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by Hurley, Graham


  Faraday was watching the bridge and funnel of a passing warship, visible above the nearby battlements. No point resisting the obvious.

  “You’re thinking Mackenzie?”

  “No way. Mackenzie uses dealers, of course he does, always has, but they’re mostly local. More to the point, he doesn’t deal smack any more.”

  “And this lot?”

  “Out of town. Definitely. And they’ll sell you anything.”

  “Who says?”

  “It’s what the kids tell their mums. One said he’d bought a snowball, smack and crack cocaine. Another thought they all sounded like Steve Gerrard. That says Merseyside to me. Scousers.”

  One night last week, enraged by what was going on under their noses, a couple of the mums had decided to intervene. They’d marched into the darkness, determined to have it out with the intruders, but the dealers had had a dog in the car, big bastard, really vicious, because the next thing they knew they were trying to fend the bloody animal off. Only a prompt retreat had saved them from a serious mauling, and when the dealers had called the dog off and driven away, they’d made a point of winding down the car window and laughing in their faces.

  “They get a number at all?” Faraday could picture the scene.

  “M reg. XB something. And maybe a seven.”

  “Make?”

  “Cavalier.”

  “They report it?”

  “Yeah. Highland Road sent a couple of DCs round next morning. Took statements and left a number to ring. Last night one of the same women swears blind the same car was back again, couple of young blokes inside.”

  “She get a good look at them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t she phone in, then? After it all kicked off?”

  “She won’t say but Dave’s guess is her own boy’s been at it, maybe last night.”

  “Buying?”

  “Yeah. Dave’s got a list of repeat visits for when the kids come out of school. That’s the ones who can be arsed to turn up, of course.”

  “At home?”

  “At school.”

  Willard produced a toothpick and began to stab at something lodged between one of his back molars. Nearly a decade of policing the city had left him with a limited faith in secondary education.

  “Highland Road ran a check on the plate number. We’ve got twenty-six possibilities, including four from Liverpool, two from Birkenhead, and one from Runcorn. Dave’s organising a trawl through last night’s tapes.”

  “All of them?”

  “Every single one.”

  There were more than a hundred CCTV cameras in Portsmouth, each one of them generating hours of videotape. If anyone needed a clue to just how seriously Willard was taking last night’s assault, then here it was.

  “So you’re thinking out of town?”

  “I’m thinking we have to find the car. If it ties up with the Scousers, then we pull Cathy Lamb into the loop. Give her a chance to put the record straight.”

  Briefly, he told Faraday about last night’s abortive bust in Penning-ton Road. As the senior CID officer for the city, he’d received a full report, agreeing with Secretan that the new Crime Squad needed to shake down in a very big hurry. Any more disasters like that, and the city would become open house for any passing scumbag.

  “So what did you make of Tumbril? Imber give you the tour?”

  The abrupt change of subject took Faraday by surprise. He began to frame a reply but thought better of it. In a situation like this, it was wiser to check your bearings.

  “Brian Imber seems to think you’ve rattled a few cages,” he said carefully.

  “He’s right. We have.” Willard was close to smiling.

  “Like who?”

  “Like Harry Wayte, for starters. Seems to think he owns the bloody drugs issue in this force.”

  “I thought that was down to Brian?”

  “It is. It always has been. Harry was late to the party. In fact I can remember a time he was telling everyone Imber was off his head. It’s only now the penny’s dropped that he’s started to see the full potential.”

  Until a recent reorganisation, Harry Wayte had been Imber’s boss, the DI in charge of the Tactical Crime Unit, a dozen or so detectives working out of secured premises in Fareham, an old market town engulfed by the mainland conurbation that sprawls towards Southampton. The TCU had won its battle honours in the early nineties, tackling an explosion in drug-related crime, and had since become the fiefdom for a succession of hard-driving DIs who made the most of its reach and independence. Harry Wayte was the longest-serving of these DIs, an abrasive, plain-spoken ex-Chief Petty Officer, barely a year off retirement.

