The Price Of Darkness

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Because I do, Baz.’ Winter’s hand found Mackenzie’s arm. He gave it a squeeze. ‘Just trust me, eh?’

  To Faraday’s relief, the implications of Suttle’s exchanges with Tracy Barber appeared not to have spread to Martin Barrie. The Detective Superintendent’s call found Faraday at the Bridewell, preparing for the next interview with Freeth.

  ‘How’s it going, Joe?’

  ‘It’s not, sir.’

  Faraday summarised yesterday’s lack of progress. During the opening phase of the interview Freeth had blocked off every investigative avenue. He hadn’t been at Port Solent on the night of the murder. He didn’t keep company with Dermott O’Keefe. Only when it came to his feelings about Mallinder had Freeth opened up.

  ‘Hatred? Bit strong, isn’t it?’ There was a hint of doubt in Barrie’s voice.

  ‘It was a boast, sir. And he knows it winds us up. He thinks he’s got the result he wants - Mallinder dead - without the chore of having to stand trial. We know he did it. He knows he did it. And worst of all he knows we know he did it. In any other context I’d call it harassment. On his part.’

  It was a poor joke but it drew a chuckle from Barrie.

  ‘So what now, Joe?’

  ‘We persevere. There are one or two angles we might be able to develop. We think he booked into a B & B at Fishguard under an assumed name, probably to link up with the lad O’Keefe. We haven’t attacked him with that yet.’

  ‘When does the clock stop?’

  ‘Four ’o clock this afternoon. I’ve warned the Superintendent we might be troubling him for an extension but we’ll need something else in the pot.’

  ‘And have you got it?’

  ‘No sir, not yet.’

  D/C Jimmy Suttle was sitting in a management office in the B&Q Superstore. The retail park lay in the shadow of Fratton Park. Sam Taylor, quite literally, lived round the corner.

  Summoned to the office by tannoy, he knocked at the door and stepped in. In his knee-length work coat, Suttle thought, he might still have been the friendly face behind the counter at Gullifant’s. The manager offered them both coffee and said there was no rush for Sam to get back to his section. Take as long as you need.

  Suttle asked which section Sam was working on.

  ‘Flatpacks.’ He was looking worried. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Frank Greetham. I was talking to your wife this morning. We need to know whether he was ever treated at St James.’

  ‘Yes, he was in that new unit, The Orchards.’ He paused, trying to recall the dates. ‘June time, it was. A couple of weeks. Maybe more.’

  ‘And you went to see him? Paid him a visit?’

  ‘Twice. It’s not a place you’d be keen on. The set-up is impressive and the staff do their best but …’ he shook his head ‘… you wouldn’t choose that kind of company.’

  ‘Did Frank have other visitors? To your knowledge?’

  ‘Yes. His daughter and that bloke of hers, Charlie, were there the time I went in the evening. I remember they wanted to take him out, give him a bit of fresh air. The weather was lovely, still hot that time in the evening, but the nurses wouldn’t have it. I don’t know whether they thought Julie was going to nick off with him but it was a shame. Banged up all day inside no wonder he was depressed, poor old sod.’

  ‘Did you talk to the daughter at all? Or to Charlie?’

  ‘Yes, we had a little natter.’

  ‘And what impression did you get?’

  ‘I’m not with you, son. What impression of what?’

  ‘Of how they felt?’

  ‘Felt?’ He shrugged. ‘They thought it was a terrible situation, just like everyone else did, and they were right, it was. How would you feel if your dad ended up in a psychiatric unit?’

  ‘Do you think they were bitter at all?’

  ‘Not bitter. Not that exactly. More angry. Especially the bloke, Charlie.’

  ‘Angry how?’

  ‘Angry at what had happened to Frank. Or at what had been allowed to happen. Like I said last time, Frank had a copy of all the correspondence. I’d made sure of that. And it turned out that this Charlie had been through it too. Intelligent bloke. Some of this stuff’s really complicated. You should take a look through the file.’

