Beyond Reach

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘He wants to go into politics, Paul.’ She said it softly, as if it was a family secret. ‘The Trust’s all part of that.’

  Winter didn’t move. The street outside was a river of blue shirts.

  ‘He wants to do what?’

  ‘Go into politics. Get himself elected. Sort this city out. He told me the other night.’

  ‘He was pissed.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘He meant it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Really?’ Winter finally abandoned the street. Marie’s smile had gone.

  ‘It gets worse.’ She leaned forward. ‘I think Ezzie’s having an affair.’

  D/I Joe Faraday stepped into the chilly gloom of the Bargemaster’s House. After the overnight flight from Montreal, he’d paid a surprise visit to his son, still living in Chiswick. J-J, it turned out, had acquired company in the shape of a Russian actress called Sonya, and the three of them shared an awkward breakfast before Faraday cut his losses and hit the road again. The flight, the breakfast, and then the drive back down to Pompey had wiped him out.

  He bent to the doormat and quickly sorted through the pile of post. Apart from a Mahler CD from Amazon and the May edition of Bird Watching, he was looking at nothing but bills, free newspapers, credit card offers and pleas for cash from sundry charities. Ten days away, he thought, and I come back to this.

  He dumped his bag in the lounge and gazed at the stairs. Gabrielle had left the week before Christmas, flying to Montreal to take up the offer of a visiting fellowship at McGill University. The offer had come out of the blue, the kind of bombshell that he’d always dreaded. At first she’d dismissed it. She loved the Bargemaster’s House. She adored living with her grumpy flic. She was looking forward to throwing herself into the research for a new book. It was all, in a word, parfait.

  Too perfect. Watching her face at the breakfast table that morning, the way her eyes kept returning to the letter, Faraday knew that this new life of theirs, the relationship they’d so carefully built, was doomed. As an anthropologist, her publications were beginning to attract serious attention. It was only a matter of time before someone came knocking at the door, seeding that curiosity, that hunger for the unknown, which was the essence of this woman who’d come to occupy the very middle of his life.

  And so it had proved. As autumn slipped slowly into winter, Gabrielle spent longer and longer on the Internet, exploring the implications of saying yes. The fellowship was only for a year. Montreal was an interesting city. Canada was a mere six hours away. They could take it in turns to make the trip over. The twelve months would be gone in a flash. All of these things were true, but deep down Faraday knew that their affair, their life together, was probably over.

  Confirmation came on the day she left. Gabrielle always travelled light. Years of fieldwork in remote corners of the world had taught her how to survive on the contents of a sizeable rucksack yet it gutted Faraday to realise just how little of herself she’d deposited in the Bargemaster’s House. Carrying her two bags out to the car for the trip to the airport, he’d somehow assumed he’d return that evening to find lots of her stuff, her books, a handful of clothes, her smell, still strewn round the bedroom. Yet there’d been nothing, not a single item to remember her by. Standing in the darkness, listening to the carol singers up the road, it was as if their time together had never happened.

  He remembered that moment now, a feeling of despair, of abandonment, even of betrayal. It had taken him weeks to come to terms with it and if he was honest with himself he knew it had never really gone. There were ways of burying it - work, for instance - but even a series of challenging homicides, one still unsolved, was no substitute for the anticipation of another evening together, of meals round the kitchen table, of conversation spiked with laughter and bottles of Côtes-du-Rhône , of the countless ways she untangled the knots inside him and left his soul at peace. Without her, without what she’d brought to this solitary life of his, he was nothing.

  Now, he stooped for his bags and climbed the stairs. The PC was on the table by the window. He fired it up, gazing out at the brightness of the afternoon. Breaths of wind feathered the blue spaces of the harbour and he reached automatically for his binos at a distant flicker of movement. A raft of brent geese. A pair of cormorants. Closer, only yards from the foreshore, a lone turnstone.

