‘How long?’
‘Two days? Maybe three?’
Lajla was staring at the vehicles occupying the half-crescent of gravel that served as a parking area at the front of the house. The DS in charge at Shanklin had decided on a forensic team of five. As well as a Crime Scene Manager and a couple of investigators, he’d attached a scientist and a photographer. Already, they were pulling on their grey one-piece suits.
‘What are you looking for?’ Lajla’s voice was low.
‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss that. For the time being we’ll be limiting the search to you and your husband’s private accommodation. Do you have a garage at the back? Some kind of workshop?’
‘A garage, yes.’ Lajla was transfixed by the sight of an Alsatian emerging from the back of a van. Faraday had asked for an initial drugs sweep in case Gary Morgan had been right about Pelly importing narcotics from France.
‘And a workshop? Outhouse?’
‘Yes. Come.’
Faraday followed her round the corner of the building. Twin ribbons of concrete led to a double garage. Beyond, adjoining the garden, was a low timber-framed building that reminded Faraday of a miniature cricket pavilion. The single door had recently been repainted and the padlock looked new.
‘What’s in here?’
Lajla’s bare arms were goose-pimpled with cold.
‘All kinds of things. Old furniture. Boxes. Tools for the garden’. She shrugged. ‘You know.’
‘And you always keep it locked?’
‘Of course.’ Her eyes flicked left and Faraday turned in time to see the Crime Scene Manager approaching with one of the investigators. The CSM needed to be clear about the search parameters. Cleaned-up crime scenes were never less than challenging.
Faraday explained about the garage and the outhouse. Then he turned back to Lajla. She was shivering with cold.
‘How many cars do you have?’
‘Me?’
‘You and your husband, between you.’
‘Just one.’
‘And he’s out in it at the moment? Mr Pelly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it a new car?’ It was the Crime Scene Manager.
‘New? I don’t understand. Nothing we have is new.’
‘What about the boat?’
‘The boat?’ Lajla was beginning to panic. Faraday and the CSM exchanged glances. Then Faraday pressed the point.
‘We searched your husband’s boat yesterday. I understand it was brand new.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Lajla nodded. ‘I forget.’
‘So what about the car? Is that new as well?’
‘No. It’s old, an old car.’
‘How long have you had it?’
‘I don’t know. It’s hard. I can’t remember. You must ask my husband.’
‘But have you changed it recently? You must be able to remember that, surely.’
‘No.’ She looked from face to face to face, hunted, miserable. ‘We had another car. Now we have this one. It’s bigger, better. Rob goes to the cash and carry.’
‘But when did you get it? Before Christmas?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long before Christmas?’
‘Please.’ She took a tiny backwards step. ‘My English isn’t so good.’
At Faraday’s prompting they went indoors. An entrance at the side of the house led to a corridor Faraday recognised from his previous visit. Once again, he found himself in Lajla’s sitting room.
‘You share all this with your husband?’ Faraday nodded towards the adjoining bedroom.
‘No.’ Lajla shook her head. ‘Rob has his own rooms. Fida and I, we live here.’
‘Where are they, your husband’s rooms?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘May we see them?’
‘Of course but …’ Her head went down. ‘He locks them.’
‘They’re locked now?’
‘I think so.’
They all went upstairs. The narrow corridor at the top was poorly lit. Faraday tried the first of three doors, then the rest. Lajla was right. They were all locked. In the gloom the three men blocked Lajla’s retreat to the head of the stairs, the unvoiced question hanging between them. What kind of a marriage allowed for a set-up like this? Separate accommodation, everything of Pelly’s locked?
Faraday stepped aside, letting Lajla hurry past them. There was a row of black and white photos, nicely framed, hanging on the wall between two of the doors. Faraday paused, inspecting the first of them. It was a view of a valley. In the foreground, beyond the fire-blackened ruins of a farmhouse, an orchard of fruit trees was frothing with blossom. A track wound past the orchard and down to an ancient bridge over a sizeable stream. The centre of the bridge’s arch had collapsed, and the water bubbled and pleated around the fallen stones. In the distance appeared the swell of the encircling mountains, black against an ominous sky. It was a curiously wistful shot, Faraday thought; paradise smudged by the hand of man.
