Blood And Honey

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Sign?’ Faraday blinked.

  ‘Yes. It was definitely sign language, the full repertoire: different shapes with her fingers, lots of gesturing, touching her elbow, shoulder, forehead, the lot. If I knew sign, I’m sure she would have been making perfect sense.’

  ‘No clues at all?’

  ‘Just one. She kept pulling her finger across her throat and then pressing her hands together, like she was praying. She must have done it half a dozen times. She was always looking over towards the door too, as if she half-expected someone to be outside.’ Barber hesitated. ‘You understand sign, sir. I remember you telling me. That son of yours, J-J …’

  ‘That’s right.’ Faraday glanced at his watch. ‘You want me to come over?’

  ‘Might be a good idea, though I’m thinking we ought to be putting a camera on this. Just for the record.’

  Faraday nodded. Interviews with vulnerable witnesses were frequently recorded on videotape, a precaution to head off charges of harassment. He said he’d bring a camera over and then brought the conversation to an end. The longer Tracy Barber was on the team, the more she impressed him. Like the best detectives, she was constantly thinking ahead, arranging and rearranging the available bits of the jigsaw, hunting for the bigger picture.

  Faraday found Ellie Unwin’s mobile number in the Policy Book. She was stuck in a traffic jam on the outskirts of Eltham. Faraday explained Tracy Barber’s problem with Mary. Did Ellie’s mum often abandon conversation for sign?

  Faraday could hear Ellie laughing.

  ‘Often,’ she said. ‘She does it when she gets excited. Or distressed. Chris is the one you should talk to. It’s always fascinated him.’

  ‘How come she learned it in the first place?’

  ‘She worked with deaf mutes when she was younger. Before I was born, actually. Gave it up when my dad came along.’

  It was Winter who spotted Terry Alcott’s silver Land Cruiser in the car park at Kingston Crescent police station. Hauling in the ACC on a Saturday afternoon was a sign that Plover was getting itself a reputation. Winter, despite his thudding head, was impressed.

  Alcott was occupying the chair behind the desk in Cathy Lamb’s office. He was an imposing man, physically big, and carried his authority with an easy wit. He lived out in the Meon Valley, a two-acre spread with river frontage, and had been down in Southsea since mid-morning. His eldest son played prop forward for the Hampshire Colts and Alcott rarely missed a game. Out of uniform, thought Winter, he looked almost human.

  ‘Afternoon.’ He gave Winter a nod and then glanced up at Suttle. ‘And you are … ?’

  ‘DC Suttle, sir.’

  ‘Good. Excellent. Find a seat. DI Lamb’s gone AWOL for a couple of minutes. Bring me up to speed.’

  Winter summarised Plover’s progress as best he could, knowing that Alcott would already have been briefed by Cathy Lamb. That was the way officers of his eminence always operated, comparing one account with another, looking for daylight through the dodgier joins.

  Winter began with Singer but Alcott shook his head.

  ‘Singer can wait,’ he said. ‘Tell me about Mr Wishart.’

  Winter nodded, concentrating on the last twenty-four hours. With the mobile billings he could evidence the link between Lakemfa and Wishart. He knew from his brief trawl through Wishart’s emails that the businessman had been in regular touch with the naval high command in Nigeria. And he had Maddox’s word that she was one of the sweeteners Wishart had tossed to Commander Lakemfa. Wishart, he said, surely had his eye on a big fat contract from the people in Lagos. Why else would he be spending all that money on someone he barely knew?

  ‘And you’re telling me it all went pear-shaped?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We haven’t got the details, not yet, but the story writes itself, doesn’t it? Either Lakemfa didn’t deliver or he got greedy and tried to put the squeeze on Wishart, or maybe he had other contractors in mind and started to play them off against each other. Everything we know about Wishart says this guy doesn’t understand the word no. Plus he hates being pissed around.’

  ‘So he puts out a contract on our Nigerian friend? Bit radical, isn’t it?’

  ‘Means and ends, sir. We’re probably talking millions if the contract worked out. What’s seven grand to some psycho in Paulsgrove?’

  Alcott wasn’t convinced. He looked up at Suttle. There had to be more.

  ‘We’ve got a triangle here, haven’t we?’ he suggested.

