound of footsteps on the gravel as they all ran away. It had taken him ages to get to his feet. He’d been frightened of them coming back. Getting home had been hard, really hard. He knew his fingers were broken.

  At the end of the interview the attending officer had asked for names. Unusually, he’d got them. Dale Sapper. Casey Milligan. Roxanne Claridge. Jason Dominey. Ross McMurdo. And Kyle Munday. Four of the kids were in Morrissey’s class. Roxanne had come along for the ride. Munday, said Morrissey, had been the worst of the lot.

  All six had been pulled in for interview by local detectives. Four came voluntarily. Casey Milligan and Munday had to be arrested. All six denied having anything to do with an aggravated assault on Tim Morrissey. Three of them accused him of making it up. Faced with the evidence to the contrary - the X-rays, the photographs - only Dale Sapper showed any sign of changing his story.

  The D/S holding the file, aware of the latest blitz on bullying, had seized footware and items of clothing. There was money in the operational budget for forensic analysis in a case like this and the results were back within a fortnight. The lab technicians had dra
wn a blank on Kyle Munday’s boots - they showed signs of thorough cleaning - but they’d retrieved Morrissey’s DNA from a brand-new pair of Nikes belonging to Casey Milligan, and matching bloodstains from jeans worn by Jason Dominey. Presented with the evidence, both Milligan and Dominey had gone No Comment. Dale Sapper, hauled in for a second interview, said he couldn’t remember what happened. The CPS, in the absence of corroborating evidence, had profound doubts about taking the case to court. Then came the bombshell. Tim Morrissey phoned up one morning and told the D/S he wanted to withdraw his statement. Case closed.

  Faraday sat back, staring out of the window. The first drops of rain were falling out of a grey sky, smearing his view of Stamshaw rooftops. A swirl of pigeons swooped low over the car park, then rose again, wheeling towards the ferry port and the harbour. These were Pompey racing pigeons, thought Faraday. And their big mistake was ever coming back.

  If Morrissey thought the retraction of his statement would bring his torment to an end, he was wrong. Back at school for the winter term, he was labelled a grass. The harassment, if anything, got worse. Mrs Morrissey made arrangements to put her house on the market. They’d move somewhere else, somewhere half-civilised, somewhere her son might stand some small chance of getting his life back. It never happened.

  On 5 November, in a corner of the playing fields half a mile from the celebratory bonfire, Tim Morrissey was stabbed to death. Four wounds to his back and upper chest. Deep slashes to the side of his throat and a single jabbing thrust through his right eye. In the pathologist’s opinion, at least two blades had been used, possibly three. Faraday remembered Suttle’s comment when he went through the post-mortem report. This isn’t a homicide, boss, he’d said. It’s an orgy.

  Parsons, only too aware of the intensity of local press coverage, had thrown everything at Melody, and Faraday, as Deputy Senior Investigating Officer, had found himself with more D/Cs than he could remember in any previous case. He fired up the Major Incident Room and dispatched detectives to the four corners of the Paulsgrove estate. Media appeals for witnesses from the bonfire celebrations brought a flood of calls, all of them disappointing. Hundreds of people that night reported gangs of youths on the prowl, pissed, aggressive, lippy. Some, with long memories, even produced a name or two. But none of these lines of enquiry got any further than a bunch of revelling kids out for a laugh. Never carry a blade, mate. Not my style, know what I mean?