The CSM and the investigator were waiting for Faraday at the foot of the stairs. Of Lajla, there was no sign. Faraday detailed the areas he wanted searched. The CSM nodded, scribbling himself a note, then indicated the still-open door to Lajla’s apartment.
‘Someone’s been in there with the paintbrush.’ He glanced back at Faraday. ‘You notice that?’
Faraday nodded.
‘I did.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘And the carpet’s brand new, too.’
Winter had collected DC Suttle at the News building at the top of the city. Now they were heading north up the motorway towards Petersfield. Winter wanted to know what had prompted Suttle to spend an hour or so leafing through back numbers of the city’s daily paper when they had a ready-made fall guy for Wishart’s ever-open chequebook.
‘Unwin? I just don’t buy it. You were there last night. The guy’s a wide boy. Say it’s true about the asylos. Say he’s bringing them in by the vanful. What’s that got to do with Wishart? The man’s a suit. He owns companies, does deals. Unwin isn’t in his league, unless he tried to flog him the wrong French wardrobe. And you wouldn’t take out a contract for that, would you? No matter how much you hated the fucking colour.’
In spite of himself, Winter laughed. There were days when Jimmy Suttle reminded Winter of his own CID apprenticeship. When the lad bothered to concentrate, he had the makings of a reasonable detective.
‘OK,’ Winter conceded. ‘Let’s pretend you’re right. Let’s just say it’s one big coincidence. Who else do we put in the frame? Got a name, have you?’
‘Yeah, matter of fact.’
‘Like who?’
‘Not saying, not yet.’
‘What?’ Winter began to laugh. The parallels were even closer than he’d thought. ‘We on the same side here? Same job? Same pay grade?’
Suttle didn’t respond. He’d helped himself to one of Winter’s Werther’s Originals and he sucked on the sweet as the Waterlooville exit sped past. A mile or so later he turned in his seat, favouring Winter with the widest of grins.
‘All that bollocks yesterday morning,’ he began. ‘In the Coroner’s office.’
‘What about it?’
‘We were looking in the wrong area.’ He reached for the bag again. ‘Turns out it wasn’t Pompey at all.’
*
The restaurant at Petersfield was closed. Winter eyed the Fermé sign on the door and rang the owner on his mobile. Within a minute Tony Lawrence had appeared on the pavement, a lanky sallow-faced individual who clearly resented this abrupt intrusion in his well-ordered day.
‘I thought you said two o’clock?’
‘Got delayed. My apologies. You mind if we talk inside?’
With some reluctance, Lawrence led the way into the restaurant. The dozen or so tables were already laid for dinner. Behind the tiny bar a door led to an office. There was only room for a desk and a couple of chairs. Suttle stayed on his feet, inches from a calendar advertising wines from the Médoc. He’d no idea what an a
pple-cheeked blonde with an enormous chest had to do with appellation contrôlée but he wasn’t complaining.
Winter wanted to know about two of last night’s guests. They’d been sitting at the table in the window, a middle-aged man and a younger woman.
‘Maurice Wishart.’ Lawrence cut him short. ‘Is that what this is about?’
‘You know Wishart?’
‘Very well. Have done for years.’
‘He’s a friend?’
‘I like to think so.’
‘And the woman he was with last night? You know her too?’
‘Not really.’ Lawrence frowned. ‘Why?’
Winter ignored the question. He’d had a formal complaint about a scene in the restaurant last night. The woman was alleging that Wishart had threatened to kill her.
‘Maurice lost it.’ Lawrence was dismissive. ‘It happens sometimes.’
‘Do you know why he lost it?’
‘Haven’t a clue. Domestic tiff? Some kind of argument? I run a restaurant, Mr Winter, not a therapy group.’
‘I understood you had to intervene.’
‘That’s true. I called a taxi for the young lady.’
‘Were there other guests?’
