One Under

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘This boyfriend of yours. What does he get up to then?’

  ‘Get up to? Like what do you mean?’

  ‘Does he work? Has he got a job?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She sounded relieved. ‘He’s well busy.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘All over.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Dunno. He never says.’

  ‘How can I get hold of him?’

  ‘You can’t. He ain’t got a mobile or nothing.’

  ‘But he’ll be back?’

  ‘Yeah, I expect so, sooner or later.’

  ‘Good.’ Winter was looking at the baby again. ‘Family man, is he? Helpful round the house? Takes his turn with the nappies?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Little Cher here … I expect he misses her, being away all the time like that. Was she awake, incidentally? When he thumped you? Only there’s all kinds of research these days - you know, the effect on toddlers when it all kicks off. Emotional abuse they call it. You ought to talk to someone. Merefield might be the place to start. They’ve got people there that think of nothing else.’ He smiled down at her, a favourite uncle, someone with her very best interests at heart.

  The girl was about to say something, then bit her lip. She was beginning to look seriously alarmed. Winter definitely worried her.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said at last.

  ‘Yes, you do, love. You’ve heard of the At-Risk Register? All those kids taken into care?’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘And you know how social workers hate to take chances anymore? Vulnerable little nippers like Cher? Their names all over the papers? All that publicity if they get it wrong?’

  Winter strolled across to the window, gazed out, waiting. Everyone in life has something they can’t bear to lose, he thought.

  ‘Look … ’ The girl was at his elbow. ‘Them at the Social … Karl … you wouldn’t, would you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t what, love?’

  ‘Tell them. Only they might get funny again.’

  ‘About Karl?’

  ‘Yeah … I mean no—Oh shit.’ She blinked, her eyes suddenly shiny with tears. ‘I should never have let you in, should I?’

  The call came through to Faraday himself. Alone in his office, he lifted the phone, stiffened a moment, then reached for a pen.

  ‘You mind spelling that?’

  He wrote down a name and a date of birth. Then he checked his watch. Nearly half past two.

  ‘That’s less than forty-eight hours. This must be a world record.’

  The caller said something that made him laugh. Expressing his thanks, Faraday hung up.

  The Intelligence Cell was housed in an office just down the corridor. Winter, yet to receive reinforcements, was still on his own, staring at his PC.

  ‘Result.’ Faraday closed the door. ‘I’ve just had a woman from the FSS on. They’ve got a name for us.’

  The Forensic Science Service had been processing DNA samples from the body in the tunnel. Evidently the readout had scored a hit on the database.

  ‘He’s got form?’ Winter wanted a look at Faraday’s piece of paper.

  ‘Must have. I don’t know the score yet but here’s the name.’

  Winter was having trouble deciphering Faraday’s scrawl.

  ‘Duley,’ Faraday said. ‘Mark Duley. DOB 17/11/ 1976. That makes him twenty-nine. Ping it across to PNC. Let me know what they come up with. I’ll be back by five.’

  Faraday stepped out of the office. Winter found the PNC icon on-screen and clicked it open. Pass codes to the Police National Computer were strictly rationed but his current job gave him unlimited access.

  He typed in the code. Moments later, he was into the site, transcribing Duley’s name and date of birth. Up came the details. Winter scrolled down through a list of convictions. Over the past ten years, Duley had collected fines, plus a suspended prison sentence, for a number of offences, mainly riot, affray and criminal damage. Winter sped through the list, recognising a pattern in the arrest locations. Trafalgar Square. Edinburgh. Sellafield. Aldermaston. Newhaven Docks. In certain political circles this lot would read like a war record. Young Duley, it seemed, was a serial activist, never far from the action when a big demo turned violent and the ninja squads waded in.

  He sat back a moment, gazing at the screen. Winter had never been the slightest bit interested in politics, especially the wilder extremes, happy to leave Special Branch to keep tabs on the hairies and assorted no-hopers that took their protests onto the streets. But even he knew enough about the lunatic fringe to have trouble coaxing a pattern from Duley’s half-dozen court appearances. Here was a guy who plainly had strong feelings about more or less everything: globalisation, the Iraq War, animal rights, nuclear waste, asylum seekers, anti-personnel mines and the Trident missile programme. Was there any cause this man hadn’t supported?

