One Under

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘That would be silly. In fact that would be a real mistake.’

  ‘Yeah? Why’s that then? You used to be subtler than this, Baz. Maybe it’s the clobber. Maybe you’re feeling, you know, a bit insecure. Take a tip, mate. Dress the way you really are. Be true to yourself. Stick to the Burberry. You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? All this gear?’

  When Mackenzie got really angry, he had a habit of biting his lower lip. Any minute now, Winter thought, he’s going to draw blood.

  The waiter returned with a plate of tiger prawns. He enquired whether Winter wanted chopsticks. Winter looked at the prawns a moment, then glanced up at Mackenzie.

  ‘Are you going to be sensible? Or do I take this lot home?’

  ‘Sensible?’

  ‘About our Mr Kearns? The way I see it, Baz, you’re staking him. I don’t know how much, and I don’t know who else is chucking money in the pot, and if you want a little something for free then you ought to know that my bosses have no real interest just now in finding out. But you know what? That’s because they never suss how everything fits. Life’s a puzzle, Baz. It’s all dots. Join them up in the right order, and guess whose pretty face we’re looking at?’

  Mackenzie reached for his shades but Winter got there first, covering them with his hand.

  ‘You want to talk about Mickey Kearns or not, Baz? Only there are ways we can sort this thing out.’

  ‘Fuck off, Winter.’

  ‘It’s a serious offer.’

  ‘You’re off your head, mush. I’m not one of your fucking grasses. This kind of shit, I could—’

  ‘What, Baz? What could you do? You going to tell me? Spell it out? Only my gang’s a lot bigger than yours, even now.’

  Winter at last let go of the sunglasses. Mackenzie didn’t touch them. He began to say something, then had second thoughts. Winter was beaming at him. The waiter was at his elbow, still wanting to know what to do.

  Winter nodded down at the bowl of glistening prawns.

  ‘Bag that lot for me, will you?’ He pushed his chair back. ‘Mr Mackenzie’s paying.’

  Willard waited until the meeting with Martin Barrie was over before beckoning Faraday aside.

  ‘Somewhere private?’

  Faraday led Willard back to his office. To Barrie’s relief, Willard appeared happy with the thrust of Coppice. A death this bizarre, as he’d told a reporter only a couple of hours ago, merited detailed and meticulous investigation. Buried amongst the hundreds of individual enquiries already actioned were the key leads that would finally resolve themselves into a pattern. Only when that pattern was secure - properly evidenced, 100 per cent lawyer proof - would Detective Superintendent Barrie and his team be in a position to contemplate arrests.

  Faraday shut the door and offered Willard a seat. The new Head of CID was dressed for a weekend on the water. He’d recently made a sizeable investment in a twenty-seven-foot yacht, and was still fine-tuning a brand new set of sails ahead of Cowes Week. The yacht had a berth across the harbour. With the tide still on the ebb, Willard needed to be away sharpish.

  ‘Winter,’ he said. ‘What do you think so far?’

  The question took Faraday by surprise. Winter was the last thing on his mind.

  ‘He’s been fine,’ he said carefully. ‘Just fine.’

  ‘What does that mean, Joe?’

  ‘It means that he’s driven the Intelligence Cell exactly the way we wanted. Good analysis. Good work rate. And single-handed, too, until yesterday.’

  ‘He’s ticking the right boxes then?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘No complaints at all?’

  ‘Not complaints, no … ’

  ‘What then? Surprises?’

  ‘Yes.’ Faraday frowned, trying to frame the thought. ‘Let’s say he’s more complex than I’d realised.’

  ‘Did we ever think otherwise?’

  ‘No, sir. But there’s something extra there, something I hadn’t seen before. He seems to have sorted something out in his head. I don’t mean the tumour, it’s something else. He seems -’ he shrugged ‘- different.’

  ‘And you think that’s about the illness? What he’s been through?’

