‘So how do you feel now?’
‘Shit. And my leg hurts like a bastard. Even Marie feels sorry for me.’
When Mackenzie wanted to look round he had to move his entire body. Winter realised he was checking the door.
‘It’s closed, Baz. What’s the problem?’
‘This whole thing.’
‘What whole thing?’
‘The party. What happened. Rachel and her mate by the pool.
Ault …’
‘And?’
‘Let’s just forget it. Tell you the truth, mush, I got the bloke wrong.
Turns out he’s a cunt.’
‘Who?’ Winter was lost.
‘Ault. He comes back today with his missus. I nip next door, like you would. I tell him how sorry we are, what a shitheap the house is, how he can stay as long as he likes round our place. I couldn’t have been sweeter with the guy. And you know what? He just blanks me.’
‘He’s just lost his daughter, Baz. And he only had one of them to begin with. He’s probably a bit upset.’
‘Upset? Of course he’s fucking upset. Anyone would be upset. But this guy’s giving it to me like I was in court. He thinks I did it, mush - he thinks it was my fault. I could see it. It was all over his face. Mister Mackenzie? Who the fuck does he think he is?’
Winter sat back. The implications were clear. No more investigations. No more running round playing the detective.
‘It might not be as simple as that, Baz. Not the way I see it. You’re right to want to get to the bottom of this and you know why? Because they ended up in your back garden.’
‘It’s history, mush. It’s gone.’
‘No, it hasn’t.’
‘No?’
‘I’m afraid not. You remember the Scenes of Crime blokes? Crawling round your place for a couple of days?’
‘Yeah?’ Mackenzie had forgotten for a moment about the pain.
‘They found a couple of sets of prints in your kitchen. One of them was Rachel’s. The other belonged to the lad Hughes.’
‘He’s never been in my kitchen.’
‘He has, Baz. The night he died.’
‘But how do you know?’
‘I just told you. They got lifts.’
‘But how do you know that?’
‘The same way I found out about Danny Cooper and all that blood all over his bedroom walls. I talk to people, Baz. People I trust.’
‘The Filth?’
‘Of course. You think I’m the only one who ever bent the rules? It’s blokes like me, Baz, that keep good citizens like you safe at night. Leave it to the other muppets and you wouldn’t get a wink.’
‘So who is this bloke?’
‘A friend of mine, Baz. He’s got a name but there’s no way I’m giving it to you. Just trust me, that’s all. Think you can cope with that?’
Mackenzie wanted to say no but Winter managed to head him off. The Old Bill might well be back, he said. They were light years from a result and they’d barely survived the weekend’s media storm. Add some serious aggravation from the Craneswater Residents’ Association plus a forthcoming extraordinary meeting of the Police Authority, and they’d suddenly be in the business of reinvestigating old lines of enquiry.
‘That means you, Baz. Or putting it bluntly, us. That motor last night, the Alfa. What happens to it now?’
‘I’ve got a guy’s gonna take it round a place I know for a steam clean. Inside and out. Clean like you’ve never seen clean.’
Winter was shaking his head. Give me patience, he thought.
‘No, Baz. No way that motor leaves the double glazing place. You need a guy round there to strip off the plates, the engine number, anything that can tie it to Westie. Then you either need a complete refurb inside - new carpets, new seats, the lot - plus a respray on the outside before you find the money to ship it abroad and find a buyer. Or you invest in a can of petrol and burn the fucker. I’d go for the petrol option personally, but that’s down to you.’
‘You’re serious?’
‘Yeah, and so would you be if you’d done my job. Forensics these days, we’re talking single-cell DNA. Westie would have left gallons of the stuff. I’m telling you, Baz, it’s a no-brainer.’
Mackenzie had the grace to look impressed.
‘So what are you saying then, mush? Only I’ve had enough of going on my knees to fucking Ault.’
Winter sat back, enjoying this rare moment of authority.
‘I’m saying - suggesting - that I do what you wanted in the first place.’
