The Price Of Darkness (28 page)

‘Because Benskin had no time for all this stuff in Portsmouth, especially the Tipner project. He thought it was a waste of space. I talked to Tracy Barber about it this morning. I’ve even been over the tapes of the interview you both did with him.
I never liked it from the start. The place is a dump. Literally.
That’s what he told us, word for word. So why would he be risking two and a half million quid of the firm’s money to back something he thought was rubbish?’

‘Have you seen the loan agreement?’ Faraday was paying attention at last.

‘No, sir. But I’ve asked for a copy.’

‘You think …’ Faraday sank into his chair ‘… he might have forged Benskin’s signature? Kept the loan details to himself?’

‘I guess it’s possible.’

‘But Benskin would find out, wouldn’t he? In double-quick time?’

‘Of course, sir. And then he’d want the money back.’ Suttle smiled. ‘In double-quick time.’

 

The summons to Barrie’s office came minutes later. Faraday was still thinking about the implications of Mallinder’s bank loan. Suttle had a point. The discovery that your business partner had been cheating you might have all kinds of consequences, especially if the stakes were as high as two and a half million pounds.

Barrie was on the phone when Faraday stepped into his office. At the other end of the room, at the head of the conference table, Willard was hunched over a spreadsheet. Beside him, talking on a mobile, was Perry Madison.

‘Come in, Joe.’ Barrie was off the phone. ‘Join us.’

Faraday took a seat at the table. Willard barely looked up. Madison’s cold eyes flicked from one face to another as Barrie joined them.

At length Willard folded the spreadsheet and offered Faraday a nod. Madison pocketed his mobile. Already Faraday sensed the direction events were about to take.

‘Time is short, gentlemen.’ It was Barrie again. ‘We’re now dealing with a murder inquiry but I don’t think that comes as any surprise. It does, however, give us a problem. I raised it with Mr Willard this afternoon. Sir … ?’

‘We’re talking control and command, Joe.’ Willard was giving Faraday his full attention now. ‘We can’t run both
Billhook
and
Polygon
out of the same incident room. It’s obvious. It just doesn’t work. The indexers are knackered already and it’s going to get a whole lot worse. We could transfer
Billhook
to Hulse Road or Grosvenor House but they’re both up to their necks with inquiries of their own.’

Faraday nodded. There were major incident rooms in both Southampton and Basingstoke. Either, had they been available, would have been an ideal home for
Billhook.

‘So what do we do, sir?’

‘I’m transferring the Mallinder inquiry to the satellite MIR at Fareham. The techies are firing up the Holmes suite as we speak. You’ll have a slightly reduced squad of D/Cs but full admin backup. Thanks to our friends in London, we’re not short of resources but most of those are going to
Polygon
.’

Faraday was looking at Perry Madison. No wonder he’d been getting used to the feel of Faraday’s desk.

‘Joe?’ It was Willard again. ‘You understand what I’m saying?’

‘Of course, sir. You’re taking me off
Polygon.
’

‘I am. I knew it would piss you off but I’m afraid I’ve got no choice. There’s no way you and Martin can lead two inquiries. We’d simply end up hazarding both. You’ll be SIO on
Billhook
until things settle down. If you need help, you know where to find me. OK?’ He held Faraday’s eyes for a moment then nodded at the door.

Faraday got to his feet, glancing at the faces round the table. He knew his disappointment was obvious but he was too exhausted to bother trying to hide it. He thought of saying something, maybe registering just the hint of a protest, but he knew it was pointless. In these situations you did what you were told. As he left the room Faraday paused a moment. Perry Madison had just cracked a joke at his expense but nobody was laughing.

 

Winter found the message waiting for him on the answering machine when he got back from London. He’d agreed a procedure with D/I Parsons weeks ago, before he’d accepted Bazza’s offer. If she urgently needed to get hold of him, she’d ring his home number. She’d pose as the BT operator. She’d ask if the fault on his line had been rectified. She’d quote his BT account number and ask for confirmation for her records. The last six digits would be the last six numbers of a dedicated mobile. The prefix he was to ring was 07961.

