Faraday took the country route back to Portsmouth. Beyond the long, busy curl of the M3 the road climbed the chalk upland towards fields golden with standing wheat. There’d be a couple of pheasants, thought Faraday, and maybe skylarks. More important still, he’d give himself a moment or two of peace and quiet, the kind of solitude he needed to marshall his thoughts.
He found a turn-off, the rutted mud packed hard after days of summer heat. Twenty metres along the track, with a fine view of Winchester in the river valley below, he turned off the engine and lowered the window. Willard was plainly doubtful about Winter. He hadn’t quite abandoned his plans to make him unpack the POCA legislation and spread the good news force-wide but there were now more pressing issues in the shape of a Major Crimes DC apparently consorting with the enemy.
Before Willard left for the train Faraday had insisted on arguing the toss. Winter was heading the Intelligence Cell, for Chrissakes. There were a million reasons why the man might arrange a meet with the likes of Mackenzie. That was his style. That’s the way he’d always played it. Getting in amongst them. Tweaking their tails. Indeed, this very pro-activity was the reason they’d trusted him with the job in the first place.
Faraday defended Winter with a vehemence that took even him by surprise. All the more so because Winter had sworn blind only twelve hours ago that he hadn’t had a private word with Bazza for weeks. Faraday closed his eyes a moment, let his head sink back against the headrest. How much rope would you sensibly permit an operator like Winter? And how much trust could you put in a boss who tasked a surveillance team behind your back? Caught between two players, he thought. The one taking pictures of the other.
At length, still angry, he reached for his briefcase. Barbara Large had given him Duley’s prize-winning entry. Five hundred words, double-spaced, occupied a page and a half. He began to read, hooked at once by the staccato beat of the prose.
‘You remember the small things’, Duley had written. ‘You remember the moment you first saw her, stepping into the meeting from a hard frost. You remember the way her breath clouded in the hot fug of the hall, and then you see the pinkness of her face, and the brightness of her eyes, and the way she drew strangers with her smile. You remember that she made no contribution that night. She sat in the back row. She had a shoulder bag, bright colours, Indian-looking. She’d unbuttoned her coat and folded her scarf and her gloves on the chair beside her and found a couple of quid for the fighting fund when the hat came round. Later, when it was time to go, you stood by the door, stringing out some crap conversation, curious to know what she looked like close-up, how she smelled, whether she’d spare just a little of that smile for you.
The paragraphs rolled on, film-like, offering further glimpses of this woman. Duley wrote of the play of light on her face when they were riding a bus together. Of a habit she had of cocking her head when a conversation really grabbed her. Of the fall of hair on her bare shoulder, months later, in the warmth of an early spring. These images were stepping stones on a journey they’d shared. The writer was besotted. He treasured every fragment of their time together, every last carefully preserved memory. For reasons he’d doubtless share later, he’d become the archivist of this slowly developing relationship and at the end of the piece came the moment when she took their journey in a new direction. And you remember the way she first kissed you, sand on her hands after the swim, her body still wet, - he’d written. Not his decision, Faraday thought, but hers.
Faraday felt in the envelope again, looking for some clue to the story’s title. Another page of A4 slipped out. He turned it over. ‘Gethsemane,’ he read, ‘By Mark Duley’.
Faraday felt a stir of excitement, gazing out at the play of wind on the fields around him. Gethsemane?
By the time Winter got to Kingston Crescent, it was nearly midday. Stepping into the Intelligence office, he was relieved to find that Babs had kept all callers at bay. She’d also had word from the hospital that Jimmy Suttle was out of Critical Care.
‘I’ve got the new ward number,’ she said.
‘Great.’
‘Aren’t you pleased?’
‘Of course I am.’ Winter sank into his chair. ‘Never touch Bacardi, love. It’s the second bottle that does the damage.’
