“When did that happen?”
“Fuck knows. I only found out a couple of months ago. I called round home to pick up a CD and they were at it in the bedroom. I couldn’t believe it, just couldn’t believe it. That’s why I went crying my eyes out to Dave Pullen. The older man again, see? Thought he might be able to help, give me advice. Fat fucking chance.”
Suttle nodded, remembering Trudy with Winter in the Gumbo Parlour at Gunwharf. No wonder she’d been so lippy about her mother.
“So where are you living now?”
“Back home.”
“With your mum? After all that?”
“Yeah.”
“How come?”
“Can’t say.” Her face had suddenly brightened again. “Except that it’s fine now.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. You get yourself in a state, get really worked up, then you realise you’d got it all completely wrong. Me? Total wuss.”
The drinks arrived. Trudy diluted the rum with a splash of Coke and held the glass under her nose. Then she looked up.
“You know how people talk about life? How it can be so funny sometimes? Only I’m just learning.” She tipped the glass to her lips and took a tiny sip. “Something else, too.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re really, really nice.” She paused, then looked at her watch. “Amount you’ve drunk, there’s no way you’re driving me home.”
“You want a cab?”
“No.” She reached for his hand across the table. “I want you. Where’s this place of yours?”
“Across the green. Last cottage on the left.”
“And your mate?”
“In London all week. Training course.”
“Cool.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. “Think you can manage to fuck me?”
By eight o’clock, the demo was beginning to break up. The column of protesters had surged through the shopping precinct in Commercial Road, picking up support en route and finally emerging at the roundabout that funnelled rush-hour traffic onto the motorway. Keen to keep the demonstration on the move, the police had stopped three lanes of cars, hurrying the column on towards Whale Island. To the delight of the veterans at the head of the march, the forest of placards had stirred the odd toot of support from waiting drivers, but Eadie -hunting for pictures amongst the blank-faced commuters was only too aware that the bulk of these people simply wanted to get home. Portsmouth, after all, was a naval city martial by instinct and once the fighting had started, a protest like this smacked of treason. Our boys and girls were in harm’s way. Now was the time to get behind them.
Whale Island was a mile north, beyond the continental Ferry Port. The protesters swung along, bellowing slogans, punching the air. George Bush was a madman. Blair was a poodle. The Americans had blood on their hands. By now, Eadie knew she’d done the event justice. She had maybe half an hour of recorded material, more if you included the handful of snatched interviews, but the moment the column rounded the final bend before the causeway that fed naval traffic onto Whale Island, her heart leapt. A line of helmeted police blocked the path forward. Behind them, half a dozen waiting Transit vans, mesh over the windows, heavy metal visors to protect the windscreens. Overhead, the steady drone of the police spotter plane, wing dipped, flying a wide circle as the demonstration came to a halt.
Eadie hurried along the flank of the column, incurring the wrath of a uniformed sergeant who warned her to stay in line. At the front, police and protesters eyed each other over ten metres of tyre-blackened asphalt. The man with the beard was locked in negotiation with the senior officer in charge. Eadie did her best to get close enough to pick up the dialogue but another officer waved her away. Behind her, the chanting was beginning to flag. Finally, the man with the beard turned to the press of bodies and switched on the loudspeaker. There were to be a couple of brief speeches. Then, in what he called a display of solidarity for the Iraqi people, they’d return to the Guildhall Square.
There were murmurs from the crowd. One student yelled an obscenity. Eadie caught a smirk on the face of a watching PC. Elsewhere in the world a situation like this would be seconds away from kicking off. Instead, as the first of the speeches got under way, Eadie knew it was all over. There’d be more rants against the evils of American imperialism, more calls for Blair’s head, but in essence the demonstration this column of good intentions had hit the buffers. The police, in the shape of a couple of hundred men, had flung down the gauntlet, knowing full well that they’d won.