Winter replayed the message twice. Parsons, he thought, sounded twitchy. His finger still on the replay button, he looked round for a pencil and a scrap of paper. The rules had been clear. If a message like this arrived, it was imperative he got in touch. He played it a third time, trying to imagine what might have happened. The temptation was to ignore it. It was nearly midnight. The last thing he needed were yet more complications in this crazy life for which he seemed to have volunteered. Then he paused. She may have news that Winter couldn’t afford to ignore. Not unless he fancied another conversation with Brett West.

He dialled the number and waited for Parsons to pick up. He couldn’t remember whether they were supposed to continue the BT pantomime or not so when she finally lifted the phone he got straight to the point.

‘Boss?’ he said. ‘You phoned.’

‘I did. We need to meet.’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow, I’m afraid. You’ll find an appointment for the Imaging Department on your laptop. Southampton General this time. Five in the afternoon. Be there, OK?’

WEDNESDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2006.
07.57

 

Faraday was back in the Bargemaster’s House in time for the eight o’clock news bulletin on Radio Solent. A brisk walk had taken him a couple of miles up the harbourside path. It was low tide and there was a small army of waders picking at the mud but for once he didn’t spare them a second glance. Oblivious of the rain he strode on, determined to empty his mind of everything but the sweet kiss of the morning air. Just now, he told himself, life on Major Crimes was like a war. You hunkered down. You took your orders. And if those orders seriously pissed you off, then too bad. Two men were dead, for Christ’s sake. Life could be a whole lot worse.

It didn’t work. He sat at the kitchen table, listening to the Solent newscaster offering an overnight update in the hunt for the minister’s killers. The BBC had a reporter who was practically in residence with the
Polygon
squad. Faraday had glimpsed her a number of times yesterday. She was young and pretty, and she knew how to play the more impressionable D/Cs. Faraday listened to her now, detecting the excitement in her voice, that special breathiness that came with the knowledge that you were at the very centre of events.

House-to-house teams, she said, had been out since seven, trying to catch possible witnesses before they left for work, desperate for some fresh scrap of evidence. Yesterday, after the discovery of the motorbike used in the attack, the intelligence team had plotted the probable route taken by the killers, and now she tallied a list of streets, happy to add her voice to the chorus of other media appeals for information. If anyone had seen anything, she said, then here was the number to call.

There followed a brief interview with Martin Barrie. He sounded like he’d been up for most of the night and when the young reporter asked where the inquiry was heading next, he warned her that it was still early days. These things take time, he said. The offenders had clearly been well prepared and at this stage in the investigation it would be unduly optimistic to expect them to make the kind of mistake that might lead to a breakthrough.

This thought clearly intrigued the reporter. She tried to press him further. How personal did a manhunt like this become? Were detectives tempted to give the killers a face? A physical presence? Or did the fact that they’d remained so invisible, so anonymous, become an irritation? Barrie paused. Faraday could imagine the pale skin stretched tight over the bones of his face and the thin fingers entwined around a pencil. Then he heard the rasping cough as the Detective Superintendent cleared his throat. ‘With respect to your question, the answer’s no.’ He said at last. ‘I’m afraid we deal in evidence. Not fiction.’

Faraday poured himself a second cup of tea. This was like listening to an account of a party to which he was no longer invited. He could picture Perry Madison at his desk, cranking up the
Polygon
machine for another day in the headlines. Last night, before leaving, Faraday had cleared his drawers of everything personal, as well as removing an armful of
Billhook
files, but something had made him leave his bird shots on the cork board over the filing cabinet. J-J’s photos of gannets in the boiling swell off the Farne Islands were a statement of intent. They told anyone who might be interested that this leave of absence was strictly temporary. That just as soon as
Billhook
scored a result, he - Faraday - would return. And if
Polygon
was still active, then maybe he’d even get his office back.

Gabrielle appeared at the kitchen door. Preoccupied with the radio, Faraday hadn’t heard her come downstairs. She was wearing an old T-shirt of his and not much else. She’d been asleep in bed last night when Faraday finally returned, and he’d taken care not to wake her.

