"Where did you learn stuff like that?" Trudy shook out two Marlboro Lites and laid one beside his half-drained glass of 7 UP.
"Stuff like what?"
"Manners."
"Comes naturally. I was born polite."
"Naturally bollocks. How come you're in a job like this, nice bloke like you?"
"The money's good. Plus you get to meet interesting people."
"Like who?"
"Like you, for starters."
"I didn't come here to be chatted up."
"Yes you did. Light?" He cupped a match in his hand, keeping it close, and felt the soft brush of her hair as she leant forward over the table. Moments later, behind a cloud of blue smoke, she started to laugh.
"You know something? You're really nice. I mean it. Most blokes in this city haven't got a clue. They treat you like you're something out of a zoo. Give your cage a rattle. Give you a poke to see if you're still breathing. Bet you're really gentle, aren't you?"
"Yeah." Suttle nodded. "I am."
"I like that in a man, I really do. Not enough of it around."
"What?"
"Gentle." She paused while a middle-aged woman in an ankle-length coat swept past en route to the loo.
Suttle caught a gust of air freshener as she pushed at the door, then Trudy was beckoning him closer.
"It's about Dave Pullen," she muttered. "I've done something really daft and I'm scared shitless about what's going to happen. There are ten million people I could talk to about it but they're all pretty fucking clueless."
"So why me?"
"I just told you. You're nice. Plus you've probably got a brain."
"I'm also a cop."
"Yeah, but that's not your fault."
"Thanks."
"I'm serious. If I wanted a cop I could talk to Uncle Paul. I know he's a twat sometimes but he knows what he's about when it comes to doing the business."
"Who says?"
"My mum. And she should know."
Suttle nodded. There were snares here, he knew it, traps of his own baiting. Just looking at this girl, he sensed she was genuine. Not only did she fancy him but she wanted his advice. Was that asking too much? He thought not.
"Tell me about Dave Pullen," he said quietly. "Pretend I don't know."
"Know what?"
"That he was the guy who hurt you the other night."
"How the fuck did you know that?"
"I listened when we were down at Gunwharf. And I watched you."
"Listened? Well, there's a first. Not too many girls get listened to in this town." She frowned at him. "What made you think it was them Scouse kids, then?"
"Guesswork. You sort out what you know, find a pattern, then try and make everything else fit. Sometimes it works." He shrugged.
"Sometimes it doesn't."
"Too right. The Scouse kids were OK."
"Wrong, my love. The Scouse kids are shit."
"So what does that make Dave Pullen?"
"He's shit as well. And ugly with it. So what does that make you?"
"You want the truth? It makes me a pathetic little slapper who's completely fucking lost it. You know what I've done about Dave? You really want to find out just how fucking stupid I am?"
"Tell me."
"There's a guy called Bazza Mackenzie." She paused. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"OK. So Bazza and my mum go back years. He's been screwing her since I can remember. He's like family, looked after me and my mum really well. Lately they've been having a bit of a problem but that doesn't make any difference to me. If I need someone to talk to, really talk to, then I know he'll always be there for me."
"So you told him about Dave?"
"I did, yeah."
"And you're worried what'll happen next?"
"I know what'll happen next. Bazza will kill him. And that's if he's lucky."
"Does that bother you?"
"Of course it does. Dave's got his bad side, just like all of us. If I never see him again there won't be a happier girl in the world, but you can't be with a bloke for a couple of months and not feel something for him. He's a dickhead. He can be really horrible sometimes. But I shouldn't have gone shouting my mouth off the way I did. Because it's going to be my fault, isn't it? When Bazza breaks his legs?"
The loo door opened. Another blast of air freshener. Suttle waited until the woman had gone, then leant forward across the table.
"One thing I don't understand."
"What's that?"
"Why Dave Pullen in the first place?"
Trudy gave the question some thought. Then she glanced at her watch and crushed the remains of her cigarette in the ashtray.
"Do you really live in Petersfield?"
