No Lovelier Death

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well then …’ She was looking at Willard now, one eyebrow raised.

  At last Faraday began to understand where the conversation was heading. This wasn’t about Mandolin at all. This was about politics.

  ‘You want to get some of this stuff out there,’ he said flatly. ‘You want faces, stories, details, pictures. You want it in the papers. You want it on the telly. You want to scare people stiff. Am I right?’

  ‘You are, Joe.’ Parsons nodded. ‘We can’t release statements, of course, and we won’t.’

  ‘Names and addresses? Phone numbers?’

  ‘No way. Not coming from us. Not directly.’ She paused. ‘You’re working with young Suttle on the witness statements. Mr Willard tells me he’s close to a reporter on the News. Would that be right?’

  Faraday nodded. A year ago, with Major Crime stalled in the hunt for the killer of a property developer, Lizzie Hodson had been more than helpful.

  ‘So what are you saying?’ He was looking at Willard.

  ‘Nothing, Joe.’ He smiled. ‘This conversation never happened.’

  Winter was at Victoria Baths by mid-morning. He paid for a spectator ticket and took the stairs to the rows of tiered seating that looked down on the big pool. Already he could hear the yelp of young voices. Kids, he thought, attending by the busload from some school or other.

  He was right. He found a seat and settled in. A movable barrier separated the shallow end from the rest of the pool. The shallow end was black with kids while a handful of others were swimming laps up and down the pool itself. Among them, occupying a roped-off lane of his own, was Matt Berriman. His mum, half an hour earlier, had told Winter he’d find him here. He’d popped by Margate Road first thing and made a call to someone at the pool, she explained. She didn’t know the details but gathered he needed space to do some serious training.

  Winter watched him as he prepared to turn at the deep end. His long body seemed to carve a rippleless furrow through the water, moving without visible effort, and when the time came he somersaulted underwater, pushing off again with a single thrust of his legs. The manoeuvre was accomplished in a blink of the eye, his powerful arms already reaching ahead, his head turning for the first breath, water sluicing past his open mouth, and Winter found himself mesmerised by the way he’d made the pool his own.

  A couple of the older girls in a nearby lane had stopped to watch him. They giggled as he swept past, then one of them tried a few strokes herself, splashy, uncoordinated, useless. Her feet found the bottom again and she squeezed the water out of her eyes in time to see him turn at the other end, alone in his bubble, totally beyond reach.

  A woman appeared from a door at the end of the pool. Ignoring the bedlam at the shallow end, she strode towards the lane occupied by Berriman. She was tall, with cropped black hair. Her tracksuit was badged PN on the back, and she paused halfway down the pool, then squatted on her haunches, waiting for Berriman to stop. Two lengths later, he pulled up beside her, folding his arms on the edge of the pool. A conversation followed. The woman demonstrated an arm movement. Her limbs were as long as Berriman’s. Then she reached out and squeezed his shoulder before getting to her feet.

  Berriman began to swim again, faster this time, the water churning behind him. She watched for a moment or two, a smile on her face, then she looked up. Winter raised a hand. He hadn’t a clue who she was but he sensed she was worth a conversation. When she disappeared the way she’d come in, he left his seat and took the stairs back to the front lobby.

  He found her beside the drinks machine, trying to steady a plastic cup beneath a thin stream of black coffee.

  ‘And you are?’ She hadn’t turned round.

  ‘My name’s Winter. Paul Winter. You got a moment?’

  For the third time in two days Winter found himself missing the warrant card. In the Job an encounter like this would be child’s play. He’d sit her down, explain his interest, have a chat. Out on your own, meetings with total strangers were an entirely different proposition

  Keep it simple, he decided. Stick to the truth.

  ‘I work for a guy called Mackenzie’ he said. ‘Two kids died by his swimming pool last night.’

  ‘I know. One of them was Rachel Ault. I used to coach her.’ She juggled the hot cup. ‘You want one of these?’

