‘We did. Except that Winter’s blown it.’
‘That’s because he’s pissed off with us.’
‘So what do you suggest we do?’
Suttle said nothing for a long moment. This, he knew, was a bend in the road Operation Gehenna simply had to negotiate.
‘I suggest, sir, that we apologise.’
‘We?’
‘You. It would have to come from you.’
‘Me?’ Willard’s face was the colour of death. ‘Apologise to Winter?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What for?’
‘For getting it wrong. For allowing us to get it wrong. We should have told him about Irenka. We should have known he’d suss her in the end.’
To Suttle’s surprise Willard didn’t explode. Instead he shot a look at Parsons. Parsons was about to express her own opinion when the phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID and frowned.
‘Take it,’ Willard told her.
Parsons bent to the phone. Suttle could hear a male voice at the other end. The conversation was brief. Parsons scarcely said a word. Then she put the phone down.
‘That was the duty Inspector down at Central,’ she said. ‘He knows I’ve got an interest in Mackenzie’s campaign.’
‘And?’
‘It seems Mackenzie’s holding a rally outside the nick there. They’ve got some actors and dressed them up as coppers. He’s calling them Bibs but the duty hasn’t a clue why.’
‘So why the heads-up?’ Willard nodded at the phone.
‘He says every scrote in the area’s piled in. We’re talking Somerstown, Portsea, Buckland, the lot. He thinks something might kick off. He’s talking to the Chief Superintendent as we speak.’ Parsons risked a grim smile. ‘And you know Mackenzie’s line in all of this? He’s posing as Mr Law and Order. The cameras are there, and he’s playing the copper. He’s saying the scrotes are a disgrace. He’s telling them they’re losers. He’s saying guys like them ought to be put down.’
‘He’s taking the piss.’
‘Of course he is, sir. And unless Gehenna works out, it’s going to get a whole lot worse.’
Winter got to Sandown Road by late afternoon. He’d taken a call from Marie on his mobile. He couldn’t remember when she’d last been in tears.
She was by herself in the kitchen. The final edition of the News lay open on the breakfast bar. Marie surrendered to a kiss and hug, and nodded at the paper. The half-page report had been filed in the ‘Election Latest’ section. The headline read MR TWINKLE TELLS ALL. Winter recognised the accompanying thumbnail photo of the reporter responsible. Gill Reynolds.
‘Just read it, Paul. And tell me I’m wrong.’
Winter skimmed through the article. In response to the Tory announcement on a tax break for married couples, Pompey First’s Bazza Mackenzie had talked exclusively to the News. Like Nick Clegg, he thought the Tory offer was pathetic. If that’s the best they could do for something as important as marriage and family life, then they and the other lot should move over and make room for the kind of politician who understood a thing or two about the real world. As a married man, he knew how much he owed to his missus. They’d been together for a while now. They had grandkids. They’d never take a penny from the state because they didn’t need to, but that wasn’t the point. The point was the man-and-wife thing. You had to have someone you could rely on, someone who saw the world the way you did, someone who’d always be there for you. The article finished with a gushy pay-off: ‘I know I’ve led her a right old dance,’ Bazza told me with a twinkle in his eye, ‘but she always knows where she belongs.’
‘Can you believe that?’ Marie’s eyes were glassy again. ‘Can you believe he actually said something like that? Knowing God knows how many people were going to be reading it? Friends of mine? People who might have some respect for me? People like you? Ezzie? Stu? The kids, for Christ’s sake? How can he do something like that? What’s the matter with the man?’
Winter could only agree. He’d seen the madness in Mackenzie’s eyes as he left the War Room only that morning and he knew exactly the way the interview with Ms Reynolds would have gone. Bazza lacked finesse in situations like these. He knew how to make a woman laugh and he knew how to exact the price for that laughter. Now, newly minted by all the media coverage, he’d be at maximum revs. An empty bedroom somewhere at the top of the hotel, Winter thought. Fifteen minutes, tops.
‘He’s lost it, my love.’
‘Lost what?’
‘Pretty much everything. The business. Any sense of reality. Maybe you as well.’ He tossed the paper aside. ‘You’re right. It’s beyond belief, something like that. Must hurt like hell.’
‘It does, Paul, and what’s worse is there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘You could leave. Bail out. Bin it.’
‘I could. You’re right. You think that would bring him to his senses?’
‘I doubt it, not with all this kicking off.’ He nodded at the paper. ‘Leo tells me he’s off up to Wembley tomorrow, FA Cup semi-final. He’s angling to be presented to the crowd ahead of the game because it’s on TV, but Leo thinks it’s a big ask. The people at Fratton Park know the kind of baggage he carries.’ He paused and extended a hand. ‘I’m not helping, am I?’
‘You are, Paul. And you know what? I sometimes think you’re the only sane one left.’ She offered him a weary smile. ‘Apart from me.’
She reached for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. Winter felt intensely sorry for her, not least because Bazza was right. She was someone he could rely on. And by and large she did see the world the way he did. Now this.
‘There’s a chance he’s about to blow it,’ he said carefully.
