The Price Of Darkness (41 page)

‘Snotface,’ he yelled.

Everyone started laughing. Including the girl.

‘You broke the circle,’ she yelled back. ‘Dickhead.’

 

By the time they stopped for coffee, the game was over. The challenge had been to reverse the circle, facing out rather than in, without breaking the ring of hands. A quarter of an hour of wrestling, fierce argument and general mayhem had come to an end with a whispered clue to the biggest of the kids. He and his neighbour had hoisted their linked hands, inviting the couple opposite to lead everyone else through. By now the circle had acquired a life of its own, sinuous, ever-changing, and the sight of twenty kids trying to squeeze each other through this tiny human arch had reduced everyone to helpless laughter. Which, according to Jane Plover, was the whole point of the exercise.

‘These are kids who’ve never learned to help each other,’ she explained to Suttle. ‘Most of them are scared stiff of physical contact and even more frightened of making a fool of themselves. It’s all down to laughter in the end. If you can make people laugh you can make them do anything.’

Suttle was impressed. The next game was under way, under someone else’s supervision. A rubber gym mat had been cut into four squares. The classroom had become the Arctic Ocean. Kids crowded onto each of these tiny ice floes. The trick was to somehow manoeuvre the ice floes so they re-formed the gym mat and thus made a bigger, safer ice floe. This demanded a great deal of synchronised shuffling on the polished wooden floor. The game was called Killer Whale. More teamwork. More hilarity.

‘You mentioned Dermott O’Keefe on the phone.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Is he in trouble again?’

‘I’m afraid he might be.’

‘Do you mind me asking why?’

‘Not at all.’

Suttle restricted himself to the Mercedes. There was no absolute proof, he said, but there was strong evidence that Dermott had nicked it. More to the point, he seemed to have disappeared.

‘That’s strange. He was here only a couple of weekends ago. We run a Junior Leader programme. He did so well in the summer we invited him back.’

Dermott, she said, had taken everyone by surprise. His truanting record and steadily growing list of offences had prepared everyone for yet another teenage tearaway. Here was someone, on paper at least, who appeared to have turned his back on society. Yet in the flesh Dermott had been bright, quick-witted and only too happy to submerge himself in the general clamour. His interpersonal skills, she said, were exemplary. He had very few problems with the other kids. The only slight quirk in his character that anyone had spotted was a tendency to occasionally wander off.

‘He likes his own company,’ she said. ‘But in his case we view that as a plus.’

Suttle remembered the social worker’s story about the four a.m. paper round. His own space, he thought.

‘And camping? The great outdoors?’

‘He loved it. Absolutely adored it. He knew how to cook too, and believe me that’s almost a first.’

Dermott, she said, had done equally well on the Junior Leader programme. Something in his life had bred a natural maturity and he wasn’t afraid of taking responsibility. On the contrary, he appeared to thrive on it.

‘Is the course ongoing? Does he have to come back?’

‘Yes. The next stage is just before Christmas. We’ll give him a bunch of kids to sort out and see how he copes.’

‘So how do you get in touch with him?’

‘At home. Through his mum. She’s sweet.’

The coffee break was over. The kids were milling around. Jane had to get back to work. Suttle scribbled down her mobile number. Then he felt her hand on his arm.

‘The person you should be talking to isn’t me at all.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘You need to get hold of Charlie. Charlie Freeth. He and Dermott were very tight.’

‘And who’s Charlie Freeth?’

‘He’s our boss. He’s the one who heads all this up. In fact Positivo was his idea. And you know what he was before he saw the light?’ She smiled. ‘A cop.’

 

Faraday found it impossible to look his son in the eye without thinking of the photos. He’d found more of them on another memory card, equally explicit; same woman, different poses. He’d shared this discovery with Gabrielle, glad of a second opinion. Like him, she put the woman in her mid-forties. She wore an expensive-looking diamond ring on the third finger of her right hand. She occasionally affected a Gucci watch. So why was J-J, his errant son, his gleefully reckless offspring, bedding a middle-aged, possibly married woman? And how was this liaison tied to his purchase of a half-million-pound house in fashionable W4?

