No Lovelier Death

by Hurley, Graham

  Suttle studied him a moment, reluctant to answer, and Winter realised what was different about him. He’d aged, and with age had come a wariness he’d never associated with the impulsive, gifted, tireless D/C he’d happily introduced to the darker arts of crime detection.

  ‘I got my sergeant’s exams a couple of months ago,’ he said at last. ‘I’m acting D/S on Major Crime.’

  ‘Nice one.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s pretty much what I think.’

  ‘Waiting for a job to come up?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re gold dust at the moment. That’s why I could use a result. It’s been quiet lately.’

  The silence between them was broken by the howl of a police car braking for the roundabout. Seconds later, an ambulance. They were both heading east, a route that could conceivably take them to Craneswater. Suttle turned back to Winter. Winter returned his look.

  ‘Well, son?’ he queried.

  ‘I know fuck all, except we’ve got a riot next to Bazza’s place and a couple of bodies by that new pool of his.’

  ‘Bodies? You’re serious?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘ And Bazza’s down for them?’

  ‘Dunno, boss, but if I were you I’d toddle off home.’ For the first time the old grin. ‘Who knows? The next address on our little list might be yours.’

  Faraday finally cornered DCI Gale Parsons as she ducked into her Audi. A lengthy kerbside conference with the duty Inspector and a middle-aged officer in a black jumpsuit had just come to an end and she had some calls to make. She gestured at the passenger seat.

  ‘Keep the windows up,’ she said. ‘You can’t hear yourself think out there.’

  The calls were over in minutes. The first of them went to Detective Chief Superintendent Willard, the Head of CID. Parsons rarely wasted time on small talk and tonight was no exception. Faraday gathered that the guy in the black jumpsuit was the Tactical Adviser for Public Order, which went some way to explaining the Transit vans. His advice, it seemed, boiled down to containment.

  By now, kids upstairs were yelling from the open windows, winding up the melee of figures below, wanker gestures supplemented with a volley of empty wine bottles. The pavement outside number 11 was littered with broken glass.

  ‘So how does containment work?’ Faraday couldn’t resist the question.

  ‘We’re buying time, Joe. The kids downstairs aren’t a problem. We started controlled release half an hour ago, got the first batch off to the Bridewell. Favourite is to clear the ground floor first, one minibus at a time. Then the FSU boys will sort it. You know the way it goes.’

  ‘On this scale?’ He shook his head. ‘Never.’

  ‘Me neither. Sign of the times.’

  The Force Support Unit, she said, were on standby, awaiting the call to intervene. She was looking across at the party house. The property was surrounded by uniforms. Controlled release meant exactly what it said on the tin.

  Curtains on one of the upstairs windows had been ripped down. Faraday watched a couple of kids mooning the street below.

  ‘Jerry Proctor says the house belongs to a judge.’

  ‘He’s right. It’s Ault’s place. Just now he and his wife are off sailing in the South Pacific. They’re in for a nasty shock, poor things.’ She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. ‘You know Ault?’

  Faraday nodded. Peter Ault was a Crown Court judge. His hard-line summings-up in a number of recent cases, widely publicised, had won him a devoted following amongst right-wing correspondents to the letters page of the city’s daily paper, the News. He was popular in CID offices too, largely because he had little time for social workers.

  Faraday glanced at his watch. 02.37.

  ‘So what’s the state of the place?’

  ‘I gather it’s pretty much wrecked. Not just that. One of the bodies we recovered turns out to be the Aults’ daughter.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Exactly. Total nightmare.’

  Faraday looked away, trying to imagine the welcome home awaiting this luckless pair. One moment, the bluest of oceans; the next, the worst news in the world.

  ‘These bodies were by the pool next door?’

  ‘Yeah. We think the other one’s a lad called Gareth Hughes. If we’re right, he’s the boyfriend.’

  ‘Injuries?’

  ‘According to one of the CSIs, we’re looking at bruising and abrasions on both of them, plus blood beside the pool, plus multiple stab injuries on the girl. Early days, though. Jenny’s still en route.’

  Faraday nodded. Jenny Cutler was the on-call forensic pathologist. She lived in a farmhouse in the wilds of Somerset. Hence her late arrival.