‘Remind me.’
‘Put a name alongside those bodies of yours.’ He smiled. ‘For everyone’s sake.’
Chapter twenty-three
FRIDAY, 17 AUGUST 2007. 15.35
Connor said he was fourteen but Faraday didn’t believe him. He was Pompey-thin, with gelled hair, bitten nails and a look of permanent anxiety in his wide blue eyes. A blue Henri Lloyd top hung on his bony frame. On the cusp between childhood and adolescence, he talked in a low mumble with an occasional cackle of laughter when something struck him as funny.
He’d agreed to meet on condition Faraday bought him a Big Bucket at the Kentucky Fried. It had to be the KFC in the Pompey Centre, next to Fratton Park, because Connor was on multiple ASBOs, and most of the rest of the city was out of bounds to him.
Strictly speaking, Faraday was taking a risk on a meet like this. Best practice demanded specialist officers who worked with juveniles all the time and maybe an appropriate adult to sit in. The paperwork alone would have taken hours.
‘How come the ASBOs?’ Faraday helped himself to a chip.
Connor looked round, disappointed at the lack of audience. Rain pebbled on the big glass windows. The place was empty.
‘Assault and battery, bit of happy-slapping, bit of twocking. Yeah, and I nicked a speedboat.’
‘How come?’
‘Dunno. It was just there.’
The boat, he muttered, had been tied to a mooring buoy on Langstone Harbour. Connor and a couple of mates had been eyeing it for a while. They’d waded out at high tide and helped themselves, just for the laugh, but then the tide had turned and they’d found themselves drifting out through the harbour mouth. Only an alert coastguard had saved them from a night in the English Channel.
Faraday vaguely remembered the story from a piece in the News. THREE LADS IN A BOAT.
‘So what happened?’
‘The Old Bill was waiting when we got towed back. Five of them.
Well funny that was.’
As well as the ASBOs, Connor was now on curfew. He pushed the chair back from the table, rolled up one leg of his Adidas track bottoms and insisted Faraday take a look at the electronic tag. The curfew, he said, had originally been for ten in the evening. Now it was seven.
‘So how come you were at that party on Saturday?’
‘Never said I was, did I?’
‘But you know about it?’
‘Course. Everyone knows about it. Fucking laugh, mush.’
One of his brothers, he said, had gone. First thing he knew he’d been sitting at home watching the football on the telly with the old tit.
‘The old tit?’
‘Me mum. My brother, see, him and another geezer had found all this wine, bottles of the stuff. He don’t know nothing about wine, Clancy, so he phones the old tit to find out whether it’s any good.’
‘He hadn’t tried it?’
‘No, mush. It was a bottle, like I say, not opened or anything, and there’s loads more where that came from. Clancy, right, he don’t drink wine. But he wants a little earn, yeah?’
‘And your mum?’
‘She don’t know nothing about wine neither, so Clancy says what he’ll do, like, is bring a load home anyway because all the good gear had gone already.’
‘Like what?’
‘Dunno.’ He sat on his hands, shrugging. ‘iPods? Phones? Cameras? Jewellery? Any moolah lying around? Any bugle going spare?’
‘Toot. White. Cocaine.’
‘And was there?’
‘Dunno, mush. Like I say, I weren’t there.’
‘And the wine?’
‘Clancy had a load away.’
‘How did he carry it?’
‘Pillow cases. Off the bed. He had a bit of flange up there, anything to get his dick wet, Clancy. Nicked the pillow cases after, like.’
‘And the wine? He sold it in the end?’
‘Dunno. Might have done. The old tit tried a bottle. Said it was all right.’
Faraday nodded, wondering what Peter Ault would make of this conversation. Precious wines laid down for years. Necked by the old tit.
Connor had barely touched the food. Faraday told him it was getting cold. The boy looked at it a moment then pushed it away.
‘Ain’t hungry, mush. So what’s this about?’
Faraday explained a little more about the party, knowing full well that none of this would be news to the likes of Connor. There’d been loads of damage. Two people had died.