Won? Half an hour later, as the police chivvied the last of the stragglers back towards the city centre, Eadie fumbled for her mobile. A couple of hundred metres away, she could still see the security barrier and gatehouse that barred the entry to Whale Island and HMS Excellent. Bathed in a pool of orange light, it seemed to symbolise everything that the Brits in their very orderliness refused to confront.
She paused for a moment, ignoring the attentions of a police Alsatian. When she dialled Faraday’s mobile, she got no further than the answering service. When she tried again, knowing he’d check the caller’s number, she heard the same recorded voice. Finally, knowing she had to get the last couple of hours off her chest, she sent a text to J-J: Please tell your dad to call me. Luv. E. XXX. She waited a moment, wondering if they were both at home. Then, when nothing happened,
she took a final look at the gatehouse. On the evening breeze, very faint, came the sound of laughter.
Paul Winter was half an hour into his DVD of The Dambusters when his mobile began to ring. The lone figure of Barnes Wallis was wandering away over the Reculver mud flats trying to work out why his bomb wouldn’t bounce properly. Winter propped the tumbler of Laphroaig on his lap and reached for his mobile.
“Paul Winter.”
A voice he didn’t immediately recognise asked him what he was doing. It was a light voice, Pompey accent. Winter studied the caller number. No clues there.
“Who is this?”
“Bazza Mackenzie. Just wondered whether you fancied a chat.”
“Now?”
“Whenever. Tonight would be good for me. You know Craneswater at all? Sandown Road. Green floodlights. Number thirteen. Can’t miss it.” The line went dead and Winter was left staring at the television. Barnes Wallis was back at his drawing board, designing a bigger bomb.
Chapter 13
THURSDAY, 20 MARCH 2003, 21.12
Winter took a taxi to Southsea. The driver dropped him halfway down Sandown Road, scribbling a phone number for the return fare. Across the street, a substantial two-storey house was bathed in a lurid shade of green, an effect which gave the place a strangely unearthly look, as if it had just touched down from another planet. If you wanted to announce your arrival in this quietly prosperous enclave, thought Winter, then this was definitely the way to do it.
The driver shot Winter a look and then handed him the receipt.
“You should come by here on Mondays,” he said. “Pink’s even worse.”
Winter watched the taxi disappear down the street. The house was protected by a sturdy brick wall, well over head height, with a timber trellis on top. Sliding steel gates barred a drive-in entrance, and there was another access door further down the street. The door, which was locked, looked new.
Winter fingered the button on the entry phone buzzed twice.
“Who is it?” A woman’s voice.
“Paul Winter.”
“Wait a moment.”
There was a longish silence. Through the entry phone from somewhere in the depths of the house, a dog began to bark.
“He says to come in.”
The door opened automatically, swinging inwards with a soft, electronic whine. For a moment Winter was tempted to applaud, then he spotted the CCTV camera, mounted on a pole beside the brick path that led towards the house. The floodlights with their green gels were set in tiny traps, recessed into the surrounding lawn, an
d Winter began to feel slightly nauseous. At first he put it down to the third glass of Laphroaig but a glance at the backs of his hands flesh the colour of putty told him otherwise. A couple of minutes out here, and you’d think you’d strayed into the fun fair. The Chamber of Horrors, maybe. Or the Ghost Train.
The camera tracked Winter as he headed down the path. The front door opened, and Winter found himself face to face with Mackenzie’s wife.
“How was Chichester?” he said pleasantly. “Buy anything nice?”
Marie stepped aside to let him in, saying nothing. She was wearing a dressing gown belted at the waist. Barefoot, she smelled of the shower.
The interior of the house had been recently gutted, walls torn down to create an enormous open space. A glass conservatory had been added, deepening the living area, and the linen blinds glowed aquarium-green against the wash of the lights outside. A crescent of leather sofa faced a wide screen TV. The TV was tuned to a news channel, shots of heavy armour churning through the desert. A plate of salad on the low table beside the sofa had barely been touched.
“He’s in the den. Said to go through. Second on the left.”
