Dark Winter (9781101599891)

by Mark, David

  “Good lad,” he says, as he unplugs the bottle and takes a giant swig.

  McAvoy watches Chandler in the gathering gloom, wide-eyed and strangely impressed. Sees the smaller man’s silhouette change shape as the bottle tips up and stays there at the end of a long, bony arm.

  “Website said it costs five thousand a week to stay here,” says McAvoy, shaking his head. “Money well spent, eh?”

  “I don’t know if I get more pleasure from the drink or from being naughty,” he says, smiling.

  “I don’t suppose you just found that bottle by accident?”

  “My young boxer,” he says, laughing.

  “He has ways and means.”

  “I’ll bloody bet.”

  They sit for another twenty minutes. The afternoon dusk turns midnight black. The snow lays half-heartedly on the wet gravel, then disappears into nothingness. They talk about Hull. McAvoy shivers and puts his hands in his pockets.

  Eventually, the conversation returns to Stein.

  “You haven’t asked why this is a Hull CID matter,” says McAvoy as he watches Chandler finish off the last of the whiskey and notes that he hasn’t been offered a drop.

  “His sister’s got a husband on the Police Authority,” Chandler says with a wave of his hand. “I’d imagine you’re doing somebody a favor.”

  McAvoy looks at his feet, wishing he were as shrewd or well-informed as an alcoholic hack.

  “So what do I tell her?” he asks.

  “Tell her that Fred was a good bloke. A nice chap full of stories. That he didn’t mind talking about what happened to him when he had a pint in his hand, and that he was shit-scared of going on that bloody great cargo ship with a TV crew who wanted to make him dance like a monkey.”

  The irritation is there again. The bitterness. It might almost be called rage.

  “You don’t seem to have a great deal of time for TV journalism.”

  “Get that, did you?” Chandler spits. Lights his final cigarette. “Vultures with checkbooks.”

  “You’ve worked for them, though,” points out McAvoy, as diplomatically as he dares.

  “What fucking choice have I got? I was born with one bloody talent, son. I can write. Two, if you count getting people to talk. I should be on every bloody bookshelf in the land. But I’m not. I’ve got a bedsit in East Anglia, and even if I still had my license, I couldn’t afford a car. I use what little royalties I get from one book to pay for the publishing run on the next.”

  “Mr. Chandler, I—”

  “No, son, you’ve hit the nail on the head. I’m a fucking failure as a writer. I’ve had more rejection letters from publishers than I can fucking stomach. But put Caroline Wills in front of the camera and put a fat check in an old boy’s hand and you get TV bloody gold. My graft. My idea!”

  McAvoy waves his hands, urging Chandler to slow down. “Your idea? I thought Miss Wills contacted you . . .”

  Chandler dismisses him with an angry grunt. “I have a million bloody ideas. I’ve got a notebook full of them. If I come up with enough outlines, maybe one day a publishing house will like one of them. Fred was in there. An idea I had. A book about people who survived. The ones that got away. The individuals who escaped when nobody else got out alive. I hadn’t even started looking for him, nor for any of the others, by the time the rejection letters hit the doormat. That’s my life, son. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m fucking here!”

  Chandler is standing now. In the darkness, McAvoy can see the glowing tip of his cigarette moving from side to side, up and down, rolling around his mouth as if wedged in the lips of a cow chewing grass.

  “Mr. Chandler, if you would just calm down a moment . . .”

  Chandler extinguishes his cigarette on the palm of his hand. He places the stub in his pocket. “Are we done?”

  McAvoy, red-faced, bewildered, angry, and confused, doesn’t know what to say. He just nods. Dismisses Chandler by turning his face away and slumping back on the bench. He listens to Chandler limp away. His brain hurts. His mind is a fog of good intentions, guilt, and an intuition he doesn’t fully trust.

  Why did I come here? he asks himself. What have I bloody learned?

  As he walks back to his car, he feels a hundred years old. He wants to upload his mind into the database and delete the bits that aren’t important. Look for connections. See what it is that his subconscious is telling him.

  He closes the door on the swirling, angry snow. Closes his eyes.

