Deadlight (38 page)

‘Felt like?’

‘Feels like.’ Beattie took a long pull at the coffee. ‘Something as big as that, you never forget it.’

‘Is that why you went to the reunion last Monday night?’

‘Yeah.’ He looked at the dog. ‘Yeah.’

‘And that brings it all back?’

‘Of course.’

Faraday let the silence grow and grow. From way down the valley, he thought he caught the clatter of a train. At length, he asked why Beattie had left the navy so soon after the Falklands.

‘Who told you that?’

‘Wallace. The association secretary.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘He said you’d baled out sharpish. Lost your taste for it.’

‘Then you’ve got your answer.’ He nodded. ‘I thought you were interested in Coughlin?’

‘I am.’

‘Then why all this personal stuff?’

Faraday studied him for a second or two. It was a fair question and he saw no point in not admitting the truth.

‘Because I’m fascinated,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been here in my life. For two pins I’d never go back.’ He paused. ‘You’ve been here long?’

Beattie shot him a quizzical look, then ran a finger round the top of his mug. Plainly, Faraday’s question was more complex than it sounded.

‘Nearly twenty years,’ he said at last. ‘We were living down in Guzz before, me and the missus. I used to take the kids up here on the boats they run in the summer. I’d seen this place often. You pass it on the way to Morwellham. It was a real wreck.’ The memory put a bigger smile on his face. He glanced across at Faraday, then eased the dog off his lap and got up. ‘You want to see it? The way it was?’

Without waiting for an answer, he stamped upstairs.
Faraday heard footsteps overhead. Then Beattie was down again, back on the sofa, leafing through a big photo album.

‘Here.’ He passed the album to Faraday. ‘That was the first summer. This time of year. 1983.’

Faraday found himself looking at a building site. The cottage was barely recognisable, scaffolded on two sides, and the garden had disappeared beneath stacks of timber, a small mountain of sand, and carefully sorted piles of slates. A cement mixer stood beside the open front door, a wheelbarrow parked on the plank that led inside.

‘You sort all this yourself?’

‘Had to. Leaving the navy when I did, I never got the full pension. Plus I’d split up with my missus. Divorce isn’t cheap, believe me.’

‘So you were living here, as well?’ Faraday turned the page. Gaping windows, waiting for new frames. An old tarpaulin, secured with ropes, where the roof had once been.

‘Yeah. Took the best part of two years. We managed it in the end, though.’

‘We?’

‘Me and Rory.’ Beattie looked down at the dog and gave it a pat. ‘This one’s her son, Rory Two, and even he’s getting on now. Rory One came from the RSPCA. Useless guard dog but great company. We mainly got by on Welsh rarebit and bean stew. On good days, I might shoot the odd pigeon.’

‘What about money?’

‘I’d started a little business, just to make ends meet when the bills piled up. Couple of days a week to begin with.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Gardening.’ He nodded at the album. ‘Take a look.’

Faraday turned the page. As the cottage slowly emerged from the chaos of those two years, other shots began to intrude: gardens of all sizes, enormous lawns,
tiny borders, rows of runner beans, immaculately staked. Occasionally Beattie himself would appear, bent over a spade or filling a watering can, eyeing the camera. Beneath the deep tan, he looked wary and ill-at-ease. Life as a divorcee plainly had its problems.

‘You liked it here?’

‘Loved it. It was hard at first, like nothing I’d done before, but it gave me what I wanted. The place itself is amazing. Winter, you needn’t ever see a soul.’

‘And that suited you?’

‘Then it did. Now it’s just habit. You know something?’ He gestured towards his own garden, and the river beyond. ‘This valley used to be the Klondike. Hundred years ago, they were digging every bloody thing out of the hills, copper, arsenic, you name it. Stuff went out on barges, down to Guzz, then was shipped off round the world. Miners walked here from West Cornwall, thousands of them, brought their families, made their fortunes. It’s all gone now but you can still feel it sometimes. This valley’s full of ghosts.’

Ghosts?

Faraday’s eye had settled on another shot in the album. Time must have passed because Beattie was looking older, and infinitely more relaxed. He was posed against a backdrop of an exquisitely terraced garden. He had a glass of something bubbly in his hand, while his other arm was draped around a much younger man.

Faraday showed him the picture.

