Suttle, for one, was impressed. Back in the hall, with the bedroom door closed, he drifted across to one of the photos while they waited for the search team. Winter was on the mobile to Cathy Lamb, as gleeful as ever. The intelligence had proved spot on. These guys were doing serious gear. Plus he’d busted the classiest fuck-palace Pompey was ever likely to see. Plover, in short, was on a roll and the best news of all was Mr Scumbag Singer’s name in the frame. The conversation over, he sauntered back across the hall. Suttle saw him coming, the familiar portly image reflected in the glass.
‘Result or what?’
‘Definitely.’ Suttle sounded wistful. ‘You think she’s ever heard of police discount?’
‘She’s a tom, son.’ Winter slipped his bulk between Suttle and the photo. ‘Who wants a slice off a cut loaf?’
Alone in the Bargemaster’s House, Faraday treated himself to another helping of Mahler. He’d got back from the island in time to catch Willard before he left the office. Although he’d never admit it, the Detective Superintendent had been pleased with the news about Aaron Tolly. More and more often Major Crimes were picking up rubbish jobs from division – half-baked might-be crimes that swallowed precious resources for absolutely no measurable benefit – and Willard for one wasn’t having it. The quicker DIs like Colin Irving realised that Major Crimes weren’t in the waste disposal business, the quicker the message would spread around the other divisions.
At the same time, rather unnervingly, there was a definite lull in the ongoing war against serious villainy. For whatever reason, folk had suddenly stopped doing serious damage to each other and the last couple of weeks Willard had begun to think hard about reopening that treasured collection of unsolved crimes that he’d tucked away for exactly this contingency. Hence, perhaps, his preparedness to listen to Faraday’s musings about Webster’s headless body.
Faraday had spent nearly two hours on Tennyson Down. Without the benefit of the file he’d only the vaguest idea where the body might first have been spotted but he’d done his best to put himself in the head of the birdwatcher, and his knowledge of site-faithful peregrine falcons took him to a stretch of cliff within sight of the brooding Celtic cross that marked the Tennyson Memorial. The cliffs were high here, three hundred feet plus, and it had taken all of Faraday’s nerve to get down on the damp turf, crawl to the edge and peer over. The dizzying sight of the jumble of chalk boulders beneath, washed by the surging aftermath of the morning’s gale, had been quite enough to set the scene, and it was only afterwards, talking to Webster again in the car, that he’d properly been able to order his thoughts.
With every new situation like this the key priority was establishing an ID, a name to attach to the chilled remains in the hospital mortuary in Newport. In this respect, by his own account Webster had put all the right ticks in all the right boxes. The post-mortem had been in the hands of one of the duty pathologists at St Mary’s and she’d estimated an immersion time of at least four months. The head had been severed at the sixth cervical vertebra and she’d found substantial swelling of the subcutaneous tissues due to decomposition of the internal organs. Fish and crabs had eaten into the flesh on the fingers and toes, and there was further damage to the genital and neck areas where soft tissue had been stripped back. The fact that most of the major bones – legs, arms, pelvis, shoulder blades, ribs – were intact argued against a fall from the cliff, and DNA had been extracted from bone marrow ready for matching against printouts in the national data bank. In terms of age, on the evidence of bone analysis the pathologist was suggesting a white male of between thirty and forty. With a head on his body she thought he’d measure an inch or so under six feet.
The probable elimination of a cliff fall had aroused Faraday’s interest. It was by no means unusual for suicides to plunge naked to their deaths – he knew a couple of instances when a pile of neatly folded clothes had marked the deceased’s final point of departure – but four months was a long time for an individual to go AWOL, and the fact that Webster’s inquiries at the national Missing Persons’ Register had so far drawn a blank simply deepened the mystery. No one had done a runner from local psychiatric institutions. No one had been reported overboard from either UK commercial or naval shipping. And local media appeals through TV, radio and the island press had failed to attach a name to the headless corpse.
