Borrowed Light (6 page)

‘The Filth’ll be all over that place, am I right?’

‘Yeah. Any fire these days is automatically suspicious. And you know what? My lot are usually right.’

‘
I’m
your lot, mush.’

‘You are, Baz. You asked me my opinion. As an ex-copper I’m telling you they’ll have the place squared away. You saw it on
the telly, the guys in the funny suits. Scenes of Crime. Fire dogs. Arson experts. The works.’

Mackenzie ducked his head and reached for his chopsticks. He stabbed at a prawn and then had second thoughts.

‘So what will they do?’

‘They’ll take a nose around. You know all this, Baz. It’s what they do on the movies. Real life’s no different.’

‘Right.’

‘And something else …’

‘What’s that, mush?’

‘People just don’t die in fires. Not the way they seemed to have died. People wake up. They
get
up. They yell. They escape. They do anything they can not to end up dead.’

‘Smoke?’

‘The place was probably alarmed.’

‘Something else, then?’

‘Yeah. Which brings us back to my original question.’

Mackenzie nodded, picked up the chopsticks again, changed his mind, emptied his second bottle of fizzy water, shouted for
the waiter, demanded the bill.

Charlie gone, they were cocooned in total silence again. Darkness on the harbour by now, the lights of a ferry slipping past
the window.

Winter leaned forward.

‘So?’ he said. ‘What do you want me to do?’

Faraday was on automatic pilot by now. A muttered excuse to duck into the hotel down the road from Ryde police station, block-booked
for squad overnights. Another long moment in front of the mirror in the tiny bathroom, staring at a face he’d once recognised.
Another shower. Another fruitless attempt to raise Gabrielle, wherever she might be. Should he declare his partner a Misper?
Or should he simply consign the relationship, along with pretty much everything else in his life, to the lost property office?

Back at the Major Incident Room, his hair still wet, he found Suttle in the SIO’s office. There was a hint of impatience in
his voice.

‘Time’s getting on, boss. Everyone’s waiting for you.’

Faraday followed him into the MIR. The room was cramped compared to the facilities at Fratton and there was barely space for
the dozen or so detectives who’d made their way across to the island.

The D/S in charge of Outside Enquiries stilled the buzz of conversation. Faces turned towards Faraday. He found a perch on
the edge of a desk, glad of the small comfort of physical support.

With a briskness that surprised him, he summarised developments to date. As everyone pretty much knew, four bodies had been
recovered from a major fire. One male, three females. All four bodies had gunshot wounds and the post-mortem confirmed that
they’d all been dead before the fire started. Dental records would confirm all four IDs but in the meantime
Gosling
was working on the assumption that the bodies belonged to Johnny Holman, his partner Julie Crocker, and her two daughters,
Kim and Jess.

Timeline? He turned to Jimmy Suttle.

‘The fire was phoned in at 03.25 on Sunday morning. We’re talking quite a remote rural area and this couple lived in a bungalow
half a mile downwind. The old guy smelled smoke and got up to check. He could see flames coming from the farmhouse roof and
knew the place was thatched.’

Appliances, he said, arrived within half an hour, by which time the property was well alight. There were two vehicles in the
farmyard. On the assumption that there were people inside, the Watch Commander declared ‘Persons Reported’ and radioed for
back-up. An area car was on site by just gone four and the uniformed sergeant at Newport deployed two P/Cs to start hot enquiries
locally. QuickAddress
had confirmed four persons in residence and a Records Management System search in the name of Holman raised a report of a
recent domestic between him and the elder girl. This RMS report included phone numbers: a landline and two mobiles. None of
the numbers answered.

A hand went up. One of the older D/Cs wanted to know more about the domestic. A nod from Faraday told Suttle to explain.

‘I’m having a bit of trouble on this one,’ he said, ‘but it seems that our lot got there after the girl’s boyfriend. If anyone
knows what happened, my guess is that he does. He lives with his mum in Newport. Mum’s away at the moment and we can’t raise
anyone at the house.’

‘Name?’ It was Faraday.

‘Robbie Difford. According to the DVLA, he’s twenty-two.’

Faraday told Suttle to carry on. Local house-to-house, he said, had produced intelligence on Holman’s shotguns, plus some
gossip on the kind of people they seemed to be.

‘And?’ The question came from the Outside Enquiries D/S.

‘Party people, definitely. Lots of music, lots of young kids roaring up and down the lane. There was trouble over off-road
bikes too, though that seems to have gone away. Julie was well-liked. She seems to have made a bit of an effort.’

‘All this aggro. Anything serious?’ Still the Outside Enquiries D/S.

‘Nothing flagged. Nothing that would justify something like this. The way I read it, there are loads of incomers around, mostly
retired. It’s a bit of a lottery, really, who you get as a neighbour. Like I say, Holman was definitely a pain.’