The three of them were sitting in a café-bar on Chiswick High Road. The estate agent selling the property was virtually next door. Yesterday Faraday had sent his son a terse e-mail telling him they needed to meet. He’d texted his father back within the hour. The café-bar had been his idea.

J-J, not the least bit subdued, wanted to know what his dad thought of the property they’d just inspected. It was a Victorian terraced house, three streets back from the High Road. A recent refurb had opened out the ground floor, installed clever lighting, laid a beautifully finished oak floor and added an en-suite bathroom to the biggest of the bedrooms upstairs. The tiny back garden had been landscaped in brick with limestone insets and there was a barbecue for entertaining on hot summer nights. The whole area, said the agent, had recently become fashionable and there wasn’t a car in the road more than a couple of years old. Number 17 was, of its kind, a gem. Hence, Faraday supposed, the asking price of £495,000.

‘Where are you going to get the money?’ he signed.

J-J’s face was briefly darkened by a frown. He’d clearly been expecting this question. Equally clearly, thought Faraday, he hasn’t had time to dream up an answer.

‘No bullshit,’ Faraday warned. ‘Just tell me the truth. Are you trying to raise a mortgage? A loan of some kind? Is that why you went to Jersey?’

J-J shook his head. ’I opened an account.’ He signed.

‘In your name?’

‘Two accounts. One in my name. One in someone else’s.’

‘Whose?’

‘A friend.’

‘A Russian friend?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’

He reached for the menu and gestured to Gabrielle. She produced a pen. On the back of the menu he scribbled two words. Faraday looked at them. The first he couldn’t read. The second looked like Tarasov.

He was back in the bedroom again. The spread of her legs. The melting smile. How dexterous she was. How eager to please.

‘This is a special friend?’

‘Very.’

‘How special?’

‘We’re very close. All three of us.’

‘All
three
of you?’ Faraday held up three fingers, trying to make sure there was no ambiguity. For once in his life, talking to his son, he cursed the boy’s muteness.

‘That’s right. Sergei is a businessman. He owns an oilfield. Part of an oilfield. He’s very rich. He has a house in Moscow. Another in St Petersburg. Now he wants a house here.’

‘And he’s married? This Sergei?’

J-J nodded, reached for the pen again. His wife’s name was Ludmilla.

‘And she’s a friend, too?’

J-J nodded, giving nothing away. He’d met her, he signed, through the production company. When the location shoots were done, they’d brought the rushes back to Moscow and thrown a big party for everyone associated with the project. Sergei had been especially helpful. Away for the month in Siberia, he’d asked his wife to represent him.

‘Nice lady?’ Faraday enquired with a tiny raise of his eyebrow.

J-J nodded. Soon after the party she’d invited him and some others out to her house. It was a big house in a wealthy area. She had a couple of dogs but for once J-J hadn’t been frightened. He’d been there a lot since. The husband, Sergei, had told him he was part of the family.

‘And you’re buying this house for these people? These friends of yours?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re going to live here full time?’

‘No. Ludmilla will come for the shopping. Maybe Sergei too if he has time.’

‘And you?’

‘Me?’ J-J placed a hand flat against his chest, beaming. ‘I’ll look after the place.’

 

After the café-bar they walked a little, heading back towards the Tube. Faraday hadn’t the heart to ask about the postcards, and the windfall $70,000. He’d always thought this was a fantasy but he’d never dreamed it might be a cover for a far larger sum of money.

Whether or not, even now, he’d really got to the bottom of J-J’s story remained to be seen, but what little he knew about the new Russia persuaded him that oil and gas exploitation, if you had a large enough stake, could easily fund the casual purchase of a house in Chiswick. The currency implications might be troublesome, and he shuddered to think of the tax bill his son might be unwittingly incurring, but both factors were insignificant against something far more troubling.

