No Lovelier Death

by Hurley, Graham

  Winter assumed they were talking about Jax Bonner. He shook his head. After Suttle’s departure last night he’d driven up to Merrivale Road.

  ‘She’s gone to ground, Baz. She’s got a flat up in North End but the Old Bill were sitting on it last night, marked car across the road, so that tells me they’re not expecting her back.’

  ‘And why would they be interested?’

  Winter told him about the footage on Facebook. The girl acting as administrator on the site had now removed the pictures of Jax slashing the pictures but they’d been up there for most of yesterday, time enough for even his ex-colleagues to log on.

  ‘She’s in the frame then?’

  ‘Definitely. I know fuck all about her background but I gather the flat belongs to her brother. Does the name Scott Giles ring any bells?’

  Bazza shook his head. Winter knew at once he was lying. The denial was too quick, a reflex action, almost a twitch.

  ‘Young guy? Early twenties? Recently made a name for himself in the cocaine biz?’

  ‘Pass.’

  ‘You’re sure about this? Only a couple of ex-informants I’ve been talking to this morning say the boy Giles had a serious run-in with Danny Cooper. Same market, same clients, same turf. There wasn’t ever going to be room for the two of them so young Danny decided it was time to tidy the place up.’

  ‘He did?’ Mackenzie was watching Winter carefully. ‘And how might he have done that?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, Baz. All I’ve got is rumour. Street talk. You know what it’s like around drugs. You can’t trust any of these lowlife animals.’

  ‘So what did they tell you?’

  ‘They told me Danny laid hands on a decent stash of charlie, bulked it out with all kinds of shit, wrapped it up in cling film, and parked it in one of Giles’s lock-ups. There’s some other stuff about a sandwich Giles bought from a corner store up in North End. That was wrapped in cling film as well. It seems the sandwich cling film ended up round half a kilo of cocaine with Giles’s prints all over it. They even rescued the remains of the sandwich from the bin where Giles had left it. That was in the garage too. Prints from the cling film. DNA from the sandwich. Bingo.’

  ‘Clever.’

  ‘Extremely.’

  ‘And kosher, do you think?’

  ‘Could easily be. Think about it, Baz. What would you need? Some scrote to follow Giles around, clock the way he spends his days, find out where he buys his lunch. This guy’s busy. He’s on the move. He’s buying and selling gear. He’s renting out lock-ups. He snacks on the move. He chomps on the sandwich, eats the best bits, dumps the rest. You wait till he’s gone, then go to the bin and help yourself. Wear gloves and you’re home safe. Writes itself, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah?’ Mackenzie was looking thoughtful. ‘This Giles kid went down, didn’t he? I remember the case now. Five years.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And he’s definitely this girl’s brother?’

  ‘That’s what I’m told. And they were tight too. Still are. Giles is in Albany. She’s been going across to visit on the ferry every week. Set your clock by it.’

  Albany was a Category A prison on the Isle of Wight. Mackenzie wanted to know why brother and sister had different surnames.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘So what are we saying?’

  ‘We’re playing the copper, Baz. We’re wondering about motivation.

  About opportunity. About MO. We’re looking hard at Jax Bonner and we find she’s half in love with a brother who’s been sent down on dodgy evidence. She knows it’s dodgy because her brother’s told her so and she trusts her brother. She’s a bit of a headcase and so now she’s looking for someone to blame. She doesn’t think the judge played a blinder at the trial and, who knows, she might be right. She has a bit of a think about it and then one day she hears about a party. She knows fuck all about Craneswater but she doesn’t need to. All she needs is a name. And guess what … ?’

  ‘Ault.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Shit. You think she did it? You think she did them both? With that knife? From my fucking kitchen?’

  ‘No idea, Baz. But a year ago there’s no way I wouldn’t have wanted a long conversation.’

  ‘So that’s where they’re heading? The Filth?’

  ‘Absolutely no question.’ He paused. ‘You think we might have a problem with that?’

  Jimmy Suttle didn’t arrive at Major Crime until lunchtime. The Scott Giles bust had come out of the Serious Organised Crime Squad based at Havant, and Suttle had spent half the morning at Havant nick going through the CPS file with a D/C who’d worked on the case.

