‘No problem,’ Faraday said at once. ‘Do it.’
‘There’s something else, too.’
She told him about another message she’d taken earlier from the race office at Cowes. The crew of a yacht called Marenka had also been hauled out of the water, and the girl at the Cowes office thought Faraday might like to know.
‘So what’s with this Marenka? Cathy inquired.
Faraday muttered something about the misper, Maloney.
‘You’re really still interested?’
‘Very much so.’
‘How come?’
Faraday began to explain about the evening’s developments, then broke off. If any bunch of guys could offer an intimate view of Stewart Maloney, then it would surely be Marenka’s crew. You could see it in their faces in the photographs. These guys were tight with each other. They’d sailed together, won together, celebrated together, got drunk together. There’d be few secrets on a boat like that.
‘When are you leaving?’ Faraday asked.
‘First light. Say five.’
‘Pick me up, then. I’m coming too.’
‘What about the office?’
Faraday was still thinking about Maloney’s photographs.
‘Office?’ he said blankly.
Next morning, Cathy and Faraday drove down to the hospital in Plymouth. The sky had cleared after the passage of the storm, leaving a clean, rain-washed blue, dotted with cotton-wool clouds. There were trees blown down in Dorset, and structural damage to houses around Exeter. Derriford Hospital was on the northern fringes of Plymouth. Staff at the reception desk directed them to the third floor.
Faraday accompanied Cathy along the corridor from the lift. Pete Lamb occupied a bed in a ward at the end. A glass partition screened the ward and Cathy paused to rearrange the flowers she’d bought from the shop downstairs. Faraday had expressed surprise at Pete’s fondness for flowers but Cathy, grinning, had told him not to be so naive. The bunch of blue iris was really for her.
Faraday saw the woman first. She was sitting at Pete’s bedside, stroking his hand. She was young, with a knot of blonde hair pinned up at the back. She was wearing jeans and a blue scoop-necked T-shirt and when she reached out to get something from the cabinet on the far side of the bed, Pete leaned forward, nuzzling her breasts. A moment later, he caught sight of his wife.
Cathy’s face had frozen. She stared at Pete a moment longer through the glass then moved to go into the ward. Faraday restrained her. The more she struggled, the more tightly he gripped her arm.
‘Don’t,’ he told her. ‘Not here, anyway.’
‘You’re fucking joking.’
‘I’m not.’
‘He’s my husband.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Doesn’t matter?’
Cathy was staring at him. The sister behind the nursing station was getting to her feet. Faraday gestured for her to follow them both down the corridor. Back beside the lift, he asked where he could find the crew of a boat called Marenka.
The sister was still looking at Cathy.
‘Are you OK, dear?’
Cathy couldn’t take her eyes off the ward by the nursing station. Finally she tipped her head back and took a deep breath.
‘No,’ she said, ‘but I will be.’
The survivors from Marenka occupied a ward on the floor below, and to Faraday’s surprise there were just three of them. Faraday looked at Cathy, trying to judge how close she was to taking the lift back upstairs. She was very pale and the tension showed in the tightness of the skin around her lips.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘We’ll do this together.’
Faraday recognised the big, bulky figure in the corner bed at once. He’d been the one in the photo giving the finger to some rival or other. Now he was sitting up with a bowl of soup and the remains of a crusty roll. His jaw was swollen on one side and he had a livid bruise beneath his left eye. According to the chart hanging on the foot of the bed, his name was Charlie Oomes.
Derek Bissett, in the next bed, was a couple of years older, a smaller, slighter man. His eyes were closed, the blankets heaped up around him. Across the ward was the other survivor, Ian Hartson. He looked younger than the other two but Faraday was conscious at once of a wariness in his expression. Something about the eyes that followed them as they walked across the ward to talk to Charlie Oomes. Something this man was trying to forget.
No wonder.
Charlie Oomes turned out to be Marenka’s owner/skipper, a gruff south Londoner with a florid complexion, huge, meaty hands and little time for small talk. Faraday and Cathy introduced themselves and then drew up seats beside his bed.
‘What happened?’
Oomes studied them both for a moment with his tiny, bloodshot eyes and then told them the story of the yacht’s final hours. How she’d pushed out into the Celtic Sea ahead of every other Class III boat. How she’d had to run before the storm on a tiny triangle of trisail, dragging a sea anchor to prevent a fatal broach. How he and Henry had taken turns at the tiller, half an hour on, half an hour off. And how a rogue wave had finally overwhelmed their tiny craft, roaring out of the darkness, pitch-poling Marenka, flooding the cabin, and finally breaking her up.
Oomes brushed crumbs from his borrowed pyjama top.
‘Fucked,’ he said, ‘totally shafted. We didn’t even have time to send a Mayday.’
‘So how did they find you?’
‘We had an EPIRB, an emergency radio beacon. We grabbed it off the back before we took to the life raft. Bastard thing didn’t work at first. Derek had to fix it.’
He gestured at the inert figure huddled beneath the blankets and Faraday found himself nodding in sympathy. After a story like that he felt as if he’d been there.
‘Who was Henry?’
‘Our nav. Brilliant bloke. Total one-off.’
