Cut To Black

by Hurley, Graham

  Sprawled on the grass at the top of the hill, J-J didn’t know. After a while, trying to make sense of the last twenty-four hours, he propped himself on his elbows and gazed down at the city spread before him. Familiar landmarks. The gleaming spread of the harbour. The looming greyness of the naval dockyard. Beetle-sized cars, racing along the motorway that looped into the city. He’d lived with these images for longer than he could remember yet today they seemed cold and alien, a sudden glimpse of life on a distant planet. How come a couple of guys from Pennington Road had killed Daniel Kelly? And how come he’d let himself become part of all that?

  The longer he thought about it, the more important he knew it was to try and make some kind of decision. Events had marooned him, washed him up in a place he hated, and it was time he took charge again. Maybe he should pack a rucksack, hop on a ferry, and have another crack at France. Or maybe he should sit down with his dad, explain the whole thing, and see where the conversation led. His dad, to his certain knowledge, would insist on the truth coming out. That J-J, his precious bloody son, had stolen up on a man standing on the edge of his own grave, tapped him on the shoulder, then given him that final nudge. Yuk.

  J-J lay on his back, his eyes closed, soaking up the thin warmth of the early spring sunshine until another idea began to take shape, a stroke so bold that it hit him with an almost physical impact. A couple of years back, he’d spent some time with a young kid called Doodie. There’d been lots wrong with Doodie’s world, much of it Doodie’s fault, but J-J had always been amazed by the straightness of the lines this gutsy little ten-year-old had been able to draw. Given a situation like this, the last thing he’d do was lie around on Portsdown Hill feeling sorry for himself. No, if there were debts to be settled, wrongs to be righted, then actions would speak louder than words. J-J turned the phrase over in his mind, realising with a jolt of pleasure that it had governed his entire life. Actions, not words. Gesture, not language.

  Pleased with himself, he thought about the idea a little more. Then he got to his feet, brushed himself down, hauled the Ridgeback upright, and set off down the hill.

  Chapter 10

  THURSDAY, 20 MARCH 2003, 12.00

  Faraday found himself alone at Tumbril HQ on Whale Island. The Mackenzie briefing over, Imber and the young accountant had driven into the city for a meeting with a senior clearing-bank executive with access to Mackenzie’s five accounts, while Joyce was over at the HMS Excellent mess, looking for a pint of milk.

  Faraday stood at the window, watching a squad of young recruits jogging past. There was a PTI behind them, rounding up the strays, and the sight of the instructor falling into step behind the worst of the laggards brought memories of his own induction course flooding back.

  Twenty-five years ago, probationer PCs in Faraday’s entry found themselves under the tender care of a burly prop forward who swore that rugby was the shortest cut to heaven. Faraday himself had never been keen on team games but he cycled a lot because it was cheap and knew he was as fit as anyone else in the group. Keeping up with the rest of the pack had therefore been no problem but now, watching the tail-ender redden under the lash of the PTI, he marvelled at how simple the world had then appeared.

  At twenty-three, he couldn’t wait to get out on the beat. The law, to his faint surprise, was a living thing, continually in the process of change, but once you understood the basic principles and memorised a hundred or so pages of detailed legislation, then applying the thrust of all those weighty clauses seemed on the face of it pretty straightforward. You were there to keep the peace, to safeguard life and property, to protect people from their own worst instincts. Little of this optimism survived his first year in uniform policing was rarely as black and white as he’d imagined but not once had he anticipated ending up heading an operation as complex and inward-looking as Tumbril. What kind of justice required an investigation to be as covert, as walled-off, as this? Of whom were the handful of senior officers in the know really frightened?

  At the end of his profile of Bazza Mackenzie, the young accountant had passed Faraday a slender spiral-bound file that summarised his progress to date. With the aid of seized documentation deposit slips, bank accounts, financial transfer instructions he’d laid out a series of audit trails, mapping the sheer reach of Mackenzie’s commercial empire. Referenced and cross-referenced, each of these audit trails dealt with a particular asset a car, a property, a bank account, a business -proving to any jury that real ownership, behind a thousand financial transactions and a small army of relatives, friends, and professional advisers, still lay with Mackenzie. In this way item by item, page by page, Prebble was slowly building a bonfire of Mackenzie’s carefully hidden assets, millions of pounds’ worth of ill-gotten gains. All Faraday would have to do was provide the spark proof positive that Mackenzie had broken the law and the whole lot would go up in flames. That way, as Imber kept reminding everyone, we’ll really hurt the guy. And not just him, either, but the handful of high-profile professional advisers who’d flagged his path to the big time.