  Operation Fiddler, he told Suttle, had been a pain in the arse. For one thing everyone was a bit puzzled why Giles should have earned himself so much investigative resource. It seemed the lad had done OK from the narco-biz but more and more of his profits were coming from the lock-ups, and that appeared to be a totally legit operation. Indeed, in the eyes of many social workers Giles was a textbook example of a bad apple hauling himself out of the shit. So why bother spoiling that little aspirational fairy tale?

  ‘Good question.’ Faraday had invited Suttle into his office. ‘So what’s the answer?’

  ‘No one seems to know, boss. To be fair, there was a big question mark about exactly how much weight the bloke had been shifting when he was at it full throttle, but there they had a problem too. Largely because everyone was clueless. My guy had a couple of informants who swore blind he was only playing at it. There was another D/C who had different information. He said Giles was bidding for the big time. In the end Fiddler ran with him.’

  ‘So what made the difference?’

  ‘Partly it’s covering your arse. Someone says Giles is a major player, you can’t afford to ignore it. But then they sorted out some surveillance and it turned out he was a busy little fucker. They laid hands on a deals list and it seemed to be kosher. Giles made regular calls. Often in the nicer parts of town.’

  ‘Where did the list come from?’

  ‘Another tyro. Danny Cooper.’

  ‘Danny Cooper’s one of Bazza’s boys. He’s supposed to have his eye on the crown jewels.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And he’d know about these clients because Giles might have nicked them off him?’

  ‘Sure, boss. Or vice versa. Put Giles away, and Cooper’s got a clear run. Takeover time. Those clients become his clients. Isn’t that the way it works?’

  Faraday wanted to get back to the trial. What was the consensus on the strength of the CPS file?

  ‘Dodgy. In fact weak. Half the squad thought there was no point submitting it in the first place.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Giles must have heard a whisper. Either that or he’d genuinely binned the drugs biz. They boshed his flat, his motor, all his lock-ups. Nothing.’

  ‘Apart from half a kilo of cocaine.’

  ‘Exactly. But that was the following week when Giles was out of town. He’d just taken himself off to Spain for a little holiday. Next thing Fiddler’s getting word about a stash of charlie in this particular lock-up. It’s a stand-alone place up in Copnor, not even on an industrial estate, and of all his properties it’s the only one without any kind of CCTV. Naturally the guys arrive to do the lock-up but there’s another funny thing …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s wide open already. Someone’s been at it. Clumsy too. Crowbar job. The source says they’ve got to look under a pile of stuff at the back, nothing too difficult, and guess what? Half a kilo of charlie with bits of Scott Giles all over it. Not just that, but half a sandwich nearby. Tuna salad, if you want the detail. They trace the sandwich to a little shop in North End, seize the CCTV, send the sandwich off for profiling, and bingo … Giles’s face on the CCTV tapes, Giles’s DNA all over the sandwich. Two strikes, and the guy’s got a big problem. They arrested him at Gatwick on his way back from his hols. He hasn’t been a free man since.�
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  ‘Except he didn’t do it.’

  ‘Very probably not. His defence brief at the trial drives a cart and horses through the evidence from the lock-up. What kind of drug baron can’t afford a new roll of cling film? Why pollute all that charlie with bits of tuna salad? And why go on holiday with your lock-up door wide open? It wasn’t just the charlie he had in there. There was a motor, for fuck’s sake, plus a bunch of tools and a Harley-Davidson he was going to do up. Some of the blokes on the squad thought the case was so thin that Giles would do them for false arrest. Then came the judge’s summing-up. After that he was lucky not to pull a life sentence.’

  The D/C, said Suttle, had been present at the trial. Astonished by this sudden bend in the road, he’d made notes. Judge Ault, he said, hadn’t dwelt overlong on the evidence. Instead he’d directed the jury’s attention to the plague of drug dealers, big and small, preying on the city’s youth. As it happened, most of Giles’s alleged deals list had been middle-aged and moneyed. Coordinated raids on multiple addresses had certainly turned up recreational amounts of charlie and weed, but no one was talking and it hadn’t been possible to tie any of it to Giles. This, though, was mere detail. The accused, said the judge, was educated, clever and undoubtedly interested in making money. To make money you need money. That money may well have come from drug dealing, and but for one tiny slip Mr Giles might still be in the extremely profitable business of supply.