‘Yes. We had half a dozen covers last night. Naturally, we try and avoid giving offence. In this case there wasn’t a problem. Maurice flared up, went too far, behaved like a prat. I had a call from him this morning. Mea culpa. Full apology.’ He offered Winter a chilly smile. ‘Case closed.’
‘Did he hit her?’
‘I think he tried, yes.’
‘You think … ?’
‘One of the waitresses came to find me. That’s when I stepped in.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She said that Maurice …’ He shrugged. ‘Listen, Mr Winter, it was nothing, absolutely nothing. It warrants neither your time nor mine.’
‘Maurice what?’
Lawrence shook his head, refusing to go any further. At length Winter produced a pocketbook. He wanted a name and contact details for the waitress. He might also want to interview guests who were in a position to supply witness statements. Lawrence looked at him a moment longer, not bothering to hide his irritation.
‘It seems he got her by the throat. There was a necklace of some kind. God knows. As I just tried to explain, Maurice is an old friend. We go back a long way. I’m sure he meant no harm. Maybe he’d had one too many. Maybe this woman had spoken out of turn.’
‘Out of turn?’ Winter began to laugh. ‘What kind of relationship are we talking about here? You invite someone to dinner and they have to have permission to speak? Out of turn?’
‘Wrong phrase. Badly put. Maybe she wound him up. Christ knows.’
Winter nodded, seeming to accept the explanation. Then he asked what happened after the woman had gone.
‘Maurice and I had coffee.’
‘What did he say?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Was he upset?’
‘Not particularly. He’s a busy man, Mr Winter. Lots on his mind. I offered to call him a cab as well but he chose to drive. Like I say, it was a tiny incident. I’m sure the lady will get over it. Frankly, I’ve no idea why you’re here.’
Winter began to ask another question, this time about previous occasions when Wishart may have dined with the same woman, but Suttle intervened. He wanted to know whether Wishart was a regular guest at the restaurant.
‘Yes.’ Lawrence stared up at him. ‘Is that some kind of crime?’
‘Not at all. Does he bring business contacts here? To your knowledge?’
‘Yes, I’m sure he does. In fact I know he does. We open for lunch during the summer. I think he finds it a convivial setting.’
‘And do you –’ Suttle smiled at him ‘– get to talk to any of these people?’
‘From time to time. En passant …’
‘Would you remember names? Faces?’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Wishart’s a friend of yours, Mr Lawrence. He drops in here socially. He uses the place to wine and dine people he wants to impress. You’d notice them, remember them.’ Suttle paused, aware of Winter beside him. ‘So my question is this. We’re talking last year, maybe the summer, maybe lunch. Did Wishart ever turn up with a black guy? Mid-thirties? Maybe in naval uniform?’
There was a long silence. Lawrence held Suttle’s gaze, his face betraying nothing. Finally, he shook his head.
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t remember anyone like that.’
Faraday was back from Shanklin by mid-afternoon. Most of the indexers had arrived by now and were bent over keyboards in the Incident Room, punching in data from the investigation’s opening days. At his desk at the other end of the room DS Pete Baker was deep in conversation with a couple of DCs who’d just stepped off the hovercraft. Their overnight bags were stacked with the others in the corner, and one of them was making notes while Baker briefed them on the details of a particular action.
Faraday watched them for a moment, aware of the sheer reach of the investigative machine under his command. On division, as a DI, you were a firefighter, tackling outbreaks of minor crime day after day, throwing a DC or two at a shoplifter, or a walk-in artist, or some scrote who made a bob or two by flogging contraband lager round the estates. Here, by contrast, you could afford to focus enormous resources – forensic, house-to-house, intelligence – on a single event, tracking backwards through hundreds of statements and thousands of words until you’d teased out a motive, and a means, and some semblance of explanation for a man’s death. As an intellectual proposition major inquiries had never failed to fascinate Faraday. Now, as conductor of this orchestra, he found them faintly daunting. So many options. So many false leads. So many opportunities to drop the baton and lose the beat.