Marie nodded at a door in the far corner of the room. The door was heavy, new again, and swung closed the moment Winter stepped through. A carpeted hall was flanked with more doors. After the yawning emptiness of the living area, it felt suddenly intimate. Decent watercolours harbour scenes on the walls. A golf putter and half a dozen yellow balls littering the long run of carpet.
“In here.” The summons came from an open door on the left. Winter stepped into a softly-lit room dominated by a big, antique desk. Tiny television monitors were racked on the wall beside the desk and Winter recognised the path to the front gate on one of them.
“Expecting company, Baz?”
Mackenzie ignored the dig. He’d bought the latest motion-sensitive software. Anything that moved in the garden, he’d be the first to know. At two grand off the internet, he regarded this latest toy as a steal.
“You should be here when we get a bit of wind in the trees.” He nodded at the monitor screens. “Whole lot goes bonkers.”
Winter unbuttoned his coat and sank into one of the two armchairs. The last time he’d seen Bazza Mackenzie was a couple of years back at aCID boxing do on South Parade pier. They’d shared a bottle of champagne while two young prospects from Leigh Park belted each other senseless.
“Lost a bit of weight, Baz. Working out?”
“Stress, mate, and too many bloody salads. Marie started going to a health farm last year. Worst three grand I ever spent. You know why we moved here?”
“Tell me.”
“It’s at least a mile to the nearest decent chippy. She measured it in the Merc then phoned me up and told me to put the deposit down. You’d think it would be views, wouldn’t you? And the beach? And all these posh neighbours? Forget it. We live in a chip-free zone. Welcome to paradise.”
Winter laughed. Unlike many other detectives, he’d always had a sneaking regard for Bazza Mackenzie. The man had a lightness of touch, a wit, an alertness, that went some way to explaining his astonishing commercial success. You could see it in his face, in his eyes. He watched you, watched everything, ready with a quip or an offer or a put-down, restless, voracious, easily bored.
In the wrong mood, as dozens could testify, Bazza Mackenzie could be genuinely terrifying. Nothing daunted him, least of all the prospect of physical injury, and Winter had seen the photographic evidence of the damage he could do to men twice his size. But catch him in the right mood and you couldn’t have a nicer conversation. Bazza, as Winter had recently told Suttle, had a heart the size of a planet. Whatever he did, for whatever reason, he was in there one thousand per cent, total commitment.
“What’s this, then? New chums?”
Winter was inspecting a gaudy mess of colour snaps pinned to a cork wallboard, one image overlapping with the next, briefly-caught moments in the cheerful chaos of Mackenzie’s social life. One of the latest photos featured four middle-aged men posing on a putting green. They all looked pleased with themselves but it was Mackenzie who was holding the flag.
“Austen Bridger, isn’t it?” Winter was peering at a bulky, scarlet-faced figure in slacks and a Pringle sweater.
“That’s right. Plays off seven. Unbeatable on his day. Look at this, though. Here…” Mackenzie dug around in a drawer, then produced a scorecard and insisted Winter take a look. “Three birdies and an eagle. Cost him dinner at Mon Plaisir, that did. Foie gras, turbot, Chablis, the lot. Marie gave me serious grief for weeks after.”
He retrieved the scorecard and gazed at it while Winter’s eyes returned to the cork board. Austen Bridger was a solicitor with a booming out-of-town practice in a new suite of offices in Port Solent. He specialised in property and development deals, high-end stuff, and had the executive toys to prove it. Away from the golf course, he sailed a 350,000 racing yacht which regularly featured in the columns of the News. Another winner.
Mackenzie was on his feet now, ash-grey track-suit and ne wish-looking Reeboks. He began to poke through the photos on the cork board, hunting for a particular shot.
“Here.” He unpinned it. “Dubai at Christmas. Can’t do too much for you out there. Marie loved it. See that ramp thing in the background?”
Winter was looking at a beach shot. Mackenzie and his wife were posed against the brilliant blue of the sea. Marie was an inch or two taller than her husband and for a middle-aged woman, bikini-clad, she was in remarkable nick.