  Faraday was looking at the house again. Through the open front door he could see a couple of uniforms talking to a gaggle of kids.

  ‘What’s the plan here? Are we arresting them? Or do we treat them as witnesses? Either way, Jerry seems to think the resource implications are horrendous.’

  ‘Jerry’s right. We’re estimating one hundred-plus kids. Apparently the invite went out on Facebook and half the world turned up. The girl was planning for a cosy soirée. Instead she ended up with a riot.’

  ‘Girl?’

  ‘Rachel.’ Parsons glanced across at Faraday. ‘The one by the pool.’

  Faraday nodded. As the story unfolded, it wasn’t difficult to track the implications. Two bodies triggered a major homicide inquiry. Next door, more than a hundred partying kids were either suspects or witnesses. Either way, they’d need to be taken to a custody suite, medically examined, and housed overnight before being interviewed in the morning.

  ‘So are we arresting them?’

  ‘Not in the first place, no. We’re asking for their cooperation and their mobiles. If there’s any difficulty, we’ll go for arrest.’

  ‘Grounds?’

  ‘Hasn’t been necessary yet. A few kicked up when we seized their mobiles but you’d expect that. If push comes to shove Mr Willard’s suggesting breach of the peace or criminal damage. We’re not fussy. Either will do.’

  ‘What about transport? Jerry said he was pushing for full forensic cleaning.’

  ‘Jerry would. That’s his job. But given the situation, I’m afraid he’s got no chance. I talked to the cleaning contractors a couple of hours ago. We’d be here all weekend if we went down that road so we’re settling for low-mileage minibuses. That way they might be at least half-clean. I’m afraid it’s the best we can do.’

  Faraday nodded in agreement. With every passenger a potential suspect, the evidential textbooks called for each vehicle to be forensic-ally pre-cleaned to prevent cross-contamination. That would leave the Crown Prosecution Service flameproof against later defence challenges in court but Parsons was right: sorting out a fleet of minibuses to Jerry Proctor’s satisfaction would bring the entire operation to a halt.

  The DCI’s mobile began to ring again. While she was busy with the call, Faraday tried to tally the rest of the night’s implications. The booking-in process at the custody centres, especially at weekends, could itself take nearly half an hour per person. Every witness or suspect would need access to a lawyer. If they were sixteen or under, they’d require the presence of an appropriate adult. If they were foreign, they’d be calling for interpreters. They’d need to be swabbed, fingerprinted, and medically examined by a police surgeon. Their clothing would be seized, bagged, tagged and put aside for possible dispatch to the Forensic Science Service.

  Every step in this journey carried a price tag or resource implications. Would there be enough cell space county-wide? Would there be sufficient replacement clothing? And who would pick up the tab for the lab tests? Only last week Faraday had countersigned an invoice from the Forensic Science Service. For DNA analysis on just five items of clothing, the bill had come to £3460. Multiply that one hundred times and they’d be looking at over a third of a million quid. Parsons was right. Total nightmare.

  She was off the mobile. Willard, she said, had been
talking to the Assistant Chief Constable responsible for CID. On a busy Saturday night the force operations room had so far identified a mere thirty-seven available custody cells county-wide and a call had gone out to abandon further arrests unless absolutely necessary. Given the shortfall in custody space, the ACC had no choice but to invoke the standing mutual aid arrangements and control room staff were now in touch with neighbouring forces. Kids who’d started their Saturday night by necking a litre of Diamond White on Southsea Common might well end their evening in a cell in Reading. Or Dorchester. Or Worthing. Such was the thinness of the thin blue line.

  Parsons was gazing at the house across the road. Another dozen partygoers were being escorted towards a waiting minibus. One of them stumbled and fell. Heavily gelled, he was wearing Adidas track bottoms and a Henri Lloyd top. Face down, he lay sprawled on the pavement. Seconds later he began to throw up. None of the other kids, stepping carefully round the spreading pool of vomit, stopped to help him.

  Faraday glanced back at Parsons. She looked exhausted.

  ‘What’s the story on the party?’