  There was a custody photograph together with a physical description attached to the file. Duley was 5’ 11”, male, white, weighed sixty-four kilos, had brown eyes, blond hair cropped short, and - at the time of his last arrest - no identifying birthmarks or tattoos. The face in the photo seemed to have treated the arrest process as a kind of audition. The head was tilted back slightly, the eyes half closed, the stubbled chin thrust out. It was a shot, thought Winter, that any actor would have been proud of, and something told him that Duley might even have asked the Custody Sergeant for copies. This guy had no fear of the law. On the contrary, he probably papered his bedroom with copies of his various indictments.

  Winter took a hard copy of the file and then closed it down. Duley’s last known address was in south London. He made a note, then returned to the keyboard and clicked on the RMS icon. Hantspol’s Records Management System was a treasure house of local criminality, and there was a chance that Duley might have attracted the attention of Pompey officers. Winter himself had never heard the name before but he’d been off the pitch for a while, and a year was a long time in this game.

  To his delight, Duley appeared again. Last December he’d earned himself a caution for adding clusters of toy hand grenades to the Lord Mayor’s official Christmas tree in the Guildhall Square - a protest, it seemed, against plans for an arms fair on Whale Island. Then, just two weeks ago, he’d been picked up by a marked area car after a passing motorist had reported a body lying on the pavement in Cosham, barely half a mile from the QA Hospital.

  Winter read the details of the incident. The call from the motorist had come in at 02.45. The attending Traffic crew had summoned an ambulance and accompanied Duley to the nearby A & E department. After treatment they’d tried to interview him about what - in the opinion of the duty registrar - were plainly injuries inflicted during the course of a savage beating. Duley, in the dry prose of the attending officer, had declined to cooperate. Pressed for an address he’d been equally reticent, but an electricity bill retrieved by an A & E nurse from his torn jeans gave Flat 8, 74 Salisbury Road, Southsea.

  Making another note, Winter checked for further traces of Duley but drew a blank. The incident that had led to A & E was an obvious lead, and already Winter was plotting ways of squeezing it harder. There were CCTV cameras in Cosham but a check on the map showed no coverage of the spot where Duley had been dumped. That in itself, though, was significant. These guys knew what they were doing, Winter thought. Definitely in Cleaver’s league.

  He glanced at his watch. Nearly three. Down the corridor, in the Major Incident Room, the news that the body in the tunnel now had a name had yet to break. Winter put the PNC printout on the desk of the DS running the Outside Enquiry Team.

  ‘That’s our bloke.’ He tapped the photo. ‘Before he lost his sense of humour.’

  Very little impressed the DS. He spared the photo no more than a cursory glance.

  ‘You’ve got an address?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Winter wrote it down for him.

  ‘Does Faraday know about this?�
�

  ‘The name, yes. His drum, no.’

  ‘We’re talking potential crime scene.’ He was already reaching for the phone. ‘I’ll give him a bell.’

  Faraday was in conference when the call from the Incident Room came through. He listened to the DS on the other end, warmed by the news that Winter had dug up a local address so quickly. Maybe things will really start to move, he thought. Maybe we’re on the edge of some kind of breakthrough.

  He told the DS to contact Jerry Proctor. He wanted a couple of DCs round to Salisbury Road to confirm the facts. If Flat 8 had really been Duley’s address, then Proctor should put a full team in, comb every inch of the place. He ended the call, and turned back to the DI across the table. The man headed the Financial Investigation Unit over at Netley. They’d been discussing the presentation of specialist evidence in an earlier case only days away from going to court. This case happened to revolve around laundered drug money.

  Willard, Faraday said, was making all kinds of noises about the Proceeds of Crime Act. Faraday, like every other thicko detective, was still in the dark about the real scope of the legislation. Would it really make the kind of difference that Willard seemed to believe?

