Deadlight (11 page)

‘They told me it would be different down here,’ he said softly. ‘But you know what? I never believed them.’

Faraday watched him leave the office, letting his anger slowly subside. When he picked up the phone and dialled, Dave Michaels answered on the second ring.

‘I’m off to the prison.’ Faraday was already struggling into his jacket. ‘Back in an hour or so.’

HMP Gosport was over the water, a ferry ride away across a busy stretch of Portsmouth Harbour. A sprawling Victorian red-brick pile, as martial as many of the other institutions that littered the area, it towered over the surrounding terraces. According to the latest count, it was now home for nearly six hundred prisoners.

Faraday had visited the place on a number of occasions and hated it. It was institutions like these where the people he hunted would probably end up, but in the strangest of ways Faraday had nothing but regrets for putting them there. Most of the villains he saw through to conviction were young, male, unmarried, ignorant, jobless and suffering from varying degrees of mental disturbance. Lock them in a cell twenty hours a day, get them used to the smell and sight of failure, and they’d quickly lose what little interest a decent life had ever held for them. Prison, in his view, was the very best way of turning an inadequate into a lifetime criminal.

He stepped out of the cab and showed his warrant card
at the gatehouse. A phone call confirmed his appointment and he followed a burly prison officer through a warren of corridors towards the administrative block. This was Sean Coughlin’s world, he kept telling himself. The constant jangle of keys as warders patrolled the echoing wings. The jarring clang of steel on steel as they shepherded prisoners from floor to floor, opening and closing the big metal grilles. This was where you could take a serious liberty with people too frightened or too bewildered to make a fuss. This would be close to paradise for someone as predatory and ruthless as Coughlin appeared to have been.

Or would it?

The prison governor thought not. He was a small, squat, red-faced man with a toothbrush moustache and bad breath. He wore a brown tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbow. In another life, thought Faraday, he might have been a prep school headmaster.

‘Coughlin? Never had a problem with him. Exemplary would have been too kind but effective, certainly. We’ll miss him, I’ll tell you that. More Coughlins and life might be a great deal quieter.’

Faraday frowned. He’d come here with an open mind. One or two of yesterday’s interviews suggested that Coughlin wasn’t the most popular of prison officers. True?

‘He keeps himself to himself, certainly, but I’m not aware of any Home Office regulation against that. If a man can get by without company, good luck to him.’ He patted the file on his desk. Coughlin’s timekeeping was spot-on and he’d taken just three days sick leave over the last couple of years. He’d never make management but that had never appeared to worry him. All in all, he was dependable, conscientious and effective, virtues by no means as common as people like Faraday might suppose.

Faraday nodded. It was the second time the governor had used the word ‘effective’.

‘Effective how, exactly?’

‘Effective with prisoners. Especially our more challenging guests.’ He paused, expecting a smile, but Faraday didn’t oblige.

‘You’re talking about physical restraint?’

‘God, no. By the time you get round to talking about physical restraint, you’ve lost it. But that’s the point, you see. Prison officers like Coughlin have a knack of setting the boundaries. Like it or not, prisons are very black and white. Have to be. That’s the nature of the beast. Coughlin understands that. It might be his service background.’

Faraday raised an eyebrow. The governor’s use of the present tense was beginning to irritate him.

‘Coughlin’s dead,’ he pointed out. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘Of course. And that’s something I deeply, deeply regret. You know my number one problem in this place? Not the prisoners. Not overcrowding. Nothing like that. It’s staff morale. The politicians think we can work miracles and the fact is that we can’t. Not on the kind of budgets they give us. I’ve got good blokes,
good
blokes, the best, but it doesn’t take much to get to them. What happened to Coughlin was a real blow. That kind of thing sends a message to the rest of the staff. We need it sorted. Fast.’ He stared at Faraday for a moment, then patted the file again. ‘I understand you want to take a look at this.’

‘I want to take it away.’

‘No can do. I’ll get you a photocopy but you’ll have to sign for it.’ He stood up and shouted a name through the open office door. A prison officer appeared and scooped up the file. He must have been listening, Faraday thought. The entire interview will be round the prison within minutes. This man’s not talking to me. He’s addressing the bloody staff.