Darren Webster, naturally keen to break the case, had begun to explore more exotic lines of inquiry, but these too had so far come to nothing. The International Maritime Organisation had promised to circulate details amongst commercial operators and fishermen using the shipping lanes on the other side of the English Channel but a precautionary call to an expert in tidal currents at Southampton University’s Oceanography Centre suggested that this would be a very long shot indeed. The designated shipping lanes were way south of the Isle of Wight and any corpse floating around in this area was liable, he said, to end up on a French beach. Likewise, Webster’s brief interest in burials at sea had come to nothing. The area reserved for these ceremonial farewells lay to the west of the Needles, but the coastguard thought it highly unlikely that a body would escape the weighted, tightly stitched canvas shroud, somehow lose its head and finally wash ashore at the foot of Tennyson Down. No, there had to be another explanation.
Listening to Faraday’s account of Webster’s inquiries, Willard had made the sensible point that these were early days. Although the mystery corpse had obviously been dead for a while, it might yet be weeks before Webster’s patient phone calls triggered a memory or two. In the meantime Willard was more interested in why Webster had made such an impression on Faraday.
‘Do you see yourself in him, Joe?’ he’d enquired, reaching for his jacket and his car keys, ‘Young island boy, keen to make a name for himself?’
At the time Faraday had dismissed the comment as a joke, the kind of parting shot Willard favoured on a quiet Friday afternoon, but now – stretched full-length on his sofa in the Bargemaster’s House – he wasn’t so sure. It hadn’t taken much to bridge the gap back to his days in Freshwater Bay, and that afternoon, standing in the fitful sunshine at the foot of the Tennyson Memorial, he remembered only too well the strange feeling of being banged up on an island he’d only ever seen from the beach of his native Bournemouth.
At first, after eighteen months in the USA, the place had felt impossibly small. With a pregnant American wife and absolutely no money Faraday had managed to find himself a driving job, delivering fancy goods and other summer knick-knacks to a long list of cafés, caravan camps, souvenir shops and amusement parks. His father, tormented by the prospect of another stroke and bewildered by the abruptness of his son’s marriage, had made his new daughter-in-law far from welcome, but his mum – an ex-theatre nurse with a hard, practical intelligence – had taken to Janna at once.
With Faraday careering around West Wight at the wheel of an ancient Bedford van, the two women had spent a great deal of time together. Janna helped out with the Freshwater B. and B., full to bursting in high summer, and it was at Alice Faraday’s insistence that Janna had accepted payment for her labours. With two incomes, plus a temporary loan, Faraday and Janna had managed to scrape enough together for a deposit plus three months’ rent on a draughty bungalow half a mile from the parental home. They’d moved in on a blustery still-warm day in late September, Janna splashing out on a supper of clam chowder and Maryland crab cakes as a thank you for two months’ precious rent-free hospitality, and Faraday remembered their first night together under the new roof, the wind howling through the loose tiles, the itchy scrabble of field mice behind the wainscoting, the warm bulk of Janna beside him beneath the borrowed blankets. At the time this new life of theirs had seemed close to perfect but several days later, in a deeply private conversation, Faraday’s mother – ever observant – warned him that all was not well. Your wife is sick, she told him. You need to get her to a doctor.
Faraday lay back, his eyes closed, letting the music flood over him. Gustav M
ahler was a recent discovery, a supplement to the Berlioz CDs that had underscored the last couple of years, and the third symphony – with its haunting brass motifs – was eerily apt for moments like these. Older now, and wiser, he realised why Janna had shielded him from the knowledge of her previous tussle with breast cancer. She was in remission. The drugs had worked. And if three gruelling months of chemo owed her anything then it was surely the chance to start again: a new relationship, a new country even, absolutely nothing shadowed by the possibility of another round or two with the Grim Reaper. Her pregnancy had come as a surprise and it was a testament to the strength of his feelings that Faraday had begun at once to plan for the years ahead. Hence his decision to take Janna home. And hence – after a summer at the wheel – his abrupt appearance at Freshwater’s tiny police station. I’d like to be a cop, he’d told the startled desk sergeant. How do I go about applying?