  “You don’t think he’d be in with a shout?” Faraday enquired.

  “Never. And what’s more, he knows it. The only way he’s going to get promotion at his age is by lifting something really tasty off Imber and then claiming it for himself. He’s doing his best, I’ll give him that.”

  “But Imber’s out of the TCU now.”

  “Sure, but that never stopped Harry.”

  “You’re telling me he knows about Tumbril?”

  “I’m telling you he’s been busting a gut to find out. And I’m telling you something else, too. It’s guys like Harry who put the word round. This job’s hard enough as it is. What we don’t need is half the force behaving like bloody kids, thinking we’ve stolen some kind of march on them.”

  “We?”

  “Nick Hayder, Imber, now you.”

  He broke off, and Faraday found himself nodding. Most policemen were cursed with an acute sense of territory and Harry Wayte was clearly no exception. In his rare moments of leisure, the DI indulged his passion for naval history by building exquisitely crafted model warships. Faraday had come across him several times, crouched on the edge of Craneswater boating lake, launching his latest radio-controlled frigate into the thick of battle. Faraday had envied his peace of mind, alone in his private bubble.

  “What are you up to this evening?” Willard was checking his watch. “Any plans?”

  “None that I can think of.”

  “Good. There’s someone I want you meet. You know the jetty alongside Warrior?”

  HMS Warrior had been the navy’s first steam-driven ironclad. Fully restored, she dominated the view from the harbour station. The neighbouring jetty lay within the historic dockyard. Faraday was to be there for six o’clock. With luck, they’d be back by nine.

  “Back from where?”

  “Tell you later. Bring something warm.” Willard nodded across the row of parked cars towards the High Street. “For now I want you round to the Sally Port Hotel. Room six. There’s a guy waiting for you, name of Graham Wallace. He’s u/c. I’ve authorised him to brief you. OK?”

  Faraday turned to stare at Willard. Operations like this were trademarked by what the Force Media Unit termed ‘a variety of specialist investigative techniques’. Imber had already tallied covert surveillance, phone intercepts, and forensic accounting. So why hadn’t anyone mentioned undercover officers?

  “Is that a direct question?” Willard was fingering the leather steering wheel.

  “Yes, sir. It is.”

  “Then here’s the answer. Imber doesn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t know? Why on earth not?”

  “Because Hayder wanted to keep it tight.” The smile was back on Willard’s face. “A decision with which I totally agreed.”

  The taxi dropped J-J off in the heart of Fratton. He stooped to the window, waiting for his change. When the driver glanced again at the address on his dashboard computer and told him to watch his back, J-J pretended not to understand. All he was doing, he told himself, was running an errand for a friend.

  He set off down Pennington Road, his heart lumping away beneath the thin cotton of his Madness T-shirt. Like it or not, he’d suddenly found himself skewered on what Eadie Sykes liked to call the sharp end. The statistics he’d memorised from a thousand magazine articles, t
he transcripts he’d read from other peoples’ research projects, the confessional truths he’d tried to wring from interviewee after potential interviewee, all this carefully filed information had finally boiled down to a single address, 30 Pennington Road. If you wanted to mess with your life, if you wanted to end up in Daniel’s state, then this was where you started.

  Parked cars lined both sides of the road. Walking beside them, J-J counted the houses until he got to number 30. Someone, he thought, must have given the front door a good kicking. The splintered panels had been crudely battened and there was a sheet of old plywood nailed over what must have been a square of glass. There was no number on the door and he had to pause a moment, rechecking the houses on either side, before he ventured a knock.

  Being deaf, he never knew how loud a knock he was making. Normally, this wouldn’t matter. When it came to handicap people were amazingly forgiving but on this occasion his nerve ends told him he needed to get it right. Too soft, and no one would hear. Too loud, too aggressive, and God knows what might happen.