‘And you wanna know about a sort called Bonner, yeah?’
The directness of the question startled Faraday.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘I do.’
‘Why’s that, then?’
‘I need to talk to her.’
‘About them bodies?’
‘Yeah. And one or two other issues.’
‘Yeah, but it’s the bodies really, innit? Cos me and my mates know she’s off her head. I had a ruck with her once. She gobbed at me, just for nothing, like. And you know what? I had a fag on and I put it out in her face … bang …’ One thin arm shot out. ‘Just like that. She went mental. Silly old moose.’
‘That was recently?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you’ve seen her since?’
‘Fucking joking, mush. She carries a blade.’
‘All the time?’
‘Yeah. She’s fucking psycho too. Don’t get me wrong, mush. I’d fight her if I had to. No way no bird’s ever gonna slap me around. But you don’t go looking for it, do you? Not in this fucking city. Not the way it is. There are people want to hurt you out there, really hurt you. And she’s one of them. She’s fucking dangerous, mush. Like I say, off her head.’
‘You know where to find her?’
The question put a new light in Connor’s eyes.
‘Why’s that then? You wanna talk to her?’
‘Yes. I just told you.’
‘But you’re serious? You really wanna do it? Arrest her? Get her sent away?’
‘We’d see.’
‘See, fuck. She’s well evil. I’m telling you.’
‘So where do I find her?’
The frown put years on Connor’s face. He reached for a plastic spoon and gave the congealing beans a poke. Watching, Faraday wondered whether he might be older, not younger, than fourteen.
‘You want an address, like. Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That might be hard.’
Faraday nodded. He knew exactly where this conversation was going.
‘How hard?’
‘Fucking well hard. And fucking dodgy too, a sort like her.’ He stared at Faraday.
‘So what’s stopping you?’
‘Nothing, mush.’ He was sitting on his hands again. ‘But yer gotta have a little earn, ain’t yer?’
On the mobile Matt Berriman had told Winter he was busy. When Winter persisted, he finally agreed to meet. He was working in the university library. Around half five, if Winter was offering, he could do with a lift back to Eastney.
He emerged fifteen minutes late in the company of a striking-looking girl with long brown legs and a fall of jet-black hair. He said goodbye to her on the pavement beside Winter’s car. She had a throaty laugh and reached up to kiss Berriman on the lips before she strode away.
‘Italian.’ Berriman folded his long frame into the passenger seat.
‘Here for the summer.’
He wanted to know what was so important it had kept Winter at the kerbside. There was no hint of apology.
‘We need a little chat. It’s about the party. The Old Bill are getting warm. Better now, with me … eh?’
Winter drove down to the seafront. The incessant rain had stopped at last but the chill in the wind had kept the beach virtually empty. He found a parking space beyond the pier and killed the engine. Two middle-aged women were trying to master rollerblading on the promenade. Skating skirts at forty was a bad idea.
‘Well?’ Berriman was watching them too.
‘It’s about Rachel, son.’
Winter had never called him son before. Berriman didn’t much like it.
‘Matt’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘If it’s OK with you.’
‘Sure, son.’ Winter shrugged. ‘No offence. Listen, we need to make one or two things clear. I’m not a copper, whatever you think. That’s number one. Number two, Mackenzie pays my wages. You might think that’s got nothing to do with you but you’d be wrong. Why? Because Mackenzie likes you. And because he also owes you. He doesn’t want to see you in trouble. And that goes for me too.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘The worst. Serious shit.’
‘To do with Rachel?’
‘Yeah. And the boy Hughes.’ Winter glanced across at him. ‘Are you with me now?’
Berriman nodded, then reclined the seat a couple of degrees and closed his eyes.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘You shagged Rachel in the bathroom that night at the party. She did you a favour or two first but then you got it on properly, the way you used to, the way she preferred it. Afterwards, you sent the pictures you’d done earlier to Hughes. Am I right?’
