One Under

by Hurley, Graham

  Now he was talking about the need for a ‘champion’, a detective who could spend a year or so spreading the word about POCA, getting alongside fellow officers, putting their darkest fears to rest, explaining how the legislation worked. This missionary task, in Willard’s opinion, needed an older man, someone with a record as a good thief-taker, someone indeed with an intimate knowledge of exactly what made criminals like Bazza Mackenzie tick.

  ‘Someone like Winter,’ Faraday murmured.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘A brave choice.’

  ‘I’d call it controversial, Joe. And so will my colleagues.’ He paused for the lagers to arrive. Then he bent closer. ‘Naturally there’s a procedure to be gone through. There’ll be other applicants, an impartial selection process, but personally I’ve no doubt that Winter is the man for the job. We could argue all night about rights and wrongs but the fact is that the guy delivers. The only thing that bothers me is what’s happened to him since that operation of his. As I understand it, he could have died. That concentrates a man’s mind. People change. Different priorities. A different take on life. What do you think?’

  ‘About Winter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I haven’t a clue, sir.’

  ‘But you’ll keep an eye on him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And you get my drift?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked up at Willard. ‘The issue with Winter as I see it has always been motivation. With most of us it’s pretty straightforward. We do the best job we can, we try not to get ourselves or anyone else in the shit, and if it all turns out OK, then we like to think it’s a bit of a result. Winter’s not like that at all, never has been. What drives him is the real issue. Some blokes will tell you vanity. Others that he’s just plain bent. Me? I pass.’

  A smile ghosted over Willard’s face. He studied Faraday for a long moment.

  ‘Passing isn’t an option, Joe,’ he said at last. ‘Not in this case.’

  ‘No.’ Faraday reached for his lager. ‘So I gather.’

  Four

  Tuesday, 12 July 2005, 06.10

  Faraday was up early next morning, patrolling the edges of one of the freshwater ponds on Milton Common. The ponds, barely half a mile north of the Bargemaster’s House, were home to a variety of summer birdlife and Faraday spent a deeply contented hour or so keeping tabs on a family of little grebes.

  The parents were shy, demure, slipping in and out of the reeds, fastidious in the care of their downy brood. Faraday had been watching them for months, ever since the emergence of the young, and this glimpse of parenthood gave him an oddly comforting sense of personal nourishment. The grebes, in common with most birds, faced a number of natural predators. Mere survival demanded constant vigilance. The young, with their rattling, slightly comical, high-pitched trills, were forever hungry. Yet the family seemed to flourish, bonded by the instinctive knowledge that their best chance in a hostile world lay in staying together. Life, thought Faraday, could be so simple.

  By ten o’clock, after a brief visit to the crime scene out at Buriton, he was climbing the stairs to the Major Crimes Suite. Winter was at his desk in the Intelligence Cell when Faraday put his head round the door.

  ‘You’ve got a moment?’

  ‘Sure, boss.’

  Winter began to get up to accompany Faraday to his own office but the DI had already helped himself to one of the two spare chairs. The sheaf of padlock photos lay beside Winter’s phone. Faraday began to leaf through them. The padlock was chunky, solid-looking, a brass body with a steel hasp on top.

  ‘So how are you getting on?’

  Winter consulted his notes. So far, he said, he’d talked to two managers at B&Q, the area director at Homebase, and a helpful young totty at GA Day. Next, he’d be starting on the smaller hardware stores listed in Yellow Pages. As detective work, he confessed, it didn’t hold a candle to busting high-class knocking shops or chasing drug dealers but fat old bastards like him were grateful for small mercies.

  Faraday acknowledged the quip with a smile. On one side of the padlock was the make, Tri-Circle. Beneath, a figure, 266. He glanced through the rest of the photos. On the other side of the lock he could make out a company logo, three interlinked circles nesting in an oval.

  ‘So who stocks them?’

  ‘They all do. Homebase is your best bet. Six ninety-nine. That’s a steal, believe me.’

  ‘Why so popular?’