  J-J closed his eyes a moment, swallowing hard, wondering whether it wasn’t too late to beat a retreat. Daniel, back in Old Portsmouth, had warned him about the guys in number 30. The word he’d used was rough. Rough, he’d said, but OK. OK meant they delivered. Rough, as the taxi driver had pointed out, meant watch your step.

  Nothing happened after the first knock. Shivering now, J-J reached out again then froze as someone pulled the door open. A face appeared. Unshaven. Pierced eyebrows. Nose stud. And young, younger even than J-J himself.

  “Yeah?”

  J-J stood rooted to the pavement, suddenly oblivious to the rain. For the first time in his life he didn’t know what to do, what signal to send, what expression to adopt. Then he saw the dog. It was a black pit bull, lunging out of the gloom inside. A length of rope tied it to one of the bannisters at the foot of the stairs and every time it threw itself towards the open door the bannister bowed.

  J-J was terrified of dogs, the legacy of a long-ago encounter with a neighbour’s alsatian, and he knew that this one couldn’t wait to tear him apart. His instinct told him to turn and leg it. No video, no name on the credits, was worth this.

  “Fucking say something, then, yeah?”

  J-J couldn’t take his eyes off the dog. He could smell it now, the rich sour smell of fear. The alsatian had put him in hospital for the night. This one would probably kill him.

  “Fucking deaf are you? Lost yer tongue?”

  At last, J-J managed to summon a response. He’d made Daniel write down his own name and address. Now he unfolded the scrap of paper. A hand shot out and grabbed it. Bitten nails. Heavy rings. A tattoo of some kind, blue dots across the knuckles. The head came up, eyes scanning the street beyond J-J’s shoulder.

  “If this is a fucking stitch-up…”

  J-J shook his head with a violence that took him by surprise. No stitching-up. Promise.

  “You know what I’m saying?”

  J-J nodded at the scrap of paper. Trust me. Please.

  “He told you where to find us?”

  Yes.

  “You some kind of friend of his?”

  Yes.

  “He gave you money?”

  Yes.

  The door opened wider and J-J stepped inside. The smell of the dog was overwhelming, the animal more frenzied than ever at this sudden intrusion, and J-J kept his distance, his back against the wall, praying that the bannister would hold.

  Someone else appeared from a room at the back, boxer shorts, tattoo on his neck, and a red number 9 football shirt with Carling scrolled across the front. There was a brief conversation, an exchange of grins, a nod. The face at the door gave the dog a kick, then turned back to J-J, his hand extended, palm up. Gimme. J-J produced the 50 note. The face wanted more. Out came the two twenties. More still. J-J shook his head, gestured helplessly, nothing left, then he felt a sharp crack as his head hit the wall. Hands dived into the pockets of his jeans, searching for the rest, and he shut his eyes, forcing himself to submit, to go limp, praying that this nightmare would end.

  Finally, a handful of coins richer, they left him alone. He backed towards the front door, away from the dog, uncertain what was supposed to happen next. Street prices in Portsmouth had never been cheaper. Everyone was telling him so. 90 should keep Daniel going for a couple of days, nine wraps at least. So where were they?

  The face stepped past him and pulled the front door open. For a second or two, J-J was tempted to resist, to protest, to demand their end of the deal, but then he felt the sweet chillness of the street, and he was out in the rain again, gladder than he could imagine. The face was back inside, the mouth framing a message for his rich friend. Later, he was saying. Tell him we’ll be round later.

  Parked three cars up the street, DC Paul Winter was trying to work out how many shots they’d taken.

  “Six.” Jimmy Suttle was studying the panel on the back of the camera. “Four when he first turned up. Two just now.”

  “Full face?”

  “A couple at least. We should pull him now. He has to be carrying. Has to be.”

  “Leave it.” Winter was watching the tall, awkward figure hurrying away down the street. Last time he’d seen Faraday’s son, the boy had got himself mixed up with a bunch of young lunatics from Somers-town. A couple of years later, he’d evidently graduated to Class A narcotics.

  “No?” Suttle had started to open the car door. “The guy’s on a nicking. That wasn’t a social call.”