  ‘One tiny slip?’ Faraday was smiling.

  ‘Exactly. Over a grand’s worth of charlie and he leaves the door wide open. Not to mention the motor and the Harley and everything else.’

  ‘What about the girl? Any idea whether she was at the trial?’

  ‘Every day. I asked. I took the Facebook photo up to Havant and the D/C confirmed it. She’s not hard to spot.’

  ‘And after the verdict?’

  ‘She had a go at the judge. And nearly ended up on a contempt charge.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She called him a fucking disgrace.’

  ‘Threats?’

  ‘No.’

  Faraday nodded. He could imagine the scene only too well. Justified or otherwise, there were few families in the city who didn’t take a guilty verdict very personally indeed.

  ‘And your feeling, Jimmy?’

  ‘About what, boss?’

  ‘About Scott Giles. You think he was fitted up?’

  ‘I think it’s odds on, yes. The lad had definitely been knocking out serious weight in his time but the lads on Fiddler never got to prove it. As it is, he’ll probably be back in a couple of years with all kinds of new tricks up his sleeve. And he won’t be interested in lock-ups any more.’

  ‘But where does it take us? With the girl?’

  ‘Jax Bonner? She’s angry already. Her brother going down like that probably confirms all the shit that’s pumping around her fevered little brain. I can imagine she enjoyed taking the knife to that picture. Whether she took it to the daughter as well has got to be a possibility. ’ He offered Faraday a thin smile. ‘No?’

  Faraday’s head turned towards the window. By now Jax Bonner’s photo and details would be with every force in the country. Media Relations was talking to the tabloids about tomorrow’s editions and he’d heard a whisper that Newsnight was fishing for mobile footage from the party. In some strange way Rachel Ault, and the wreckage she’d left behind her, had become the property of the nation. Look what we’ve done to ourselves. Look where we’re heading.

  ‘The Aults are back tomorrow,’ Faraday said softly. ‘What a bloody homecoming.’

  En route back to the Intelligence Cell, Suttle made a detour to the office Jerry Proctor had commandeered down the corridor. He’d noticed his Volvo estate in the car park. Proctor’s bulk hung over the desk.

  ‘Jerry … ?’

  Suttle stood in the open doorway. He’d talked privately to Proctor first thing this morning and asked him what he could do to press the Fingerprint Department at Netley to fast-track the lifts from Mackenzie’s kitchen. Proctor had naturally asked why but had respected Suttle’s shake of the head.

  Now he said it was sorted. The guy in charge of the print department owed him a favour or two and he’d been happy to quietly reprioritise.

  Suttle said he was grateful.

  ‘So what are we looking at?’ he asked.

  ‘I checked in about an hour ago. Most of the prints they eliminated against Mackenzie and his wife. There are a bunch of much smaller lifts but they’d fit the grandkids. Apparently they come down every week. Netley are now looking hard at two other lifts.’

  One, he said, was a full set from a glass found beside the sink. There’d also been smears of blood around the lip of the same glass.

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘Two palm prints, both on the top exterior surface of the fridge, about a foot and a half apart. Like this …’ He stood up and held out both arms, palms flat.

  ‘As if you were leaning against the fridge, you mean?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Have they ID’d them yet?’

  ‘No. They’re going to bell me.’

  Suttle was thinking hard. Maybe the Mackenzies had someone in to clean during the week. Maybe the fridge had gone on the blink and a call-out engineer had been wrestling it back in after working on it. There were, he knew, a thousand explanations.

  Proctor turned to face Suttle. As he did so, his eyes flicked left. Faraday was standing in the corridor. He must have heard every word.

  There was a moment of absolute silence. Suttle knew exactly what was coming next.

  ‘Why the interest in Mackenzie’s kitchen?’ He enquired. ‘And what’s so important you couldn’t tell me first?’