  ‘Yes, I do. In one sense, he seems more at ease with himself. There’s still plenty of the old DC Winter. Management meetings, for instance. He’ll never be a team player. He’s still got no time for all that sitting around. But he makes it less obvious than he used to. And he’s still sharp as a tack, no question about that.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But … nothing, really. Except he’s really vulnerable. ’

  ‘Vulnerable? Winter?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Take what happened to DC Suttle. I always knew they were close. In fact Suttle’s the only bloke recently that Winter’s really had time for. But I never realised how much he cared about the lad.’

  Faraday described finding Winter at the hospital.

  ‘He’d lost it. He was gone. Totally distraught. I think Suttle brought something to his life that wasn’t there before.’

  ‘Like a son, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’ Winter nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Hmm … ’ Willard was gazing out of the window. Faraday wondered whether he was checking the wind.

  ‘What about this new place of his?’

  ‘You mean Gunwharf?’

  ‘Yes. Have you been there?’

  Faraday nodded. It was big, he said. Impressive. Fabulous views.

  ‘Not cheap then.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

  ‘How much do you think?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, sir.’ He frowned. ‘Why?’

  Willard was on his feet now, glancing at his watch.

  ‘Call it insurance, Joe,’ he said at last. ‘My time of life, the last thing you need are surprises. I’ll be back in the office first thing Monday. Talk to some estate agents and get me a figure.’ He paused by the door, glancing back. ‘Yeah?’

  Willard drove out of Kingston Crescent and headed back into the city. He’d phoned earlier, fixing a time and a place, and there were still a couple of spaces in the seafront car park beside the funfair. Locking his Saab, he spared a moment or two for the view. One of the Isle of Wight car ferries was nosing out of the harbour, buoyed by the last of the ebb tide, and a scatter of yachts were bearing away under a decent sea breeze. Nice, he thought.

  Covert Operations favoured the new Skodas. He’d spotted the car at once. There were two figures sitting in the front, both plain clothes, and one of them leaned back and unlocked the door as Willard approached. They’d never seen him in jeans and a T-shirt before.

  Willard slid his bulk onto the rear seat, shut the door.

  ‘Well?’

  The undercover officer in the passenger seat had been nursing a camera. He passed it back to Willard.

  ‘It’s all set up, sir. Screen’s on the back.’

  Willard tried to shield the tiny screen from the spill of sunshine through the side window. The young DC behind the wheel was describing the way they’d handled the assignment, one of them covering the apartment block itself, the other in the car on the approach road outside Gunwharf. Whether he left on foot or by cab, they’d had the target nicely boxed off.

  Willard nodded. He’d made sense of the image, the two men at the restaurant table, heads together, deep in conversation. The guy with the camera must have been working at a distance but the telephoto lens removed any ambiguities about the target’s choice of company.

  ‘Bazza Mackenzie,’ Willard said thoughtfully.

  Ten

  Saturday, 16 July 2005, 20.05

  Buckland lay immediately south of Kingston Crescent, at the very heart of Portsmouth. The Luftwaffe, overflying the nearby naval dockyard, had razed entire streets and the post-war planners did the rest, replacing acre after acre of Victorian terraces with their vision of a more wholesome future. Decades later, the area figured prominently on most of the poverty indices, and CID files were full
of no-hopers who’d launched their criminal careers in the shadows of the surrounding tower blocks. Winter, who had no time for wank theories about social deprivation, rather liked the area. It was authentically rough. It looked you in the eye. If Buckland was a haircut, he thought, you’d be talking a serious grade one.

  The address Faraday had given him lay in one of the streets off the long central road that threaded through the middle of the estate. The taxi driver, concentrating on the speed bumps, missed the turn. Winter told him to stop, paid the fare, got out.

  Number 33 was halfway down on the left-hand side. Winter hadn’t bothered to phone ahead, telling himself there was no point. All he had was a name.

  An enormous woman in her fifties answered his knock. She was wearing pink slippers and an extra large jogging suit. Her bare arms were coated with flour and there were splash marks down the front of her apron. Behind her, Winter could see the light on in a tiny kitchen.