  ‘I’m not with you, sir.’ Suttle was frowning.

  ‘The man Wishart. Our Nigerian gentleman. And then this Maddox woman. Am I right?’

  ‘Of course, sir, yes.’

  ‘And DI Lamb gives me the impression that Maddox may now be having a problem with her client. Mr Wishart wants more than his entitlement. Insists, in fact. Tricky situation, that. Most women I know would start looking for a little protection. No?’

  Suttle glanced at Winter, only too conscious of where this conversation might lead. Alcott was extremely shrewd. Uncomfortably so.

  Winter agreed that jealousy might have been a factor in Lakemfa’s death.

  ‘You say that with some conviction, DC Winter.’

  ‘I think it’s possible, yes.’

  ‘You know this woman?’

  Winter didn’t answer. It was a Saturday. He felt extremely ill. The last thing he intended to offer Alcott was a glimpse of the bewilderment that passed for his private life.

  ‘I’ve formed an opinion, sir,’ he said woodenly.

  ‘Based on?’

  ‘Conversation.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She’s extremely attractive. You’d have to be blind or mad not to want to …’ He shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  ‘And afterwards?’

  Winter pretended not to understand, trying to fend off Alcott’s relentless probing. Afterwards was exactly the question he’d have put. Afterwards was the essence of Maddox. Afterwards, the way Winter saw it, had probably robbed Lakemfa of his life.

  ‘I haven’t been there myself, sir. If that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘You haven’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  The question, voiced with guileful innocence, hung in the air. The two men gazed at each other. Winter was angry now, and disinclined to take this conversation any further. Suttle, embarrassed, tried to help him out.

  ‘Maddox came up with a suggestion, sir. I don’t know what you’d think.’

  ‘Try me.’ Alcott was still looking at Winter.

  ‘She says she’s happy to string Wishart along. Wear a wire.’

  ‘You mean take him to bed? Record the proceedings?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And you think it would be worth it? Evidentially?’

  ‘She says yes. She says she can get anything out of him. If he really did put a contract out on the Nigerian guy, she says Wishart will give her chapter and verse.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because that’s the way he is. Just like Singer. Can’t resist a boast.’

  Alcott nodded, considering the proposition. His eyes returned to Winter.

  ‘And what do you think?’

  Winter had seen the question coming. This time he was ready.

  ‘Jimmy’s probably right, sir. Definitely worth a shot.’

  ‘But what do you think? Would you be comfortable with something like that?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ He returned Alcott’s amused gaze. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  *

  It was the first time that Faraday had taken a proper look at the interior of the nursing home. He sat in the residents’ lounge with Tracy Barber, waiting for word that Mary Unwin was ready for the interview. The big lounge was L-shaped, an uncomfortable space created by the forced marriage of two rooms. Armchairs of all shapes and sizes were arranged around the walls, unholstered in shiny greens and browns and occupied by elderly women. Most of them sa
t immobile, either asleep or staring into the middle distance, entombed in a world of their own.

  A pile of audio cassettes lay on the table beside Faraday’s chair. Curious, he sorted through them. ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’. ‘Georgy Porgy’. ‘Rock-a-Bye Baby’. He looked up again, catching Tracy Barber’s eye. With the big TV at the end of the room tuned to the cartoon channel and the cassettes awaiting the evening sing-song, the place felt like a cross between a kindergarten and a station waiting room. No wonder Mary Unwin spent so much time on her own.

  Her bedroom was up on the first floor, next to the lift. There was space for a single bed, a small dressing table, an armchair and a tiny wardrobe. The portable TV on the dressing table was flanked by family photos, most of them either black and white or sepia, and Faraday searched in vain for anyone who bore the slightest resemblance to Chris Unwin. The young care assistant who showed them up asked whether they’d like tea or coffee. Of Pelly there was no sign.

  Tracy Barber stood beside the door while Faraday set up the tiny video camera and then perched himself on the bed, bringing himself comfortably into Mary Unwin’s eyeline. She was a frail-looking eighty-seven but had clearly made an effort to brighten herself up. Her scalp shone pinkly through the billow of newly permed curls and a slash of scarlet lipstick hinted at the woman she must once have been. Whenever anyone paid her attention, she had a habit of plucking at the loose bottom of a hand-knitted cardigan. Fine-boned, bird-like hands. Beautifully shaped nails. A single ring, gold, with a striking diamond in a nice setting.

