‘You’ve got it wrong about men, love. They never grow up.’
‘Yeah? Maybe you’re right. Doesn’t help, though, does it? Wishart’s a nightmare. He doesn’t understand the word “no”. He thinks there’s nothing he can’t buy, nothing he can’t walk away with. Believe me, control freak doesn’t begin to cover it.’
Winter nodded, mellow now. Time for some gentle research.
‘What does he do for a living, then? How come all the dosh?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s what I do.’
‘Well …’ She lay back, nursing her glass. ‘He’s got a company of his own, maybe more than one. He’s forever giving me stuff. Hang on—’
She stored the glass carefully beside the sofa and slipped out of the room. Moments later she was back with a glossy-looking presentation pack. On the cover, expensively embossed against a montage of heavy weaponry, was the company name. ‘Simulcra’, it read, ‘Tomorrow, Today’. Winter studied it, amused.
‘What’s in here, then? Bedtime reading?’
‘It’s a boast, a trophy. You’re right, men are kids like that; they have to show off.’
Winter flicked through the material inside the pack. Simulcra appeared to offer state-of-the-art presentational services to military and aerospace people in the know. One brochure talked of three-day brainstorming sessions with an unlimited event horizon. Another listed the names retained by the company for high-profile roles within specially designed threat scenarios. Winter recognised some of these faces, people he’d last seen behind a desk on ITN news.
‘I don’t get any of this.’ He tossed the pack back to her. ‘What does he actually do?’
‘It’s hard to say. He started in the navy; high-flyer, got out early. Then he seems to have joined some chums over in Hamble. They were building motor cruisers, those big fuck-off boats you see in Antibes, and Maurice persuaded them to get into military stuff. I don’t know the details. He’s told me a million times but I never really listened. I know he was flying out to Africa a lot. Does that make sense?’
‘No idea.’ Winter nodded at the pack in her lap. ‘How come he’s buying all these names off the telly?’
‘He says it’s packaging. Glitz. What the client wants. He runs these conferences. They all get together in some huge RAF hangar in the middle of nowhere and he spends a fortune decking the place out, sets, video gear, special lighting, nice eats and drinks and then the celebs turn up to front the whole thing and the punters sit around for a day or two and basically get stuck into a huge video game. As far as I can gather, it’s always about the end of the world. Maurice gets scriptwriters to plot out all this stuff, set little traps, and then the punters have to work out what to do, but it’s Maurice who’s pulling the strings. That’s him in his element. He gets to play God for two whole days.’
‘And there’s money in it?’
‘Shedloads. He’s taking the whole thing public, going for a market listing, the whole PLC number. If I remembered the figures I could put you in a coma in seconds. He’s obsessed with it.’
‘And you understand all this bollocks? PLC? Public listing?’
‘I’m afraid so. My brother’s in the City, talks the same language. He and Maurice are made for each other.’
Winter fell silent, toying with his empty glass. It was difficult to be in this woman’s company and not remember the wilder images from Friday night. For a moment, watching her stretch out on the sofa, he was overwhelmed with the thought of Chantilly cream. Then he pulled himself together. No wonder Wishart had got himself into a bit of a state.
‘Is there a Mrs Wishart?’
‘Of course there is. They’re all married, every one of them.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘Wimbledon. Three kids, one still at school, two at Oxford. Summer hols on some fat cat’s yacht. Christmas in Cape Town. The very best of everything.’ She began to mimic Wishart’s drawl. ‘Alicia does it for me, Maddox. Best mother on the planet. Thinks in three languages. Cooks like an angel. Fucks like a bunny. Worships every bone in my feeble body.’
Winter laughed again. He was right about the actress. She loved performance, the chance to try a new role, and she was bloody good at it.
‘So how did that make you feel?’
‘Relieved, to be honest. It’s all bullshit, of course. He makes it up to salve whatever conscience he has left but at least he still remembers her name.’
‘And you think she knows about you? Camber Court? Eight-hundred-quid holes in the housekeeping?’
