Angels Passing (20 page)

Winter looked pleased. Regardless of the bollocking, Willard had thought enough of his little coup to spend another couple of grand.

‘What else, then?’

‘We got a preliminary from the knot blokes on the rope round chummy’s neck. Jerry Proctor sent their fax over. Nothing special but it’s odds-on that whoever tied the knot was left handed. Fuck all use now but later …’ he shrugged ‘… who knows?’

‘What about the girl? Louise?’

‘She’s back in the caff.’

‘Have you still got obs on?’

‘Yeah, but Willard’s fretting about bodies again. The blokes on the night shift are using a van outside the place in Margate Road and they’re making noises about Health and Safety. The book says six hours. You can’t argue that.’

Winter smiled, thinking of the CCTV control room with its pot plants, air-conditioning and endless supply of Gold Blend. There were worse places to be when the alternative was a borrowed removals van and the company of a guy with a dodgy gut.

‘And Kenny Foster?’

For the first time, Michaels smiled. He’d known Winter far longer than Willard and unlike the Detective Superintendent he allowed mavericks a certain amount of leeway. Sometimes, just sometimes, it paid off, and if Winter’s grandstanding led to scenes like this morning’s in Willard’s office, then at least they’d all have something to talk about in the bar. But the sight of Winter getting his comeuppance was also undeniably sweet, a settling of accounts that some said was long overdue.

‘Kenny Foster?’ Michaels smothered a yawn. ‘I’d talk to young Gary, if I were you. Promising lad, that.’

Winter found Sullivan in the big office at the other end of the corridor. Operation
Bisley
’s task force of DCs was camped out at the half-dozen desks, keeping up with the paperwork between calls. Sullivan was by himself in the corner, hammering away at a keyboard.

Winter stood behind him, looking at the screen. Kenny Foster, it seemed, had been less than helpful. Sullivan had been to see him in the garage, along with an older DC, but mention of Bradley Finch had taken them nowhere.

‘Said he’d never heard of him? Are you joking?’

‘He meant personally. He’d seen the stuff in the paper.’

‘So he knew he was dead?’

‘Obviously.’

‘But nothing beyond that?’

‘No.’

‘What about Finch giving his name to the traffic guys?’

‘He said a uniform had been round. Hadn’t a clue what the bloke was on about. Never heard of the Fiat. Never touched anything Italian.’

‘So he blanked you?’

‘Totally.’

‘What about Friday night?’

‘He told us he’d been round a friend’s place. She runs a gym or something, and you’d believe it, looking at the guy. Scary, yeah …’ he nodded, squinting at the screen ‘… definitely scary.’

Winter was thinking hard. Michaels had given him the OK to check out Finch’s nan’s place but Kenny Foster still fascinated him. You don’t give a traffic cop a name like that without a very good reason. Not unless you have some kind of death wish. Winter bent to Sullivan’s ear. In a couple of minutes they’d be off to Flint Street but first he wanted to know a little bit more about this gym.

‘Where is it?’

‘Albert Road.’

Albert Road was in Southsea, a mile of pubs, curry houses, scruffy antique shops and New Age emporia.

‘What’s the name of this place?’

‘Hang on.’ Sullivan flipped back through his notes. ‘Captain Beefy.’ He looked up, puzzled by Winter’s grin. ‘What’s the score, then?’

Faraday was putting the finishing touches to his thoughts on investigating burglary when he got the call from the front desk. Two people to see him. A Mr Niamat and a lady who said she was a solicitor. Faraday checked his watch. 18.17. Ellis and Yates had barely had a chance to make a call on the Afghan. What on earth were they doing here?

He got Yates’s mobile number from Cathy Lamb. He and Ellis were en route to sort out a loose end on another job.

‘Have you seen the Afghan bloke?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘What happened?’

‘He went ballistic.’

‘Why?’

‘You tell me. We did what you said. We asked him about Christmas, and the girl, and he admitted that she’d stayed there. Boxing Day it was, and the day after.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing. The moment we got down to the business, he just went for us.’

‘Physically?’

‘No …’ Faraday could hear Yates muffling a laugh. ‘The man’s not stupid. No, he just gave us a mouthful.’