  Faraday introduced himself and thanked Mary for her time. On the basis of DC Barber’s notes, he asked her again about her grandson. He’d been a regular visitor. Then he’d stopped coming. Did Mary know why?

  The question appeared to confuse her. Barber told Faraday to raise his voice. He tried again, then a third time. By now he was practically shouting.

  ‘Who, dear?’ She leaned forward, worrying at an old stain on her skirt.

  ‘Chris. Your grandson. Here.’ Faraday showed her the photo.

  She peered at it in a vague kind of way, then smiled, her whole face transformed. She said she loved sprouts. Could never have too many of them. In the life to come she’d have them for breakfast.

  Life to come? Sprouts? Faraday stole a glance at Barber. The DC was half turned, her shoulder resting on the wall beside the door. She offered Faraday a tiny shrug. Exactly as she’d warned, nothing made much sense.

  Faraday tried again. He asked Mary how long she’d been at the home, where she’d lived before, whether or not she’d ever been married, trying to get a fix on exactly how much of her past remained intact. Within minutes he knew it was hopeless. The further back he went, the foggier her life became. The only fact she seemed sure about was her affection for the Isle of Wight.

  Faraday leaned forward, warmed the space between them with a smile.

  ‘I lived on the island myself,’ he signed, ‘when I was much younger.’

  She stared at him, trying to follow his hands. Then she began to sign back. A couple of the gestures Faraday recognised. The sign for ice cream. A gesture towards the ceiling that might have signalled sunshine.

  ‘I think she’s talking about holidays she had as a kid,’ Barber murmured. ‘We went through all this before.’

  ‘You came over here as a child?’ Faraday signed.

  Mary was nodding, her eyes bright.

  ‘Nicer, then.’

  ‘Nicer than what?’

  ‘Nicer than …’ Her eyes strayed to the door but she didn’t complete the sentence. Faraday noticed the thin hands gripping the arms of the chair and it occurred to him for the first time that something must have happened, something specific, something recent.

  ‘What is it?’ He was leaning forward now. ‘What are you trying to say?’

  Mary shook her head. Her eyes were closed. She’d had enough. Faraday glanced across at Barber. Barber drew one finger across her throat and then nodded at Mary. Faraday hesitated a moment, unsure how this interview would play if the videotape ever got into the hands of a defence lawyer. Then, casting caution to the winds, he leaned forward again, putting his hand lightly on Mary’s knee. Her eyes opened at once and she watched as Faraday repeated Barber’s gesture. The effect was instantaneous. She pressed her hands together, a prayerful gesture, and pointed at the door again.

  ‘What happened?’ Faraday followed the wavering finger.

  Mary had begun to take tiny shallow breaths. She looked up at the ceiling, shut her eyes again, hugged herself, began to sway.

  ‘Please tell me.’ Faraday was on the very edge of his chair. ‘Please tell me what happened.’

  Her body stilled. Immobile, she blinked up at him. Her eyes were the palest blue. Then, without warning, she erupted in a flurry of sign. Faraday, knowing this was as close as they’d probably come, did his best. In sign, the gesture for ‘Again, please’ is two fingers in a scissor shape dipped twice, followed by a tiny tilt of the chin. Faraday tried it three times. On each occasion Mary simply stared at him. Then there came a tiny choking noise before she shut her eyes and pressed her hands together.

  ‘Just tell me,’ Faraday begged. ‘Whatever it is.’

  The long moment of silence stretched and stretched. Then she began to tremble.

  ‘Horrible,’ she whispered.

  Jimmy Suttle dropped Winter off at Maddox’s flat on Southsea seafront. Maddox had kept the Subaru. Late afternoon, she’d suggested they drive out to the cottage, spend the weekend there. With a handful of CDs, a bottle or two of wine and the remains of Winter’s tablets, they could – she’d said – bury the weekend.