‘Haven’t a clue. Probably not, not in any detail, but she’d be stupid not to make the odd assumption, wouldn’t she? People like Wishart are like dogs. They can’t pass a lamp post without wanting to piss on it. It’s all smell, scent, territory. Take the world by the throat, never let go. We understand that, us girlies, and some of us have the wit to turn it into a decent living. But that’s not what he wants now, not any longer. So far I’ve been a decent entre´e in his life. Now he wants the whole fucking menu.’
‘Yeah.’ Winter nodded. ‘And the cook.’
‘Exactly. But there’s a problem, n’est-ce pas? Because the cook ain’t for sale.’ She stared at him. ‘What’s the matter?’
Winter had got to his feet. With a terrible certainty, he knew he was going to throw up. He made it as far as the bathroom. Maddox found him hugging the bidet.
‘Hummus.’ She was looking down at the bowl. ‘My fault.’
Winter groped blindly for a towel. She knelt beside him with a damp flannel, mopped his mouth, cradled his bursting head.
‘I think I’m going to die,’ Winter gasped.
Maddox said nothing, just held him. Then, very softly, she began to sing. It was a song he’d never heard before, a lullaby, something French. Another part to play, he thought dimly. Another role in some passing stranger’s life. Would she be charging him for the last couple of hours? Handing him a bill at the door? The thunder in his head grew and grew. Desperate now, he reached for the bidet again. More hummus. What a state to get into.
At length his stomach was empty. He struggled uncertainly to his feet, felt for the edge of the handbasin, refused to look at the face in the mirror. He could sense, rather than feel, her presence behind him. Then came the lightest of embraces, her arms around him, her head nestled on his shoulder.
‘I was right, wasn’t I?’ she murmured. ‘There’s something very wrong with you.’
Six
Monday, 23 February 2004
A four-hour search for Gary Morgan ended at ten to eight, in Sandown. He was watching football with a noisy crowd of locals in a pub called the Smugglers, a couple of streets back from the seafront. Five minutes into the first half, Arsenal were winning 1–0.
Faraday slipped into the empty seat beside him. In this company the last thing Morgan wanted on public display was a warrant card.
‘The name’s Joe.’ Faraday patted him on the arm. ‘Friend of Darren Webster.’
Morgan shot him a look. He was on the small side, paunchy, with thinning hair and a small gold cross hanging from one ear lobe. The bruises around his eyes and cheekbones had yellowed but the damage was unmistakable.
He reached for his drink, visibly alarmed.
‘Workmates, are you?’
‘That’s right.’ Faraday smiled. ‘Shall we do this outside?’
Tracy Barber was waiting in the back of the car, fifty metres up the street. She’d cracked the final clue to Morgan’s whereabouts, returning to his basement flat and managing to make contact with the neighbour upstairs. No friend of Morgan, she’d advised Barber to try the Smugglers. Little creep spent most evenings there. God knows where he got the money.
Faraday held the rear door open while Morgan slipped into the back. He’d zipped up his leather jacket against the chill of the evening and he grunted something Faraday didn’t catch as Barber patted the e
mpty seat beside her.
Faraday got behind the wheel.
‘Where to?’ He caught Morgan’s eye in the rear-view mirror. ‘Your shout.’
Morgan told him to take a left at the end of the street, then follow the main road north towards Brading. Once they’d left the clutter of Sandown, he warned of a side road off to the right.
‘It’s just before the next bend,’ Morgan muttered. ‘Easy to miss.’
Slowing for the turn, Faraday wondered just how many times Morgan had made this journey before. The side road was narrow and began to steepen at once, tall hedgerows on either side, gaunt, leafless trees looming briefly out of the darkness in the glare of the headlights. At the top of the hill Faraday spotted an open farm gate and an apron of churned-up mud, compacted with ashes.
‘Here’s fine. Just park up behind the hedge. Kids use the field for scrambling. This time of night nobody bothers you.’
Faraday took his word for it. It was important that Morgan felt at ease. Better this, he thought, than the over-lit menace of an interview room at Shanklin nick.
