Cut To Black

by Hurley, Graham

  Faraday shook his head. It was far too early in the morning to feel so weary.

  “You want to know the problem? The problem is, I’m a cop.”

  “I know that. You’re after the bad guys. This guy’s not a bad guy, he’s a victim. That’s the whole point. Give him a stage, let him make his case, show what this stuff really does, and you’re going to have fewer victims. Trust me. I’ve just spent a year rehearsing that little speech. Something else, too.”

  “What?”

  “I fucking believe it. And so should you.”

  Her anger was sauced with disappointment. She’d served up her tastiest morsels, the dish of her wildest dreams, and Faraday had dumped it in the bin. After all this, she seemed to be saying, you’ve copped out. Literally.

  “Let’s start with the legal position,” Faraday said softly.

  “Sure.”

  “You were involved in supply. You were party to possession. They’re both of fences

  “Supply? Crap. I kept the lights on, sure, while he dived downstairs but it wasn’t me out in the street. That would have happened anyway. It’s how all this stuff works.”

  “Possession, then. You had a duty to stop him.”

  “Stop him? If I’d strapped the guy down, he’d still have made it into that kitchen. We’re talking chemistry, Joe, not rights and wrongs. That man needed to shoot up. If that wasn’t the case I’d still be making videos about Dunkirk fucking veterans. Need is what this movie is about. Need is what those guys out in the street trade on. Need is…”’

  Faraday cut in. “Guys? Plural?”

  “Guys? Guy? Shit, I don’t know. Stop playing the cop on me, Joe. I thought you understood. I thought we’d been through some of this together. It’s open and shut, my love. It’s means and ends. There’s a problem out there, a problem like you wouldn’t believe, and my little bit of the jigsaw, my responsibility if you like, is to try and put it on tape. That’s what I do. That’s my contribution. Get this thing right and I just might make a difference. Better that than playing the lawyer.” She paused. “Any other crime I might have committed?”

  “Aiding and abetting.”

  “Like how? Like he couldn’t do it by himself? Like he hasn’t done it by himself half a million times before?”

  “Like you could have stopped him. As I just suggested.”

  “Are you serious?” She got to her feet and stepped towards him. “Don’t you listen to anything I say? I know I’m some dumb fuck from down under but give me credit, my love. The whole point of this circus, this little adventure, is that nothing stops these guys. Offer them detox and there’s a shortage of beds. Get them into rehab and most of them do a runner. Put them in jail and you’re guaranteed a junkie for life. Little me? I just point my camera and watch. Why? Because a classful of kids might just come to the conclusion, way down the line, that junk isn’t worth it.” She glowered at him, still furious. “Is anyone at home? Or am I wasting my time?”

  Faraday busied himself with the teapot. He’d seen Eadie in these moods before but he’d never been on the receiving end. Her anger was truly volcanic. It had an almost physical impact. Spill it on the carpet and the flat would be in flames.

  Reaching for the sugar bowl, he watched her prowling up and down. Twice she reached for the zapper, then changed her mind. With it finally in her hand, she stabbed savagely at the BBC News 24 button. Another volley of cruise missiles. Terrific.

  Faraday abandoned the tea and stepped towards her. When she turned to confront him again, he nodded down towards the screen.

  “Show me everything,” he said. “From the start.”

  Winter was early for the nine o’clock conference in the cluttered first-floor office at Kingston Crescent that served as a base for the Portsmouth Crime Squad. Settling himself at his desk beside the window, he fired up his PC and logged on. A couple of mouse clicks took him into the Daily State, a constantly updated tally of incidents that kept a finger on the city’s rough pulse. Amongst last night’s excitements a couple of D&Ds, a warehouse break-in, and a neighbour dispute was something else that caught his eye.

  Checking the name of the attending DC, he reached for the phone. This time in the morning, the divisional CID office over at Highland Road should be filling up.

  “Bev?” He recognised the voice at once. “Paul. Dawn there, by any chance?”

  “Duty last night, mate. She’s gone home.”

  “Cheers.”

  Winter put the phone down. Dawn Ellis was a young DC on division, one of the few detectives in the city for whom Winter had any respect. Recently, after a troubling encounter with a rogue newcomer from the Met, he’d developed an almost fatherly concern for her well-being.

  When he finally got through, it was obvious she’d been asleep.

  “I don’t know why I bother with the tablets,” she muttered. “Think of the money I’d save.”

  “Sorry, love.” Winter was still peering at the overnight log. “This smack overdose in Old Portsmouth last night, was that yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  There was a pause while Dawn mustered her thoughts. Cathy Lamb, meanwhile, had appeared at the office door. She looked even more fraught than usual.

  “Student called Daniel Kelly.” It was Dawn again. “Girlfriend found him dead in bed with a works in his arm. Uniform attended first, then me.”

  “And?”

  “I took a statement. Tango One sorted an undertaker. I was out within the hour.”

  “Anything dodgy?”

  “Not that I could see. According to the girl, he’d been shooting up for years. Rich kid, nothing better to do with his money. You should have seen his flat. Puts my place to shame.” She paused again. “What is this?”

  “There’s mention here of a video crew.”