Faraday sat back at the desk. Bev Yates doing the business wasn’t an experience you’d wish on gentler souls. Twenty years at the sharp end of CID work had bred a deep, deep cynicism and he gave no one the benefit of the doubt, least of all a cultured Afghan with a taste for French poetry. Shagging mixed-up fourteen-year-olds was totally out of order. As he’d doubtless explained.

‘He’s downstairs now,’ Faraday murmured, ‘with his brief.’

‘Yeah?’ Yates was laughing again. ‘That’s the problem with these people. Don’t know how to take a joke.’

Niamat Tabibi and his solicitor were waiting in the interview room on the ground floor. The solicitor’s name was Michelle, a plump, freckle-faced woman in her thirties who’d recently joined a biggish practice on Hampshire Terrace. She specialised in criminal defence work and, as a newcomer to Portsmouth, she was known to be gobsmacked by the sheer volume of cases that crossed her desk. Her home town in Devon had never prepared her for anything like this.

‘Tea? Coffee?’

Faraday was looking at the Afghan, Niamat. Unlike his solicitor, he’d yet to sit down. He was wearing jeans and a leather bomber jacket and he hadn’t bothered to shave for a day or two, but Faraday could sense the passion in the man. Ignoring the offer of a hot drink, he rocked back and forth on his heels, his hands plunged deep in the pockets of his jacket, never once taking his eyes off Faraday’s face. Bev Yates had been right. He was very, very angry.

‘Tea, please.’ It was Michelle.

Faraday left the room. By the time he returned, Niamat had taken a seat beside his solicitor. She took charge at once, explaining that Niamat had been her client since his arrival in the city. He’d walked in off the street and asked for legal representation. As an asylum seeker, he’d complied with Home Office requirements by filling in a Statement of Evidence form and sending it – recorded delivery – to the processing centre at Croydon. When his application for asylum had been turned down for late arrival he’d naturally wanted to appeal. She’d helped him through this process, and they were currently awaiting a date for the hearing. Hence the importance of the business in hand. Niamat was worried that any hint of a misdemeanour might put him on the next plane to Kabul.

‘My client tells me you have grounds for … ah … complaint.’

‘That’s right.’

‘May I ask why?’

Faraday quickly summarised the case against Niamat. It was a matter of fact that he’d been hired to tutor Helen Bassam in French and maths. It was also a matter of fact that the young girl, as impressionable as any fourteen-year-old, had developed a crush on her new teacher. There’d been a domestic falling-out between Helen and her mother on Christmas Day. She’d fled the house and sought refuge with Niamat. By mid-February, according to the pathologist who’d performed the post-mortem, she was around seven weeks pregnant, and it was her mother’s belief that Niamat was responsible. There was also the question of the tattoos.

‘Tattoos?’

‘Here and here,’ Faraday touched the insides of his own thighs, ‘
pour
and
vous
.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘Yes.’

‘No other evidence?’

‘None.’

Michelle glanced across at Niamat. He’d been listening intently to Faraday, following every word. Now he leaned forward, his forearms extended on the table, his hands shaping the space in between. Faraday braced himself for a shouting match but the voice, when it came, was low and patient. This was a teacher with a particularly difficult pupil and if it took time to get one or two things straight, then so be it.

‘You’re right about Helen. “Crush” is a good word. Of course she came to me at Christmas. And you know why? Because she had nowhere else to go. Don’t you find that strange? A girl of fourteen? At home with her mother? All those presents? All that food? And she runs away?’

Sensing where this conversation might lead, Faraday shook his head.

‘They didn’t get on,’ he said. ‘And Christmas can be difficult.’

‘That’s what she said. That’s exactly what she said. And you know something else? Her mother had told me, too. Told me that exact same thing when I started to teach her daughter. That she hated Christmas because of what it did to families. I’m a Muslim. We have no Christmas. But we do have families. And we know there’s a difference between presents and love. Do you know about her father? The present he sent her?’

Faraday remembered the overweight solicitor kneeling in the sand, the smile stretched tight across his jowly face.
Happy Christmas, darling. We love you
.

‘He sent her a cheque,’ Faraday said.

‘And you know how much? Two hundred pounds.’ Niamat frowned, feeling for the phrase. ‘
To buy yourself a little something
. She showed me the card, what he’d written. Two hundred pounds. For a fourteen-year-old.’