"Near there, yes."
"Own place?"
"Rented cottage. Shared with another guy."
"Cool." She reached down for her bag. "I know some great pubs out that way."
By the time Eadie Sykes got to Guildhall Square, the demo had already begun. She was no judge of crowds but the briefest headcount in the area closest to the Guildhall steps suggested a grand total of maybe a thousand. From his perch halfway up the steps, a thin, intense-looking man in jeans and T-shirt was using a portable megaphone to offer his thoughts on stopping the war. He himself, it seemed, had volunteered to go to Baghdad as a human shield, prepared to hazard his own flesh and blood against the fury of the fascist warlords. Reference to Bush's billion-dollar killing machine sparked yells of approval from the small army of school kids at the front of the crowd, and the human shield volunteer drew a wider round of applause as he ended his speech with a call for solidarity.
Eadie watched as the megaphone passed to a huge, bear-like man with a full beard. He beamed down at the mass of protestors, battling with the rising swell of chants, trying to impose some kind of order on the chaos below. The demo was to form up behind the wall of placards. The route would take them past the railway station and through the Commercial Road shopping precinct. With luck, he said, they'd stop the rush-hour traffic at the other end. The plan was to rally at the gates of HMS Excellent on Whale Island, but with so many police around there were no guarantees they'd make it that far.
Eadie knew what he meant. She'd been in touch with the demo organisers earlier, a mobile number handed out by the Stop The War Coalition, and her offer to tape the proceedings had been snapped up.
There were plans to pool video footage from all over the country, to edit maybe a half-hour documentary interweaving the people's protest with news footage from the opening hours of the war itself. That way, the voice at the other end had explained, there might be a chance of shaming the government into pulling back from this madness. Even now, he had said, with British troops pouring into Iraq, there had to be someone left in government with just a shred of conscience.
Eadie herself rather doubted it. For whatever reason, it had become clear that this was Tony Blair's war, the consequence of a deal struck months ago with the neo-cons in Washington. Quite why a centre-left Prime Minister should ally himself with a bunch of ultra-rich fascists was beyond her, but it was already clear that the forces of law and order were preparing themselves for a spot of serious containment. The man with the loudspeaker was right. The milling crowd of demonstrators was already boxed in by a line of yellow-clad policemen and there were rumours of dozens of police vans lying in wait outside the square.
Eadie raised the little Sony and began to hunt for images. A wide shot from the top of the Guildhall steps established the scale of the demo.
A brief interview with the man nursing the loudspeaker provoked an eloquent if despairing tirade against New Labour's latest sell-out.
Then, down amongst the crowd itself, she concentrated on the shots she knew would make an impact: a child in a Capitalism Sucks T-shirt, two gays with a placard reading Screw Boy George, a pensioner in a wheelchair trying to coax some sense from his hearing aid.
Surfing these faces, storing them away on tape, gave
her an almost physical buzz, a sense of kinship at once intimate and detached. Using her skills this way, she told herself, was as practical a contribution as she could ever hope to make. The next hour or so, as events developed, might yield pictures that would make a real difference. It was, in a way, a grander, more public version of what she was trying to achieve with the drugs project. Attitudes had to be changed. People deserved the truth. It was time for the nation to wake up.
Working her way towards the front of the demo, she felt the column of protesters begin to shuffle forward. At the exit from the square, she ducked out of the crowd and stationed herself beside one of the council buildings, letting the river of faces flow through her viewfinder.
Then, spotting a gap, she rejoined the march, picking up the chant,
"Hell no, we won't go! We won't fight for Texaco!" looking for cutaways that would put the event in its proper context. The police were everywhere. She filmed them in twos, threes, arms crossed, watchful, waiting, tiny earpieces feeding them the bigger picture.
Then, quite suddenly, came something new on the tiny fold-out screen. A police cameraman. Taping her.