  ‘Too early to tell. Word obviously got round. This city can be rough. Nice Craneswater kids? Loads of booze on the premises? Easy pickings? Who knows …’

  Faraday, watching the kids again, knew she was right. In a city as claustrophobic and tightly packed as Portsmouth, the script would write itself. The invite would have spread from estate to estate. Nowhere was more than a couple of miles from anywhere else. Who fancies a trip down to leafy Craneswater? All those posh kids? Be a laugh, wouldn’t it?

  ‘Spot of social revenge, then? Is that what we’re thinking? Booze? Drugs? Chance of a decent ruck?’

  Parsons didn’t answer. Instead, she spelled out the way she wanted to handle the coming days. Over the weekend the duty Detective Superintendent would babysit the operation, with Parsons acting as his deputy until Martin Barrie, in charge of the Major Crime Team, returned from leave. Jerry Proctor, as Crime Scene Coordinator, would be steering the forensic operation. D/S Glen Thatcher would supervise Outside Enquiries, with acting D/S Jimmy Suttle in charge of the Intelligence Cell. Jenny Cutler would doubtless be pushing for a Sunday morning slot at Winchester for the post-mortems and forensic teams would be starting on the multiple crime scenes after daybreak. The investigation already had a codename. Operation Mandolin.

  ‘What about the kids upstairs?’ Faraday was looking at the house again.

  ‘The FSU lads have scoped a rear entry. As soon as we’ve shipped the rest out, they don’t anticipate a problem.’

  Faraday nodded. At close quarters, a confrontation with the Force Support Unit could be a terrifying experience. They worked in shield pairs, moving from room to room, cornering the stroppiest customers, lots of noise, lots of verbal, lots of aggression, a slap or two if needed before the cuffs went on. On special occasions, like tonight, they might even put a dog or two in. They called them ‘land sharks’.

  Parsons was scribbling herself a note. Faraday watched two uniforms handcuff the youth on the pavement then manhandle him into the minibus. White faces stared out as the boy tried to wipe his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. The door slammed shut and the minibus growled away towards the seafront.

  ‘And what do you want me to do, boss?’

  ‘Sort out the interviews, Joe. We’re talking God knows how many custody centres. Thames Valley. West Sussex. Dorset. You name it. We need a strategy. We need command and control. We need a grip on the witness statements as they become available. We need to jigsaw all this stuff together, put it alongside the forensic and the intelligence and whatever else, recreate the party, establish a timeline, sort out what exactly happened. We might get lucky. We might even get a cough by lunchtime. But we’d be crazy to plan for that. This thing’s a monster already.’ She looked up from her notepad. ‘So we need to get on top of it, Joe. And that’s not going to be easy. I gather the duty Det-Supt will probably be handing over to me, by the way, if this thing goes into next week. If that happens, you’ll be Deputy SIO. Did I mention that?’

  Faraday studied her a moment. Then, unaccountably, he was back in bed, the warmth of Gabrielle beside him, wondering who’d be phoning at half one in the morning.

  ‘Thanks …’ he said drily. ‘Piece of piss.’

  Chapter two

  SUNDAY, 12 AUGUST 2007. 04.23

  Winter resisted the temptation to go back to bed. Instead, he headed for the seafront, curious to know what remained of the evening’s festivities. A riot and two bodies sounded extremely promising. There’d be a call for the full chorus line: Scenes of Crime, uniforms, plus a small army of detectives. A year ago, and he’d already have been totting up the overtime.

  In the cold half-light of dawn the seafront was deserted. A highish tide nibbled at the bank of shingle that passed for a beach and when he slowed on the approach to the pier he could just make out the figure of a lone fisherman at the seaward end, silhouetted against the blush of pink away to the east.

  Craneswater lay inland beyond the Rose Garden and the tennis courts. Winter brought the Lexus to a halt, glad of the chance to stretch his legs. A couple of swans were on patrol amongst the pedalos on Canoe Lake and he paused for a moment or two, poking at a waste-paper bin in a search of bread. His eye was caught by a sandwich container and he extracted the remains of a BLT. Were swans allergic to curls of cold bacon and a smear or two of mayo? He hadn’t a clue.