  Switches on his mobile phone.

  Listens to his messages.

  The bollocking from Pharaoh.

  The instruction to call Helen Tremberg as soon as he can.

  12.

  McAvoy plays with the car radio.

  6:58 p.m. Two minutes to the next news bulletin.

  Outside lane on the A15, downhill approaching the harp strings and tangled metal of the Humber Bridge. It was an impressive sight the first few times he’d driven across this mile and a half of rigid tarmac and pristine steel that stitches Yorkshire to Lincolnshire, but the novelty has worn off, and he rather resents the few quid it costs for the privilege of not having to drive through Goole.

  He feels the car swerve as the road becomes the bridge. Feels the buffeting of the ferocious wind that whips down the estuary as if it’s in a rush to get inland.

  Slows down, so he can listen to the bulletin in full before he reaches the kiosk and has to pay his fare.

  Good evening. Members of Humberside Fire and Rescue Service are attending a blaze at a recently opened specialist burns unit at Hull Royal Infirmary. The fire was reported shortly after six p.m. and is thought to have been confined to just one room occupied by a single male patient. His condition is said to be critical. In other news, the detective leading the murder inquiry following the death of a teenage girl at Hull’s Holy Trinity Church has denied reports that a city man has been arrested in connection with the investigation. Acting Detective Superintendent Patricia Pharaoh told reporters that no arrests have been made, and that the man in question was merely assisting with inquiries. She repeated earlier calls for witnesses to the horrific stabbing to come forward . . .

  “Fuck,” says McAvoy and, without giving a damn about who sees, reaches for his phone. Pulls over on the inside lane of the bridge and switches on his hazard lights. Hears the blare of horns as drivers of the vehicles behind him let him know he’s a wanker.

  Helen Tremberg answers on the third ring.

  “Speak of the devil,” she says, and there’s not much humor in her voice.

  “Really?” he asks, and winces.

  “You bet. Me and Ben are having a little wager as to who’s going to kill you first. Pharaoh, Colin Ray, or ACC Everett.”

  “Everett? Why?”

  “Wouldn’t like to say. Just came stomping into the incident room about teatime and asked where you were. Didn’t look happy. Even less so when one of the support staff asked him who he was.”

  “Christ!”

  “Indeed. Where have you been?”

  “Long story. It doesn’t matter. I just heard the headlines on Humberside . . .”

  “Yeah, Colin Ray’s really fucked up. Sorry, Sarge, I mean . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he says, and means it.

  “This bloke him and Shaz brought in. All just a hunch. Ray’s gut feeling. I don’t know what happened when they got him in the interview room, but he came out of there with his nose bleeding and puke on his shirt. That’s according to the desk sergeant, any- way. Apparently Pharaoh turned up and all bloody hell broke loose. The bloke’s still in the cells, but they don’t seem to know what to do with him.”

  McAvoy feels his heart racing. Sees the headlines. Wonders how much of this almighty fuck-up can be attributed to him buggering off in the m
iddle of the day to follow up on a feeling.

  “And the fire? At Hull Royal?”

  “We’re here now,” says Tremberg. “It was out almost as soon as it started, but the second the fire crews ventilated the room and the smoke cleared, we got the call.”

  “Why us? I mean, why you?”

  “Deliberately started, no question. Top brass reckon there’s no point having a serious crimes unit and then using the whole team on one case. Me and Ben were knocking off when the city DCS phoned and asked us to attend personally.”

  McAvoy rubs a hand over his chin. Tugs at the point of stubble beneath his lower lip. Wishes he could go and make himself presentable. Scrub himself until it hurt.

  He feels the car rock as a lorry thunders by, paying no heed to the weather warnings.

  “But one little fire?” he asks, confused. “Sure, it’s in the new unit, but a uniform could clear it up with half a dozen witness statements and the CCTV . . .”

  “Sarge?” Helen Tremberg sounds confused.

  “Why use us? For a fire?”

  Realization dawns.

  “Didn’t they say on the radio? It’s a fatal, sir. A murder. The man from the house fire on Orchard Park last night. Somebody broke into his room and finished the job.”