Now, she slipped onto the chair beside him. He could feel the warmth of her body through the thin cotton.

‘It goes OK?’ She nodded at the radio.

Faraday got to his feet, furious at the strength of his own feelings.

‘Dunno.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’

 

Winter woke to find Bazza’s face on the videophone.

‘I’ve been down here for ever,’ he yelled. ‘I don’t pay you to stay in fucking bed all day.’

Winter pressed the door release and glanced at his watch. Ten past eight. By the time he’d found his dressing gown and got to the door of the flat, Bazza was waiting in the hall.

‘Well?’

‘Well nothing. I might as well give you a key, Baz. Or why don’t you move in? Take the spare room? Save yourself all those trips in the lift?’ Still grumbling, Winter retreated to the kitchen.

‘The lady. Our friend. What did she say?’ Bazza was standing in the open doorway. His face was pinked with exercise and he seemed to be losing weight.

‘She said yes, Baz.’

‘To everything?’

‘In principle, yes. She checked out that website of yours. The word she used was “tasteful”.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means she’s probably blind. You want tea or what?’

Winter made toast and jam. He’d been right about the exercise. Bazza had signed up for sessions at a local gym and been so impressed he’d just bought the place.

‘They’ve got a special taster deal. Two free sessions to see how you get on. Can’t fail. There’s a big plasma screen in front of each place where you do the business. They call them exercise stations. You choose what you want to watch and they sort out the pictures.’

His neighbour, Bazza said, had fancied porn while the woman on the left had gone for a wildlife film about rockhopper penguins in Patagonia. Winter was mystified.

‘What kind of bloke watches porn while he’s working out?’

‘It wasn’t a bloke. It was a girl. Fat as you like. Told me she needed a bit of incentive. The state of her, I’m not surprised. Mess with that and you’d need a map to get out in one piece.’

He barked with laughter and spooned more marmalade onto his toast. Winter wanted to know what he’d been watching.

‘
Bridge on the River Kwai
. As if I wasn’t sweating to death already.’

‘I thought you’d seen it before?’ Winter remembered the DVD on a shelf at Sandown Road.

‘I have, mush, every Christmas, without fail. It’s a real classic, though, isn’t it? That bit at the end when they do the bridge? I reran it three times this morning. My trainer thinks I’m weird. Blokes’ve got no fucking sense of history these days.’

The image of Bazza Mackenzie watching several hundred tons of locomotive plunging into a Thai river brightened Winter’s morning. Esme was right. Her dad really was a kid.

‘So you think Brodie’ll be down?’ Bazza was on the balcony now, giving a passing ferry a wave. ‘Only I’ll have to sort something out.’

‘I’m sure she’ll be down, Baz. She was talking to some media people yesterday. She thinks she might have a couple of names to run past us.’

‘When?’

‘This morning.’ Winter looked pointedly at his watch. ‘Though most people don’t lift the phone before nine.’

 

Fareham was a once-sleepy market town ten miles west of Portsmouth. Good motorway and rail links had attracted a new breed of householder and the asking price for the rash of two-garage executive homes had reached dizzy heights. Nowadays, thought Faraday, Fareham was a place where you’d lay your head, raise your kids, and shop for chocolate biscotti from Sainsbury’s at weekends.

The police station lay close to the busy main road south of the town centre. D/C Jimmy Suttle was already at the coffee machine by the time Faraday had negotiated a parking space and hauled an armful of paperwork out of the Mondeo’s boot.

‘Where, son?’

‘Upstairs, boss. The Duty Inspector’s got us a nice office.’

‘Us?’

‘You and me.’

Faraday followed Suttle up two flights of stairs and along a corridor at the top. A largish office at the end served as a major incident room and a team of techies had just finished tweaking the computers. Faraday left the paperwork on the nearest desk and opened a window. The working space, though more modest than the MIR at Kingston Crescent, was perfectly adequate for
Billhook.

‘And we are … ?’