‘Tell me about Davidson,’ Faraday suggested.

‘You know about Davidson?’

‘I know he was released not long ago. And I know he always contested his sentence.’

‘Then you know it all, Mr Faraday. Davidson, excuse my French, was a little shit. I don’t expect prisoners to enjoy themselves here. Far from it. That wouldn’t be the point, would it? No, but I do expect them to buckle down. The man got caught. Justice followed. The least he could do was keep his head down and get on with it. Least said, soonest mended.’

If only, thought Faraday.

‘What if he was innocent?’

‘He wasn’t. We don’t do innocence.’

‘OK.’ Faraday tried to hide his smile. ‘Then tell me what kind of man he was.’

The governor sat back and stroked his moustache. The question appeared to have taken him by surprise.

‘Clever,’ he said at last. ‘Intelligent. I grant you that.’

‘Intelligent enough not to do anything silly?’

‘Like what, Mr Faraday?’

‘Like have a go at Sean Coughlin. If Coughlin had been’ … Faraday was choosing his words carefully … ‘especially effective.’

‘You mean Monday night?’

‘Yes.’

‘
Kill
Coughlin? Murder him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good God, no.’

‘Not even pay him a visit? For old times’ sake?’

‘No.’ When he shook his head, his whole face wobbled. ‘I saw a lot of young Davidson. One of the perks of the job. Every time he got in a muddle with the appeals procedure, or had a run-in with his latest lawyer, he’d be up here like a shot. I knew him. I knew him well. He wouldn’t have done anything like that. Davidson looked after number one. You don’t do that by knocking off prison officers.’

‘You said he was a little shit just now.’

‘He was, he was. The man was a pain. Wouldn’t lie down. Wouldn’t take his punishment. What would happen if the whole bloody prison did that? How would we cope? It’s all right for you, Mr Faraday. Putting them away’s the easy bit. We pick up where you blokes leave off. But let me tell you something. This job of ours isn’t easy.’

The prison officer had returned with Coughlin’s file. The governor checked through the photocopy page by page before inserting it carefully into an A4 envelope. The prison officer produced a form. Faraday signed it, then glanced up.

‘So I can strike Davidson off my list, can I?’

‘What list?’

‘My suspect list.’ He tapped the file envelope, spelling it out. ‘Coughlin’s would-be killers.’

‘Christ, yes.’ The governor stood up. ‘In my view, the man was never into serious crime in the first place.’

By late afternoon, Winter and Charlie had fallen in love. The little cairn terrier he’d seized from Darren Geech had accompanied him back to the first-floor CID room at Highland Road, and had now found a home under Winter’s desk. The dog was obviously hungry, probably hadn’t been fed for weeks, but when Winter popped out to the Londis across the road they had no pet food so he returned with a tin of Fray Bentos steak and kidney, spooning half the contents into a saucer and watching while the dog demolished it.

Afterwards, Charlie set out on a little tour of the office, much to the the disgust of the duty DS. A stolid, humourless Scot from Aberdeen, he told Winter to find somewhere else for the wee hairy shite. The Lost Property store was unlocked or he might try the cupboard down the hall where the cleaners kept their mops. Winter ignored him, laying hands on a length of blue and white
Police No Entry tape and converting it into a makeshift lead. Moored to one leg of Winter’s desk, Charlie settled down for a nap.

The number on the ID disc round Charlie’s neck was local but so far Winter hadn’t managed to get through. Finally, he put a call into the control room at Netley, and had the desk supervisor check the reverse phone directory. Charlie evidently belonged to a household in Old Portsmouth but when Winter tried the name Czinski on the dog it failed to raise a flicker of interest. He was beginning to wonder about taking the animal home for the night when one of the uniforms from downstairs appeared at the office door.

‘Serious assault in Somerstown,’ he called. ‘Anyone interested?’

By the time Winter got to Fraser Road, the ambulance had gone. A small crowd was still gathered in the road, mainly older people and young kids. A WPC met Winter as he got out of his car.

‘Bloke was lying on the pavement, just here. Cabby spotted him and called in.’

Winter was following her pointed finger. There was a lot of blood, still fresh.

‘Anyone see what happened?’