“What ramp thing?”
“There. Look.” Mackenzie tapped the photograph. “It’s for water skiing. Day one you get to stand up. Day two you go tearing off round the bay. Day three they tell you about jumping and ramps and stuff, and day four you get to cack yourself. Amazing experience. You ever done it?”
“Never.”
“Brilliant. Some blokes do it backwards. Backwards, can you believe that? Can’t wait, mate. Still on the Scotch, are you?”
Without waiting for an answer, he went across to a filing cabinet and produced a bottle of Glenfiddich from the top drawer. A glass came from a table in the corner. It was down to Winter to pour.
“You?” Winter was looking at the single glass.
“Not for me.”
“Why not?”
“Given up.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, just for now. I’m nosey, if you want the truth. I’ve spent so much time pissed, all this is a bit of a novelty.” He waved a hand around, a gesture that seemed to have no geographical limit, then he settled back behind the desk, a man with important news to impart. “You know something about this city, something really weird? It’s about the way you look at it. As a nipper, you just do your thing, head down, get on with it. A little bit older, you follow your dick. A bit older still, you maybe get married, all that stuff. But you know your place, right? Because everything’s bigger than you are. Then, if you’re lucky, you wake up one morning and there it is, there for the taking.”
“What?”
“The city. Pompey. And you know why? Because this place is tiny. Get to know maybe a coupla dozen guys, the right coupla dozen, and there’s nothing you can’t do. Nothing. We’re not talking bent, we’re just talking deals, one bloke to another. And you know something else? It’s easy. Easier than you can ever believe. Suss how it’s done, make the right friends, and you start wondering why every other bastard isn’t doing it too.”
“So what does that make you?”
“Lucky.” He reached for a paper clip and began to unbend it as he elaborated on this new world of limitless opportunities. How one deal led to another. How business could breed some genuine friendships. How wrong he’d been about some of the middle-class blokes he’d always had down as wankers. Fact was, a lot of them were hard bastards, knew how to live with risk, knew how to party. Collars and ties, in the end, were nothing but camouflage.
“Know what I mean?”
Winter nodded, his eyes returning to the cork board. Then he took a long swallow of Glenfiddich, the drift of this sudden outburst of Mackenzie’s slowly slipping into focus. The city, he was saying, had become his plaything, the train set of his dreams. He could alter the layout, mess with the signalling, change the points, play God.
A smile warmed Winter’s face. Bazza Mackenzie, he thought. The Bent Controller.
Mackenzie was on his feet again, restless. He’d found another photo, framed this time: a young bride on her wedding day, beaming out at the world.
“You hear about my Esme? Pregnant. As of last week. That makes me a grandfather. Sweet, eh?”
“Must be. I wouldn’t know.”
“Shit, I forgot.” He paused, looking down at Winter, then patted him on the shoulder the way you might comfort a sick dog. “Sorry about your missus, mate. A while back, wasn’t it?”
“Two years ago next September.” Winter gazed at his glass for a moment, wondering how Bazza had got to know about Joannie. Then his head came up again. “You must be proud of her.”
“Who?”
“Esme. Not just the baby, everything else.”
“Yeah, definitely. The girl’s done well. Most of that’s down to Marie if you want the truth, but that doesn’t stop me being silly about her, does it? She called up tonight, matter of fact. She’ll be through with uni this year and she’s looking for chambers to take her on. Turns out some shit-hot briefs in town have offered her a pupil lage if her degree turns out OK. Couldn’t wait to tell us.”
“And the baby?”
“Fuck knows. I’m putting it down for Winchester the moment it appears.”
“The nick?”
“The school.” Mackenzie barked with laughter. “Marie’s idea. Put a bit of class back in the family. Women these days, do it all, don’t they?”
Winter was thinking about Misty Gallagher. Her role in Mackenzie’s life was common knowledge amongst a certain slice of Portsmouth life. So where did she figure on the cork board?
Cut To Black Page 23
