Sabbathman (44 page)

‘Then what?’

‘She went home again.’

‘And?’

‘We think she’s asleep. The curtains at the back are pulled.’ Scarman paused. ‘I gather she works nights.’

Kingdom looked up, startled. ‘How did you know that?’

‘There’s another call on there.’ Scarman nodded at the tape machine. ‘Her this time. She’s talking to her boss as far as I can make out, apologising really. It seems she had a break-in last night. Someone called the Bill and the uniformed boys turned up at the place she works at four in the morning. The management weren’t best pleased.’ Scarman paused, gazing at the remains of his lunch. ‘Did you have to kick her window in?’ he said at last, ‘Or was that just for effect?’

The helicopter looked brand new. It chattered out of a clear blue sky and settled gently onto the painted white ‘H’ on the parade ground behind Hampshire police headquarters. Kingdom was waiting in the shelter of the main building, his trench-coat buttoned against a keen north-easterly wind. He watched the pilot shut down the engine and leaned across to release the passenger door. The tiny figure beside him clambered out and hurried across the tarmac. Kingdom grinned, his hands plunged deep inside the pockets of his coat. On the phone last night, Allder had sounded guarded, even sceptical. Now, for whatever reason, he looked euphoric.

He stood in front of Kingdom, eyeing him up and down. The sudden cold was making his nose run. He jerked his head back towards the waiting helicopter. On the side, in blue letters, it said ‘Metropolitan Police’.

‘Traffic want it back by lunchtime,’ he said, ‘so why don’t you talk me through it?’

Kingdom wondered about cancelling the car and the driver he’d arranged, then thought better of it. Instead, he accompanied Allder back to the landing pad. The helicopter was a Jet Ranger, two seats up front, two behind. Allder told Kingdom to get in behind the pilot and tell him where to go. Airspace around the Solent was evidently crowded. The man would need to file some kind of flight plan.

Kingdom slipped into the left-hand seat and agreed a route while Allder made himself comfortable in the back. Within five minutes they were airborne again, the pilot holding the hover at
the level of the fourth floor long enough for Kingdom to give Arthur Sperring a smile and a wave. The DCS had been in conference with the Chief Constable since eight, passing on what little Kingdom had seen fit to tell him. Now, back in his office, he glared out at the helicopter, deeply suspicious.

The pilot nudged the joystick forward and the nose dipped as the helicopter gathered speed. Then he pulled the machine into a tight climbing turn, levelling out at eight hundred feet, the squat grey bulk of the cathedral slipping beneath them.

Kingdom felt a hand on his shoulder. He half-turned in the seat, restrained by the safety harness. Allder was offering him a newspaper. Both men were wearing headphones.

‘Special edition,’ Allder said, ‘hot off the presses.’

Kingdom glanced down at the paper.
The Citizen
’s front page, yet again, was devoted to Mr Angry. The page was dominated by a photograph of the cabinet. The photograph had been taken in the aftermath of the 1992 election and at some point someone must have put it in an envelope because the fold marks – one up, one across – were clearly visible. Beneath the photo, in bold type, was the text of a message newly received by the newspaper.
‘Blanche and co,’
it read,
‘had one thing in common. Greed. None of them knew when to stop. And all of them paid the price. Which is why this bunch of comedians should start worrying about their just deserts. Politics should be about leadership. Not another four-year wallow in the trough. Know how the rest of us feel? Pig-sick …’

Kingdom glanced up a moment. The back of the sun visor over the windscreen was mirrored, and he could see the top half of Allder’s face. He was looking down at the huge chalk cutting gouged in the flank of Twyford Down. The contractors were pushing into the hill from both ends, the big yellow graders bumping back and forth, dragging behind them long plumes of grey-white dust. On the neighbouring by-pass the traffic was nose-to-tail and as the helicopter banked onto a new heading, Kingdom could see the raised chalk embankment where the motorway would sweep across the water meadows, and on towards the distant blue shadows of Southampton.

Allder’s voice crackled in his ear. ‘What do you think of it?’

‘I think it’s hideous.’

‘I meant the paper.’

Kingdom glanced down at
The Citizen
again. The headline above the rows of smiling cabinet faces read ‘GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING?’. Kingdom smiled, thinking of the conversation he’d had with the archivist at the Eastney museum.
The Citizen
’s sub-editors had begun to ape the mystery killer. Sabbathman himself might have penned the headline.