‘Go on,’ he said again. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Rachel went off with Hughes a bit later. She must have got into a ruck of some kind because she was bleeding around her mouth. Maybe Hughes saw those pictures. And maybe he took offence. Why? Because Rachel didn’t much like oral sex, not the full deal. So a bit later they’re next door in Bazza’s kitchen, just the two of them. Rachel’s pissed. Hughes is fucking angry. Rachel wants to make it up to him. And he knows just what she can do to say sorry. Am I getting warm?’
This time Berriman didn’t react. His face was a mask. His head was tipped back in the plushness of the passenger seat. He might have been asleep.
‘You followed them next door, son. I don’t know exactly when but my guess is you got there to find them at it in the kitchen. The light would have been on. Hughes was standing in front of the fridge, leaning on it, his hands out straight. From outside that kitchen door you can see in but at first you haven’t got a clue what’s going on because he’s in the way. But then you start wondering why his shorts are round his ankles and why Rachel’s on her knees in front of him. And then you get it. Because you can’t fucking ignore it. And then it gets a whole lot worse because Hughes goes the whole way and you know that’s just totally out of order. Why? Because she hates it. Because she’s always hated it. Which means he’s kind of taken advantage … and that wasn’t something you could live with, son. Not after you’d just shafted him with those pictures.’
‘So what did I do then?’ Berriman’s eyes were closed. ‘If all this isn’t total bullshit?’
‘I think you probably waited for a bit. I think you didn’t know what to do. I think you waited and I think that after a bit he headed for the door. Rachel was at the sink by now, gagging. Afterwards she had a glass or two of water. Hughes knew he hadn’t played a blinder. He knew he’d taken advantage. And so out he came. By that time you’ve had a good look at Rachel. Someone had given her a slapping. It’s obvious. And it has to be Hughes. He left the kitchen. To get back to the party, he had to pass the pool. That’s where you stopped him. I haven’t a clue what you said. You might have said nothing. Whatever happened, you smacked him. He went backwards, cracked his head, knocked himself unconscious. For good measure you sta
mped on him, stamped on his head, on his cheek, whack. Because he was trash. Because of what he’d just done back in that kitchen. Yeah?’
No response. Not immediately. Then Berriman opened one eye. ‘And what about Rachel?’
‘I dunno. Did you stick a knife in her? I doubt it. Did you sort Hughes out the way I just described? Yeah … definitely. In a court of law you’ll need a fucking good brief, son. Otherwise you’re looking at a long time in crap company.’
Berriman was frowning. ‘This stamping thing.’ One eye briefly opened. ‘Would that leave a mark?’
‘Yeah. Almost certainly.’
‘But they took my trainers. In fact they took the whole fucking lot.
So why haven’t they arrested me? If what you say is true?
‘A very good question, son. And one I‘m hoping you can help me with.’
‘Else?’
‘Else we’re back to square one. The people I used to work with aren’t dumb. They’re slow but they’re not stupid.’
Berriman nodded. There was a long silence. The women on the rollerblades were dots in the distance. Finally, Berriman struggled upright, adjusted the rear-view mirror to check his hair, and then opened the door.
‘You’ve still got my phone,’ he said.
‘I know, son. And you should be thinking about that too.’
The news from the Major Incident Room came to Suttle moments before he left the office. D/S Glen Thatcher, in charge of Outside Enquiries, had just been talking to one of the D/Cs working on the Danny Cooper killing. He’d been doing a follow-up on a call from a manager at G.A. Day, a big DIY store on Burrfields Road. The manager had been working through the night on Wednesday, battling to finish a stocktake before the accountant’s deadline the following morning. He’d left the building for a stretch of the legs and a fag around three in the morning. Standing beside the main gate, doing nothing in particular, he’d become aware of a car parked nearby. The car had attracted his attention because the interior light kept flickering on and off.
‘The manager got in touch this morning. His wife told him about Salcombe Avenue and he remembered the car.’
No Lovelier Death Page 30