  ‘What’s this?’ The woman wiped her hands on the apron and took the proffered ID. She had a broad Pompey accent underscored with a hint of something foreign.

  ‘It’s a warrant card, love. My name’s Winter. CID.’

  ‘Old Bill then?’ She looked at him, neither hostile nor defensive. A first, Winter thought.

  He said he was looking for Donna Werbinski. It wasn’t a drama or anything, he just wanted a chat.

  ‘She’s my daughter.’

  ‘Is she in?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s upstairs with the baby. Is that your car out there?’

  ‘No, I walked.’

  ‘OK. You’d better come in.’

  She stepped aside, checking along the street before shutting the door and yelling Donna’s name up the stairs. Winter found himself in the adjoining lounge that ran the depth of the house. He’d never had a taste for squirly carpets or oversized aubergine sofas but the room was spotless. On the mantelpiece, flanking the repro carriage clock, was a line of tiny silver trophies. Winter peered at them. The most recent date was 2002.

  The woman was back, asking him if he wanted tea.

  ‘Yours, are they?’ Winter was still looking at the trophies.

  ‘No, love, they were Roman’s. He played regular in one of the local darts team. He was always good at darts, my hubby.’

  Winter said yes to tea, then sank into the sofa. The widescreen TV was tuned to Casualty but the sound was off and Winter had to guess at the plot. A bunch of medics hurrying a trolley through a pair of swing doors made him think of Suttle again, and he was still fighting the temptation to give Critical Care a ring when he heard footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘Donna?’ He looked up.

  She was standing in the open doorway. The baby couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old. She held him on her shoulder, patting him gently on the back.

  ‘What’s this about? Mum says you’re the Old Bill.’

  ‘Mum’s right. Paul Winter’s the name. Good to meet you, Donna.’

  She hesitated a moment, uncertain what to do next, then the baby nuzzled the side of her neck, gurgling with delight. Winter stepped towards it, hand outstretched.

  ‘He’ll spew next. I’d keep your distance, if I were you.’

  She was right. Mum appeared with a length of kitchen roll, mopped up the damage, then took the baby. She’d bring Winter’s tea when she’d got the cake in the oven. Winter watched the door shut behind her, then turned back to Donna. She was barely out of adolescence - slim, freckled, nice eyes. Like her mum, she wore slippers on her bare feet.

  ‘You live here, do you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What’s his name then? The baby?’

  ‘Justin.’ She reached down for the remote control and switched the TV off. ‘D’you mind telling me what this is about? Only I’m supposed to be getting myself ready to go out.’

  ‘Of course. You want to sit down?’

  She shook her head, then changed her mind and perched herself on the edge of the armchair next to the sofa.

  Winter explained about Mark Duley. Donna might know that he’d been found dead. There was a criminal investigation into the circumstances and Donna’s name had surfaced in connection with the history workshop Duley had been running. Winter had simply come to check the facts.

  ‘About Mr Duley?’ Donna seemed to relax.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He was terrific. In fact he was brilliant. Me, I’ve always been crap at all that history stuff but Mark made it really interesting. He was cool too. We liked him. We all used to chat loads afterwards. Real shame he … You know … ’

  ‘How long had you been doing the workshop?’

  ‘All year. Since September last.’

  ‘Was this to do with college or something?’

  ‘No, I never bothered with college.’

  ‘Why then? Why were you doing it?’

  ‘Because … ’ She began to pick at a nail. ‘Why do you want to know all this?’

  ‘Because I’m nosy, Donna. You get a case like this, and you want to know everything about everybody.’

  ‘But how can all this stuff help? Why aren’t you talking to someone else in the class?’

  ‘Maybe I am.’

  ‘Yeah? Like who?’

  The door opened. Winter’s tea had arrived. Donna’s mum, sensing the atmosphere, asked her daughter if everything was OK. Donna was about to shake her head but Winter got there first.

  ‘I’m interested to know why your daughter was going to the history workshop, Mrs Werbinski.’

  ‘Oh?’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Tell him, Don. Go on. You should be proud of yourself.’