  He turned back to the PC, pulling the curtain against the glare of the sunshine, scrolling quickly through ten days of emails. For once he didn’t pause for birding news from an e-chum on Portland Bill. Neither had he any interest in a message flagged ‘Urgent’ from his bank. All he wanted, needed, was word from Gabrielle. He’d left her barely twelve hours ago, a goodbye hug in the departure hall at Montreal-Trudeau. It was less than an hour back to her third-floor apartment in St Michel. She’d have had the rest of the evening to compose the email of his dreams: how much these last ten days had mattered, how nothing had changed between them, how much - already - she missed him.

  Nothing. Rien.

  He sat back, staring at the screen, knowing in his heart that it had to be this way. The essence of Gabrielle, that quickness of spirit that had captured him, was what had taken her to Montreal in the first place. She was a bird of passage. Her life was a series of roosts. Lucky the man who got to share even one of them.

  He reached for the keyboard and began to compose a message of his own but the phrases felt leaden. Easy flight. J-J shacked up with some Russian actress. All well at home. Was this the way he really felt? He deleted everything and started again, the truth this time. I miss you. You should be here. We had a brilliant life, didn’t we? What did I ever do to drive you away? He stopped, knowing he’d never send it, knowing he was talking to himself.

  The fact was he’d never driven her away. She’d gone because another door had suddenly opened and she couldn’t resist finding out what lay on the other side. That was her nature. That was what had turned her into one of life’s nomads. Already, the head of her faculty had hinted at a permanent academic post, most likely a lectureship. Soon, there’d be someone else in her bed. Both men, inevitably, would be disappointed. Because Gabrielle, a slave to her own curiosity, would inevitably move on.

  Dommage, thought Faraday.

  Chapter two

  MONDAY, 19 MAY 2008. 08.06

  Bazza Mackenzie was a rare visitor to Winter’s top-floor Gunwharf apartment. Still in his dressing gown, Winter looked hard at the stocky figure of his employer in the video screen above the entryphone. Jeans, Pompey away top and an obvious hangover. The image told its own story.

  ‘It’s eight in the morning, Baz. You should be sleeping it off.’

  ‘Tosser. Just let me in.’

  Under Mackenzie’s direction, Winter brewed coffee. No milk, three sugars and the promise of a tot of something stronger to brighten his mood.

  ‘They won, Baz. In case you’d forgotten.’

  ‘Very funny. Why weren’t you there? I’d have found you a spare seat.’

  ‘It was a sell-out.’

  ‘I meant the chopper. We could have squeezed up. Room for a fat bastard like you. No problem.’ He frowned. ‘You been sniffing round Mist again?’

  Winter had finally laid hands on the remains of a bottle of Bacardi. As Bazza knew only too well, it was Misty Gallagher’s favourite tipple. Some mornings she preferred it to tea.

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Baz. Fat old bastard like me.’

  ‘Good. I expect you to fucking behave yourself. You got that?’

  Winter carried the coffee into the lounge. With his boss in one of these moods, it was barely worth bothering with a conversation. Not unless you had something really pressing on your mind.

  ‘Listen, Baz. If you’ve come round about the Trust—’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Marie’s had a word, yeah? Last night? First thing this morning? About Tide Turn? Fact is, Baz, I’ve had enough. You’re paying me to make money not work fucking mi
racles. If you really want a social worker you’d better find some other monkey. As it happens, I think I’ve found one. Bloke called Scott. Can’t wait to get you an invite to the Palace.’

  ‘I’m not with you, mush.’

  ‘This isn’t about Tide Turn?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Ezzie.’

  Winter hesitated. Yesterday’s lunch at the restaurant had lasted long into the afternoon. Marie had poured her heart out about her daughter’s marriage, chiefly because she hadn’t a clue what to do. The last thing she’d extracted from Winter, out on the pavement beside her new Porsche, was a promise not to say a word to Bazza. Now this.

  ‘What’s up?’ Winter knew it was time to be cautious.

  Bazza threw him a look, then got to his feet and went to the big picture window and the view across the harbour towards the Gosport shore. There was anger in his face when he finally glanced round, and something else that Winter couldn’t quite place. A family thing. Maybe disappointment.