‘No one we’ve found so far.’ She nodded at the houses across the road. ‘We’ve started knocking on doors but no one’s at home.’

‘What about this lot?’ Winter indicated the faces staring down at the pavement.

‘Half of them don’t speak English and the kids think it’s a laugh.’

‘No one saw anything?’

‘What do you think?’

Winter took the point. What you didn’t do in Somerstown was volunteer any kind of help. A formal statement
could land you in court as a witness and who needed that kind of grief?

‘We’ve got a name?’ Winter was looking at the blood again.

‘Yes.’ The WPC produced a creased envelope. ‘We found this in the guy’s back pocket.’

Winter took the envelope. Inside was a demand for payment on an electricity bill. If the recipient didn’t come up with £57.16 in seven days he’d face the risk of disconnection. Winter peered at the name. David John Rooke.

‘Shit,’ he said quietly. ‘How badly was he hurt?’

‘Badly, I’m afraid. The blokes on the ambulance were talking brain damage. He was unconscious when I got here and he was still out when they took him away.’

‘Head? Face?’

‘Total mess. Someone had given him a right battering.’

Winter nodded. He had no idea whether Rooke had been intercepted on the street, or dragged out of some nearby house, but either way the beating had happened in broad daylight. Mid-afternoon, in the heart of a major city, there had to be witnesses and you’d have thought that someone –
someone
, for God’s sake – might have the bottle to come forward. He’d put a call through to Highland Road now, and ask Cathy Lamb for Scenes of Crime and extra bodies for a proper house-to-house, but even so he knew that their chances of finding someone brave enough to come forward were zilch. Putting someone in the frame for this wouldn’t be easy, but already he knew exactly where to start.

The WPC was curious about Winter’s reaction to the name on the electricity bill.

‘You knew the guy?’

‘I did.’

‘Friend of yours?’

‘No, love.’ He pocketed the envelope. ‘Client.’

WEDNESDAY
, 5
JUNE
, 2002,
16.30

Faraday found Nick Hayder in the top-floor social club at Kingston Crescent police station. The club doubled as a bar, but late afternoon Hayder was sitting by himself at a table by the window, sipping at a coffee while he trawled through a disclosure schedule.

He looked up as Faraday approached.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Slowly.’

‘Not short of bodies, though, eh?’

Hayder was one of the other two DIs on Major Crimes. A decade younger than Faraday, he’d already helped the newcomer out of a dodgy corner or two and Faraday had come to rely on his support. Slightly built, with prematurely greying hair and a quiet wit, Hayder had acquired a well-earned reputation for playing his cards extremely close to his chest. The first time they’d had a proper conversation, he’d muttered something in passing that Faraday had treasured ever since.
Wherever you are
, he’d said,
whoever you’re with, think enemy
.

At the time, Faraday had rather liked that. It smacked of exactly the right kind of paranoia. View the world through Hayder’s slightly wild eyes, he thought, and you wouldn’t go far wrong.

Now, Faraday wanted advice. He’d taken a couple of minutes in the prison car park to scan through Coughlin’s Home Office file. Everything about this case convinced him that the key lay in getting inside the dead man’s head. What had he done with his life? Where had he been? Who had he seriously upset? The governor had
already mentioned a service career. Now, thanks to the file, Faraday knew more.

‘Coughlin was in the navy,’ he said briefly. ‘Did seventeen years. Who do I talk to?’

Hayder put his papers to one side. Recently, as Faraday knew, he’d been conducting a long-term inquiry into a series of stranger rapes in the Southsea area. The time-line and one or two other indicators pointed the finger at a possible link to a serving matelot. As a direct result, Hayder had got to know a great deal about, in Willard’s dry phrase, the MOD interface.

‘You need to be bloody careful,’ he said at once. ‘Go through proper channels and you may end up with some real twat. Formal inquiries can take for ever. Christ knows why.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘Depends what you want.’

‘His service file, for starters.’

‘Not a problem.’ He picked up his pen. ‘Give me the guy’s full name.’

Downstairs in his office, Faraday found a scribbled note from Dave Michaels. The Outside Enquiry team had struck lucky on the kebab joints. Faraday reached for the phone, wanting to know more.