  ‘They’re Chinese. That’s retail for cheap. The Chinkies knock ’em out, ten to a quid. Bloke at B&Q told me they buy them by the thousands. Says padlocks have become a hot item. Half the people in this city have something to their name. The other half can’t wait to nick it. That’s him talking, not me. Pompey? He thinks it’s padlock heaven.’

  ‘What about the paper trail? Do these people keep records of every transaction?’

  ‘Yeah, the bigger stores do, but it only works for us if someone uses a card. Pay cash and there’s obviously no name attached. Plus they’re less than keen to sort through all the paperwork. Bloke at Homebase said he was ten understaffed as it was, could barely keep the bloody shelves stocked.’

  ‘How many keys do they supply? With the padlock?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Always?’

  ‘So they say.’

  Faraday nodded. Maybe Winter would get a better result at one of the local hardware stores. Maybe a man behind his own counter might remember a specific transaction, or a face.

  ‘Yeah, sure. But those blokes charge the earth. That’s why they’re going out of business. Who’s going to be paying over the odds when you can go down the road and get one half the price?’

  Faraday said it didn’t matter. Detective work, as both men knew, was often a simple question of persistence. Dozens of phone calls, hours of getting nowhere. Then a sudden glimpse of something that could stop an enquiry in its tracks and point it in a totally different direction.

  ‘What about the chain? And the bits and pieces of sash cord?’

  ‘I was saving them for later,’ Winter said drily. ‘Have you seen the state of them?’

  Faraday nodded. Both items were locked in the Crime Property Store down the corridor. The sash cord, brittle and frayed, could have been nineteenth century while the length of galvanised chain sheared by the train had definitely seen better days. Winter was right. Tracing them back would be a nightmare.

  There was a brief silence. Then Winter wanted to know about the house-to-house. The Outside Enquiry Team had been at it since eight, going from door to door in Buriton. Any nibbles?

  ‘None. I was up there just now. There’s a little lane that leads to the railway. In all, we’re looking at three properties. The bloke at the end’s been done a couple of times - professional burglars, knew what they were after. Since Christmas he’s had a new security system. Sensors, lights, all the bells and whistles. Plus he’s got dogs. Anything that moves on that stretch of lane, he’d know about it. Sunday night? Not a whisper. Quiet as you like. Slept like a baby.’

  ‘Wrong lane, then.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  Winter had an Ordnance Survey map tucked beneath the still-wrapped sandwich he’d picked up on the way in. Faraday flattened the map on the adjoining desk, tracing the line of the railway as it snaked north from the coast. Beyond Rowland’s Castle, a pricey village suddenly fashionable with executives from the likes of IBM, the line passed through open country, largely farmland dotted with occasional trackside hamlets, until it began the long ascent towards the tunnel. Faraday must have watched those passing fields a thousand times from the London-bound train and had always been surprised. For an area barely twenty minutes’ drive from a major conurbation, it felt almost remote.

  ‘I’m thinking we need to be looking down here, not up at Buriton.’ He tapped the area south of the tunnel. ‘For one thing, there’s nobody around. For another, that’s where we found the body. If you came in from the north, you’d have to walk throug
h most of the tunnel until you got to the spot you wanted. Why do that?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘So it’s here we should be taking a proper look.’

  Faraday began to indicate access points along the line of the railway, drawing on yesterday’s recce. Three miles south of the tunnel, he said, there were limitless opportunities to scale the low fence, scramble down from a bridge or simply walk onto the bed of the railway from one of the unmanned crossings, but the closer you got to the tunnel, the more difficult access became. For the last kilometre, the rising land west of the track was covered with trees. The plantation was commercially managed, and there was a forest track that could take vehicles that wound down towards the railway.

  ‘Here.’ Faraday’s finger rested on the point where the dotted lines collided with the railway. ‘There’s some kind of gate onto the track. Apparently it’s a doddle.’

  ‘Has anyone checked it out?’

  ‘It’s on the actions list. We’re starting to look at houses along this road here, too.’ He tracked back through the forest until his finger found the tiny country road, way up from the railway, that took local traffic south. ‘We’re talking a couple of properties at the most. It’s a long shot, I know, but we’re drawing a blank in the village.’