Local CID, he said, had blitzed the enquiry next day. Seized CCTV at local garages and the ferry terminals, automatic number
plate recognition camera checks, plus an ever-widening trawl of local addresses. To date, no one had reported vehicle movements
in the small hours of Sunday morning. Neither was there much regret at what had happened. The latter produced a small ripple
of laughter around the room. One of the three female D/Cs asked about the girls. They’d have mates at school. What was their
take on life at Monkswell Farm?

Suttle said he didn’t think this line of enquiry had yet been actioned. So far the intel operation had concentrated on Johnny
Holman. This was a guy with interesting Pompey connections. He’d never been arrested or convicted for any serious offences,
but his name featured in
a number of informant reports. He’d long been mates with some of the bigger figures in the Pompey underworld, and if you
were looking for motive then his address book would be a great place to start. At this point in the inquiry Suttle wasn’t
prepared to tie Holman to anyone in particular, but person or persons unknown would need a very good reason to justify a multiple
homicide like this.

‘So what are we thinking, skipper?’ It was the female D/C again. ‘Someone gains entry to the house? Ties them up? Kills them?
Sets a fire?’

‘That’s a possibility, sure.’

‘Why? What for?’

‘We don’t know. Not for certain,’ said Suttle.

‘But?’

‘There’s been some digging round the back of the property. A fair-sized hole. It may be recent, it may not. We don’t know
why it’s there but there’s obviously a possibility that Holman may have been sitting on something valuable.’

‘And someone took it off him?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. At this stage it’s speculation. If you fancied a punt, I’d put my money on toot.’

Suttle acknowledged the nods and smiles around the room. As far as motive was concerned, he was still keeping an open mind,
but speaking personally he viewed intel enquiries around Holman as an obvious way forward. Over the years the guy had put
himself around. In short, the key to
Gosling
’s door might lie in Pompey rather than on the island.

Faraday agreed. Picking up on the work of the local CID, he’d already given the Outside Enquiry D/S a list of actions for
tomorrow. He wanted more work done on the CCTV. He wanted careful briefings for the local media. He wanted the female D/Cs
out among the dead girls’ associates, developing whatever lifestyle intelligence they could acquire. Everyone would be traumatised
by the prospect of the forthcoming funeral – the perfect opportunity, in other words, to get these people onside.

‘And the young lad? Robbie whatever?’ The question came from Meg Stanley.

‘An absolute priority.’ He shot her a nod of gratitude. ‘We have to find the boy.’

Minutes later the meeting broke up. Returning to his office, Faraday settled behind the desk and scrolled through the calls
and messages that had stacked up on his mobile over the last half-hour. Most of them were
Gosling
-related. One, a text, wasn’t.

Gabrielle.

*

It was nearly eight o’clock by the time Winter got to Eastfield Road. Jimmy Suttle lived in the bottom half of a red-brick
Victorian terrace. This was where Southsea dribbled into an area called Milton, much favoured by estate agents desperate to
breathe some life into the market. They talked of the ‘village atmosphere’ and the ‘vibrant social scene’, code for street
after street of bedsits, many of them occupied by partying students.

Winter waited on the doorstep, then rang the bell again. He hadn’t been here for nearly a year. Finally the door opened. Lizzie
Hodson was Suttle’s partner, a small vivid woman with a bright smile. She seemed to have put on a bit of weight.

‘Paul.’ She stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss. ‘He’s not here.’

‘Inviting me in or what?’

She looked at him a moment, uncertain. She had nothing on her feet and her toes were curling on the cold tiles.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Why not?’

Winter followed her into the flat. The kitchen was at the back. Whatever she was frying included a hefty whack of garlic.

Winter helped himself to a seat at the breakfast bar.

‘How’s tricks? Still working you to death?’

Lizzie was a reporter on the local daily paper, the Pompey
News.
Winter, who was a bit of a fan, made a point of keeping up with her career. Lately, she’d been doing a series of features
on the prospects for the local economy: how the credit crunch was affecting Pompey families, how people were coping with lost
jobs.

‘Work’s fine. You want a beer or something?’

Winter settled for a bottle of Stella. The mountain of rice in the frying pan reminded him how hungry he was. Maybe he should
have eaten earlier, while he had the chance.

‘You fancy some of this?’ Lizzie was ahead of the game. ‘I was expecting Jimmy back but it’s not going to happen.’

‘Away, is he?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Might I ask where?’

‘Haven’t a clue.’

Winter grinned at her. This was a game and they both knew it. As a veteran D/C, Winter had taught Suttle every trick in the
investigative book. Rule one: don’t admit anything unless you absolutely have to. Rule two: if in doubt, change the subject.