  Suttle nodded. It was a good idea. Getting Frank Greetham’s paperwork out of the Copnor house might be complicated. SOC were still in possession of the scene and hated intrusions.

  ‘You’ve still got all the correspondence?’

  ‘Of course I have. Nip round the corner.’ He checked his watch and got to his feet. ‘Ask my missus. She knows where it is.’

  Suttle was in Carisbrooke Road within minutes. Mrs Taylor was doing her washing. She led him upstairs to a tiny room at the back of the house that her husband used as an office.

  ‘The stuff you want’s in there.’ She nodded at a stack of cardboard boxes on the floor. ‘Help yourself.’

  Suttle cleared himself a space on the table, wondering quite where to start. The first box was full of letters from Gullifant’s staff, each carefully stapled to a typed reply. Suttle glanced through them. Some were bewildered, others outraged, but most of them voiced the same question: given the guarantees that had come with the pension scheme, how could a disaster like this ever have happened?

  It was a good question, and as Suttle started on the contents of the second box he wondered how he himself would cope in a situation like this. Your employer insists you join the company pension scheme. Everyone tells you it’s a very good idea, no risk at all. You assume they must be right, tuck away thousands of pounds for your old age, then wake up one morning to discover that it’s all gone. By now you’re looking forward to retirement. Yet suddenly, within the span of a single day, you find yourself facing the prospect of living the rest of your life on a dribble of money. No wonder Frank Greetham had turned his face to the wall.

  So what exactly had happened? And how come no one appeared to be liable? Suttle helped himself to a handful of correspondence from the second box. This time Taylor himself had initiated the exchanges. He’d written, as far as Suttle could judge, to more or less everybody. There were letters to local councillors, to the News, to his MP, to the editors of various specialist financial magazines, to the national press, to the secretary of the Institute of Actuaries, to the National Insurance Contributions Office. One of these letters had drawn a scribbled note of sympathy plus a copy of a press release from the office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman.

  The government, according to Ann Abraham, had a unique responsibility for setting a policy framework with respect to pensions. People very reasonably put their faith in government information on the safety of various occupational schemes. Yet this information had proved to be inaccurate, incomplete, unclear and inconsistent. Taylor had highlighted the four words, adding a line of exclamation marks in the margin of the letter.

  Suttle found another press release, downloaded from a website. This document addressed the issue of compensation. In response to massive pressure, the government had finally promised to set up a Financial Assistance Scheme. This scheme would be specifically designed to help the likes of Frank Greetham, employees in their fifties and sixties who’d found themselves penniless after the collapse of their company pension schemes. Some of these schemes were, in the parlance, ‘contracted out’ of the state pension scheme, which meant that victims would be denied even the minimum state pension. Suttle blinked. Was Frank expected to live on nothing?

  He read on. The Financial Assistance Scheme, after all the hype, had turned out to be a bitter disappointment. The Treasury had agreed to pay £400 million over twenty years, a sum expected to somehow compensate 65,000 people. So far, just four hundred victims had received money. Their average payment? Just £3,175.

  Once again Sam Taylor had been busy with his high-lighter, drawing attention to key statistics, and Suttle leafed quickly back, noting various names in case he ev
er needed expert witnesses in court. Then he turned to the next wad of letters. These were paper-clipped together and appeared to form a lengthy correspondence between Taylor and the Department for Work and Pensions. He was reading the first letter when his eye was caught by a reference to a House of Commons speech. The minister naturally regretted the plight that faced thousands of pensioners. Some of them indeed were his own constituents. But calculations had quantified the potential cost of full compensation at seventeen billion pounds and it would be improper for him, as a guardian of tax-payers’ hard-earned money, to risk a sum of this size in mitigation of what, essentially, was a market failure. Suttle read the quote twice, trying to imagine what it might do to Sam Taylor’s blood pressure. Here was a spokesman for the same government that had, in the words of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, been guilty of maladministration. The same government that had misled millions of pensioners. The same government that had begrudgingly chucked a few pennies in the direction of people like Frank Greetham.