  The water in the lake was slime green, the colour of a heavy cold, and Winter gazed at it for a moment, waiting for the swans to show some interest. In one sense the news that Bazza had been arrested was no surprise. Winter himself knew that the girl next door was planning to throw some kind of party. Marie had mentioned it only the other day, confiding to Winter that she thought it was a bad idea. Bazza and the judge - a relative newcomer to Sandown Road - had become the best of mates, and Baz had promised to keep an eye on things while Peter and Belle were away. Quite how he’d square this assurance with a riot and a sus double murder was anyone’s guess but Winter knew that Baz would have got stuck in if the situation called for it, especially if he thought the girl was under any kind of threat.

  Was that the way it had been? Had Bazza done his neighbourly best to defend his new mate’s daughter, his new mate’s house? And maybe gone too far in the process?

  Somehow Winter doubted it. A year of working for Bazza Mackenzie had taught him how much the man had calmed down. He’d always been bright, clever even, but now that cleverness was tempered with something close to maturity. His days of seizing life by the throat had gone. He seldom did anything without good cause and a bit of a think.

  Not that Bazza was any stranger to violence. On the contrary, his years of front-line service with the 6.57, Pompey’s marauding army of football hooligans, had given him a city-wide reputation as a top face. On one occasion, totally fearless, he’d taken on half a dozen Millwall fans practically single-handed. The ruck had kicked off in south London, the 6.57 trapped in a clever ambush, but Bazza had hospitalised three of them before being knocked unconscious himself. In certain Pompey pubs the following weekend he’d drunk his body weight in free Stella, and even coppers on the force had given him a passing nod. Not bad for a bloke your size, they’d said.

  Done with the swans, Winter zipped up his new leather jacket against the early chill and stepped out of the park. Sandown Road was within sight and already he could see the uniform in his hi-vis jacket, standing guard at the end of the avenue. Anticipating another rebuff, he decided against a conversation. He’d walk past, give the bloke a nod, see what was on offer, draw his own conclusions.

  In the event, the P/C looked barely young enough to be up so late. No way would he have a clue who ex-D/C Winter was.

  ‘What’s all this, then? Mind if I ask?’

  ‘Not at all, sir. Bit of an incident.’

  Winter nodded. In twenty years he’d rarely seen so many vehicles at a single scene. Traffic cars. CID Skodas. Ninja vans
. Minibuses. An ambulance. The fancy bespoke Transit used by the imaging people from Scenes of Crime. Peugeot vans full of more forensic gear.

  ‘What happened, then?’

  ‘Afraid I can’t say, sir.’

  ‘Kids, was it? Party? Things got a bit out of hand?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Lot of fuss, though. Can’t be just that alcopop shit they drink.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Winter, bored with getting nowhere, was about to ask about rumoured deaths when the early-morning quiet was shattered by a roar of voices and the distant thunder of stamping feet. Winter guessed it was coming from the judge’s house beyond Bazza’s place. He was right. Seconds later, a tight knot of blokes in full riot gear emerged from the rear of the property, dragging two youths. Handcuffed, they disappeared into the back of one of the waiting Transits. Then came the noise again, louder if anything, and three more youths - one of them covered in blood - made an equally brief appearance. The biggest, still full of fight, swung a leg at a nearby WPC. Winter heard the crack of an ASP, then a yelp of pain and a string of oaths before he too was bundled into the Transit.

  ‘I thought this was a nice area? Quiet? Peaceful?’ Winter was frowning. ‘And on a Sunday too?’

  ‘Yes, sir. On your way now. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.’

  Dismissed by an infant, Winter thought. He gave the P/C a nod, lingered for a final look down the road, then strolled on. Some distance ahead, on the pavement across the road beside the pitch and putt, he spotted a pedestrian walking his dog. Quickening his pace, Winter crossed the road, recognising another of Bazza’s neighbours, an old guy in polished brogues with an equally ancient Scottie. In these situations a handshake always helped.

  ‘And you are … ?’ The man was looking confused.

  ‘The name’s Paul Winter. I’m a friend of the Mackenzies. You’ll have seen me around.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah …’ Winter gestured back towards Sandown Road. ‘So what’s been going on?’