  “I don’t know where to start,” says Pharaoh, in a voice that sounds like steam escaping from a high-pressure pipe. “You take more looking after than one of my kids.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “Will you please cut out that ‘ma’am’ bollocks, McAvoy. It makes me feel like Queen fucking Victoria.”

  McAvoy nods. Lets her outstare him. Turns away.

  They’re standing in the corridor outside the incident room at Queen’s Gardens. The central heating system has decided to make up for past mistakes by altering its modus operandi. The individual rooms are now as cold as the grave, while the hallways are warmer than hell.

  “Do you know the kind of day I’ve had?”

  McAvoy nods again.

  It’s 9:41 p.m., twelve hours since they stood in this same spot and she told him he was her office manager. Told him to keep an eye on things while she went out to catch a killer.

  And now they’re back. Each having had a day they’d rather forget, their minds overflowing with information and none of it much good.

  Embarrassed, McAvoy fixes his gaze on something other than her angry eyes. Takes a keen interest in the door to the incident room. Somebody had pinned a sign saying “Pharaoh’s Palace” on the door earlier today, but it has been torn by the edge of a gunmetal-gray filing cabinet, and now lies in two neat halves by the skirting board. He can’t help but wonder if it’s a sign in itself.

  “If I ask you to give me the bare bones on this, you’ll do what you’re told, yes? You won’t get the wrong end of the stick and spend the next hour giving me a headache?” She suddenly sounds more weary than cross. “I love your accent, but you do go on.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Sorry. Yes.”

  So he tells her. Tells her why he left the incident room. Where he’s been. What he’s discovered. Reminds her about Fred Stein and his important sister. Keeps it brief and doesn’t look at her properly until he’s finished. It takes about three minutes, and sounds so lame and fruitless that he almost runs out of energy before the end.

  “That’s it?” she asks, although it’s a genuine query rather than an attack.

  “Yes.”

  She purses her lips and breathes out. “Interesting,” she mutters, and raises her eyebrows. Her face has returned to a more natural coloring.

  “You think so?”

  “Come with me.”

  She turns and leads him to the end of the corridor. Pushes open an office door, seemingly at random, and holds it open as he steps inside.

  At a desk, lit by a green reading lamp, a man of around sixty is sitting with his feet up, a crystal-glass tumbler full of whiskey in one palm and a battered notebook in the other.

  “Hi,” says McAvoy, and it comes out as bewildered and hapless as he feels.

  “Tom’s letting me share his excuse for an office until we get back to Priory,” says Pharaoh, pushing the door closed behind him. He feels her body smear against him as she angles herself into the only space not currently occupied by equipment.

  McAvoy stands, unsure of himself, in the center of the tiny room. It’s not much bigger than a broom cupboard. The desk stands lengthways at the far end, home to a monitor, a keyboard, a hard drive, and an assortment of typed and handwritten paperwork, all bathed in the eerie green light, which makes Tom, in his white collarless shirt and neat white hair, seem oddly angelic.

  “Now then, son,” says Tom, looking up and clearly pleased to see them. “Welcome to my humble abode. I’m Tom Spink. You spell it like you say it.”

  “Tell Tom what you just told me,” says Pharaoh, nodding. “About what Everett asked you to do.”

  McAvoy tells the man in granddad shirt, cardigan, and soft cords all about what he has been doing these past few days. Watches unspoken signals flash in his eyes and tries to read meaning in the glances the older man throws at Pharaoh.

  “What do you reckon?” asks Pharaoh, when McAvoy finishes.

  “It’s interesting,” says Spink, nodding and folding his lower lip back over his bottom teeth. He’s addressing Pharaoh and not looking at McAvoy. “Intriguing, anyway. This is what we do, after all. I can see why the boy would be interested.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “It’s Tom, son,” says Spink, turning to him. “I’m retired.”