  Suttle reached for his pad again, making a note of the date of the speech then tracking back through the letter to check the name of the minister. Moments later he found it. He stared at the name, lifted his head, then checked a second time. No question about it. Not a shred of doubt.

  He pushed the chair back, yelled down to Mrs Taylor from the tiny upstairs landing. There was a PC on Sam’s desk. He wanted to know whether they were on broadband. The answer was yes.

  ‘Do you mind if I get on the Internet a moment?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She’d come to the foot of the stairs. ‘Help yourself, love.’

  The morning’s interview with Charlie Freeth offered just a glimmer of hope. For one thing, thought Faraday, his attitude seemed to have changed. The sullenness which Faraday had yesterday dismissed as a pose, now seemed unfeigned. Freeth was bored with answering these interminable questions, fed up with having to repeat himself again and again, insulted by the possibility that he might have left anything as unprofessional as a clue at the scene of this wholly deserved killing. Early on, within a minute of Yates cueing the audio and video tapes, he’d warned that time was short.

  ‘I’m out of here at four ’o clock,’ he’d said. ‘As long as you guys are aware of that.’

  The reminder had drawn an emphatic nod from Hartley Crewdson. Pre-interview, out in the corridor, he’d cornered Faraday, tapping his Rolex watch.

  ‘I take it we’re not expecting an extension to custody, Detective Inspector. Frankly, on yesterday’s evidence, I’m amazed we’re here at all.’

  The comment had stung Faraday, not least because it contained a germ of truth, but now - with the clock approaching midday - Yates had set about probing the issue of the hospital.

  ‘Frank was on medication from his doctor. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Strong medication?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ Freeth yawned. ‘I wasn’t taking it.’

  ‘But medication that made a difference. To Frank.’

  ‘Of course. He wouldn’t take the tablets at first but in the end he did. If you want the truth, it turned him into a zombie.’

  Yates nodded. He was taking his time.

  ‘Julie told us he was at home at this point.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s where he lived.’

  ‘So he’s sick. And he’s under the doctor. And he’s taking all this medication. And he’s at home. Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because that’s where he wants to be?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that’s where you want him to be.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘So why do we suddenly find him in the psychiatric unit at The Orchards?’

  Faraday, his eyes locked on the video screens in the adjacent room, was aware of a flicker of something deep in Freeth’s eyes. It could be surprise, irritation, concern - anything. But a reaction. Without doubt.

  ‘The Orchards is the nuthouse,’ Freeth said. ‘That’s where people in Frank’s state end up. That’s what happens. That’s what Mallinder did to him.’

  ‘But Julie never mentioned The Orchards. Neither have you.’

  ‘You never asked me.’

  ‘That’s not my point, Mr Freeth. Yesterday we asked you for a full account of what happened in those few months between the collapse of Gullifant’s and Frank’s suicide. Not once did you mention The Orchards. Why’s that?’

  ‘I forgot. You blank off. Shit stuff like that …’ He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘How long was Frank in there?’

  ‘Couple of weeks? I forget.’

  ‘Did you and Julie visit him at all?’

  ‘Of course we did.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘Often. As often as we could.’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘Often.’

  ‘And yet you never mentioned it, either of you. Why was that?’

  ‘I just told you. I’d forgotten. It slipped my mind.’

  ‘Forgotten? You loved Frank. You told us that. And you hated Mallinder for what he’d done to him, how he’d been responsible, as you saw it, for the state of the man. That mattered to you.’

  ‘Of course it fucking mattered.’

  Yates glanced at Ellis. He was smiling. For the first time the mask had slipped. At last, Faraday thought. At last.

  ‘So it mattered to you. We accept that. We understand it. You’re angry. You’re outraged. You’re telling us what Frank looked like, how he sat in the armchair all day, how pathetic it all was, how he’d become …’ he checked his notes ‘… a complete zombie. Fair?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Yet you couldn’t remember him going into the psychiatric unit? That had slipped your mind?’

  ‘He wasn’t committed or anything. They were adjusting his medication. It was no big deal. He could have been out in a couple of days.’

