No Lovelier Death

by Hurley, Graham

  Leaving the Mondeo outside in the sunshine, Faraday let himself into the house. There was no sign of Gabrielle on the ground floor. Upstairs, the bed was empty. He bent low to the pillow, smoothing the creases, pausing to stare at the ochre smears of blood. The clothes she’d been wearing last night were piled by the window. He picked them up one by one, finding more blood on the jeans, on her favourite Georges Brassens T-shirt. He’d never thought of her as a crime scene before and he found the image deeply troubling. Had he, in some unconscious way, been responsible for attracting her to a project like this? Had she watched him leave for work every morning? Had she seen that same face, wearied by another working day, trying to summon the energy to sustain this relationship of theirs? Had she decided to take her own look at the broken chaotic lives that sometimes threatened to swamp their little boat?

  In the end he dismissed the thought. He’d rarely met anyone so nerveless, so independent as Gabrielle. She’d survived alone on the very edges of the civilised world and she had dozens of stamps in her passport to prove it. To her the Pompey estates were probably as exotic and alien as anywhere else she’d been and the hours of interview currently on her laptop were simply another path into the jungle.

  Back downstairs, he looked unsuccessfully for a note. He was about to return to the car when he thought to check in the garden. He found her in the hammock he’d slung for the warmer days, swaying peacefully in the breeze from the harbour, her face splashed with sunshine, her eyes closed. He looked down at her for a long moment. The purple bruising round her eye was beginning to turn yellow at the edges. He was about to creep away, relieved, when he felt the touch of her hand.

  She rarely called him Joe. She sounded sleepy.

  ‘You should be au travail.’

  ‘This is work.’

  ‘Me? I’m work? You mean that?’ She struggled to sit up, holding the sides of the hammock. For the first time Faraday noticed the broken nails on her left hand. She must have put up a struggle, he thought.

  He gave the hammock a nudge. She fell back, mustering a grin.

  ‘Out tonight then?’ He said. ‘Only it might be wise to book an ambulance this time.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Non.’ She shook her head. ‘You have to be careful. Some of these kids are …’ she frowned, hunting for the word ‘… instables?’

  ‘Unstable. Volatile.’

  ‘C’est ça.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I was unlucky.’

  ‘Are we talking lots of kids?’

  ‘Five or six. Maybe more. I wasn’t counting.’

  ‘You knew them?’

  ‘Some of them. It was late too. And dark.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Cosham.’

  Cosham was a suburb on the mainland, an area where the badlands of Paulsgrove seeped into rows of detached villas on the lower slopes of Portsdown Hill. Another fault line, another stretch of no-man’s-land.

  ‘So what happened?’ he asked again.

  ‘We were walking. I was looking for a bus. One of the kids wanted money. He was young, maybe fourteen. He was crazy too. He kept saying he wanted his money back. And he kept laughing.’

  ‘His money back?’

  ‘Oui. Vraiment. I think he was trying to be philosophe. Like he’d joined a club. Like he’d paid his money at the door. Like he didn’t like what he found inside. So …’ she shrugged ‘… he wanted his money back.’

  ‘Your money?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘And you gave him some?’

  ‘No. I never give them money. Food, oui. Tea, coffee, Coke, absolument. Money?’ She shook her head. ‘Jamais.’

  ‘So he took it?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘Oui. I had no cards, just money. Maybe ten pounds. Not much.’

  ‘And you just handed it over?’

  ‘Non.’ Her hand strayed to her face. ‘Une bagarre.’

  They’d fought. Faraday didn’t doubt it.

  ‘And the other kids?’

  ‘They ran away. Afterwards I found a place to sit down. Then the taxi stopped. You know the rest.’

  Faraday nodded. In a way she’d been lucky. Kids en masse had a habit of piling in. Maybe they’d run away out of shame. Because they knew her.

  ‘The one who robbed you. You knew him too?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘Tall. Thin. And like I say, he was crazy. Fou. The other kids were scared of him. You could see that. Maybe …’ she frowned ‘… il planait. I don’t know.’