Faraday killed the engine. Barber was to take the lead.
‘We talked to your mate Pelly this afternoon,’ she said.
‘Mate? You have to be joking. He’s a psycho, that man. Americans make films about nutters like him.’
He began to tally the number of locals Pelly had nearly put in hospital. A plumber who’d had one too many moans about late payment on an invoice. A learner driver off an estate in Lake who’d got in Pelly’s way in the big Tesco car park over towards Ryde. The postman on Pelly’s round who’d left the gate open three mornings running. Listening to this catalogue of alleged assaults, Faraday wasn’t altogether convinced. Neither was Barber.
‘He beat them all up? Every single one?’
‘As good as.’
‘And no one complained?’
‘You wouldn’t. You don’t. Not with a bloke like him. He’s scary. Paranoid as fuck.’
‘What about you?’
‘Yeah, exactly. You think I got this lot by walking into a door or something? Falling downstairs?’
Barber’s soft laugh died away. Faraday could hear wind in the trees and, very faintly, the call of a lapwing.
‘If he’s that bad, why did you cross him?’ he asked.
‘Me? Cross him?’ Morgan leaned forward, outraged. ‘What did he tell you, then?’
‘He said you were after his missus.’
‘That’s bollocks.’
‘He said you fancied her and invited her down the pub for a drink. The pub bit’s right, at least. We checked up this afternoon. Friday before Christmas, wasn’t it? Happened outside in the street. Landlord had to call an ambulance.’
‘Yeah, dead right. Imagine what kind of Christmas I fucking had. You could have strung my head up with the balloons. I looked like the Elephant Man.’
‘And was his wife in the pub with you?’
Morgan hesitated a moment, sat back again.
‘Yeah …’ he admitted.
‘What’s she like, then?’
‘Lovely.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Just lovely. Young, pretty, sweet – ask anyone. They’re not married, though. Not really.’
‘That’s not what Mr Pelly says.’
‘Of course he doesn’t and he ain’t about to either, is he?’ He lapsed briefly into silence, picking at a scab on his chin. ‘The woman he shags is Brenda Atley. Everyone knows that.’
‘So what about this wife of his?’
Another silence. Miles away, back on the main road, the growl of a heavy truck grinding up a hill.
‘Her name’s Lajla,’ Morgan said at last. ‘She’s Bosnian; grew up there. Must have put up with all sorts.’
‘The war, you mean?’
‘Yeah, that and now Pelly. Fuck knows what she’s doing with him.’
‘She definitely lives there? In the home?’
‘Too right. She’s got a little girl, a daughter, Fida.’
‘What sort of age?’
‘Eleven last birthday. I bought her a Walkman. Thrilled to bits she was.’
‘Is Fida blonde? Pretty?’
‘That’s her.’
Faraday nodded to himself. Fida must have been the girl who opened the door to them this afternoon, up at the home.
Morgan was opening up now, warmed by their interest.
‘Lajla and the little girl have got a flat at the back of the old folks’ home. They’ve been there forever as far as I know.’
‘But the girl’s not Pelly’s?’
‘No way.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I asked Lajla. She said she brought her daughter with her when she left Bosnia.’
‘What else did she say?’
‘Nothing. She won’t talk about that side of it at all. But you get her by herself, right mood, and like I say, she’s lovely.’
‘Fine.’ Barber’s voice was edged with impatience. ‘But I still don’t get it about the marriage. She and Pelly, are they married or not?’
‘Pelly says so.’
‘But he’d know, wouldn’t he? You get one of those nice certificates. Have a party.’
‘Pelly doesn’t do parties. He’s that tight … miserable bastard.’
‘What about the certificate?’
‘She’s certainly got one of them … But then she’d have to, wouldn’t she?’
‘Why?’
‘To stay in the country. I know the rest of Pelly’s foreign friends are illegals but they’re not on the premises like Lajla. She’s a bit close to home. You’d be asking for trouble.’
‘You’re saying he married her to make her legit?’