Nick Hayder's bed was curtained off when Faraday finally made it to Critical Care. He'd driven to the hospital after a detour to take J-J home. The ride to the Bargemaster's House had been tense. J-J was white-faced, utterly beyond reach, and by the time he dropped the boy off Faraday had the feeling that he, rather than his son, was somehow the accused. Trying to break the ice, he asked J-J what he'd really meant to do with the petrol, and the matter-of-factness of his reply had chilled him to the bone.
"I was going to burn their house down," he signed. "The guys with the drugs."
Had he been joking? Was this simply a gesture, a piece of wishful thinking in the face of events which had clearly overwhelmed him? Or was there something more profound brewing inside his deaf son, a violence that he'd never detected before? In truth, Faraday hadn't got a clue. All he knew for sure was that these same events, plus everything else, were beginning to swamp his own little boat.
The manager in charge of the Critical Care unit told him that Mr.
Hayder had been stabilised. Fully conscious, he was now breathing for himself and there were no indications of post-ventilator chest infection. It would be a while before he began to recover any kind of reliable memory of recent events, and there was a chance that Tuesday night had gone forever, but thankfully there was no sign of lasting neurological damage.
When Faraday enquired about the pelvic injury, the prognosis was less cheerful. Within a day or so, Nick would be transferred to an orthopaedic ward. An external metal frame would be surgically attached to stabilise the wreckage of his pelvis, and the bones would take at least three months to knit. The process, she said, was extremely painful, and it would be a while before Mr. Hayder was on his feet again.
With the care team still busy around Nick's bed, Faraday wandered down the corridor. A windowless, rather depressing room at the end had been specially set aside for relatives, and he slipped inside. Chairs faced each other across a low table. The table was littered with empty plastic cups, and there was a nest of panda bears heaped in a far corner. Faraday studied the bears for a moment or two, his mind quite blank, then turned his attention to one of the Edward Hopper prints on the wall.
"Joe?"
A slim, blonde woman was standing at the open door. It was Maggie, Nick Hayder's partner.
Faraday stepped across and gave her a hug. The last time he'd seen her was at least a month back, and even then the strain of the relationship had been beginning to show. There were worse things in life than getting involved with a serving DI, he thought. But not many.
"How is he?"
"Pretty well, considering. I've been amazed."
"All that running."
"You're right. That what the doctors say."
He gazed at her a moment. She had a round, dimpled face, a lightly freckled complexion, and eyes the colour of cornflowers. He'd once seen her at aCID midsummer ball just weeks after she'd first met Nick, and she'd turned every head in the room.
She mumbled something about a heavy day at school and sank into one of the chairs. Faraday offered to fetch her a coffee from the machine outside but she shook her head.
"You think he's up to reading?" Faraday nodded at the Tesco bag she'd left beside the chair. Amongst the grapes and a bunch of bananas, was a Scott Turow thriller.
"He says he is, but you know Nick. He'd tell me anything if he thought it would make me happy." She was gazing up at Faraday and something in her face told him she wanted to talk. He closed the door and sat down beside her.
"So how's it been?"
"You want the truth? It's been a bit of a relief. That sounds terrible, doesn't it, but at least I know where he is."
"Meaning you didn't before?"
"Oh no." She shook her head. "I always knew where to find him, that dreadful place he had, and most nights when he had any time he'd come round anyway, but that wasn't the point. He just wasn't there. He just wasn't the bloke I thought I knew. Something had gone, Joe. It was like meeting a stranger. Even Euan noticed."
Euan was Maggie's boy, a studious, bespectacled fourteen-year-old whose flirtation with soft drugs had helped drive a wedge between Nick and his mum.
"How is he?"
"Glad to get his house back. Nick couldn't cope with him." She offered Faraday a weary smile. "As you probably know."
"It must be tough."
"It was."
"But for Nick, too."
"Yeah?"
The question hung in the air between them. For the first time, Faraday realised she was no longer wearing the ring Nick had bought her, a big opal mounted on a simple silver band they'd found in a back street jeweller's on Corfu.