  ‘None of this gets back to Marie, right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘If it does, I’ll break your legs. Comprende?’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Right, mush. So this is what we know.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and Stuart.’

  Stuart Norcliffe was Esme’s husband, a City banker who’d spent the last couple of years running a hugely profitable hedge fund. Winter had only met him on a handful of occasions but had sussed what turned Esme on. The guy oozed power and money. On top of that, if you had a taste for sheer bulk, he was a bit of a looker.

  ‘So what happened?’

  Mackenzie returned to the sofa and ran a hand over his face. He’d let himself go a bit over the winter but recently he’d returned to the gym and was back on his toes.

  ‘Listen, mush …’ He kept his voice low as if the neighbours might hear. ‘Stu gives me a bell last week. That’s a hard thing for a bloke like him to do, believe me. Why? Because he thinks his missus, my fucking daughter, is having it off with some wanker at that noncey spa hotel she goes to.’

  ‘Based on what evidence?’

  ‘You’re talking like a copper.’

  ‘Old habits, Baz. Just tell me.’

  Esme, it turned out, had spent most of last year complaining about the chore of driving twenty miles to the gym and pool she used. The facilities were attached to a four-star hotel on the edge of the New Forest. The pool, she said, was too small and some of the guys in the gym, mainly visiting businessmen, were distinctly chavvy. What she didn’t need in her precious spare time was some spotty sales rep asking whether she was up for a spot of hand relief in the sauna.

  ‘So why didn’t she jack the place in?’

  ‘Good fucking question. That’s exactly what Stu wondered.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She met someone.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Like the guy she’s shagging.’

  Stu, said Bazza, hadn’t sussed it to begin with. Looking back it was obvious, but at the time, working twenty hours a day, Stu was just glad that Esme had stopped moaning. For whatever reason, she was driving over there two or three times a week without a word of complaint, and if that floated her boat then so much the better. Then, last week, a mate of Stu’s had given him a ring. This was a guy Stu occasionally played squash with. He’d been over at the hotel for a business lunch and afterwards he’d wandered down to the gym to check out the facilities. The place had been empty apart from two figures in the corner.

  ‘Adjacent running machines, mush. Thump, thump, thump. Really pushing it. Then she gets off, silly cow, legs totally shot, and he’s all over her. Kissy kissy. Towelling her face. Squeezing her arse. Fetching a drink from the machine. The works. Stu’s mate couldn’t believe it. One of the reasons he phoned up was to check about the divorce. They hadn’t played squash for a while. Maybe he’d missed something.’

  ‘Did Esme see him?’

  ‘He says not. The way he tells it she only had eyes for lover boy.’

  ‘And Stu? He’s tried to check this guy out?’

  ‘No. That’s the whole point, mush. That’s why he came to me. He says he doesn’t trust himself. He says he’d kill the bloke. And what good would that do?’

  Winter nodded. He knew exactly what was coming next but there was a move of his own he needed to make.

  ‘About the Trust, Baz.’

  ‘Fuck the Trust.’

  ‘My thoughts entirely … but listen, we need to get one or two things straight.’

  ‘Yeah, like my daughter’s bloody love life.’

  ‘Of course, Baz. Not a problem. Leave it to me. But we’re talking unfinished business here.’

  ‘Too fucking right. You see him off, mush. You find out who he is, you take him to one side, and you tell him from me that I’ll rip his bollocks off if he ever goes near my little girl again. Have you got that, mush? Only it might get very messy if you start fannying around.’

  ‘Since when have I ever done that? Listen, Baz. This is the deal. There’s a guy you need to meet. His name’s Scott Taylor. He’s a phone call away. He’s a hotshot social worker, the real McCoy, exactly what Tide Turn needs. The moment he takes it off me is the moment I sort out our little problem.’

  Mackenzie studied Winter for a long moment. He looked, if anything, amused. At length he reached for his coffee, gulped a couple of mouthfuls, followed it with the Bacardi, and wiped his mouth. Then he settled back against the leather sofa.

  ‘You know something, mush?’ He patted Winter’s arm. ‘You were born fucking evil.’