In the event it had been harder than Faraday had ever expected. Not because he hadn’t got the brains or aptitude for the job but because the selection interviews, and everything that followed, had collided with a catastrophe so enormous it had taken him years to properly come to grips with.
The cancer had returned, more aggressive than ever. Within months of J-J’s birth Janna was dead. Faraday had nursed her till the end, turning a deaf ear to offers of a bed in the old hospital over in Newport. His mother, bless her, had helped, first day by day, then hour by hour, respecting every moment of their time together. By the time Janna slipped away, a cold bright morning in December with two electric fires on the go, Faraday was helpless with grief. Only John-Junior kept him going, with his gummy eyes and incessant hunger, a debt Faraday spent the next twenty years trying to repay.
Was this why he’d spent an hour or two listening to an ambitious young island detective hungry for battle honours? Was this why he’d passed the message back to Willard, salted the facts with a thought or two of his own, tried to pave the way for a possible referral to Major Crimes? Had this been, in one of the ironies that increasingly seemed to shape Faraday’s life, the real thrust of his little expedition over the water? To knock one job on the head and then – thanks to Webster – draw a steadier bead on another? He didn’t know, and just now he didn’t much care. He plumped the cushion behind his head and settled back. If the sleeve notes were right and Mahler really was in the business of challenge and resolution, then the next couple of movements would be the test.
An hour later Faraday awoke. Apart from the chuckle of a lone turnstone out on the harbour, he could hear nothing. Then it came again, the beep-beep from his laptop that signalled a priority incoming message. He struggled to his feet and climbed the stairs to his study. In the spill of light from the hall he could see the email highlighted at the top of the day’s missives. He settled at the desk, reached for the touchpad. Eadie, he thought.
She’d made it to Melbourne, taking the morning seaplane shuttle from Vanuatu to Sydney and then a domestic flight out of Kingston Smith to Tullamarine. Her description of the take-off – the colours, the spray, the sudden feeling of release as the little floatplane hopped into the air – occupied two paragraphs. The pilot’s father, she wrote, had once been a pupil of her dad’s and so he’d spoiled her with a twirl or two around the island before setting course for Oz. The sight of her family house from the air had been weird – so fucking small – and she’d found herself laughing at how close the beach had once seemed to the gate in the white picket fence that marked the front of the property. As a kid the walk to the ocean had been a big deal, a major expedition. Yet thirty years away had shrunk it to a mere spit. Was this what growing up did to a girl? Could a good lawyer make a case and get her fantasies back?
Faraday smiled at the traffic jam of questions. Eadie Sykes tore into life with a zest and an appetite that had always left him slightly awed. Professionally, he was sure that it had helped her no end when it came to putting other people’s stories onto film. She blew into their lives with the force of a gale and her very candour, her cheerful bluntness, always seemed to do the trick. Even Faraday himself had opened up, and here on the laptop was yet more proof that she could still reach out and touch him.
At the same time, when he was honest with himself, he knew that he didn’t really miss her. They’d had great moments together, probably still would, but every conversation – even at this distance – was proof that Eadie Sykes would always go her own way. She’d flown thirteen thousand miles to explore the landscapes of her youth. She’d be staying on the other side of the world until her money ran out. That might be a couple of months, might be longer. Whatever happened, she’d keep him posted.
Faraday scanned the rest of the email, then sat back in his chair, gazing out at the blackness of the harbour. The more he thought about it, the more he realised that twenty-six years in the job had changed him. For better or worse he was in the evidence business and deep down he’d finally admitted to himself that she didn’t need him. Not now. And very probably not ever.
He reached for the touchpad a moment, thought about tapping out a reply, then changed his mind and swivelled the chair away. He could see the shape of his upper body in the window, silhouetted against the oblong of light through the open door. His fingers found the thick growth of greying stubble on his chin and he wondered again whether it was really such a good idea to be growing a beard. Might this be some kind of defiant proclamation about his age? Or was it simply another way of curtaining himself off from a world to which he increasingly appeared to have only visiting rights?