  The DI nodded. ‘It’s the biggie,’ he said. ‘If we all get on top of this, the bad guys are going to hurt. Follow the money and you can’t go wrong. We can strip them of everything. Just think about it.’

  ‘So what does it need?’

  ‘Someone to push it. Full time.’

  ‘And that someone?’

  ‘Should know some of these characters inside out.’ He smiled. ‘Willard’s right. He mentioned Winter to me, too.’

  For the second time that day Winter was out of the office. He’d phoned his contact at Merefield House but she was unhappy about discussing client cases from the big open office where she worked. If he cared to drive over, they could meet in a café across the road. She’d bring the file. It’d be a pleasure to see him again.

  Carol Legge had become a legend in the Child Protection Team. She was a small, talkative Geordie barely weeks off celebrating her fiftieth birthday. There were mothers and fathers across the city who’d badly underestimated her ability to scent trouble, and if you had any family secrets you thought you could keep - domestic violence, child abuse - it was a mistake you only made once. Winter had seen Carol Legge in action and knew she how formidable she could be.

  She was waiting in the café when he stepped in through the door. Winter’s coffee was cooling beneath an upturned saucer. This time in the afternoon, only one other table was occupied.

  Carol watched him sit down.

  ‘Someone told me you were dead.’

  ‘They were lying.’

  ‘Good.’ She patted his hand. ‘You want a sticky, pet?’

  She fetched him a doughnut from the counter. Winter was eyeing the file she’d left on the table. Emma Cusden, in heavy black Pentel.

  ‘You mind if I help myself?’ He was reaching for the file.

  ‘Yes, I bloody do. Tell me what you’re after. Then I’ll decide.’

  Winter explained the season ticket scam. Someone had been using young Emma’s place as a delivery address. Six grand’s worth of tickets had gone through her letterbox and she claimed to have seen nothing.

  ‘Of course she didn’t see anything. The girl’s not stupid.’

  ‘So who picked them up?’

  ‘Could have been anyone. She’s a popular lass.’

  ‘She puts herself around?’

  ‘Not the way you’re thinking. No, she’s got friends, that’s all, and lots of them. Keeps open house, as far as I can see. No bad thing as far as the kiddie’s concerned.’

  ‘What about the boyfriend?’

  ‘He’s a headcase.’ She patted the file. ‘First time the girl came to our attention it was a call from a neighbour - anonymous, wouldn’t give a name, scared to death young Karl would come looking.’

  ‘Karl?’

  ‘Karl Ewart. Emma says he’s the father but you never really know. Either way, she dotes on him, poor lamb.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Horrible, says me. Violent, foul-mouthed, absolutely no self-control. He’d been battering poor Emma for days before the neighbour gave us a call. Said he couldn’t stand the girl screaming anymore.’

  ‘He lives there full time?’

  ‘No way. If you’re looking for someone who puts it around, you might start with him.’ She took a sip of coffee and pulled a face. ‘I take it he’s back then?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How’s the bairn?’

  ‘Looked OK to me.’

  ‘And young Emma?’

  ‘Scared shitless I’d be talking to you lot.’

  ‘Good. Then maybe she’ll kick the bastard out. You need an address, don’t you? Here … ’ She pushed the file towards Winter. ‘Help yourself.’

  By the time Faraday emerged from his conference, detectives had confirmed Duley’s link to the Salisbury Road flat. Number 8 was a bedsit on the third floor. The landlord lived with his wife in the basement, an elderly couple who’d once run a pub in the city centre. Duley had been renting the room for just over a year, money on the nail every month, never a hint of trouble. The last time they’d seen him was the end of last week. The wife said he must have been coming back from the beach because he had a towel with him and one of those roll-up mats. All the sunshine must have done him good because he was starting to look human again after the road accident. Said he’d been in a friend’s car when it went off the road and rolled over. Nasty.

  Upstairs, on the third floor, there were two other bedsits and a communal bathroom. One of the bedsits was rented to an Iranian student who no one ever saw, the other belonged to a middle-aged woman who worked night shifts in a local nursing home. Neither had answered to the detectives’ knocks and they were now in the process of going through the rest of the house.