  She took him into an office at the back of the building. A wallboard had been gridded in blue, a list of names down one side. Morning sessions started at 05.30. You were expected back in the pool at 16.30. The corkboard behind the door was covered in newspaper cuttings and snatched photos. In one of them he recognised a younger Rachel Ault looking up the camera as she climbed from the pool. The Speedo costume flattened the contours of her body but she had a smile that would turn heads in any pub. Lucky guy, thought Winter, thinking of the torpedo in the fast lane.

  He took a sip of coffee. It was scalding.

  ‘You coach him too? Matt Berriman?’

  ‘Coached. Past tense. He chucked it in a couple of months ago.’

  ‘Would that be after he split up with the girl? Rachel?’

  ‘Before. I think she’d seen it coming. I certainly had.’ She eyed Winter a moment. ‘So where are you going with all this? Do you mind me asking?’

  ‘Not all. And if I had an answer, I’d tell you. Like I say, I work for a guy called Mackenzie. He—’

  ‘I know Mackenzie.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes. Matt’s mum used to talk about him. You should get in touch with her if you want to find out about Matt.’

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She was very helpful. Can’t have been easy, with that other boy of hers.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  Winter was waiting for more detail. When nothing happened he asked about Matt’s mother and Mackenzie. How come they’d once been friends?

  ‘She didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  She studied Winter for a long moment, then shrugged.

  ‘When the kids were really young she had all kinds of trouble with the father. He used to beat her up. Regularly. She thinks now it had to do with Ricky. He was pretty odd even then. But at the time this guy was making her life a misery.’

  ‘And Mackenzie?’

  ‘He sorted him out. Alice Berriman had been a school mate of Marie’s. They all used to party together, drop the tabs Bazza was flogging, go to the same gigs. Bazza knew Alice well.’

  Winter nodded, beginning to understand. He could be a brick when you really needed something, Alice had told Winter earlier.

  ‘So Bazza came to the rescue? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes. She phoned him up one day in a bit of a state and he went straight round and put the guy in hospital. After that, according to Alice, there wasn’t a problem. She was grateful, as you might imagine.’

  ‘And does Matt know about all this?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. He may do. Mackenzie used to come to some of the swim meets in the early days, when Matt was starting out, but I haven’t seen him for years.’

  Winter remembered Bazza’s intervention on Saturday night. It had been Matt who’d saved him from a serious slapping. A blood debt settled, Winter thought, half a generation later. Very Pompey.

  ‘How much do you know about the party on Saturday night?’

  ‘Only what Matt told me.’

  ‘Did he stay on after Mackenzie left?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he was still there when the Old Bill arrived?’

  ‘Yes. And he ended up in a cell in God knows where.’

  Winter nodded. A party on that scale would stretch his ex-colleagues to breaking point.

  ‘They nicked him?’

  ‘They asked him to come along as a witness. I gather it was virtually the same thing, though. If you said no, then you’d be arrested.’

  Winter, in his head, was back on Major Crime. He understood the mindset; he could p
icture the likes of Faraday trying to boil down busloads of pissed youth to a list of prime suspects. You started with the obvious. You started with opportunity. And then you looked for a motive.

  ‘How did the interview go?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, but he had two of them. One yesterday morning up in Newbury. Then another in the evening, back down here.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. He’s got a problem, hasn’t he? Ex-boyfriend of one victim? Jealous as fuck of the other one? And this is a lad who knows a thing or two about violence?’

  ‘That’s a bit strong, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not if you’re a copper. And not if he has a criminal record.’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘His mum told me. Flat out on the M27 in some friend’s BMW.’

  ‘I expect he was upset.’

  ‘Sure. I expect he was. Doesn’t work in court, though, does it?’

  She accepted the point with a nod, then drained her coffee. Winter could still hear the echoing shriek of kids splashing about in the pool.

  ‘I didn’t catch your name,’ he said.

  ‘Nikki. Nikki Dunlop.’

  ‘You work here?’

  ‘I work for the club. Northsea. I keep an eye out for prospects - kids from school - and take them to the next level.’