Years ago, on an extended visit to Normandy, J-J had got himself badly hurt over a relationship with a French social worker. That, too, had turned out to have been a threesome, though in this case the wounded party had been J-J. In Moscow, as far as Faraday could fathom, J-J had found himself in bed with someone else’s wife. Had she made the running? Did the husband know? Did J-J know that the husband knew? Or was it more straightforward? Simply a routine betrayal by a bored, wealthy housewife? With the willing assistance of his eager son?

Faraday didn’t know. In a minute or two they would be saying their goodbyes. J-J was staying with friends in Brixton. He had someone to meet this afternoon and a Polish movie he wanted to catch tonight. Faraday, meanwhile, was desperate to steer Gabrielle into a pub, sit her down, sink a beer or two, try and coax some sense from it all.

By the time they got to Stamford Brook Station it had started to rain. They ducked into the entrance while Gabrielle wrestled with her umbrella. Faraday had J-J’s digital camera in his pocket. The picture card with the bedroom photos was still loaded and he’d selected a particularly explicit pose to appear the moment J-J powered it up. As a precautionary tap on the shoulder it was hardly subtle, but he’d never wanted his son to take him for a fool and he didn’t intend to start now.

J-J gave him a hug. At the sight of the camera in his father’s hand, his grin vanished.

‘That’s mine,’ he signed.

‘It is.’ Faraday gave his thin body a final squeeze. ‘Take very great care.’

 

Brodie’s call took Winter by surprise. It was late afternoon. After his weekly visit to the supermarket Winter was contemplating a stroll round Old Portsmouth. He’d take the paper with him, have an early pint or two, try and work out exactly where this new life of his was really going to lead. Brodie spared him the trouble.

‘We’re going for a ride.’ She said. ‘I’ll be round to pick you up.’

‘Where are we off to?’

‘Gosport.’ She named a marina.

‘This is about the Trophy?’

‘Of course.’ She laughed. ‘Isn’t everything?’

She arrived minutes later. The Gosport marinas were just across the water. Winter could see them from his balcony. No point going by car, he insisted. Nightmare round trip. Thirty miles there and back with traffic like you’ve never seen. We’ll take the ferry and walk.

The ferry left from the station pontoon next to Gunwharf. Winter took her up to the top deck. A thin rain had cloaked the big busy spaces of the Harbour but Winter loved this crossing, the feeling of being briefly in amongst the constant churn of ferries and fishing boats, and slim grey warships nosing out towards the open sea. It was like stepping into the picture that greeted him every morning from his balcony. It brought the view to life.

‘So who are we seeing?’

‘Willard. Apparently he’s got a boat in the marina over there. It’s a Navy place. Used to be called HMS
Hornet.
Don’t ask me why but he’s very keen to see us.’

‘And you’re telling me this is secure?’

‘He seems to think so. I imagine we wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.’

Winter shrugged, resigning himself to the next couple of hours. He could have been in the Pembroke by now, he thought glumly. He could have been reviving an old friendship or two, touching base with familiar faces, swapping gossip, getting peaceably drunk. Instead he was back in a world that seemed to offer nothing but the ever-growing likelihood of catastrophe.

‘This U/C game, you’re never off duty.’ He glanced across at Brodie. ‘You ever find that?’

 

The marina was tucked into the mouth of a creek behind the Harbour entrance, protected from wind and current by the defunct remains of the Navy’s nearby submarine base. Access to the pontoons was controlled by security personnel at the gatehouse. Willard was using the cover name Peterson. He’d left instructions for Winter and Brodie to join him in the clubhouse. The secretary’s office lay on the same corridor that led to the bar. He didn’t anticipate the meeting taking long.

The office was bigger than Winter had expected. Willard was sitting behind the desk reading a copy of
Navy News.
He was wearing a roll-neck sweater with oil stains on one sleeve and the anorak draped over the back of his chair was still wet. There was a teacup at his elbow and crumbs on the plate beside it.

He nodded at the two chairs readied beside the desk. He wanted to know about the Pole, Cesar Dobroslaw. A slight cold made him even gruffer than usual.

‘Brodie tells me you and Mackenzie went across to Southampton to see him yesterday.’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing. We talked. That was about it.’

‘You’re aware we have an interest in Dobroslaw?’

‘Yes.’