‘Nice turn of phrase,’ he said, ‘our Mr Angry.’

‘Quite.’

‘Is this the one he sent to Downing Street?’

‘No, but the thought’s the same. And so is their reaction. They’ve been talking to Gower Street again. Five are insisting on operational primacy.’

‘And the Commissioner?’

‘He’s trying to fight them off.’

‘And?’

‘We’ll win.’

Kingdom said nothing, looking down at the construction site. The contractors had built a compound beside the line of the motorway, a small city of portakabins webbed with muddy tyre tracks. From two thousand feet, the landscape resembled a patient in hospital, the victim of some particularly vicious attack. Wherever you looked, there were fresh wounds. Max Carpenter had a neat little phrase for it. You can’t make omelettes, he’d said, without breaking eggs. Too right, Kingdom thought, watching a line of diggers tearing at the exposed chalk.

They flew south-east, towards the coast. North of Portsmouth, the ground rose beneath them, another chalk escarpment, and then fell away again, the southerly slope of the hill covered with the sprawl of a housing estate. Ahead, silhouetted against the glare of the sun, was the city itself, street after street of terraced houses, high-rise council blocks, and the towering gantry cranes in the naval dockyard. The harbour was bisected by the incoming motorway, and one of the big white cross-Channel ferries was nosing past a line of anchored warships. The helicopter began to lose height. Where the harbour narrowed at its seaward end, Kingdom
could see the Camber Dock. The trawler he’d watched unloading yesterday was still there, the fish hold empty, the orange nets spread across the quayside.

Kingdom signalled to Allder as the pilot brought the helicopter into the hover. ‘This is where we start,’ he said. ‘Gifford turned up on the Thursday. With his son.’

‘Andy? The one you told me about?’

‘Yeah.’

‘We can prove that?’

‘Yeah. He took a berth down there. The boat’s booked in. I’ve seen the entry. Talked to the guy who took the money.’

Kingdom gave Allder a moment to get his bearings. The altimeter was showing 150 feet now and the pilot was slowly rotating the Jet Ranger on its axis, giving Allder a panoramic view. Beneath them, on the promontory outside the pub, Kingdom could see faces upturned, coats flapping in the downdraft, eyes shielded against the bright sunlight.

‘OK,’ Allder said, ‘what next?’

‘Hayling Island.’ Kingdom glanced at the pilot.

The nose dipped again, and bits of the sea-front began to race past as they flew east, still low, the funfair empty, the long promenade dotted with joggers and mothers with pushchairs. Past Southsea Castle, the pilot climbed to 500 feet, and Kingdom felt the machine juddering as the rotor blades bit into the airstream.

‘This is guesswork,’ he said, ‘but I think Gifford’s son took the inflatable over to Hayling Island on the Saturday night. He probably came this way, offshore. There’s an anti-submarine barrage here, goes out about a mile, but you’d be safe enough at high water.’

‘When was that?’

‘Nine thirty-five.’

‘After dark?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wouldn’t that have been a problem?’

‘No,’ Kingdom shook his head, ‘not if the boy knew what he was doing.’

Kingdom glanced up at the mirror. Allder was looking down
at the sea-front, totally absorbed. The Royal Marine Museum was clearly visible now, the shadow of the statue at the gate falling across the newly surfaced access road. The pilot began to lose height again as the foreshore curled away at the mouth of Langstone Harbour.

‘Here’s where he comes back in,’ Kingdom told Allder. ‘With me, sir?’

‘Yeah.’

The pilot was back at the hover now, still losing height, the downwash from the rotor blades feathering the water below. The tiny snubnose ferry that chugged back and forth across the harbour mouth had just berthed alongside the Hayling Island landing stage, and half a dozen passengers were filing off. From here, a single road snaked away towards the built-up areas of the island, perhaps a mile to the east.

Kingdom exchanged glances with the pilot. They’d discussed the next manoeuvre, back on the ground at Winchester.

Allder tapped Kingdom on the shoulder. ‘What’s that?’ he said.

Kingdom followed his pointing finger. Across the road from the landing stage was a squat, two-storied building, painted yellow.