‘And what happened to him?’
‘Dead. Drowned.’
Henry Potterne, the navigator, had disappeared moments before the capsize. Sam, his nineteen-year old stepson, had stayed aboard to try and get a line around the sixth member of the crew, a university student, David Kellard. The last Charlie had heard from the life raft was a yell from young David as the storm swept them away. Turned out the lad had a terrible fear of drowning. Poor sod.
Faraday stole a glance at Cathy. She was miles away, staring blankly out towards the corridor. Another capsize, Faraday thought. Another little death.
‘So what’s with you lot? What are you after?’ It was Oomes’s turn to ask the questions.
Faraday explained about Stewart Maloney. He, too, had disappeared, though obviously not at sea. When did Oomes last see him?
Oomes frowned, picking at the last of the crumbs. Stu had broken his arm falling off that sodding bike of his. Felt like a year ago. Tuesday? Wednesday? Bastard must have been psychic, must have known the shit we’d be getting ourselves into.
‘So where were you all on Friday?’
Oomes had started again on the soup, eyeing Faraday over the lip of the bowl.
‘On the island. We rent a place at Cowes. Costs me a fortune.’
‘And you were there all week?’
‘Of course. That’s what Cowes is about. We don’t go there to tart about. We go there to race.’
‘What about the rest of the year?’
‘What about it?’
‘Where do you keep the boat?’
‘Port Solent.’
Faraday nodded, thinking at once about Nelly Tseng. Men like Charlie Oomes were exactly the kind of clients she wanted to attract. Probably a self-made businessman. Almost definitely wealthy.
‘You’ve got a house there?’
‘Bet your life. And a waterside mooring.’
Faraday made a note of the Port Solent address, then looked at Oomes again. Had Maloney turned up on the island after the injury? Had he come over to wish them good luck on Friday night or Saturday morning? Had he phoned or sent a card? Had Charlie
or any of the rest of them had any contact with him?
Charlie shook his head. Maloney had been completely irresponsible, falling off the bike. Riding with a couple of pints inside him was asking for trouble when the man barely drank. He was bloody lucky it hadn’t been more serious. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would have walked.
‘Where was he going?’
‘Back to the house, the place we’d rented.’
‘How far was that?’
‘About a mile. He was posing. He’s always posing. Leather strides and all that art-school garbage. Guy lives on another planet. Any woman with half a brain would walk away.’
Faraday glanced at Cathy. Her eyes were closed now. She looked exhausted.
‘I’m not with you, Mr Oomes,’ Faraday murmured. ‘What are you telling me here?’
‘Telling you?’
‘About Maloney.’
‘Stu?’ He spooned up the last of the soup, wiped his mouth with the corner of the sheet, and shrugged.
‘Nothing, really. We all have our little problems, don’t we?’
In the end, Winter decided against phoning. The phone was too distant, too remote. It took nothing to mumble an excuse and just hang up. No, much better to pop along in person. That way, he’d get his foot in her door. Nice thought.
The address from Morry took him to the big horseshoe of apartments that looked west across the Port Solent yacht basin. A van from a glazing company was double-parked outside the main entrance and he stood waiting in the sunshine while a couple of workmen manoeuvred a big glass panel in through the door.
Flat fifty-seven had a security peep at eye level but Winter kept his head down when his second ring finally stirred a response.
‘Who is it?’ a woman’s voice called.
‘Management, love.’
‘Your name, please.’
The voice sounded foreign, just the way it had been when she’d first phoned him.
‘We’re doing all the flats,’ Winter called. ‘Checking on damage from yesterday.’
Mention of the storm opened the door. Winter found himself looking at a woman in her late twenties. She was wearing a red bikini and a pair of Kenzo shades. She had a deep tan, a wonderful body, and as far as Winter could judge, all her teeth seemed intact. Through an open door at the end of the tiny hall, Winter could see a sunbed on the balcony beyond the big lounge.
‘Juanita?’
‘Sí.’
‘OK, are you?’
Without waiting for an answer, Winter stepped past her, walking through to the lounge. Looking round, he sensed at once that the place had been pre-furnished. The bamboo furniture and smoked-glass tables looked too new. Open any of the built-in cupboards, he thought, and you’d find yards of packing material and heavy-duty polythene.
‘Been here long?’
The woman seemed nervous. She headed for the door across the room but Winter got there first. The last thing he needed was her making a phone call.
‘Policia,’ he said, showing her his ID card.
She studied it carefully, then nodded. She was clearly no stranger to subterfuge.
‘OK, Mr Winter,’ she said. ‘You want coffee?’
Twelve
Faraday was in the middle of Dorset, driving back to Portsmouth, when Dawn Ellis finally raised him on his mobile.
‘Couple of messages, sir,’ she said crisply. ‘One’s from a Kate Symonds.’
The name snagged in Faraday’s memory. Then he remembered the head-to-head with the journalist from Coastlines. Kate Symonds was the girl with lots of attitude who’d wound up Neville Bevan to such spectacular effect.
‘She gave me a number.’ Dawn was saying. ‘She wants you to call.’