  The choice of verb had disturbed Winter. More and more, if you knew where to look, there were signs of his own frail grasp on life: billboard ads for holidays he’d probably never take; pre-positioned ambulances, part of a new strategy to improve response times; even the ugly sprawl of the scrapyard beside the stretch of motorway that funnelled traffic out of the city, a final resting place for rusting submarines and knackered tugs. These were signposts he’d passed every working day of his life. Only now did he realise what they were telling him.

  Saturday afternoon, traffic on the motorway was heavy. Maddox slipped into the outside lane, pursuing a big Mercedes estate. There were kids in the back, three of them in a line on the bench seat, taking it in turn to blow bubbles. The little girl in the middle had the pot of suds and she dipped the plastic hoop in the solution then passed it sideways. The kids blew the bubbles towards the rear window, a piece of impromptu theatre for shoppers heading back to the suburbs on the mainland, and Winter watched the bubbles burst, one after the other, no survivors. That’s me, he thought. Absolutely no fucking chance.

  As they crossed the top of the harbour and joined the east–west motorway Winter gazed back at the sprawl of rooftops, at the distant tower blocks, at the square-shouldered bulk of the naval dockyard. Pompey had never had the looks of calendar cities like Winchester or Oxford. No one had ever bothered to put it on boxes of chocolates and pretend it was Olde England. But that, in a way, was its charm. To Winter’s delight, it had always resisted attempts to pretty it up. On the contrary, no matter how much money you poured in, it remained what it had always been: ugly, vigorous, stoic, a city that limped gamely on from war to war, wrapped up in its own preoccupations, its back firmly turned on the rest of the world.

  Winter had always enjoyed it, savoured it, appreciated its funny little ways. He liked to think he was fluent in Pompey, liked to tell himself he’d made a decent career here, felt a few collars, taken a few scalps, understood the way the place worked. But only now, suddenly confronted with a parting that might be all too permanent, did he realise the depth of the loss he’d face.

  They sped east, towards Chichester, the light draining from the sky. Maddox, sensing his mood, glanced across and extended a hand. Winter held it briefly, then looked away, his eyes filling with tears. Not in a million years would you ever have thought it. Not
this. Not now.

  DS Brian Imber returned to the island in time to catch the end of the evening squad meet at Ryde police station. He eased himself into the crowded Major Incident Room, listening to Faraday tally the handful of small victories his army of DCs had managed to post.

  The house-to-house teams, equipped with shots of the Tidemaster, had turned up a number of locals for whom Pelly was a dirty word. Some called him an oddball. For others he was a loner. One leisure fisherman, a newcomer to the island, had stopped Pelly back in mid-October and enquired about the Tidemaster. He hadn’t seen the boat for a while and wondered whether it was out of the water for repair. If so, he’d be glad of the chance to inspect it because it was exactly the kind of boat he himself fancied taking on. The enquiry, he said, had been genuine but Pelly’s reaction had amazed him. The boat had gone abroad. It was history. So mind your own fucking business.

  The story raised a chuckle in the MIR. Collectively, these men and women were drawing a bead on Pelly, agreeing that the timeline and the circumstantial evidence which surrounded it were beginning to harden into a half-decent narrative. No one was more aware of this than Faraday but for the time being he withheld mention of his own visit to Sean Castle. The fact that Castle had chartered his own boat to Pelly and could even pinpoint a date was a major breakthrough. Tomorrow the outside enquiry teams would be tasked to expand the house-to-house parameters, pushing slowly up the hill towards the village of St Helens, and one of the questions on their list would be about Sean Castle. Faraday wanted intelligence on the man – gossip, rumour, anything he could use to pressure him for a statement. Conspiracy to murder was a serious charge. As his solicitor would doubtless explain.

  The meet ended with Faraday offering a brief summary of other lines of enquiry. The Scenes of Crime search at the nursing home had so far revealed nothing beyond evidence of the wholesale redecoration of the sitting room in Pelly’s wife’s accommodation: new carpet, new wallpaper, fresh gloss paint on the skirting and doors, plus a brand new armchair. The Volvo estate Pelly had owned for a couple of years had been sold in early October to a cash buyer from somewhere up north. A couple of DCs were trying to trace the vehicle for forensic examination but DVLA still had Pelly as the registered owner. Pelly himself admitted to once having had the new owner’s details but now claimed to have lost them.