Babs studied him a moment longer, then said she’d taken the liberty of opening his post. Reading quickly through it, Winter didn’t blame her. Most of the stuff was routine, inching Coppice forward, and Winter was finally left with the one envelope that Babs hadn’t touched.
‘I thought it might be personal,’ she said.
The envelope felt thick. Winter gazed at the HSBC logo on the back. His own bank was NatWest.
He slipped a nail under the flap of the envelope, still perplexed. Inside was a sheaf of bank statements and a compliments slip. He glanced at the name of the account holder. Alan Givens.
‘This belongs to Tartan.’ He put the statements on the desk. ‘That’s a world record, must be. I only sent them the production order on Friday. Normally takes a week.’
He shut his eyes a moment, gave them a squeeze and a rub, then said yes to Babs’ offer of coffee. As she left the office with his favourite Beano mug, Winter’s eyes drifted over the first of the statements. It was dated January 2005. On the second of that month Givens had an available balance of £6,782.05. In February, it was broadly the same. Ditto March. Then, suddenly, came a deposit of £190,350. Winter pulled the chair closer to the desk, forcing himself to concentrate. The money had been paid in by Goldstein, Everey and Partners, and Winter nodded to himself, recognising the firm of solicitors who’d been handling probate for Givens’ mother’s estate. The house had been sold, he told himself. And this must be Givens’ share.
He sat back a moment, trying to still the thunder in his head. By the beginning of June, according to the statement Winter had removed from Givens’ flat, his account was back down to four figures. He must have shovelled it into a savings account, he thought. Or some kind of bond.
He turned to the May statement, tallying off the regular payments Givens made: rent, electricity, water, council tax, a PC World insurance premium, an annual subscription to Digital Photographer. Then came the withdrawal he’d been expecting: £185,000, on 21 May. He nodded again, hearing Babs’ cackle of laughter as she returned down the corridor with the coffee. Then he stiffened, his attention caught by the name scribbled alongside the withdrawal. In a note attached to the production order he’d asked for details on any unusual transactions, and here they were. Not a bank transfer at all. But a personal cheque.
Babs was at the door. Winter couldn’t take his eye off the name. Finally, it occurred to him that she was asking about sugar.
‘Four,’ he said. ‘At least.’
Ten minutes later, Winter managed to catch Dawn Ellis before she left the car park. Breathless from the bolt down the back stairs, he leant his bulk against her Peugeot.
‘I’m late, Paul. This better be important.’
‘Babs says you actioned that interview with the nipper on Tartan. The one Ewart says he bought the card off.’
‘Dale Cummings?’
‘That’s him.’
‘I talked to his mum. Going through the CPU will take a while to set up. There’s a queue for nine-year-olds you wouldn’t believe.’
The Child Protection Unit was a specialist team which dealt with stroppy juveniles.
‘So what did Mum say?’
‘She denied it. My Dale? Nick anything? You have to be kidding.’
‘Form?’
‘He’s too young for a record but he’s on the At-Risk Register and the head at the local primary says he’s always bunking off. She also said he’s got a thing about setting fire to stuff. When I raised the truanting with Mum, she said the school was crap anyway. They were lucky to see Dale at all.’
‘So what do you think?’
‘What do I think? I think he found the wallet, blew the sixty quid on whatever, and sold the rest on. Just lik
e Karl Ewart said. I suppose we could go looking for the wallet, bosh the house, but what’s the point? Ewart’ll go down for Suttle. We shouldn’t be greedy, should we?’
The mention of Jimmy Suttle put a frown on Winter’s face. Dawn said she’d been to the hospital at lunchtime.
‘How is he?’
‘Much better.’
‘Thank Christ for that. What’s the ward number?’
‘E1. He’s playing the modest hero at the moment. The nurses love him.’ Dawn reached for her ignition keys. ‘Why the interest in Cummings? What’s happened? ’
‘Nothing,’ Winter said bleakly. ‘Yet.’
A message was waiting for Winter when he stepped back into his office. Babs nodded at the phone.