  Proctor, meanwhile, had acquired the key to Duley’s room from the landlord. Winter had just briefed him on the dead man’s background and he’d taken a preliminary look at the state of the bedsit. At first glance, he reported, the place was a doss: books and magazines and bits and pieces of computer gear everywhere, desk in the corner, piles of unwashed laundry, posters and photos all over the walls, total mess. If this was the best the far left could do, he told Faraday on the phone, then he was definitely going to stick with the Tories.

  Back at Kingston Crescent, Faraday was looking for Winter. One of the management assistants thought they’d seen him going down the back stairs towards the car park. Someone else said he’d probably popped out for one of the Eccles cakes he liked to have with his afternoon cuppa. Faraday finally left a note on his desk. Ring me, it said.

  Winter obliged nearly an hour later. Faraday wanted to know where he’d been.

  ‘Salisbury Road. Thought I’d take a little look-see.’

  ‘You’re running the Intelligence Cell,’ Faraday pointed out. ‘I’ve got a dozen DCs to take care of Salisbury Road. You know the way all this works. We’ve all got our own boxes. Yours happens to have a door on it.’

  ‘Sure, boss. Of course. My mistake.’

  Winter wanted to bring this conversation to an end. Faraday wasn’t having it. He bent to the phone.

  ‘How did you get to Salisbury Road, as a matter of interest?’

  ‘Cab.’

  ‘Could get pricey, then? All this checking-up?’

  ‘Is that what it was?’ Winter sounded amused.

  Faraday fought to keep his temper. He told himself that Winter was a real asset on the squad: effective, acute, extremely well connected. Detectives like that were increasingly rare.

  ‘Listen, Paul,’ he said heavily. ‘I’m just saying we’re a team. Teams help each other out. I need you behind your desk. I need to know where you are. Does that sound reasonable?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Then bloody well stay put. You hear me?’ He waited for a moment for some ki
nd of reaction but Winter had hung up.

  The regular squad meet that night was even better attended than the previous evening. Word had gone round about some kind of breakthrough and Willard - encouraged by the news from Kingston Crescent - had told Martin Barrie to throw more bodies at Coppice. In consequence, it was standing room only in the Incident Room as Faraday outlined progress to date.

  The Detective Superintendent himself was there, folded invisibly into a corner by the door. He’d called Faraday into his office only minutes earlier, wanting an assurance that his DI was coping OK with the rising administrative pressure, and Faraday had assured Barrie that he’d be the first to know if the going got rough. Barrie had nodded, said he was pleased to hear it, but both men knew that this was a critical moment in Coppice’s brief history. Faraday, as Senior Investigating Officer, had to carry the enquiry forward. Ignore what might become a major lead, pile all your assets on the wrong square, and the consequences - way down the line - wouldn’t bear contemplation.

  Now, Faraday was reviewing the list of vehicles captured by the city’s network of CCTV cameras. Analysis of tapes from the cameras covering Portsmouth’s northern approaches between three and four on Monday morning had given the Outside Enquiry Team over a hundred addresses to visit. There was no guarantee, of course, that the car reported by Mrs Cleaver had gone anywhere near Portsmouth afterwards. But in situations like these you had to start somewhere, and every detective in the room was praying for a hit on the existing list. If not, then Faraday would doubtless extend the search parameters, widening the investigative net to other destinations along the coast.

  After the CCTV actions, Faraday returned to the body in the tunnel. In the shape of young Mark Duley, they at last had a name for the victim. The man was busy on the political fringe. His views had nearly landed him in prison. Two weeks ago, on Sunday 26 June, someone had given him a beating. Whether or not that incident was linked to his death in the tunnel wasn’t at all clear, but Jerry Proctor’s team was combing through his Southsea bedsit and while there was so far nothing of forensic interest, Proctor was already talking about a rich harvest of personal stuff. Over the coming days it would be the job of the Intelligence Cell to build a picture of Mark Duley. Only that way - by getting to know the man - would Coppice be able to piece together the web of motivation and circumstance that had taken him into the Buriton Tunnel.