En route to his office, Faraday was intercepted by Dave Michaels. The DS had been talking to the enquiry teams working their way through the properties Pelly owned in Shanklin and Ventnor. Written statements would follow but already a pattern was beginning to emerge.
‘We’re talking Balkans. Bosnians mainly but Kosovans too. The blokes can’t believe it. None of them’s got a bad word to say about the man.’
‘Who?’
‘Pelly.’
Michaels settled himself in Faraday’s office. The DS was a squat, cheerful forty-two-year-old who’d swapped a promising CID career in the Met for the subtler comforts of life on the south coast. His wife, once a WPC in Balham, had long since abandoned the job to look after a brood of football-crazy kids, but nothing would keep Michaels away from serious villainy. Ending up as DS on Major Crimes, he’d once told Faraday, was as close to perfect as any man had a right to expect.
Now, he was speculating about Pelly. His tenants evidently regarded him as some kind of saint. How did that fit with his current status as prime suspect in a homicide?
‘Saint?’ Faraday was speed-reading a list of messages on his desk.
‘Yeah. According to our blokes, they say he can’t put a foot wrong. Decent place to live, OK jobs, wages paid on the nail. Christ, he’s even lent one of them his Steve Earle CDs. I know they’re crap but does that sound like extortion?’
Faraday looked up.
‘What about the paperwork?’
‘Kosher. They all check out.’
‘So how did they get here?’
‘Pelly brings them in. Just like that. Totally up front. He’s running a service. It’s like National Express. They raise the money, bung him the fare, and he takes care of the rest of it. All they need is the right story.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning they have to convince him they’re having a hard time. Do that, and they’re on the bus.’
‘Are we sure Pelly isn’t writing their lines?’
‘That was my question but the lads won’t have it. Every single interview they do, it’s the same story. Pelly’s tough as fuck. If they step out of line – don’t turn up for work, l
et things get out of hand – he chucks them out. No fannying around, no appeals; they’re on the street. But if they keep their noses clean, fair day’s work, no problem. One bloke was apparently a bit of a poet. Said Pelly had the soul of a peasant, the stamina of a goat and the brain of a fox. Said he belonged in the mountains. Thought the world of him.’
‘So where does that leave us?’
‘Dunno, boss. But from where I’m sitting, the guy’s halfway to being Mother Teresa. Seems he speaks a bit of Serbo-Croat: sees through the bullshit if they ever try and snow him.’
Faraday put the paperwork to one side and turned to face Michaels. He was still unclear about Pelly’s role in bringing in these refugees.
‘You’re telling me he goes over there on recruiting drives?’
‘Good as. The stuff our lads are coming up with, he has contacts with various agencies, Bosnian mainly; knows where people are having a hard time. He goes over to the Balkans, interviews them, makes some kind of case-by-case assessment, then gets them back over here.’
‘For money?’
‘Definitely. But none of them have a problem with that. Compared to most guys in the business, Pelly’s an angel. Plus he knows what’ll wash with the Immigration people over here. If they get past Pelly, they know they’ll be odds-on for a permit this end.’
‘And he registers them on arrival?’
‘Within a day. As required. Every time. He books them in at Southampton, then brings them back over here.’ Michaels nodded at the phone. ‘I checked the process out with the asylum people at Croydon this morning. Totally kosher. Turns out they’ve even heard of Pelly. The famous Mr P. The guy who spares them all the hassle of finding a hostel and trying to keep these people alive. Few more of him, and the bloke I was talking to thinks he’d be out of a job.’
Faraday brooded for a moment. Try as he might he couldn’t rid himself of the image of Pelly and his strange little family locked together as Faraday and Barber beat a retreat. What fuelled a man like Pelly? What fed the obvious anger within him? And, most important of all, what might have driven him to murder?
Michaels checked his watch and stood up. The squad meet was booked for six o’clock. Pete Baker had put the word round the outside inquiry teams and the CSM would be making an appearance for an early update on progress at the nursing home. Rooms had been found at a modest hotel off the seafront and Michaels had sought local advice on an Indian for the post-meet wash-up.
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