  ‘Kids like Matt and Rachel?’

  ‘Absolutely. Though they were both exceptional.’

  ‘You’d know Matt well then?’

  ‘I’d like to think so.’

  ‘So how’s he doing?’ Winter hunted for the right phrase. ‘Under this kind of pressure?’

  ‘What kind of pressure?’

  ‘Coppers sitting him down, asking him the hard questions, getting in his face. This is a murder inquiry. They don’t fuck about.’

  She thought about the question for a moment, gazing down at the empty cup in her lap. Her hands, Winter noticed, were huge. Finally, she looked up at him again.

  ‘You think Matt would be thrown by something like that?’

  ‘It’s possible. I used to be CID. Most kids are all mouth, even these days.’

  ‘And you think Matt’s like that?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. That’s why I’m asking the question.’

  ‘Sure.’ Her eyes had strayed to a sports bag tucked untidily beneath the desk. ‘There’s two things you ought to understand about Matt. The first is he wouldn’t have put a finger on Rachel, not a single finger. He’d never have touched her, let alone killed her.’

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘For sure.’

  She held Winter’s gaze. Something in her eyes spoke of defiance. ‘And the other?’

  ‘Matt was a sprint specialist. He wanted to be the best, the fastest.

  Blokes like him swim fifty metres. That’s nothing, that’s a blink. I took him to the national squad. Last year, before he packed it in, he got that close to the British record.’ Two fingers, a millimetre apart. ‘It took him five years to swim that single race, five years of sessions you wouldn’t believe, five years of total dedication, five years for 22.3 seconds. This is a man who’s asked himself some serious questions. Handling a couple of interviews would never have been a problem. Not if he knew it wasn’t down to him.’

  Winter fought the urge to applaud. It wasn’t defiance he’d seen in her eyes. It was pride. All the same, one word snagged.

  ‘Man?’ he queried.

  ‘Sure.’ She smiled at last, getting up. ‘That’s the whole point.’

  She said she had a couple of conversations to finish in the pool. Maybe he ought to talk to Matt himself.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Of course. Be my guest. I’ll tell him to get changed.’

  In a break between meetings, Faraday asked Jimmy Suttle to come to his office. The young acting D/S appeared minutes later, taking the proffered seat and spreading the interview statements across the desk.

  ‘This is half of them, boss. In fact less than half. I’m sparing you the rubbish.’

  Faraday gazed at the pile of forms. Gail Parsons had been right. This was a monster.

  ‘You’ve been through the lot?’

  ‘Every page. Ninety-four statements. If you’re asking me if we’re looking at any kind of real breakthrough, the answer has to be no.’ His hand rested lightly on top of the pile. ‘Our guys went for open account, just the way we asked them. They obviously wanted to know pretty much what happened, in pretty much what order. When Rachel or the lad Gareth come into the frame they’ve obviously pressed for more detail but it’s all pretty chaotic. No one wants to commit themselves. Either they were too pissed or they’ve got something to hide or they just don’t like us.’

  ‘And that applies to Rachel’s friends?’

  ‘Most of them, yes. I haven’t had time to look at the interview vids or listen to the audio, but reading this stuff, as far as her friends are concerned, you just get the impression that they just want to forget it all. I think there’s probably a bit of guilt there too. Maybe they could have done more. Maybe they should have done more.’

  ‘To save her life?’

  ‘To chuck the chavs out.’

  ‘So why didn’t they?’

  ‘Good question. We know some of the bigger lads, the rugby crowd, were squaring up to have a go, but the girl we interviewed, Samantha, obviously talked them out of it, just the way she told us. In retrospect, that might have been a mistake.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because at that point the numbers weren’t too horrific. It’s hard to get a real handle on this stuff time-wise but I’d guess around half ten for the face-off. After that, they were doomed. Look …’

  Some of the pages on the desk were tagged with Post-its. Suttle quickly leafed through until he found what he was after. He indicated a couple of lines flagged in green Pentel. Faraday glanced at the name of the top of the page. Jeremy Manningham. Unusually, this was a direct quote.