  Il planait meant he was high. Faraday paused, struck by another thought.

  ‘Did he take anything else? Apart from the money?’

  ‘Oui.’ She nodded. ‘He took my phone.’

  Winter resisted trying the number until he was back in his apartment. Before Lizzie Hodson had left him at The Hard she’d asked again about Jimmy Suttle, inquiring whether they were going to keep this new partnership of theirs going, and Winter had begun to wonder whether she was using him as some kind of back channel. Only slut journos fed information directly to the Old Bill. Maybe Winter was the next best thing.

  He took the cordless onto his balcony and made himself comfortable. The new recliner had come from Ikea in Guildford, a surprise present from Marie. He checked the number against the note he’d made then punched it in.

  It rang and rang. Way out on the harbour three canoeists were battling against the incoming tide. Winter watched them for a while, wondering about the spreading wake from a nearby ferry, then gave up on the call. With the 02392 prefix, it had to be a landline. But why would Jax Bonner risk leaving a big fat clue like that?

  He sat in the sunshine, knowing how much he was enjoying himself. Thanks to Rachel Ault he was back in a job that had made him what he was: getting in people’s faces, hunting down leads, backing hunches, nailing down bits of information until a pattern was staring him in the face. He was good at this. He knew he was.

  Freelancing, on the other hand, had its drawbacks. A year ago, nailing down a phone number, he’d have been on to the girlie who kept the reverse directory in the big operations room at Netley. He’d have given her the number and she’d have come right back with an address. Single keystroke. All there on the computer. Simple. Nowadays he couldn’t do that. Or not quite as quickly.

  He smiled, waving peaceably at a middle-aged blonde on the waterfront, then he lifted the phone again.

  It had taken no time at all to memorise Jimmy’s new mobe number. Winter’s call diverted to messaging.

  ‘Me, son.’ Winter stifled a yawn. ‘Give us a bell, eh?’

  Suttle had been summoned to Faraday’s office. To his relief the D/I’s spirits appeared to have lifted. A couple of hours ago he’d been preoccupied to the point where Suttle had begun to wonder about his health. Now there was a hint of a smile on his face.

  ‘Jerry’s been on, boss. We seem to have a result on Mackenzie’s kitchen.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’ve tied the lifts on the glass to Rachel. The palm prints on the fridge belong to the boy, Gareth Hughes.’

  One of the CSIs, Suttle said, had taken sets of prints from both bodies before Sunday’s post-mortem. The match in both cases was beyond dispute.

  Faraday was looking up at Suttle. He hadn’t offered him a chair. ‘So what does that tell us? Since all this was your idea.’

  ‘It tells us they were both in Mackenzie’s kitchen.’

  ‘But when? Earlier in the day? Some time previous to that?’

  ‘No.’ Suttle shook his head. ‘The glass by the sink had blood on it.

  I saw the CSI’s report. If they’re Rachel’s prints, odds on the blood is hers as well. She had blood around her mouth when she left the kitchen next door. Remember, boss?’

  Faraday nodded. A couple of Rachel’s friends had been watching a food fight in the kitchen. They’d se
en her leaving by the back door. She’d been upset. She was covering her mouth with her hand. They’d noticed blood.

  ‘So she goes next door?’

  ‘Yes.’ Suttle nodded. ‘Over the wall would be favourite.’

  ‘And she gets into the Mackenzie’s kitchen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘And Hughes?’

  ‘He follows her. Unless he’s there already.’ He frowned then shook his head, dismissing the possibility. ‘She gets there first. He follows. Maybe the kitchen door was unlocked. Maybe she had access to the place. Maybe they’ve got a cat she feeds when they’re away, and they trust her with the key. Whatever.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She needs a drink. Probably water. She knows she’s pissed out of her head. There’s a glass on the draining board, she helps herself. Hence the blood.’

  ‘And Hughes arrives?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘No idea. Have they had a row? Is that why she’s upset? Has he seen Berriman’s pictures from the bathroom? Has he slapped her around a bit? Is that why she’s bleeding? It sounds pretty plausible to me.’