‘I know. I’ve seen the sums. Nothing works. Nothing adds up. He’s still spending like there’s no tomorrow, just pouring the stuff away, and now we’re in the hands of some gangster from Southampton.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No. It might get worse. A whole lot worse.’
‘How do you know?’
It was a good question, and Winter knew he’d already said far too much.
‘I just do, my love. It’s my job to know. It’s what he’s always paid me for. I’m the knowledge. I’m there to make sure he never gets surprised, never gets jumped.’
‘And?’
‘He’s stopped listening.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He’s about to get jumped.’
Marie nodded. She was very pale. Winter could see the uncertainty and fear in her eyes. Bazza Mackenzie, in the end, was her man. And in ways that made her increasingly angry she still loved him.
‘So what do I do?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’
‘You take the Pole’s money, buy a bunch of tickets to South America and you all fuck off.’
She nodded, giving the proposition serious thought. Then she looked round at the kitchen, at the gallery of summer poolside snaps on the pinboard, at the Waitrose shopping list for first thing tomorrow morning, at the sheaf of dinner-party invites as yet unanswered, and her eyes returned to Winter.
‘But nothing would change, would it? Even if we went to South America?’
Winter took his time coming up with a reply. He knew he owed her this last lifeline before the waters closed over the family’s head.
‘No, it wouldn’t.’ He felt for her hand. ‘Because Baz would still be Baz.’
Suttle spent the afternoon at home, looking after Grace and keeping up with the football scores while Lizzie went shopping. Uninterrupted family interludes like this were becoming increasingly precious as Gehenna zigzagged wildly towards some kind of conclusion. By now Lizzie had come to accept that the Major Crime Team had first claim on her husband’s time, but Suttle could often placate her by sharing the odd detail about this job or that. As a journalist, albeit on maternity leave, Lizzie loved the sense of exclusive access, but Gehenna le
ft no room for quietly shared confidences. The rules of engagement on all covert ops were tightly drawn, and Suttle knew better than to break them.
Now, with his daughter on his knee, he heard the turn of Lizzie’s key in the front door. She struggled in with bags full of shopping. Suttle strapped Grace back in her bouncer in front of the telly and joined his wife in the kitchen. Grace loved Final Score.
‘OK?’ Suttle watched Lizzie storing packets of rusks in a cupboard. ‘Survived the excitement?’
Lizzie said she’d run into Gill in Waitrose. They’d gone for a coffee afterwards.
‘Andy’s dumped her,’ she said. ‘That guy’s got serious form.’
Suttle was trying to remember who Andy was. Finally he got it. Mackenzie’s little helper. The guy with the demon dick.
‘Heartbroken, is she? Again?’
‘Not at all. It’s all worked out rather well.’
‘How come?’
‘There’s a new man in her life. She says she’s through with the monkey. From now on she’s shagging the organ grinder.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Mackenzie. Bad Bazza.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Far from it. She says he needs to relax a bit, but she’s grateful for small mercies. This morning. Around half past ten. Some tatty disused room at the back of the hotel.’ She laughed. ‘Amazing, isn’t it? I told her she should be keeping notes, and it turns out she’s doing that too.’
‘Why?’
‘She wouldn’t say.’
Suttle nodded, trying to hide his sudden interest. Lizzie wasn’t fooled for a moment.
‘You want me to pass a message? Only I’d prefer if you and Gill were never alone together. That woman is sex on legs.’
‘And this is the first time? Her and Mackenzie?’
‘Yeah. As far as I can tell.’
‘But not the last time?’
‘Not if Gill has any say. She thinks he’s smitten, but that’s what she always thinks. I told her to cool it, not to put out so quickly, but she never listens. It’s all or nothing, flat out into the first corner, foot to the floor. She always says that fortune favours the brave and, who knows, maybe she’s right?’
Suttle was laughing. This was a perfect description of Mackenzie himself.
‘No wonder they got it on,’ he said. ‘Ferrets in a sack.’
‘Yeah? You know him that well?’
‘Rumour, love.’ He turned away. ‘We call it intel in the trade.’
Winter finally cornered Bazza Mackenzie in his office at the Royal Trafalgar around eight. The afternoon’s campaigning in Commercial Road had apparently gone well, the shopping precinct awash with Pompey blue and white ahead of tomorrow’s outing to Wembley. One old guy in a wheelchair had turned out to be a season ticket holder at Fratton Park. He’d donated his Pompey rosette to Bazza and insisted he wear it to the game. He’d watched the malarkey outside the nick on the lunchtime Meridian News and wished Bazza all the best. Kids these days needed a good fucking war, he’d announced before wheeling himself away for a burger and chips.
‘He’s right too, mush. We don’t need an army. You just take Somerstown and empty it all over fucking Afghanistan. Sort the ragheads out in no time. We’d save zillions of quid, and with luck all the scrotes would get blown up as well. Brilliant result.’ He spotted the DVD in Winter’s hand. ‘So what have you got for me?’
Winter didn’t bother to set the scene. He said he’d been to Lublin, found Beginski, and this is what happened next.
‘Beginski’s our guy, right?’ Mackenzie said.