‘It’s a pub, sir.’

‘Busy on Saturday nights?’

‘Packed. According to the locals.’

‘And you think our friend’s on the move around half-nine? Ten?’

‘Best guess,’ Kingdom nodded, ‘yeah.’

‘And no one heard anything? In the pub?’

‘I don’t know, sir. This is supposition. Arthur’s boys can do the legwork.’ He paused, still looking at the pub. ‘And in any case, the outboard’s muffled …’ He shrugged. ‘Dark night, noisy pub, I’d be amazed if anyone bothered even looking.’

Allder was silent for a moment. ‘OK,’ he said at last, ‘what next?’

The pilot glanced at Kingdom and then eased the joystick forward. The helicopter was low again, no more than fifty feet, skirting the pebble beach that edged the harbour mouth. Beyond the landing stage, he banked to the right, following the shoreline
as the pebbles gave way to marshland. They clattered past a holiday camp, frightening a dog. A minute or so later they were at the hover again while Kingdom twisted in his seat, pointing down.

‘Do you see?’

‘See what?’

‘That close of houses. That’s where the guy I mentioned remembered his dog going barmy. The next morning. The Sunday morning. So what I’m saying is chummy came in at high water Saturday night and left the inflatable down there, on the saltings.’

Allder grunted. Kingdom could see his face pressed against the cold perspex. ‘And?’ he said.

Kingdom nodded to the pilot and the helicopter dipped slightly as they began to follow the road south.

‘This is where it becomes Sinah Lane,’ Kingdom shouted, ‘just here.’

Allder hadn’t moved. ‘So where’s the house you mentioned? The one you’re saying our friend used?’

‘Down there. The white one.’

Kingdom pointed again, indicating the house that had been for sale. The trees in the garden had lost a lot of leaves in the past ten days and the property was clearly visible. Allder had unbuckled his harness now, trying to get a better view.

‘And Clare Baxter’s place?’

Kingdom glanced across at the pilot, circling his finger, and the helicopter began to revolve, bringing the other side of the road into Allder’s field of view. Kingdom could tell from his tone of voice that he was beginning to enjoy himself.

‘Is that the one?’ he was saying. ‘The one with the skylight in the roof?’

Kingdom peered down. He could see a curl of blue smoke from a bonfire in the back garden. The only sign of Clare Baxter herself was a tea towel pegged to the clothes line. ‘That’s it, sir,’ he said.

‘And you’re saying our friend holed up over the road? Saturday night?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Waited for Carpenter Sunday morning? Knowing he’d be along?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Kingdom paused. ‘He’s got a copy of the key because he knows where she keeps it and he’s taken an impression some previous weekend when he was doing the recce. Piece of piss. She used to put it out last thing Saturday night. She told me that herself. Just in case she overslept next day. Lazy cow.’

He heard Allder chuckling in the back. The pilot was smiling, too, and Kingdom wondered for the first time exactly what he was making of all this.

‘So he has the key,’ Allder was saying, ‘and lover boy’s arrived.’

‘Yeah.’ Kingdom picked up the story. ‘So chummy nips across the road, lets himself in, goes upstairs, does the business–’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Allder sounded impatient now, ‘but then what?’

‘Afterwards?’

‘Yeah.’

Kingdom looked at the pilot, and the pilot grinned back, tightening his grip on the controls. The helicopter shuddered for a moment, climbing fast then surging forward as it gained speed. The browns and yellows beneath them began to blur and then they were over the water again, flying low, maximum speed, racing across the flat blue expanses of Langstone Harbour. Ahead, on the mainland, Kingdom could already see traffic on the east/west motorway. Seconds later, the pilot banked sharply to the west where mudbanks and marshland narrowed the harbour to a tidal creek. The creek ran alongside the motorway, perhaps fifty metres wide. A dual carriageway flashed beneath them, choked with traffic, then a railway line. Allder was peering down, his eyes locked on the silver strip of water until it disappeared briefly beneath an enormous roundabout. At this point, the pilot pulled the helicopter into a steep climb, rolling the machine off the top and offering Allder a view back along the length of the tidal creek. Kingdom looked across at the pilot. The manoeuvre had been perfect, a real piece of theatre. He was full of admiration, miming applause.