  Winter met Lizzie Hodson early in the afternoon. She’d called him from the Mary Rose Museum in the naval dockyard. She’d been doing an interview and had half an hour to spare before she had to be back at the News. It was a lovely day. Did he fancy a meet on The Hard?

  The Hard was a busy length of harbour front flanked by HMS Warrior. Winter hurried down from Gunwharf, intrigued. First Hodson wanted to know about Jimmy Suttle.

  ‘You two got together?’

  ‘We did, my love. We did.’

  ‘Profitable, I hope?’

  ‘Very. I’ve got a soft spot for the lad. I must be getting old.’

  Talking about Suttle like this felt mildly embarrassing. Was there any other reason she’d suddenly been in touch?

  ‘We took a call in the newsroom yesterday,’ she said. ‘I thought you might be interested.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘A girl called Jax Bonner. She wanted to talk to somebody about Saturday night. One of the subs has been pulling all our coverage together. He was the guy she talked to in the end.’

  ‘And what did she want?’

  ‘Money. She said she’d sell us her story for ten grand. By that time we were aware of the new Facebook posting. You’ve seen that stuff? With the knife and the picture?’ Winter nodded. ‘That gave us a problem. On the one hand, she’s probably got some kind of a story to sell. On the other, she’s obviously down for criminal damage. Plus the police are circulating her photo. There are rules about this kind of thing and our bosses won’t put a foot out of line. Even if we ended up with a reasonable figure, we’d be mega-exposed. Plus we never pay more than peanuts.’

  ‘So no deal?’

  ‘None. In these cases you sometimes end up with a freebie because what the person really wants is publicity, but even so I don’t think we’d ever have touched it.’

  ‘So it was a waste of time? Is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘Not at all. The sub was bright enough to 1471 the number. He tells me she phoned again this morning. Same number.’ She smiled. ‘It was local. You want it?’

  Faraday told himself the mid-afternoon trip back to the Bargemaster’s House was strictly in the line of duty. Gabrielle was no longer just his lover and his muse. By v
irtue of the kids she was meeting, of the stuff they were telling her, she may well have become a key source for Mandolin. A diligent CID officer like himself needed to know that she was safe.

  Last night he’d spent the best part of two hours scrolling through Gabrielle’s notes, laboriously scanning page after page of her French, trying to get a fix on the chain of events that had finally put her in the back of a taxi, bleeding and bruised.

  None of the interviews carried names or contact details. Instead, she’d capitalised each of the people she’d talked to. K, for instance, sounded like a youngish adolescent from Portsea. She’d talked about how much she missed her dad, how much she worried about her mum, how hard it was to get to school in the morning if you’d spent half the night sniffing lighter fluid.

  F, on the other hand, was more forthright. He had a jigsaw of ASBOs across the city and shoplifting in Commercial Road had become a bit of a nightmare. The guys working the street cameras from the CCTV control room had your face on file, and if they spotted you in a banned area then you and the gear got nicked in minutes. Getting home in one piece had therefore become a real challenge. Last time he tried it, keeping to streets where he was legal, he must have done near-on ten miles. No doubt about it. ASBOs made you seriously fit.

  There’d been more material like this, pages and pages of it, a montage of young lives briefly caught on Gabrielle’s audio tape. Collectively, as Gabrielle had already told him, the interviews spoke of an almost tribal sense of belonging. Most kids talked about their mates, about getting by without money, about helping each other out, about partying in the park with a case of stolen Carlsberg after a mass descent on some corner shop or other. Life, they seemed to be saying, was a laugh as long as you didn’t take it too seriously.

  Other kids were less convinced. They described the dangers of straying onto the wrong street at the wrong time. They drew a map of tribal Pompey, of fault lines between estates you’d be wise not to cross, of hot spots where you could pretty much rely on a good kicking. One in particular, a girl, talked of spirits briefly lifted by booze or drugs, of a relationship with a Buckland boy which had almost worked, of doors inched open then slammed shut again. She wanted to get out, she’d told Gabrielle. But getting out was so fucking hard.