  ‘But what happens, Jimmy? You must have thought about this, otherwise you wouldn’t have been talking to Jerry in the first place.’

  Suttle nodded. He’d apologised earlier to Faraday for going behind his back. He’d blamed it on the pressure of events. Now he said he’d had a hunch about Mackenzie’s kitchen but he hadn’t wanted to bother Faraday with yet another investigative decision.

  ‘That’s my job,’ Faraday grunted ‘That’s what it says on my tin. So what’s the hunch?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about the semen samples. They obviously had sex.’

  ‘Rachel and Hughes, you mean? In her bedroom?’

  ‘In Mackenzie’s kitchen. Jerry’s boys only found blood in her bedroom next door. That suggests a slapping. If they’d had sex then, we’d be talking rape. I think it happened later, like I say, in Mackenzie’s kitchen. Hughes wanted her back. He wanted to know that Berriman’s pictures didn’t matter. He wanted to put his smell on her. Hence his semen in her fanny.’

  ‘We haven’t had the DNA yet. We can’t be sure.’

  ‘I know. But it stands to reason, doesn’t it? If they didn’t do it in her bedroom then there’s nowhere else next door on offer. The place was a battlefield. So …’ he shrugged ‘… it has to be Bazza’s kitchen. He wants to shag her. She’s all over the place. They get it on. Job done.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Good question.’ Suttle risked a grin. ‘I’ll keep you posted this time, boss.’

  Chapter sixteen

  WEDNESDAY, 15 AUGUST 2007. 15.39

  The message went up on Rachel’s Facebook page mid-afternoon. Winter, who happened to be logged on in search of more glimpses of Jax Bonner, was the first to spot it.

  He phoned Mackenzie, found him at the Trafalgar.

  ‘Are you ready for this, Baz?’

  Mackenzie grunted. He had his mouth full. He was eating his lunch. Winter bent to the screen, reading the message aloud. It was addressed to Jax Bonner.

  ‘“Danny Cooper fitted up your brother. Don’t believe me? Ask him.”’

  ‘It says that?’ Winter had Mackenzie’s full attention.

  ‘Plain as you like, Baz. We used to come across this kind of stuff on motorway bridges and old bits of wall. Remember all that?’

  ‘Where does it come from? Who sent it?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  ‘How do we find out?’

  ‘No idea. These things can be a nightmare, Baz. Last time I tried to trace a Hotmail address, back in the Job, the blokes who knew anything about it pissed themselves laughing. There’s all kinds of places you can hide now, believe me.’

  ‘But it’s a message, right? To the girl Jax, yeah?’

  ‘Spot on, Baz. And with her track record, you wouldn’t want to be Danny Cooper, would you?’

  It was another thirty-five minutes before the Facebook posting came to the attention of Major Crime. Jimmy Suttle took a call from Samantha Muirhead. As administrator on Rachel’s memorial site she was about to take the message down, but before she did so she thought Suttle or one of his colleagues ought to check it out.

  Suttle logged on. Sam Muirhead was still on the line.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Straight from the shoulder or what?’

  He asked her whether she had any details on the sender. She said the user name was Calico. He or she was using a Yahoo email address. Beyond that she couldn’t help.

  Suttle made a note of the user name. He’d been onto Comms Intel at Netley about Facebook. Given a crime as serious as a double homicide, to his surprise there turned out to be a procedure for tracing specific postings to an IP address.

  He bent to the phone again. Sam wanted to remove the message right away but he persuaded her to leave it on the page until he told her otherwise. Moments later he was in Faraday’s office, telling him about the latest posting and saying he’d been unduly pessimistic about Facebook.

  ‘Their legal department is in California, boss. There’s something called MLAT. Don’t ask me what it stands for but it operates on the embassy-to-embassy level. If we register our interest now, the US embassy in London talks to Facebook and Facebook ring-fences all IP data for ninety days. We wouldn’t get a result for months, but if we turn up in Palo Alto with the right pieces of Interplod paper, it’s doable.’