Faraday got to his feet and began to clear up the mess on the table. He wanted to enter a plea in Nick's defence, tell her just a little about the kind of pressures the job had brought to bear, somehow convince her that there were reasons for the gap that had opened between them, but another glance at her face told him there'd be no point. In a sense, Maggie was right. If you were after a decent relationship then you'd be better off finding someone who'd know where to draw the line when it came to monsters like Tumbril. She wanted someone warm and funny in her life, the old Nick she'd met on a blind date, not the haunted ten-miler who ended every impossible day by chasing his own demons.
The door opened. It was the unit manager Faraday had met earlier. The doctors had finished with Mr. Hayder and they were welcome to come down to the ward.
Faraday looked at Maggie. She shook her head.
"You go, Joe. I'm sure he's seen enough of me."
Hayder spotted Faraday the moment he appeared at the end of the ward.
Lacerations down his cheek and jaw had scabbed, giving his smile an awkward, lopsided look. He lifted an arm in salute and tried to struggle upright in bed. Faraday eased him back onto the pillow, then took the proffered hand and gave it a squeeze. For a long moment, Hayder wouldn't let go.
"Geoff Willard, isn't it?" He was frowning in concentration. "How's life at the top?"
For a moment, Faraday thought the worst. Then he realised Hayder was spoofing.
"Very funny," he said. "How are you?"
"How am I?" Hayder gestured vaguely at the cardiac monitors attached to his chest and the loops of plastic tubing dripping fluids into both arms. Damage to his jaw had slowed his speech to a mumble but he was still game for a conversation. "I'm trussed up like a bloody turkey."
He paused for breath. "Apart from that, I've never been better.
You?"
Faraday was grinning. It said a great deal about a copper's day, he thought, when only a visit to Critical Care could put a smile on your face.
"I'm fine," he said. "Maggie's outside."
"Ask her in. Make it a party."
"She's being discreet. Thinks we need time alone. She's brought you some grapes, too, which makes me a bit
of a sad bugger."
"No flowers?"
"Afraid not."
"Thank Christ for that. When I first came round, I thought I'd had it.
This place looks like a funeral parlour, all those bouquets."
The thought provoked a wince. Laughing evidently hurt. Faraday took his hand again.
"You look better than I expected," he said.
"Bollocks, Joe. I look shit."
"Do you feel shit? Seriously?"
"Seriously…?" His face screwed up again, another spasm of pain.
Nick Hayder had never carried an ounce of spare flesh but now he looked thinner than ever. At length, he managed to catch his breath. "You know what I do to pass the time in this place?"
"Tell me."
"I go for runs in my head. They all think I'm having a little doze.
This morning I did a six-miler, out to the Hayling ferry."
Faraday gave his hand another squeeze. He could feel the bones between his fingers.
"Willard sends his best. He wanted to be here but something came up."
He paused. "Does Tumbril mean anything to you?"
"Tumbril}'
"Yes."
"How the fuck…?"
Hayder was staring at him, appalled. For a moment Faraday thought it was another wind-up, then realised that the reaction was genuine.
Whatever else had happened to his brain, he was still as paranoid as ever.
"I've taken Tumbril over," Faraday said quietly. "Thought you might like to know."
"Really? No kidding?"
"Really. As of yesterday morning."
"Poor you." He closed his eyes and winced again. "It's a bastard."
Faraday waited for the pain to pass. A nurse was eyeing Hayder from the other side of the ward. At length Hayder signalled Faraday to carry on.
"No way." Faraday shook his head. "You need rest, mate. Not all this nonsense."
"Tell me." He meant it.
Faraday hesitated, then shrugged.
"OK." He said, "I've got a desk on Whale Island and half a million documents to read by the weekend. Listen to Willard and you'd think it's a breeze."
"Willard's an ally, big time." The mumble had sunk to a whisper. "He's protection. Without him, you're fucked."
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