  Faraday had been at his desk barely ten minutes before DCI Gail Parsons appeared at his open door. Since the recent reorganisation, she’d become the top detective on the Portsmouth-based Major Crime Team. Martin Barrie had departed to headquarters, leaving Parsons his office, his conference table and the lingering whiff of the roll-ups he used to smoke beside the ever-open window.

  Parsons eyed the litter of unopened mail on Faraday’s desk. Faraday, less than halfway through his list of waiting emails, wondered if she might start this conversation with a kindly enquiry about his trip to Montreal.

  ‘We need to talk about Melody, Joe. Have you got a moment?’

  He followed her along the corridor. She was a small, forceful woman with an aggressive dress sense and a huge chest. She was rumoured to be extremely close to the Head of CID, Geoff Willard, and given the depth of her undisguised ambition Faraday was inclined to believe it.

  Since Barrie’s departure, his office had been transformed. On Mondays Parsons arrived with armfuls of fresh flowers and there was a small gallery of family photos carefully propped on the windowsill behind her desk. In the absence of a husband or a partner, two of them featured a black Labrador called Nelson.

  Parsons waved Faraday into the chair in front of the desk. Whatever the occasion, she had the unhappy knack of making visitors feel they were under oath.

  ‘Remind me, Joe. Where exactly are we with Melody?’

  Faraday had spent the last minute or so trying to visualise the file. Operation Melody had been running for nearly nine months. A teenager, Tim Morrissey, had been stabbed to death on Guy Fawkes night. The murder had taken place in a remote corner of the city’s King George V recreation ground, traditionally the site of the city’s biggest bonfire. Thousands of people had come for the fireworks yet months of painstaking investigation had failed to turn up a single witness. Melody’s intelligence cell had built up an in-depth picture of the dead boy and Faraday’s squad had few doubts about the name of the killer. All they needed was evidence.

  ‘We’re nowhere, boss. The file’s still open.’

  ‘But we have a prime suspect. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And his name again?’

  ‘Kyle Munday.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Have you seen this?’

  She angled her PC screen towards Farada
y. He had to get closer to read the details. Every morning, details of overnight developments force-wide were available for anyone to check. It was called The State.

  ‘Here. Second entry from the bottom.’

  Faraday followed Parsons’ finger. The news that Kyle Munday had died in a hit-and-run brought a smile to his face. Parsons hadn’t finished.

  ‘Frankly, Joe, Melody’s been a bit of a disappointment. You don’t need me to tell you that. Half the city were up there for the fireworks and that gave a lot of people a stake in what happened. It wasn’t our finest hour, by any means. As our friends on the News pointed out.’

  It was true. For a week at least the press had been brutal. KNIFE SLAYING MUM TALKS OF HER PAIN. COMMUNITY GROUPS DEMAND ACTION. NO ARRESTS IN PROSPECT.

  ‘There may be some crossover here, Joe. The Road Death lot obviously have ownership but maybe that should change. If we could establish some kind of linkage with Melody, we might be able to bring last night’s little episode into Major Crime. I could certainly talk to Mr Willard.’

  Faraday nodded. Parsons, like most bosses, was constantly pushing to expand her empire. In the case of Melody, she’d call it closure. A more exact term might be a raiding expedition. Someone else’s turf. Someone else’s trophies.

  ‘You want me to …’ He didn’t need to end the sentence.

  ‘I do, Joe. There’s a woman called Steph Callan. She’s a sergeant on RDIT. She’s got the lead on Munday.’

  The Road Death Investigation Team worked from offices in Eastleigh. Faraday had come across them on more than one occasion and had been impressed.

  Parsons glanced up at the clock on the wall, her eyes gleaming. ‘I’ve asked Callan to drive over,’ she said. ‘She should be here by ten.’

  Steph Callan was early. Faraday glanced up from the last of his emails to find her out in the corridor, checking the name on his door. She looked to be in her early thirties, no more. Uniformed, she wore a sergeant’s stripes. Tucked under one arm was a large manila envelope. Steady eyes. Nice mouth.