‘Right.’
‘Gun to Skelley’s fucking head, right?’
‘Right again.’
Mackenzie nodded at the spare chair and slipped the DVD into the player. On the big plasma screen Pavel Beginski looked like a refugee from some natural catastrophe. Winter walked him through the events of February, prompting him when necessary, leaving long silences at other moments while Beginski was digging up tiny details from what was left of his memory.
Early on Mackenzie twigged that the log-like object taped up in black dustbin liners was – in all probability – Johnny Holman.
‘So who killed him?’ Mackenzie paused the DVD.
Winter said he didn’t know. He thought Lou Sadler was involved but couldn’t be sure exactly how. Sadler, an old mate of Misty’s, ran Two’s Company, an escort agency on the Isle of Wight. Winter knew she’d been picked up during the Major Crime investigation but released without charge.
‘But this guy didn’t do it?’ Mackenzie nodded at the gaunt grey face on the screen.
‘Definitely not. Helping dispose of the body puts him on the line for a conspiracy charge but nothing more.’
‘And Skelley? Remind me?’
‘Same charge. I’m pretty certain he also took the toot off Lou Sadler. Which is where we come in.’
Mackenzie watched the rest of the interview without comment. At the end he hit the stop button. He thought it was good. In fact he thought it was brilliant. He could picture exactly how a guy like Skelley would react, thinking he’d got it all weighed off but realising now that he had a big fucking problem on his hands. In Bazza’s view, it was a problem that a great deal of money could easily solve, but for the time being he wanted to know exactly how Winter had got to Beginski.
‘Through his sister. I thought I told you.’
‘Tell me again, mush. Spell it out. Pretend I’m thick.’
Winter described tracing Beginski’s mates at Freezee a couple of months ago.
‘How did you do that?’
‘I hung around outside the depot, clocked their private cars, checked out where they drank, had a few conversations.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
‘And these guys were Poles?’
‘Some of them.’
‘And what did they say?’
‘They said that Beginski was an odd guy, sociable sometimes, a bit of a recluse others. Liked a drink. Bit of a loner. They also said he had a sister who ran an agency, a place in Isleworth just down the road. She sorts out accommodation for blokes in from Poland. Some of them had used her.’
‘So you got the address?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Paid her a visit?’
‘Yeah. It turned out she knew where her brother had ended up. Not only that but he’d run out of money. As we now know.’
‘So you made the offer?’
‘I did, Baz.’
‘Twenty-five per cent.’
‘Afraid so.’
‘Two hundred and fifty K.’
‘Yeah.’
‘For that.’ He nodded at the screen.
‘That’s the deal, yes.’
Mackenzie stretched, then sat back in his chair and put his feet on the desk.
‘Get her down, mush,’ he said at last.
‘Why?’
‘A quarter of a mil is way over the top. We’ve got what we want. We need to renegotiate.’
Winter started to protest but knew it was hopeless. In these moods Mackenzie was immune to reason. To his way of thinking, they now had Skelley exactly where they wanted him. How much they paid some derelict in Lublin was neither here nor there.
‘Then just forget him, Baz. Pay nothing.’
‘Why’s that, mush?’ Mackenzie was watching him closely. ‘Don’t you want her down here?’
‘Personally, Baz, I couldn’t care whether you paid him or not. It just makes life simpler, that’s all. Plus we need every penny we can get.’
‘Sure. But give her a bell, eh? No great rush.’
He turned away, a gesture of dismissal, and reached for the phone. A mate was standing the two grand for a chopper to Wembley tomorrow, and Bazza was asking about his favourite champagne. By the time Winter got to the door, he’d managed to blag an extra seat for a friend.
‘Woman called Gill,’ he said. ‘You’ll fucking love her.’
But this? Marie in pieces? Abandoned? Fucked over? Betrayed? Today in the pages of the city’s daily paper? And tomorrow, quite possibly, on trillions of TV sets? A camera lingering briefly on one of the stadium’s executive boxes? Mr Pompey and his new girlie enjoying their moment in the Wembley sun?
Winter shook his head. He knew the time for excuses was over. There was no longer any point blaming Mackenzie’s excesses on the pressure of work, or the state of his finances, or the insane demands of a political campaign that was, at bottom, no more than a stunt. No, the guy was in control of his own fate. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was in sole charge of the journey every step of the way. Winter was certain that journey would shortly end in disaster and his responsibility now was to limit the fallout. There were individuals here who deserved a little advance warning, just a shred of protection, and under the circumstances that task was down to him.
A couple of months ago, at the birth of Operation Gehenna, it had all seemed so simple. A clever scam would snare Mackenzie in a trap of his own making. The likes of Parsons and Jimmy Suttle would march him to court, a jury would deliver the inevitable verdict, the Proceeds of Crime Act would strip him of everything the bailiffs could seize, and Mackenzie would be contemplating the onset of old age in a prison cell. But life rarely worked out that way – so neat, so perfectly managed – and Gehenna had suddenly found itself fogged in. Nothing was clear any more. Trust had broken down. And only one guy, it seemed to Winter, was left with any clear sense of direction.
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