  He began to fold up the map but Winter told him to leave it. This morning he was getting himself organised. He had Pentels for the whiteboard on the wall and as soon as he was through with the phone calls he’d be making a start on a timeline. By then, with luck, something might have come back from the house-to-house. If so, Faraday would naturally be the first to know.

  Faraday was on his way out. Winter glanced round at him.

  ‘What about the post-mortem? Any joy?’

  ‘Yeah, I meant to say.’ Faraday closed the door again. ‘There’s no way Ewers is going to risk any kind of clinical judgement on whether or not the guy was dead before the train got to him but he did find something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Old bruising.’ Faraday ran his hands over his own body. ‘Where there was undamaged flesh, we’ve got evidence of some kind of trauma maybe a week earlier, maybe longer than that. Could be an accident, maybe some kind of traffic incident, maybe a motorbike crash if he had one. On the other hand, it could be something more significant.’

  ‘Someone had a go at him?’

  ‘Ewers isn’t ruling it out.’

  ‘Some kind of warning?’

  ‘More than possible.’ Faraday offered Winter a bleak smile. ‘Shame he didn’t listen, eh?’

  It was DC Jimmy Suttle who spotted the farmhouse first. The narrow country road had emerged from the tunnel of trees, and Suttle could see the upstairs windows and the steep pitch of the tiled roof behind the encircling brick wall. On the map, the L-shaped building was marked Gorecombe Lodge.

  DC Dawn Ellis was waiting to overtake a tractor. Suttle told her not to bother.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘Look.’

  They parked on the grass verge, a dozen metres short of the big double gates. Both the wall and the gates looked new. Ellis was studying the notes she’d made earlier. The DS dishing out the morning’s actions had given her the name of the owners.

  ‘Cleaver,’ she said finally, reaching for her clipboard. ‘Mr and Mrs. According to people in the village, they’ve been here less than a year.’

  ‘Farmers?’

  ‘We think not. He’s a professional of some kind. Accountant, maybe. Or solicitor. The intelligence isn’t clear.’

  Suttle was already trying the gate. On his second attempt to push it open, a woman’s voice came out of the entryphone set into one of the gateposts.

  ‘Who is it?’ she wanted to know.

  Suttle gave his name. He was a police officer. He’d appreciate a moment or two of her time.

  ‘Do you have ID?’

  Suttle looked round for a camera, found it high on the adjoining wall. He fetched out his warrant card and held it up, shielding his eyes from the brightness of the sunshine.

  ‘OK.’

  He was able to push the gate open this time. Inside, he found a broad sweep of gravel flanked by lawn. The grass was newly mown - he could smell it - and there was a sprinkler down beyond the double garage sending a fine arc of water over the surrounding flower beds. The house itself looked centuries old, with its exposed beams and leaded windows, and someone had spent a great deal of money on ensuring that the recent extensions on either side were a perfect match. Suttle, who’d enjoyed a boisterous youth in a New Forest council house, had always aspired to something like this, and he was still pointing out the line of swallows’ nests under the eaves when the front door opened.

  Dawn Ellis took the lead, stepping round the parked BMW and introducing herself. The woman must have been in her forties. The blonde hair looked natural and she had the kind of fine-boned face that Suttle recognised from the magazines he sometimes browsed in his dentist’s waiting room. Tatler or Harper’s. This woman, he thought, had class.

  She invited them in. Freshly ground coffee, another great smell. The big, open kitchen lay at the end of the flagstoned hall. Suttle could see a percolator bubbling on the Aga.

  ‘How can I help you?’ They were still standing in the hall.

  Ellis mentioned the incident in the Buriton Tunnel. At once the woman said she’d read about it.

  ‘In the News,’ she said. ‘Terrible business.’

  ‘Quite. We were wondering, Mrs Cleaver, whether you were at home on Sunday night.’

  ‘I was, of course I was.’ She was frowning. ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘Voters’ register, Mrs Cleaver.’ It was Suttle this time. ‘It’s just a routine call.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ She tipped her head back a moment, the way that social smokers do, then turned her attention back to Ellis. ‘My husband was here, too. We both were.’