  ‘They can come up with a name?’

  ‘An IP address. With that we’d be halfway there.’

  ‘So what’s the time frame?’

  ‘Three weeks. Absolute minimum. You want to take a look at the Facebook message? It’s on my PC screen.’

  Faraday followed Suttle down the corridor. DCI Parsons had just been on to him about the Aults. They were arriving at Heathrow tomorrow morning at silly o’clock. Given Faraday’s knowledge of the interview statements, she thought it might be a nice gesture for him to drive up there with the Family Liaison Officer. Parsons had last talked to Peter Ault yesterday, when he and his wife were still in Sydney. They’d been happy to accept the offer of a lift back down to the South Coast. For the time being, until they got their house back, they’d be staying with friends in Denmead. Maybe they could be dropped off.

  The prospect of a 4 a.m. start from the Bargemaster’s House had filled Faraday with gloom. Now he needed to know about any late developments that might sweeten his conversation with the Aults.

  They stepped into the Intelligence Cell. Suttle nodded at the PC screen. Faraday read the message about Danny Cooper.

  ‘Someone’s hanging that bloke out to dry. Nothing like reading your own death sentence, is there?’

  Faraday found himself nodding. Suttle had a point. If Rachel Ault had paid the price for her father’s summing-up, then Danny Cooper ought to keep his door locked at night. Assuming he’d planted the cocaine in the first place.

  ‘So how do we find Cooper? Do we have a duty of care here, or what?’

  ‘No idea, boss.’

  Suttle keystroked his way into the database that Hantspol maintained on everyone who’d come to its attention. Cooper was logged for a couple of motoring offences and a sus possession charge that had come to nothing.

  ‘They’re giving 67a Lovett Road, Copnor.’ Suttle had dealt with the same address on another job. ‘That’s way out of date. A couple of numpties from Waterlooville are dossing there now.’ He glanced round at Faraday. ‘Cooper is tied to Mackenzie. Bazza used to say the boy was a real prospect. He doesn’t use that kind of language any more but I bet he knows where the bloke’s living.’

  ‘Mackenzie? And you’re really suggesting he’d come through with an address?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Should we be talking to someone close to him, then? Someone who works for him? Someone who might have the great man’s ear?’ Faraday offered
Suttle a weary smile. ‘Any ideas, Jimmy?’

  Winter was back out on his balcony, enjoying the sunshine. In these situations, he reasoned, it was always better to wait. The trill of his phone caught him drifting into a late-afternoon nap.

  ‘Jimmy …’ He was checking caller ID. ‘Thanks for getting back, son.’

  ‘Back?’

  ‘I belled you earlier. Don’t you check your messages?’

  Suttle said he’d been busy. He needed an address.

  ‘Who for?’

  ‘Danny Cooper.’

  ‘Check RMS.’ The force Records Management System.

  ‘We just did. It needs updating.’

  ‘But why ask me?’

  ‘Because you work for Mackenzie. And he’d know.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to ask him, son.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And get back to you.’ He paused. ‘I’ve got a phone number that might interest you.’

  ‘Yeah? Who for?’

  ‘Jax Bonner. She’s been belling the News. Your mate Lizzie’s been ever so helpful.’

  ‘Jax Bonner?’ The quickening in Suttle’s voice put a smile on Winter’s face.

  ‘The very same. I’m looking at it now. One condition, though. We share the address when you find it.’

  There was a silence on the line. Winter was still trying to picture the scene in the Intelligence Cell when Suttle came back. ‘No problem. Just give me the number.’

  ‘You’ll bell me back?’

  ‘Of course.’

  This, Winter knew, was a test. It would be child’s play for Suttle to screw him on the deal. Minutes later, to Winter’s intense pleasure, the boy was as good as his word.

  ‘It’s a public box,’ he said. ‘in Cosham High Street. Do you have a time on the call? Only we can check the box on CCTV. There’s a camera just up the precinct.’

  ‘Talk to Lizzie Hodson. They may have the call logged.’