He began to swivel the chair again, describing a slow, lazy half circle before stilling the motion with his foot. Something had been bothering him about Webster’s headless corpse, and he suddenly realised what it was.
Two
Saturday, 21 February 2004
Winter was halfway through a Good Housekeeping recipe for Chicken Supreme when his number began to blink on the waiting-room wall. He picked his way between the blank-faced grannies and the squalling kids, pausing to step over a family of stuffed animals on the carpet beside the door. Any more cuddly bears, he thought, and this place would start feeling like the PDSA.
Winter’s GP, Dr Jessop, looked younger than he probably was, a thin, alert, bespectacled northerner with the kind of complexion that went with ten-mile runs and sensible drinking. Over the last couple of months, much to his alarm, Winter had got to know him well.
‘How’s it going?’ Jessop was catching up with Winter’s notes. ‘Still getting the headaches?’
‘Yeah.’ Winter nodded.
‘Any better?’
‘Worse.’ Winter’s fingers tracked a path across the tops of his eyebrows. ‘Here to here. A couple of times last week I thought I was going blind.’
‘Blind?’ Jessop at last looked up. ‘What do we mean by blind?’
His use of the word ‘we’ irritated Winter intensely. It was bad enough explaining his troubles to someone half his age, worse when this eager young puppy treated him like a retard. He began to describe the last episode. He’d surfaced at seven with a pounding head, thrown up most of his breakfast within minutes, and spent most of a difficult morning trying to keep the rest down. Chasing teenage hooligans round the wastelands of Somerstown was challenging on a normal day. Trying to nail them through a rising curtain of brightly coloured bubbles was close to hallucinogenic.
He did his best to describe the sensation. Jessop looked blank.
‘Bubbles? I’m not with you.’
‘Round jobs. You look hard at something – the pavement, the road, whatever – and all you get are these bubbles. They’re everywhere. They float up. Ever watched a goldfish in a tank? That’s me.’
‘And pain, you say?’
‘Yeah. Above the eyes, behind the eyes, all over.’
‘Can we be more specific?’
‘I just was. I take the tablets. I don’t cane the Scotch any more. I’ve even eased up on the telly. But it just gets worse.’ He leaned forward in th
e chair. ‘There’s another thing, too. I’ve got a memory problem. I keep forgetting things, the simplest things. In my game that can be tricky, believe me. You think it might be early Alzheimer’s?’
‘How old are you?’ Jessop’s eyes returned to the notes.
‘Forty-five.’
‘Then I very much doubt it.’ Jessop uncapped a fountain pen and scribbled himself a note. Then he reached for the PC keyboard and began to scroll through a list of names. Just the effort of concentration was enough to trigger the familiar drumbeat behind Winter’s eyes but he did his best to keep track. Jessop double-clicked on a Mr Frazer. A new window appeared. Frazer was a neurological consultant.
‘You’ll have to join a queue, I’m afraid. How much notice do you need for an appointment?’
Winter thought of the logjam of jobs awaiting him back at the squad office. Lately, one or two of Cathy Lamb’s more ambitious operations had flushed out some of the city’s hard-core lunatics, especially in the drugs biz. Each of these stake-outs generated hours and hours of paperwork, and getting time off under this kind of pressure wouldn’t be easy, but the thought of what might lie beyond the bubbles was beginning to frighten him. Better to risk the wrath of his DI, he thought, than end up on the wrong end of a Labrador and a stick.
‘Couple of days,’ Winter grunted. ‘Just give me a bell.’
Back outside the surgery, armed with a new prescription, Winter popped the last of his painkillers and crossed the road to his Subaru. At half eleven he’d agreed to meet Suttle at the Bridewell. They needed an hour or so with each of the young slappers from last night’s bust, formal interviews that could normally wait until Monday, but one of them was off skiing on Sunday night and had volunteered to come in early. He’d told Suttle on the phone that there was no need for him to attend – neither girl would be facing charges – but Suttle wasn’t having it. After the bust at Camber Court he’d suddenly developed a powerful interest in Operation Plover. Copping out of the interviews, he’d insisted, just wasn’t an option.
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