‘Boss wants to see you. Says it’s urgent.’
‘Faraday?’ Winter’s heart sank.
‘Yes.’
Winter looked down at the bank statements for a moment, then slipped them back into the HSBC envelope and put them in his drawer. Later, he thought. When I can start making some sense of this madness.
Faraday was sitting at his desk, leafing through a pile of messages. He told Winter to shut the door, then waved him into the spare chair.
‘This is about Mackenzie,’ he said at once.
‘Oh yeah?’
Winter crossed his legs, did his best with a smile. He knows, he thought. Mackenzie’s phoned him, or sent a photo, or some other fucking dodge. He knows.
‘Yesterday,’ Faraday began, ‘when Mackenzie came in with his brief. What was all that about?’
‘I’m not with you, boss.’
‘Bit eager, weren’t you? Not your style at all.’
Winter feigned bewilderment. He’d thought it himself at the time - trying to stick it to Mackenzie, trying to land punches when the man was too far out of range - but the resentment, the urge to settle accounts, had been too strong.
‘I asked him a couple of questions, boss,’ he said at last. ‘As you do.’
‘No, you didn’t. You were all over him. And he was just the same. You were like kids in the playground. So tell me what else has been happening? Before he turned up?’
‘I’m not with you, boss.’
‘Yes, you are, Paul. That’s the whole point. You’re with me every step of the way. Either we sort this thing now or -’ He shrugged. ‘- It’s going to get extremely unpleasant. We’re talking more than Major Crimes here. More than Human Resources finding you some other job. Potentially, if I’ve got this right, we’re talking disciplinary hearings, tribunals, the whole nine yards. That’s extreme, I admit, but you’re the only guy who can tell me different.’ He paused. ‘So why don’t you start with Mackenzie?’
‘What do you want to hear?’
‘I want to hear the truth. I want to know exactly when you last saw him alone. I want to know the circumstances, the date, where it happened, the lot. And do yourself a favour, eh? Don’t fuck around.’
Winter gazed at him, uncertain now. A lifetime of detective work had taught him the wisdom of giving nothing away. The man who survives, he’d always told himself, is the man who keeps a secret.
And yet Faraday already knew the secret. So what was the point?
‘We had a run-in,’ he said slowly. ‘You’re right.’
‘About what?’
‘Mickey Kearns. That was part of it. Misty too, I suppose. Bazza loses it sometimes. Thinks he owns the bloody city. You know what he’s like.’
‘Go on.’
Winter looked up, wanting clues, but Faraday’s face was a mask.
‘They jumped me,’ he said woodenly.
‘Who?’
‘Bunch of Bazza’s blokes in Buckland. I’d been to see Donna like you asked and you’re right, I should have gone mob-handed. But I didn’t … ’ He let the sentence trail away.
‘So what happened?’
Something in Faraday’s voice told Winter this was new to him. Shit, he thought.
‘Young Donna must have made a call. The blokes that jumped me had a van. We went for a little ride.’
‘Who were they?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How many of them?’
‘No idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because … ’ Winter was certain now. He’d been too hasty. He’d made one supposition too many. Whatever had triggered this sudden interest of Faraday’s, it hadn’t been a prompt from Mackenzie.
‘Because what?’ Faraday wanted an answer.
‘Because I’d pissed Bazza off.’
‘That wasn’t my question. I know you’d pissed Bazza off. You just told me that. I’m asking you why you didn’t know any of these guys, couldn’t even count them.’ He stared at Winter, visibly angry. ‘Are you going to tell me or do I pick up this phone and make it official?’
The word ‘official’ put a rueful grin on Winter’s face. He’d been kippered. It was a hard thing to admit but it was true. In less time than it takes to boil an egg, Faraday had him backed against the wall. So much for keeping a secret, he thought. In the end, he’d done Mackenzie’s work for him.
He stared out of the window, weighing his options. Finally, recognising the size of the hole that yawned before him, he shrugged.