‘I’m telling you they don’t screw. If you don’t believe me, go and take a look at Brenda Atley. She works as a receptionist at the VW garage in town, gets Pelly deals on his servicing. Built like a brick shit house. Just right for an animal like Pelly.’
‘And Lajla?’
‘Brenda would piss all over her. I swear it, God’s honour, there’s nothing between them.’
‘So why did he beat you up?’ Faraday asked.
‘Good fucking question.’ Morgan sounded genuinely aggrieved. ‘You think I’d go messing with Lajla if I really thought they kipped together? If I fancied suicide, I’d find myself a cliff. Plenty round here, I tell you, and a fuck sight less painful.’
Faraday stared into the darkness, thinking of Tennyson Down. Maybe Morgan was luckier than he knew.
‘So why did he thump you?’ Faraday repeated. ‘If it wasn’t over Lajla?’
Morgan didn’t have an answer. At length he mumbled something about Pelly being a sadist, about decking blokes for the pleasure of it, but it didn’t take Faraday any closer to the truth.
Barber stirred in the back.
‘You told DC Webster that Pelly brings in asylum seekers.’
‘He does. Half the island would tell you that.’
‘Can you prove it?’
‘No, and I’m not doing any statements or anything, but Darren’s got a list of addresses I gave him, doss places here and down in Ventnor, and I’m telling you they’re no go for white guys. Say you’re from up north somewhere, English born and bred, got a passport, driving licence, down for the summer jobs, you wouldn’t have a prayer if you wanted a room in one of Pelly’s places. It’s wall-to-wall asylos and I bet they haven’t got a passport between them. So how come no one’s asking questions? How come he gets away with it the way he does?’
It was a good question and just now Faraday didn’t have an answer.
‘He brings drugs in as well?’ he queried.
For the first time Morgan was less eager to blacken Pelly’s name. There were some heavy people out there, he muttered. Ryde on a Monday lunchtime was full of Scousers making delivery runs, hot over from Pompey. They’d sewn up the local market for smack and crack cocaine and Pelly, oddly enough, had been the only one to take them on.
‘Brave fucking move,’ Morgan conceded. ‘Must prove he’s a nutter.’
‘But you’re saying he’s in the same business? Ships heroin in from abroad?’
‘That’s the word.’
‘And you believe it?’
‘I … I don’t know. If there’s money to be made – and there is – he probably couldn’t resist it. But hand on heart? Pass.’
Faraday was spooling backwards through this afternoon’s exchanges with Pelly, trying to remember what else he needed to check out before he got to the meat of this interview. Barber cut in.
‘Chris Unwin …’ She was looking at Morgan. ‘You told DC Webster there was some kind of row at the home, back in October.’
‘There was.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Lajla told me. She was the one who overheard what was going down. He’s got some kind of office in there. The door was open. The two of them were yelling at each other. She caught Unwin’s gran’s name, assumed it was all about her.’
‘And threats?’
‘Pelly promised to do him. That’s not a threat, not coming from Pelly it isn’t.’
‘Do him?’
‘Kill him.’
‘Over Unwin’s granny? Are you serious?’
‘Doesn’t have to be just her.’ Morgan was on the defensive now. ‘Maybe there’s other stuff between them, stuff we don’t know about. Unwin’s not from round here. He’s a Pompey boy. Could be up to anything.’
‘Like what?’
‘No idea. But there’s got to be someone to ship all those blokes over to the mainland when the work dries up, hasn’t there?’
‘That’s a supposition, Mr Morgan,’ Faraday pointed out. ‘Pelly says this row never happened. No confrontation. No shouting. No threats. Nothing.’
‘Well he would, wouldn’t he? Why don’t you talk to Lajla? She’s the one who knows.’
‘We will.’
Faraday eyed Morgan in the rear-view mirror. There was something about the timeline here that disturbed him. At length, he put it into words.
‘You got in touch with the Intelligence DS at Shanklin on Friday. Is that right?’
‘Yeah. There or thereabouts.’
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