‘That boss of yours …’ Lizzie was ladling rice onto a couple of plates. ‘Whose idea was it to tap up the
Guardian
?’

Winter blinked. As far as he knew, the interview with Baz had yet to make it into print.

‘You know about that?’

‘Yeah. It’s in tomorrow’s paper. It’s a feature piece so it’s on the
Guardian
website already. You want a look?’

She gave him a plate and disappeared into the lounge at the front of the house. Winter got off his stool and peered at a number
scribbled on a pad beside the phone. By the time Lizzie returned, he was tackling the fried rice.

‘Delicious,’ he said.
‘The boy doesn’t know what he’s missing.’

‘That’s what I tell him. Here.’

She put the laptop on the breakfast bar and angled the screen towards Winter. The photo of Mackenzie must have been taken
in the restaurant at the Royal Trafalgar. Winter recognised the stretch of Southsea Common through the window and the grey
lick of the Solent beyond. Bazza had adopted his statesman pose for the benefit of the snapper. He was even wearing a tie.

‘You’ve read it?’ Winter glanced at Lizzie.

‘Of course.’

‘And?’

‘He sounds quite plausible. A referendum for an elected mayor? Giving Citizen Joe a proper shout? Blowing the cobwebs off
local government? Returning power to the grass roots? I don’t know who’s been feeding him all this stuff but he’s certainly
ticking the right boxes.’

‘And you think it might happen?’

‘Depends. There’s a general election next year and Labour are going to lose. That probably puts the Tories in. Have you read
their proposals for local government?’

‘Of course I haven’t.’

‘Then maybe you should. They’re going to offer referendums just like this one to the ten biggest cities in the country. For
exactly the reasons your boss is talking about here. So …’ she shrugged ‘… if it works in Birmingham or Leeds, why
not Pompey?’

Winter was impressed. To date, if he was completely honest, he’d regarded Bazza’s political ambitions as an ego trip, or maybe
some kind of wind-up. Lizzie Hodson, it seemed, was telling him he was wrong.

‘So you think it’s doable?’ Winter wanted to know.

‘I think there might one day be a referendum, yes.’

‘And you think Baz might be the man for the job?’

‘I think this is exactly the kind of city that might take a step like that, yes.’

‘You’re serious? Bazza? Lord Mayor? Big car? All that bling they wear?’

‘Sure, Paul, but power too. Real power. That’s what turns him on, isn’t it? Or are you telling me that Tide Turn is just window
dressing?’

Winter steadied himself. This conversation was fast turning into an interview.

‘Bazza loves this city,’ he said carefully. ‘Always has done, always will. He wants to do the best by it. He wants to get
it sorted.’

‘Are we still talking Tide Turn?’

‘Yeah. And one or two other things.’

They looked at each other, amused, an unspoken acknowledgement of what Bazza’s toot money, carefully washed, had done for
the likes of Southsea. The quietly tasteful café-bars, largely Marie’s doing. The Royal Trafalgar with its fourth star. A
whole raft of jobs for kids from Portsea and Somerstown who’d otherwise be up to all kinds of wickedness. And now Tide Turn.

‘So …’ Lizzie gestured towards the laptop again ‘… no wonder the
Guardian
are impressed.’

‘They gave him an easy ride?’

‘It’s much worse than that. They seemed to believe him.’

‘No mention of –’ Winter frowned ‘– the 6.57?’

Lizzie peered at the screen a moment. ‘“A passion for football and a talent for mixing with all kinds of people took Mackenzie
to every corner of the kingdom. The skills he picked up on the terraces should stand him in good stead in the cut and thrust
of political debate.”’ She looked across, grinning. ‘How’s that sound?’

‘They’re taking the piss. Either that, or Baz is.’

‘On the contrary, they’re telling him he’s passed the test. Believe me, you don’t get profile like this by accident.’

Winter nodded, returned briefly to the remains of the rice. There was a name he wanted to run past her. Someone who Bazza
was keeping under wraps.

‘Leo Kinder?’

‘What about him?’

‘You know this guy?’

‘I’ve met him a couple of times, yes. Lawyer? Young? Good-looking? Political ambitions? Right wing? Fell out with the Tories,
big time? What are you telling me, Paul?’

‘Nothing, love. Just curious.’

‘Curious, bollocks. Is Kinder thick with Mackenzie? Is that it?’

‘Might be.’

‘Has to be. That’s where all this comes from.’ Her eyes returned to the laptop. ‘Kinder knows the Tory manifesto by heart.
He probably
helped write the thing. In the end his face didn’t fit, and for my money he’s gone looking for a new political home.’ She
laughed. ‘They’re made for each other, those two. Beauty and the Beast. Shit …’