  “Tom used to be my boss,” says Pharaoh, suddenly realizing that all this must seem quite peculiar to her sergeant. “Back in the good old days. He’s all sorts of things now. Runs a little B and B on the coast. Does a bit of work for a private investigator, when he feels like he might be in danger of getting to heaven. And because he’s got a nice turn of phrase and knows the funny handshakes, he’s got himself a commission writing a history of Humberside Police for the bigwigs, which means I can keep him where I can see him, and he can tell me all about the days when a truncheon was designed for ease of insertion.”

  “Good times,” he says, smiling. “Nefertiti here was always hard as nails. Never took any crap from an old lech like me.”

  “Nefertiti?” McAvoy can’t help but repeat.

  “Egyptian queen,” says Spink, with a sigh. “Pharaoh? Get it? Honestly, and she tells me you’re one of the bright ones.”

  “I know—”

  “That’s what I thought until you buggered off,” says Pharaoh, pointedly. “I was calling you a few names earlier on, my boy. Thought I’d pegged you wrong. Thought you were being the political animal some of the lads and ladies have got you pegged as. Sucking up to the ACC. Leaving us to do the real work. Seems I was right in the first place. ACC’s more pissed off with you than I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Had a call from some bigwig on the Police Authority. Apparently his wife’s in a right state. Some big Scottish lump has got her thinking her brother might have been murdered.”

  McAvoy wants to cry. “I never—”

  “That’s life, sunbeam. Get used to it. Nice to see I haven’t lost it. I can still pick ‘natural police.’”

  “Natural police?”

  “Get a feeling and follow it through. Listen to the little voice inside themselves and damn the consequences.”

  Despite the chill in the office, McAvoy’s face flushes scarlet. He realizes he’s being praised and wonders what the penance will be.

  “Thank you.”

  Spink and Pharaoh both laugh. “It’s not an asset, matey. It’s a bloody curse. It means you’re going to piss people off for the next thirty years and there’s a better than average chance you’ll lock up quite a few of the w
rong people. But you’ll catch some wrong ’uns, too.”

  McAvoy feels his legs growing weak. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast and feels suddenly empty and vulnerable. Perhaps it shows in his face, as Pharaoh looks at him with suddenly more affectionate eyes.

  “This Stein case,” she says. “You think it’s important?”

  “It feels wrong,” he replies. “I can’t explain it, really. I know today was a dead end with Chandler, but I just can’t see this old boy planning all this. I mean, to take your own life is one thing, but to plan it down to such elaborate detail?”

  Spink and Pharaoh exchange another glance. Spink gives the slightest of nods, as if he has been asked a question.

  “Stick with it, then,” says Pharaoh, reaching down between her legs and pulling a half-full bottle of whiskey from the drawer. She tops off the glass and takes a drink. “I’ll trust you. Like you say, it might be nothing, and the Daphne case takes priority. I won’t stop you looking into something you believe is wrong, but just don’t dick me about. I’ve got enough of that with Colin bloody Ray.”

  McAvoy breathes a sigh of relief. He’s not sure that he actually asked for permission to keep looking into the Stein case, but he’s pleased that it hasn’t been denied.

  “What’s the situation with all that, ma’am?”

  She laughs, but it’s not a happy sound. “Neville the sodding racist,” she says, and needs a drink before she can compose her features into anything other than a snarl. “Colin thinks he’s natural police. Colin, that is. Not bloody Neville. Col thinks his gut is what’s leading him. But it’s not. It’s a load of prejudice and arrogance wrapped up in this unshakable self-belief. According to Colin and his mini-she, this bloody old fool decided to off the first black person he took a dislike to, and pin it on some tribal feud. The daft thing is, even though it sounds like nonsense, he’s got some good arguments. Neville can’t account for his whereabouts at the time of the attack. He’s got a history of violence. He’s spent time in the army, so he’s not going to be a slouch physically. And we’ve seen his temper firsthand. Him and Colin had a right set-to in the interview room. Was almost another bloody murder. We’ve got him locked up until I decide what to do with him. Charged him with assaulting a police officer, so at least he’s not an official murder suspect, but when I had to go and explain where we’re at to the top brass, I got the distinct impression they wouldn’t be averse to us sticking it on Neville.”