  “That’s right. According to the girl, he’d been involved in making a video. She thinks the crew may have been with him at some point last night. I left the details in the office. Needs sorting.”

  “You’ve got a number for these people? A name?”

  “Can’t remember. It’s some kind of production company, begins with “A”. Talk to Bev.” She smothered a yawn. “Night, night.”

  Winter looked up to find Cathy Lamb standing over his desk. For once she didn’t seem remotely interested in the details on Winter’s screen.

  “My office,” she said. “Now.”

  Jimmy Suttle and another squad DC were already occupying most of Cathy’s tiny office. Winter joined them, shutting the door and wedging himself in the corner. Cathy, it turned out, had just spent an uncomfortable half-hour with the Chief Superintendent. The town railway station had been sealed off at four the morning while fire and ambulance did their best to disentangle an assault victim from one of the entry turnstiles on the main concourse. The young man in question was now occupying a cubicle in the Queen Alexandra Hospital A&E Department.

  “He’s one of our Scousers,” Cathy said wearily. “And Secretan’s drawn the obvious conclusion. What didn’t help was a bloody MP on the station.”

  “At that time in the morning?”

  “He was going to a conference in Birmingham. Anti-Social Behaviour. And if you think that’s funny…”

  Secretan, she said, was chewing the furniture. The turf war had now gone very public indeed and the last thing he needed was yet more grief from headquarters. He wanted a full report on his desk by noon, and an action plan within twenty-four hours.

  “Action plan?”

  “We have to seal this off, nip it in the bud. So far the MP’s agreed not to talk to the press but there were other punters there and they undoubtedly will. Secretan’s writing the headlines already.”

  “How are we so sure about turf wars? They leave a note? Name and address?”

  “Good as.” Cathy summoned a weak smile. “Someone had taken the trouble to adjust the lad’s watch, then stamp on it. Any guesses?”

  Jimmy Suttle stirred. �
�6.57?”

  “Exactly.”

  Winter beamed his approval. The boy was learning fast. He turned back to Cathy Lamb as she listed the immediate actions. The Scouser had so far refused to offer a statement. A search of his clothing had revealed a set of car keys, a single wrap of heroin, and a scribbled list of mobile numbers. A couple of squad DCs up in A&E were waiting to take a statement but a fractured jaw and a mouthful of broken teeth didn’t help and it wasn’t looking hopeful. As far as witnesses were concerned, a postman had rung in with details on a van. He’d been en route to the start of his shift in the nearby sorting centre and had noticed the van backed into the side entrance to the station. The rear doors were open and there was some kind of fracas going on. The van looked like a Transit old, maybe a builder’s wagon.

  “There’s CCTV on the concourse.” Cathy was looking at Winter. “And another one outside across the road. According to the postie we’re looking at half two in the morning. OK?”

  Winter nodded. The CCTV control room in the bowels of the Civic Centre was his least favourite destination but already he’d put money on a rapid result. Secretan was right. Odds on, these were the beginnings of a serious turf war. This was about trespass, about the bunch of young lunatics who’d descended on the city and torn up the rules. If you were local and your patience had run out, then there ways of sending a message. Giving one of the Scousers a hiding and dumping him at the railway station didn’t leave much room for ambiguity. Fuck off or else.

  Winter was still wondering about the Transit when Suttle caught his eye.

  “Bazza?”

  “Has to be.” Winter returned to Cathy Lamb. “Anything else, boss?”

  Already late for a scheduled conference at the Tumbril HQ on Whale Island, Faraday found himself caught in rush-hour traffic. Inching towards his fourth set of red lights, he turned over the morning’s events. The row with Eadie had shaken him more than he cared to admit, not simply because he hated letting the job get between them but because in some important respects he suspected she might be right.

  Her junkie interview had been a revelation. As a divisional DI, he bumped into the drug problem every day of his working life, largely because junkies needed to burgle and shoplift to feed their habit. The same names cropped up time and time again on the charge sheets, cutting an ever-deeper groove in the monthly volume crime stats, and in clear-up terms it helped a great deal to know where to look for nicked laptops and help-yourself perfume. But watching the torment of this sweating, moon-faced junkie, with his quietly desperate conviction that heroin was doing him some kind of favour, was the first time that Faraday had truly understood the power of the drug. Getting seriously fond of smack, as Eadie had pointed out, was opting for a form of life imprisonment. No charge, no trial, no jury, no chance of appeal. Just the daily four-hour trek between fixes, with the strongest possible motivation for getting hold of the next wrap.

  In this sense, Eadie’s video rushes had spoken for themselves, perfectly capturing the choke hold that was heroin addiction. Strung-out and visibly distressed, Daniel had done his best to rationalise what smack had done to him, to defend the drug the way you might protect a best friend, but even at his most articulate you couldn’t avoid the physical realities: the hands crabbing up and down the arms of the chair, the constant scratching, the haunted desperation in his eyes. Add to this the sequence that followed, and Eadie might have a point. Put these images in the right order, let them speak for themselves, and no one in his right mind would go anywhere near the stuff. That, at least, was the theory.