  “You’re right, son. Give me the camera.”

  “Why?”

  “Because one of us has to stay here.”

  “And me?”

  “I’d move sharpish if I were you.” Winter nodded towards the end of the street. “Follow him and bell me.”

  “Follow him? I thought we were into bodies? Scalps?”

  “We are.” Winter was examining the camera. “Do you know who that boy belongs to?”

  Faraday made his way to the Sally Port Hotel, resisting the temptation to enquire about Graham Wallace at the tiny reception desk. Had this latest rabbit from Willard’s hat been in residence long? Did Tumbril have a permanent booking on room 6?

  Climbing the carpeted stairs to the first floor, Faraday couldn’t rid himself of the image of Nick Hayder, unconscious in his hospital bed, helpless in a cat’s cradle of monitor leads and transfusion lines. Managing an investigation this complex, trying to remember who was supposed to know what, would have been enough to drive any detective to the edge. No wonder he’d felt under siege.

  A soft knock at room 6 drew an instant response. Faraday found himself looking at a tall, well-built man in his late twenties. He was wearing an expensive shirt tucked loosely into a pair of well-cut dark trousers. The silk tie, loosened at the collar, was a swirl of reds laced with a vivid turquoise. Despite the laugh lines around his eyes and the tiny gold ring in one ear, he looked tense.

  “You are?”

  “Joe Faraday.”

  “Come in. Graham Wallace.” He had the briefest handshake.

  Faraday stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. The desk beneath the window was spread with paperwork and a linen jacket hung on the back of the chair. Beside the bed, a pair of Gucci loafers.

  “Tea? There’s one bag left.”

  “No thanks.” Faraday eyed the empty packet of biscuits beside the kettle. “I could use a sandwich, though.”

  “Ring down. They’ll bring something up.” Wallace stepped across to the phone and dialled a number, then handed it to Faraday. Faraday ordered two tuna salad sandwiches, adding he’d pay for them on the way out.

  When he’d put the phone down, Wallace gestured towards the empty chair.

  “I’m sorry about Nick.” He had a flat London accent. “Your guvnor said you were mates.”

  “That’s right.” Faraday nodded. “And we still are.”

  There was a moment of silence while the men eyed each other, then Far
aday sank into the chair. u/c officers were notoriously wary, often more paranoid than the targets they were tasked to sting. Their very survival frequently depended on the lowest possible exposure to fellow officers.

  “How tight did Nick keep all this?” Faraday gestured towards the desk. “Only it would be helpful to know.”

  “Very tight. The only guys I ever deal with are Nick and a handler from Special Ops, Terry McNaughton.”

  “What about Willard?”

  “Your govnor?” Wallace glanced up towards the door. “Never met him till just now. He says he’s filling in for Nick.”

  “I thought that was my job?”

  “It is. That’s what he came to tell me.”

  “Why didn’t Special Ops pass the message?”

  “Good question.”

  “Did you ask him? Willard?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “And?”

  “He said he was SIO on the job so there was no way he wouldn’t know about me. Thought face-to-face was better than a phone call from Special Ops.”

  “And you?”

  “Me?” He offered Faraday a thin smile. “A phone call from Special Ops would have done just fine.”

  Faraday nodded. Special Ops was a tiny department of the Hantspol intelligence empire that supervised the deployment of u/c officers. Terry McNaughton would be the handler charged with running Wallace, sharing the debrief with Nick Hayder after each new instalment of the Tumbril story.

  “You could help me here,” Faraday said slowly.

  “How?”

  “By telling me exactly the way it’s gone so far. There’s no point me trying to snow you. Twenty-four hours ago I was looking at a pretty much empty desk. Now this.”

  “No one’s briefed you?”

  “Willard’s handed me the file. I’ve talked to the team. This isn’t a three-day event.”

  “You’re right.” Wallace appeared to be on the verge of saying something else, then shrugged and lit a small, thin cheroot before settling himself full-length on the bed. “Where do you want me to start?”

 

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