  ‘But he wasn’t, was he? He was in there for three weeks. He was admitted on the sixteenth of June and discharged on the sixth of July. You’re really telling me you’d forgotten all that? Paying him a visit? Day after day?’

  Yates let the question hang in the air between them. Freeth looked at his solicitor. A tiny shake of the head. Crewdson’s first.

  ‘My client doesn’t have to answer that question,’ he said.

  ‘OK.’ Yates made a note then turned back to Freeth. ‘Then let me ask you this. When you were at the unit, visiting Frank, did you spend the whole time on the ward with him, or did you ever have a wander round outside, get some air, nip into St James through that back gate, explore the hospital grounds a bit?’

  ‘Of course I did. Psychiatric units are depressing, even new ones like that. Half an hour or so and you need a bit of a break.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I used to go for a wander, like you just said.’

  ‘In the hospital grounds?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Yates tried to press for more detail - Where, exactly, did Freeth used to walk? What did he see? What could he remember? - but at each of these questions Freeth simply shrugged. It had been a rough old time. They’d all been stressed out of their skulls. The last thing he was thinking about was his surroundings.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, really. Next time you’ve got someone you love in the nuthouse, see how you cope. Sometimes you think you’re going mad yourself. Just like the rest of those poor bastards …’

  Faraday’s phone began to ring. He glanced at the caller ID. Jimmy Suttle. He wanted to know how the interview was going.

  ‘Better.’ Faraday was still looking at Freeth on the monitor screen.

  ‘Great.’ Suttle sounded pleased with himself. ‘I think we’ve got a motive, boss, assuming I’m right about the Goldsmith Avenue hit.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Faraday felt his pulse quickening. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like revenge, again. There was a big government reshuffle on the ninth of May last year … and guess who used
to be Minister of State for Pensions Reform?’

  Twenty-six

  WEDNESDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2006. 14.38

  Faraday called a halt in the interview suite just after half past two. Freeth’s solicitor was demanding a conference with the Custody Officer over his clients’ right to be released after twenty-four hours of detention, and Faraday had decided to gamble on an extension. But before making his case with the uniformed Superintendent, Faraday knew he owed Martin Barrie a conversation. The Detective Superintendent had been up at HQ all morning, his mobile switched off.

  Barrie at first thought he was joking.

  ‘You’re telling me Freeth did the minister?’

  ‘Not Freeth, not personally. He was driving. The way we see it, O’Keefe was the one on the back. He fired the shots.’

  ‘A kid of fifteen? Jesus, Joe…’

  ‘I’m saying it’s possible. And I’m telling you that the minute we let Freeth go, we’ll lose him.’

  Barrie glanced at his watch. The PACE Superintendent for the Portsmouth OCU was Andy Secretan. According to Faraday, he was due to leave Kingston Crescent within the next half-hour.

  ‘You think you’ve got a case?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘And a twelve-hour extension? That’ll be enough?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, sir. If it isn’t, you’ll be the first to know. We’re not talking low profile here. If Freeth was a suss terrorist, I’m not sure we’d be having this conversation.’

  Barrie had the grace to laugh. Faraday was right. Under the new legislation, they could lock a suspected terrorist up for twenty-eight days before facing a custody review.

  ‘Does revenge count as terrorism?’ he mused. ‘Maybe that’s a line you could try on Secretan.’

  Superintendent Andy Secretan occupied a spacious, sunny office in the same block that housed Major Crimes. As the city’s senior cop, in charge of the Portsmouth OCU, he’d been in the post for three years, earning himself a solid reputation amongst coppers with a lifelong suspicion of senior rank. Secretan, it was commonly agreed, was a fair man. He’d got rid of the duffers, given praise where it was due and had refused a number of opportunities to showboat in the local press. To those who knew him well it came as no surprise to discover that mountaineering on the Isle of Skye was his favoured means of relaxation. This was a man who put a lot of faith in self-reliance. If the pitons gave way on the rock face and you fell to your death, the fault was entirely your own.