  This morning, they’d argued the issue to a standstill. From Faraday’s point of view, Eadie had been reckless. If it ever got to court a good lawyer might be able to limit the damage, but she’d sailed desperately close to the wind and taken J-J with her. Sooner or later he’d catch up with the boy and get another perspective on last night’s little adventure but on the evidence to date he was amazed that Eadie should take a risk like that for a couple of minutes of video footage. It was, he told her, crazy.

  At this, she’d simply laughed. She’d spent half her life taking risks for whatever had seemed to matter at the time, and this movie of hers, this video, was simply another example. From where she was standing it was simply means and ends. If the light at the end of the tunnel was truly important and it was then she didn’t care a toss about how dark it got. Whatever it took, however big the risk, it would be worth it. For Daniel’s sake. And for all the other kids who might end up burying themselves in smack.

  At this point she’d had to take a call on her mobile, retreating to the privacy of the bedroom. Faraday had caught the name Sarah, but by the time Eadie re-emerged, minutes later, Faraday was on his way out. They’d exchanged a brief kiss at the door, Eadie plainly preoccupied, and Faraday had made a mental note to ring her later. He thought they were still friends but something new in her face had made him wonder.

  Now, at last on the move again, he pondered the obvious irony. Eadie knew nothing about the Bazza Mackenzie operation. He seldom discussed work with her and would never taint pillow talk with something as sensitive as Tumbril. Yet, in her own way, simply by plunging in at the deep end, she probably knew a great deal more about the reality of the drugs scene than he did.

  He smiled to himself, remembering Joyce’s guided tour of the Tumbril premises. Shelf after shelf of files. Hundreds of surveillance photos. Thousands of documents. Hard disks brimming with audit trails and details of company structures. Countless evidential bricks to cement a case that might, God willing, put the city’s major dealer away. All of this material was doubtless important, and over the coming days he’d have to get to grips with it, yet he was already sure that none of it was as compelling and vivid as the moment Eadie’s young junkie lost his battle with the duvet and sank into unconsciousness.

  Stopped yet again by traffic, Faraday eyed his mobile. The lights up ahead were still red. He owed her a call. He knew he did. He reached for the phone and punched in her number.

  Engaged.

  Still in the flat, perched on a kitchen stool, Eadie knew it was important to let this man talk about his grief. He’d known about the death of his son for barely three hours. Greater Manchester Police had sent round a WPC first thing, briefed by SouthseaCID. Eadie, alerted to what had happened by a long phone conversation with Daniel’s friend Sarah, was frank about the reason for her call. She wanted to express her sympathy. And she wanted to know how he was feeling.

  “Feeling?” He paused. “I don’t know. I can’t describe it. You ask a question like that, and I simply can’t give you an answer. In one way I feel nothing, absolutely nothing.”

  “Numb? Would that cover it?”

  “Numb would be good. Numb is right. Excuse me…” He broke off a moment and Eadie wondered whether the sudden catch in his voice was entirely authentic. There was something slightly stagey about this man, something the lingering remains of a down-home Lancashire accent couldn’t quite disguise. Did he really care about the son he’d just lost? She couldn’t decide.

  “How well did you know Daniel?” He was back again.

  “Barely at all. We only met yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? How was he?”

  “Terrible. I shouldn’t be saying this, Mr. Kelly, but he was in an awful state. You’ll know he’d been using for a while?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I think it had got on top of him. He was a very unhappy man.”

  “You’re a friend of a friend?”

  “I’m afraid not. I was making a video.”

  “A what?”

  “A video.”

  “With Daniel?”

  “Yes.”

  “About Daniel?”

  “As it turns out… yes.”

  She began to explain about the video, where the idea had come from, the support she’d lined up city-wide, and how that support had eventually translated itself into funding.

  “That was the easy bit. The hard bit was fin
ding Daniel.”

  “What do you mean?” The question, this time, was unfeigned. She had this man’s total attention.

  “Most people in his situation you wouldn’t want to meet. Daniel was the exception. In a strange way he knew exactly what he was doing to himself and he had the guts and intelligence to get that over.”

  “Guts?”

  “He was a brave man, Mr. Kelly. I couldn’t have made the video without him.” Eadie paused, waiting for some kind of reaction. As the silence deepened, she realised that she might just be an answer to this man’s prayers, some tiny hope of rescuing something from the wreckage.

  “So what exactly were you doing with Daniel?” he asked at last. “This video thing?”

  “I did an interview with him. Then I taped him shooting up.”

  “Shooting up? You mean the stuff that killed him?”

  “I’m afraid so. He’d have done it anyway. We just happened to be there.”

  “You didn’t bring the stuff with you?”

  “God, no.”

  “And when you left him?”

  “He was asleep.” She paused a beat. “And smiling. If you ever want to see the footage…” She let the invitation trail away.

  There was a long silence. Eadie rubbed at a grease spot on the kitchen work surface, biding her time. Finally, the voice returned, barely a whisper.

  “I don’t know what to say. Truly, I don’t. This is bizarre. I’m a lawyer. I get to meet all kinds of people and, take my word for it, not a lot gets by me. This is just … I don’t know…Jesus…You don’t pull your punches, do you?”