Faraday jotted the number down. The other message had come from Nelly Tseng at Port Solent. She’d been on three times this morning and the last of the calls had been fielded by the superintendent’s office.
‘What does she want?’
‘You, sir. She’s gone mental about the twocking last night.’
Twocking was CID shorthand for taking a car without the owner’s consent. The Paulsgrove lads had obviously upped their game.
‘How many vehicles?’
‘Just the one, sir. But it was a Porsche Carrera – and they got involved in some kind of race afterwards. Rolled it on a bend at the top of the estate. The lads are OK but the car’s a write-off.’
Faraday digested the news.
‘And you say Bevan knows about all this?’
‘Affirmative, sir. He wants to see you the minute you get back. Just thought I’d pass the word.’
Dawn rang off and Faraday glanced across at Cathy. She was pale and tight-lipped at the wheel. So far she hadn’t mentioned Pete and neither had Faraday but he sensed that now wasn’t the time for a lengthy conversation. Better to stick to the business in hand.
Faraday pocketed his mobile.
‘You think I’m barmy, don’t you? Going to all this trouble about Maloney?’
Cathy glanced at the number he’d scribbled down.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’
On his return to Portsmouth, Faraday went straight to Bevan’s office. Expecting a ruck over Nelly Tseng and the stolen Porsche, he found the superintendent brooding over a phone call from Patrick McIlvenny.
He explained that the two of them had shared a recent association under the auspices of an outfit called ‘Common Purpose’. Like-minded high achievers met once a month to explore weighty civic issues, and over the course of a year he’d got to know the man. Bevan took a cautious view of friendships outside the job, but he clearly had a lot of respect for the acting head teacher.
Faraday was trying to work out where this conversation was going. Bevan at last got to the point.
‘Patrick described events last night,’ he said. ‘He believes your behaviour amounts to harassment – and on the face of it, he just might be right.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said that you gave his partner an extremely hard time about their relationship. He thought the word “intrusive” wouldn’t have done the conversation justice.’
‘I asked her some questions,’ Faraday said woodenly. ‘She had difficulty with some of the answers.’
‘He disagrees. He says you upset her, disturbed the child and virtually accused them of murder. All without a shred of supporting evidence. He said the inference you’d drawn from events was perfectly clear. You’d made up your mind that the ex-husband – Maloney? – had disappeared under suspicious circumstances and that they – he and his partner – were somehow implicated.’
‘That’s hardly murder.’
‘In his eyes, I’m afraid it was. You took his fingerprints?’
‘I asked whether he was prepared to be fingerprinted, yes.’
‘For what reason?’
Faraday caught the menace in Bevan’s voice. At first he’d thought that the superintendent was going through the motions, discharging a debt of friendship, but now he wasn’t so sure.
‘For the purposes of elimination,’ he said evenly, ‘and it doesn’t stop there, either.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that we may have to search his house, and possibly hers too. If they choose not to co-operate, I may have to get a warrant sworn.’
‘You’ve got the grounds?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you after?’
‘Correspondence, computer files, maybe even some forensic.’
‘Relating to?’
‘Some kind of struggle.’
‘You’re talking full forensic?’
‘Perhaps.’
Faraday, with the greatest reluctance, found himself outlining the circumstances that had led him to McIlvenny. The sense of mutual awkwardness, embarrassment even, had gone. Faraday was beginning to get angry.
‘He certainly has the motivation,’ he concluded, ‘and he may well have had the opportunity. Their alibi, such as it is, relies on e
ach other.’
‘You really think she’s implicated too?’
‘Very possibly.’
‘After giving you the key to the flat? Dear God, Joe, what’s this woman got? Some kind of death wish?’
‘People do strange things.’ Faraday shrugged. ‘And murder isn’t a rational act.’
Bevan stared into space for a moment or two. Faraday had always had the feeling that the superintendent had never quite come to terms with the darker side of human nature, which made him unusual for a policeman.
‘I’m sorry he’s a friend of yours,’ Faraday murmured.
Bevan blinked.
‘That’s immaterial,’ he said sharply.
‘Is it, sir?’
‘Yes. Listen, Joe. The last thing you need from me is a lecture about high-volume crime. You know the stats inside out. You know the battles we’re fighting on the ground. Houses turned over. Cars nicked. All that grief. It might be boring, Joe, and it might be just a touch repetitious, but the fact is that these people pay our bloody wages. They have a voice. They use it. They matter. In the meantime, you’re chasing shadows. He’s probably shacked up with some other woman, this Maloney. It happens, Joe, in case you haven’t noticed.’
Faraday ignored the sarcasm. High-volume crime was code for last night’s events at Port Solent. He couldn’t let that pass.
‘I’m calling her this afternoon,’ Faraday said. ‘It’s being dealt with.’
‘Her?’
‘Nelly Tseng. DC Ellis will be sorting it out.’
‘She’s done it already. Or put a phone call in, at any rate.’
‘On whose instructions?’
‘Mine, Joe,’ Bevan said heavily, ‘as if I didn’t have enough to do.’
There was a long silence. This was rapidly turning into the kind of turf war that Faraday couldn’t afford to lose. He was the DI. The DI managed the divisional CID. His call. Not bloody Bevan’s.
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