  ‘It was unbelievable,’ he’d told the interviewing officers. ‘They just kept coming and coming. One minute we’d been looking at maybe a dozen of them, tops, then the gawkers were everywhere. You couldn’t move for bloody Stone Island and Lacoste. Horrible …’

  ‘Stone Island?’

  ‘It’s chav gear. You buy it cheap at Gunwharf.’

  ‘Gawkers?’

  ‘Chavs. But that’s not the point, boss. This guy happens to have got it bang on the nose, but a lot of these kids, mates of Rachel, are basically saying the same thing. After half ten or around there, the place was just swamped. It’s kids with mobiles. It’s the invading army. It’s reinforcements. Some of the estates must have been bloody empty by midnight.’

  ‘So the kids we nicked? The ones we carted away for interview … ?’

  ‘Tip of the iceberg. A lot of the chavs had gone by then.’

  ‘Empty-handed?’

  ‘Hardly.’ He nodded at the statements. ‘No one’s naming names but obviously a lot of the Aults’ stuff walked. Literally.’

  Faraday sat back, gazing at the rooftops beyond the car park. Until the judge and his wife returned there’d be no prospect of a proper audit, but Suttle was surely right. Saturday night would have turned into a free-for-all, the Christmas of your dreams. Help-yourself time. A real gift.

  ‘So we’re saying it’s all down to the chavs, are we?’

  ‘For it all kicking off? Definitely. For a spot of pillaging, a spot of social revenge - no question. The rest - Rachel, the boy Hughes - I’ve no idea.’

  ‘What about Rachel herself? Any glimpses?’

  ‘Plenty. Everyone’s agreed that she was pissed, in fact extremely pissed, but no one’s suggesting she was slutting it up. Apparently she started drinking early, just the way we heard it from her mate, and my guess is she probably never stopped. As things got tricky, she seemed to lose her grip completely. A couple of the girls talk about her being in tears, really emotional, mainly because of what might happen to the house. One of them said she was terrified of her father,
especially of what would happen if we got involved. That might be a bit strong but once things really kicked off she’s in a place no one wants to be. All these kids kicking the shit out of the family heirlooms and fuck all she can do about it. Not nice.’

  ‘What about the incident in the old man’s study? The kids on the desk?’

  ‘Most of them didn’t see it, not for real. Word got round, of course, like it would, but it was mainly in connection with the lad Berriman. One of the PGS girls said he put the rugby lads to shame.’

  ‘Did they see Berriman as a chav?’

  ‘Oddly enough, no. But I think that’s because a lot of them knew him. He’d been with Rachel for years, of course. That made him human, gave him visiting rights.’

  The phrase made Faraday laugh. On another double murder, barely a year ago, Suttle had played a blinder, again in the intelligence role. This time he showed every sign of repeating the trick.

  Faraday had been thinking hard about Rachel. At some point in the evening she must have left the party and gone next door to Mackenzie’s place. Which meant, in turn, that somebody must have seen her.

  ‘They did, boss. At least I think they did. And the timeline makes sense.’

  Around half eleven, he explained, the wreckers had moved into the Aults’ kitchen. A bunch of Rachel’s mates had been in there, mainly girls, watching in disbelief as a food fight started. Eggs from the fridge. Bags of flour. Bottles of tomato sauce. Jars of pickle. Anything they could lay their hands on.

  ‘Apparently the stuff was everywhere - mayonnaise, balsamic vinegar, pesto, the lot.’

  Faraday nodded. He’d seen the Scenes of Crime shots on Proctor’s laptop. One of the kitchen walls looked like an early Jackson Pollock.

  ‘And Rachel?’

  ‘Two of these girls say she came into the kitchen. They remember because she was so upset, as she would be, but there was something else about her. She was holding her hand to her face as if someone had smacked her. One of the girlies tried to talk to her but she didn’t want to know. At one point her hand came down and there was blood around her mouth.’

  ‘Did she say anything?’

  ‘Nothing they mentioned.’