‘That’s Johnno, my oldest. Still lives in Guzz but helps me out on some of the jobs. That was a couple of years back. Bloke was really chuffed with the garden.’

Faraday remembered the files stacked next door on the office desk. Twenty years of hard labour had obviously paid off. He glanced up, more intrigued than ever by the life this man had made for himself. What wouldn’t he give, he thought, for fresh air, silence, and the promise of a good night’s sleep?

‘Soil good?’

‘South-facing, it is. It’s moist round here, lots of rain and lots of sunshine. Fruits crop well. You have to watch for arsenic, though, the tailings they left. I could take you places where nothing will ever grow.’

He got to his feet, checked his watch, then drained the last of the coffee. One o’clock, he was due at a pub in Calstock to pick up a cheque. Smalltalk was getting them nowhere. Whatever Faraday was after, now was the time.

Faraday was still leafing through the photo album. Finally, he looked up.

‘How about I buy you lunch?’

They went in Beattie’s Land-Rover, the old dog wedged between them. The back was full of cuttings and potted shrubs, plants destined for Beattie’s current project, and as they bumped up the narrow lane towards the crossroads at the top, Faraday wondered about the realities of living in a spot this remote. You’d need to be on good terms with yourself, he thought. You’d need to know who you really were.

Calstock was a scruffy collection of houses climbing up the valley beside an impressive-looking railway viaduct. Beattie described it as a village that had never quite managed to become a town, and hinted at a certain degree of lawlessness. Calstock, he said, was the last refuge for hard-core sixties hippies, plus a small army of assorted no-hopers, and gazing out at the narrow-fronted terrace houses, Faraday could believe him. Round one corner, a stained mattress lay abandoned on the pavement. Round the next, someone had spray-canned ‘Legalise Smack’ across the notice board outside the Methodist Church Hall.

The pub lay beside the river. Clouds were building to the west but the sun was still strong and Faraday elected for a table on the terrace overlooking the river. He
bought himself a pint and a packet of crisps and left Beattie to collect his cheque. Downstream, he could see a modest line of yachts, swinging in the tide. Immediately below him, where the muddy water lapped against the pilings, three mallard were quarrelling over the remains of a bread roll.

Bev Yates was still at Kingston Crescent when Faraday finally got through.

‘What’s been happening?’ he asked.

Yates updated him on the
Accolade
s interviews. He’d now managed to get through to more than a dozen survivors from the anniversary dinner and planned to start the interviews this afternoon. One of them sounded especially promising.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Bloke called Gault. Says he knew the boy Warren really well. Took him under his wing.’

‘And Coughlin?’

‘Knew him, too. Usual story. Complete cunt.’

‘Where is this Gault?’

‘189 Glasgow Road.’

‘
Pompey
?’ ‘Yeah.’

‘And he was at the do on Monday?’

‘Yeah. Pal of your bloke, Beattie. Gault was a cook in the navy. Works in the Harvester now, over on the Eastern Road. I couldn’t get any more out of him because he was so busy.’

‘You’ve fixed to interview him?’

‘Tonight. Mel’s going to love it. I’m blaming it on you.’ Faraday smiled to himself. Yates went through the rest of the list. When he got to Mark Harrington, the First Lieutenant, Faraday broke in again. He wanted to know when Yates anticipated the return call.

‘It won’t happen. I’ll put money on it. It’s a family thing. We’re not welcome.’

‘Family thing? Kid going over the side? Suspicious death?’

‘Who says it’s suspicious?’

‘Me …’ Faraday had spotted what might have been another buzzard, high over the wooded flanks of the valley. ‘But you’re right. I can’t prove it.’

Yates rang off shortly afterwards, leaving Faraday wishing he hadn’t left his binoculars at the cottage. For high summer, the pub felt deserted, just a couple of tables occupied. Brilliant, thought Faraday, leaning back in the sunshine and closing his eyes.

Seconds later, the door from the bar banged open and Faraday found himself looking at a middle-aged Hell’s Angel, big as a house, with a pint in one hand and a couple of pasties wrapped in napkins in the other. Bare-chested under a filthy denim waistcoat, he commandeered the table next to Faraday. With him was a girl, no more than seventeen. She was blonde and pretty and the cut of her T-shirt left absolutely nothing to the imagination. The side of her neck was livid with love-bites. She settled within touching distance of Faraday and kicked off her sandals. For a moment or two, he put the giggles down to high spirits. Then he realised she was drunk.