‘OK, boss,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened.’
Faraday listened, inscrutable, as Winter went through it. They’d put a plastic sack over his head, tied him up, stuck him in a van, driven him around for half the night, parked up by the railway line, given him a poke from time to time to keep themselves amused, stripped the clothes off him, taken photos. Then they’d dumped him on top of Portsdown Hill and left him to get on with it. Two o’clock in the morning. Bollock naked. Thank God he’d had a mate he could count on.
Faraday stirred.
‘That’s abduction,’ he said softly. ‘Abducting a police officer is a hanging offence. It’s not just you, Paul, it’s everyone else in the job. You let them do it because you obviously had no choice but afterwards you did fuck all about it. What kind of message does that send?’
Winter nodded. It was the reaction he’d expected, straight out of the manual they kept in the Professional Standards Department. Next, Faraday would doubtless ask for a formal statement. Winter could sense the interminable meetings that lay down the road. They’d end in a disciplinary hearing and the coldest of goodbyes. A big fat pension would have been nice, he thought. And maybe a pat on the back for all those scalps he’d taken.
‘I couldn’t bear it, boss,’ he said simply.
‘Couldn’t bear what?’
‘The wind-ups. The little digs. Blokes laughing behind your back.’
‘In the job, you mean?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And that’s why you didn’t blow the whistle?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Even afterwards? Next day?’
‘Next day was too late. By next day I had too many questions to answer. Better to let it all blow over.’
‘But it wouldn’t, would it? Mackenzie’s got photos. He’s got your mobile. He’s got our numbers. And that means he’s got you. And you know why? Because he knows you. He knows the kind of bloke you are. He knows how bloody difficult you are, how you play it long, how you piss everyone else off, how you go your own sweet way and end up with a bunch of enemies who should be watching your back.’ He frowned. ‘Tell me something. Mackenzie has a big pile of chips he needs to cash in. He’ll have been in touch by now. Bound to have been.’
‘Last night.’
‘And he had a proposition, didn’t he? Something he wanted you to do?’
‘It wasn’t that specific.’
‘So what happened?’
‘We got pissed.’
‘Bonding session?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And how did you feel this morning? Once you realised he’d got you by the balls?’
‘No idea, boss. I’ll tell you when my head starts working again.’
A
smile ghosted across Faraday’s face.
‘Serves you fucking right.’ He stooped to retrieve an envelope from his briefcase. ‘Mr Willard gave me this.’
Winter looked at the photo. Bastards, he thought.
‘He’s saying Saturday afternoon. In the Water Margin.’
‘He’s right. Mackenzie belled me, wanted a meet. That’s when I pissed him off.’ He told Faraday what had happened. When he described leaving the restaurant with the tiger prawns, Faraday shook his head.
‘Hardly subtle,’ he said.
‘Bazza isn’t into subtle.’ Winter was staring out of the window. ‘Unless you shout, he doesn’t hear a fucking thing.’
Faraday was toying with his pencil. He had some other questions, this time about the Gunwharf apartment, and he made it plain that it was in Winter’s interests to answer them.
‘How much did you sell the bungalow for?’
‘Two seven five.’
‘Any outstanding mortgage?’
‘Twenty.’
‘Savings?’
‘Seventeen, give or take.’
‘And the apartment?’
‘Five fifty.’
‘You’d already paid for the operation?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much?’
‘Sixty.’
‘So where did the difference come from? Given that you’d shelled out sixty grand for the operation?’
For the first time, Winter knew he had to draw a line. The inference behind Faraday’s questions was all too obvious - that Mackenzie or some other scumbag had tided Winter over on the Gunwharf apartment - but Winter resented sharing every last financial detail with his bosses. Even with his record, there came a point when they had to trust him. Otherwise, he might as well spare them the hassle and jack it in himself.
‘It’s legit, boss. That’s all I’m saying.’
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