There was a long silence. A bus ground past outside. Two hundred pounds would keep Niamat going for a month, the way the Home Office did their sums. Was that what he was here to say? Or was there another message?

‘So …’ Niamat leaned back ‘… you’re thinking the girl comes to me, in the place where we all live. She’s upset. She thinks she loves me. We go to bed. And hey’ – he clicked his fingers – ‘a baby. That’s what you think. I know that’s what you think. She’s attractive. She’s young. She’s easy. She wants me to do it. No man would say no.’ He paused, spreading his hands wide, asking the unvoiced question, then let his body tip slowly forward again. ‘You suspect what you like, Mr Policeman, but let me tell you something else. Life is more complicated than you think. Go back to Mrs Bassam, and ask her about the man at the cathedral. His name is Phillimore. Ask her about him.’

There was a long pause. Faraday was looking as astonished as Michelle.

‘Are you making an allegation? About this Mr Phillimore?’

‘Just talk to her. And maybe him, too.’

‘Why?’

Faraday gazed at him, waiting for an answer, but Niamat stared him out, refusing to take the exchange any further. Finally, Faraday made a note of the name and then turned to Michelle.

‘You must make your client aware of the seriousness of what he’s saying,’ he began. ‘You can’t just raise names like this.’

She nodded and then ducked her head as Niamat began to whisper in her ear. At length she glanced at her watch and turned to Faraday.

‘My client has a request,’ she said. ‘But first he wants to know whether you still have the baby.’

‘You mean the foetus?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Coroner won’t issue authority for release until we’ve finished our enquiries. That could be a while yet.’

‘Excellent. Then my client requests that you take a blood sample from him now and send it to the labs.’ She offered Faraday a smile. ‘For DNA matching.’

Sullivan did his best to pump Paul Winter about the gym but Winter wasn’t having it. They were driving down to Flint Street from the MIR at Fratton and all Winter would volunteer was the name of the woman who owned it. He’d had quite enough of Gary Sullivan stealing a march on him and saw no point in making life any sweeter for the boy. Life shouldn’t be easy in this line of work. There was a pecking order here, and it was Winter’s job to reassert it.

‘Her name’s Simone,’ Sullivan grunted. ‘Foster told us that already.’

‘And what else did he tell you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘There you are then.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Local knowledge.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means we ought to pay her a visit. I’ll fix it with Dave Michaels. Leave it to me.’

They turned into Flint Street and Winter left the car under a lamp post. It was only a gesture but this could sometimes be a rough area and the forms you had to fill in for vandal damage were as long as your arm.

Flat 2 was on the first floor of number 59, one of a sturdy brick-built block of council flats that looked as though they’d passed into private ownership. Winter rang the bell a couple of times, hearing the sudden blast from a television set as someone opened an interior door. With the main door open, the sound was even louder.
Home and Away
, he thought.

‘Mrs …?’

A small, wispy-haired woman peered out at him. She was wearing a pink shawl around her shoulders and a threadbare blue dressing gown underneath. She hadn’t heard the question and it took Winter nearly a minute to establish her name. Finally, he got it. Mrs Prendergast. She shuffled back down the hall with the two detectives in tow. By the time they were inside the tiny living room, she was convinced they were from the gas board.

‘Police,’ Winter repeated. ‘We’re detectives.’

He caught Sullivan’s eye and nodded at the television. Sullivan turned the sound down.

‘It’s about Bradley, Mrs Prendergast.’

‘Who?’

‘Bradley. Your grandson.’

For a moment, it occurred to Winter that they were lumbered once again with breaking the bad news, but then she sorted the name out in her head and told Winter that he was dead. She said it with some regret, nodding to herself, as if it was an apology. All this way in the rain. And young Bradley gone.

‘We’re very sorry, Mrs Prendergast.’

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

He helped her into the chair pulled up by the television and turned the set off completely. She watched the little white dot disappear, more confused than ever, then favoured Sullivan with a slightly crazed smile.

‘Would you like an apple, dear?’

Sullivan said no thanks. He had his pocketbook out and he was studying a couple of cheaply framed photos on the mantelpiece. The younger Bradley, still unmistakable, had the kind of winning, trustful smile that could get a young lad into big trouble with certain kinds of older men.