  ‘I just fancied it.’ Donna shrugged.

  ‘No, you didn’t. Tell him about your dad.’

  ‘Yeah? But what’s that got to do with him?’ She nodded at Winter.

  ‘Doesn’t matter, Don. There’s no harm in it.’ She turned back to Winter. ‘My Roman passed away a couple of years back. He was Polish, like me. He always told Donna that your birthplace is precious. You should get to know as much as you can about it, and you know why? Because one day it might be too late. I don’t know whether Don took any notice of her dad at the time but when this workshop thing happened I told Don all about it. So off she goes because I’m always on at her, and then what happens? She loves it. Not just that, but it turns out that this Mr Duley can teach her Spanish. Donna’s got her heart set on the travel business. She wants to work local first, then maybe be a rep when the little one’s a bit older. Doing the Spanish would have helped no end. Except the poor man’s dead.’

  Winter nodded. So far, so good. Now, he thought. Before Mum disappears again.

  ‘Is there a Mickey Kearns in the class?’ he enquired.

  ‘Mickey?’ Mum was hooting with laughter. ‘You have to be joking.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘He wouldn’t go near a teacher if you paid him. He hated school. Every minute of it. Not that it’s spoiled his chances, mind. Doing OK, our Mickey. Let’s just hope Donna sees some of it.’

  ‘Mum … ’ Donna didn’t want this to go on.

  ‘No, but it’s true, isn’t it, love? Mickey’s doing OK, better than OK. You seen that motor he’s driving? Big black thing? Most kids round here are pushed to afford a bike. Not Mickey.’

  ‘Mum … just shut it, eh?’

  ‘Don, you’ve got to stand up for yourself. The gentleman’s interested. You’re bettering yourself. Just like Mickey. You’re trying to get out of this shithole. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

  In the kitchen the baby had started crying. Donna was out of the door in seconds.

  Winter sipped at his tea, enjoying the conversation.

  ‘Mickey’s baby?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. Shame it didn’t last but then nothing does these days, does it? They still see each other, like, just for a drink sometimes, and I think he bungs her a few quid though she never says anything.’

  ‘So how do I get to find the lad?’

&n
bsp; ‘No idea. He’s all over the place.’

  ‘You don’t have an address? Mobile number?’

  ‘No. Donna’s probably got his mobile. Ask her.’

  ‘I will.’ He smiled. ‘Do you happen to know whether Mickey ever met Mark Duley?’

  ‘Yeah, he did. Definitely.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Months ago. In fact it was here, in this room. Mickey was after someone who spoke Spanish, something to do with some business phone calls he was making, and Don told him about their teacher, this Mr Duley. He came round like, skinny bloke, nothing to him - nice though, real live wire.’

  ‘And he helped Mickey out?’

  ‘Must have done.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Cos him and Mickey went off together somewhere, West Indies, I think - the Caribbean, somewhere like that. Got on like a house on fire, Don said.’

  ‘What were they doing there?’

  ‘Dunno. You’d have to ask Mickey. He hasn’t been around for a bit. Don might know where to find him.’

  ‘Was this recent though? This trip of theirs?’

  ‘Oh yeah, yeah. Where are we now? July? Must have been the month before last, round May time. They didn’t hang around at all, just a couple of days, quick in and out, according to Don. She got a postcard from Mickey. Showing off he was. Wrote it in bloody Spanish.’ She hooted with laughter again, then reached for Winter’s empty cup.

  ‘You want another one, love? Only I made a pot.’

  Winter shook his head, aware of the low murmur of Donna’s voice next door. She must be on the phone, he thought. Moments later, Donna reappeared from the kitchen. She had the baby on her shoulder again, swaddled in a blanket this time.

  ‘I need to talk to Mickey Kearns.’ Winter gave the baby a tickle under his chin. ‘Your mum says you’ve got a number.’

  ‘She’s wrong.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. I had it once but God knows where it is now. Plus he’s always changing phones.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Dunno.’ She shrugged. ‘You’d have to ask him.’

  ‘So where does Mickey live?’