Her partner swallowed half the lager, then asked her which way had been best. The girl told him she didn’t care. Up the arse, oral, it was all the same to her. She stuck her tongue out and giggled again. The tip of her tongue was pierced, a tiny silver ball nestling amongst the pink folds. She nodded at the biker’s ample crotch.

‘What about you, then? Fucking loved it, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

He began to review their morning in bed. Faraday, aware of two elderly women three tables away, shot him a warning look. The biker broke off and stood up. Seconds later, he was looming over Faraday, grease-stained jeans, studded belt, scuffed Doc Martens. Monday morning clearly didn’t extend to soap and water.

‘You got a problem?’

‘Yes. I have.’

‘Something get up your nose?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Like what?’

‘You.’ Faraday shielded his eyes from the sun. ‘You want to compare notes, you should have stayed in bed. You think anyone else is interested in your love life?’

The biker said nothing for a moment. Then a shadow fell over the table as Beattie stepped between them. He eased the biker away, backed him against a window, began to talk very softly in his ear. There was a stillness about Beattie that it was impossible to miss. In situations like these, you’d be foolish not to listen very hard. Faraday caught the word ‘fuckwit’ before the girl abandoned her drink, grabbed her boyfriend by the arm, and dragged him towards the exit at the end of the terrace.

Beattie sat down.

‘Guy’s a clown,’ he said. ‘Means no harm.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. We had words about something else recently. Good as gold as long as you know which buttons to press.’

‘Job teach you that?’ Faraday realised that he was shaking.

‘Yes.’ Beattie produced two menus. ‘As a matter of fact, it did.’

They had seafood salad with an enormous helping of chips. Faraday, more grateful to Beattie than he liked to admit, insisted on apple pie afterwards and a second pint to wash it down. When he asked Beattie about the realities of being a policeman at sea, the nuts and bolts of the job, the one-time Master-at-Arms gave the question some thought.

‘Most of it was being ahead of the game,’ he said at
last. ‘You’ve got to tune in, get to know all the buzzes. Every mess was different, different feel, but if you got a handle on the blokes you could spot where the trouble would come from.’

Most of the messes, he said, preferred to sort out problems on their own. Blokes caught stealing, for instance, would be discreetly seen to. Favourite for theft was a heavy steel hatch dropped on the bloke’s hand. Broken bones, for sure. Very Saudi.

‘Did that make life easier for you?’

‘Definitely. I was the official bit of the navy. If it got as far as me, it was normally down in writing. I was Mr Nasty.’

‘And Mr Fair?’

‘Sometimes. Most skates are good blokes if you give them a bit of a shake. Only once in a blue moon would you come across a monster.’

‘Coughlin?’

‘A monster.’

Beattie had been warned in advance about the killick chef. A mate of his had been Master-at-Arms on Coughlin’s previous ship, a Type 42, and had sent him a brief précis of the delights in store. Amongst the adjectives Beattie remembered were ‘devious’, ‘disloyal’, ‘nasty’ and ‘infatuated’.

‘Infatuated, how?’

‘With himself, his own importance. My mate swore blind Coughlin thought he was Mr Exceptional – great seaman, great cook, great human being – and my mate was right. The fact Coughlin was also an arsehole never seemed to have occurred to him. Funny that. With those kinds of blokes it never does.’

Faraday pushed his plate to one side. Something had snagged in his memory.

‘Coughlin used the name Freckler on the internet,’ he said. ‘Why Freckler?’

Beattie glanced round, then beckoned Faraday closer.

‘It’s a mess game,’ he said. ‘Involves human waste. You wouldn’t want to know the rest.’

‘And Coughlin played this game?’

‘Pig in shit. Literally.’

‘Friends?’

‘None. There were people who were frightened of him, definitely. He had a reputation for losing it, often for no good reason, and you wouldn’t want to be around when that happened. That was the shame of it, of course. A ship like that, two hundred blokes, you need to get along.’

Faraday nodded, thoughtful. This was Wallace’s account, word for word. Serve alongside Coughlin and you’d never forget it.

‘Enemies?’ Faraday said at last. ‘Blokes with a grudge? Blokes who might have been in Pompey on Monday night?’

For the first time, Faraday felt Beattie’s foot touch the brake. So far, he’d been happy to talk about facts. Now Faraday was inviting speculation.