  ‘Do you sleep at the front of the house?’

  ‘Yes.’ The frown was back. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was wondering whether you might have heard anything.’

  ‘In the middle of the night, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What sort of time exactly?’

  ‘That we don’t know. Late, certainly.’

  There was a long silence. She looked from one face to the other. Suttle had even forgotten about the coffee. This woman knows something, he thought. And what’s more to the point, she’s not sure whether to tell us or not.

  ‘Around half one? Two o’clock?’ Suttle ventured. ‘Maybe a car?’

  She stared at him, saying nothing. Ellis suggested they all sat down. Mrs Cleaver didn’t move.

  ‘What happened in the tunnel?’ she asked at last.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Not at this point in time.’

  ‘But someone died, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A man?

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Under the wheels of a train … Yuk.’ She shuddered. ‘On the local radio this morning they were talking about him being tied to the line. Who’d do a thing like that? Who’d even think about it?’ She waited for an answer. Neither Ellis nor Suttle obliged. At length she folded her arms. She looked angry, as if this latest outrage had been designed for her personally. ‘You know why we moved out here? To get away from all that ghastliness. The city’s full of it. It doesn’t matter where you live.’

  ‘City, Mrs Cleaver?’ Ellis was doing her best to sound sympathetic.

  ‘Portsmouth. Actually Southsea, to be more precise. It’s probably meat and drink to people like you but I find it hard to put into words the kind of disgust … no, despair … ’ She shook her head. ‘It makes me so angry.’

  ‘Disgust at what, Mrs Cleaver?’

  ‘The way we’ve become. What we are. What we have to put up with. Out here in the sticks it was supposed to be better, more civilised, and now this.’ There came another tilt of the head as she fought to compose herself. T
hen she looked again at Suttle. ‘You’re right. I did hear a car. That’s rare, believe me, especially on Sunday nights at that kind of hour.’

  ‘What kind of hour?’

  ‘Ten to three. I was awake. I looked at the clock.’

  ‘Did you see it at all? Go to the window?’

  ‘No. By that time, it had gone.’

  ‘In which direction? Towards the village? Or south? Back towards Pompey?’

  ‘Well … ’ she hesitated for a moment ‘ … that’s the point, really. It went south. Definitely. Very fast, too. Very … you know, aggressive. But it didn’t come from the village. No, it came from over there.’ She nodded towards the front door. ‘There’s a lane that goes down to the plantation, becomes a track. That’s where it came from. Not the village at all.’

  Ellis and Suttle exchanged glances, then Ellis fumbled in her bag for a pen. While she began to fill out a form on her clipboard, Suttle asked to use the loo. Mrs Cleaver nodded, watching Ellis’ racing pen. There was a problem, it seemed, with the lavatory along the hall. Suttle was welcome to use the one upstairs.

  ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘It’s routine, Mrs Cleaver. We call it a PDF, a Personal Descriptive Form. It won’t take long. Just a handful of questions.’

  Suttle disappeared. By the time he got back Ellis had finished.

  ‘That’s it?’ Mrs Cleaver looked relieved.

  ‘For now, yes. If we need to talk to you again, we’ll phone.’

  Ellis checked the number, then she and Suttle stepped towards the front door. Outside, in the sunshine, they paused for a moment before turning to say their goodbyes but it was too late. The door had closed.

  The news was back with Faraday by lunchtime. The DS in charge of outside enquiries had conferenced with Jerry Proctor, and with the tunnel close to release, the Crime Scene Manager had dispatched members of his team to meet Ellis and Suttle beside the plantation. A call on the Airwave had also brought the Crime Scene Tracker racing back from her office at Cosham police station, delighted to be able to have a second crack at Coppice. Yesterday’s search of the woodland path that accessed the railway at the northern end of the tunnel had yielded nothing more than a sackful of drinks cans, crisp packets and an assortment of discarded condoms. No broken vegetation. No footprints. Not the slightest sign that anyone might recently have scaled the fence and clambered up the embankment. Now, the prospects seemed infinitely brighter.