  Faraday stepped away from the window, only too aware of the pressures which had driven Nick Hayder to the brink. Pulling in a u/c officer and seeding a head-to-head with Mackenzie was undeniably clever. But the very boldness of a stroke like this smacked to Faraday of desperation. By being so successful, Mackenzie had made himself virtually impregnable. He had powerful friends. He’d established himself in legitimate business. He’d become, in one of Prebble’s laconic asides, the living proof that capitalism works. Some guys built their fortunes on a string of patents. Others dreamed up a brilliant marketing idea. With Bazza Mackenzie it just happened to be cocaine. But who could prove it?

  Faraday’s mobile began to chirp. He didn’t recognise the number. For a moment or two he was tempted to ignore it. Then he had second thoughts.

  “Paul Winter. Am I interrupting anything?”

  “No. How can I help you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. Lunch any good? Pie and a pint?”

  “Now? Today?” Faraday could see the mountain of files awaiting his attention on the desk across the office.

  “Yeah. Sorry about the short notice but you’ll be glad you came.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s about your boy.”

  “J-J?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing…yet. Still and West? Quarter to one?”

  Faraday glanced at his watch. Half two he was due for yet another meeting with Willard and Imber. Until then, his time was his own.

  He bent to the phone again. Three years as DIon division had taught him a great deal about Paul Winter. Rule number one was never trust the man. Rule number two was never ignore him. The Still and West was a pub in Old Portsmouth, overlooking the harbour narrows. The last time Faraday had paid a visit, the place had been full of journalists.

  “Let’s make it the Pembroke. I’ll be there for twelve forty-five.”

  Winter rang off and Faraday found himself still gazing at the number. The reference to J-J had chilled him to the bone. Given this morning’s conversation with Eadie Sykes, there were a thousand and one reasons why the boy might have got himself into trouble, but how, exactly, had he crossed paths with the likes of Paul Winter?

  “Sheriff…?”

  Faraday spun round. Joyce was back. There was a new carton of semi-skimmed on the shelf beside the electric kettle and she was already reaching for her coat.

  “The Pembroke takes you through town.” She grinned at him. “You mind giving this lady a lift?”

  Faraday’s Mondeo was in the car park. There was a queue of vehicles waiting for clearance at the security barrier and the saloon rolled to a halt behind a minibus full of mate lots Faraday glanced sideways at Joyce. The last thing he wanted to talk about was Tumbril.

  “How’s that husband of yours?”

  “History. I binned the marriage a couple of months back.”

&nb
sp; “Really?” The last time Faraday checked, Joyce had been married to a uniformed Inspector in the Southampton BCU, a dour Aberdonian with a roving eye and a passion for fitness routines. “What happened?”

  “One probationer too many, I guess. Plus I wasn’t up to serial child molesting, not at the time. Strange thing about cancer, sheriff, it does nothing for your sense of humour. Was I harsh, do you think? Wishing him God speed?”

  Her husband, she told him, had been worse than useless when tests had confirmed the oncologist’s suspicions. The Royal South Hants had found her a bed within days but he’d barely managed a couple of visits over the fortnight she’d been in hospital. At the time, she’d believed his excuses about the pressure of work. Only later, thanks to a neighbour, did she discover that he’d moved the latest conquest into the marital home. Strictly as an act of compassion.

  “Nineteen-year-old called Bethany. Needed somewhere quiet to study for her probationer’s exams. Poor waif. But hey’ she flipped down the sun visor and studied her lip gloss in the mirror on the back ‘who needs husbands?”

  They were through the barrier now, and crossing the bridge beside the ferry port. Faraday wanted to know where she was living.

  “Home. Just like always.”

  “And Neil?”

  “You tell me, honey. He phones me up, writes me letters, sends huge bunches of flowers, tries to explain what a big mistake he’d made. Me? I tell him to go to hell. Most times we get one pass at life. This lady’s been given two. You think I’m gonna waste me on that bastard again? The nerve of the guy.”

  She shook her head, gazing out at the traffic. Beside the roundabout at the end of the motorway into the city, a handful of students were milling around beneath a big hand-lettered placard in what looked like an impromptu demonstration. The placard read: STOP THE WAR! 6 P.M. GUILDHALL SQUARE.

  “There’s another shithead.” Joyce was fumbling for her lipstick.

  “Who?”

  “Boy George. Can you believe that man? And can you credit my dickhead countrymen for voting the guy in? Not that he even fucking won in the first place.”

  Faraday smiled to himself, reaching for the car radio. This was a new Joyce, feistier than ever, her raw enjoyment of life edged by something close to anger. Maybe she was right. Maybe a glimpse of oblivion, your own life suddenly on the line, robbed voter apathy of its charms.

  A pundit on Radio Four was speculating on the lengths Saddam might go to in Iraq. Oil wells were already blazing around Basra. Might he also torch the northern oilfields?

  “You feel comfortable with all this?” Faraday gestured out at the students.

  “The war or the protest?”

  “The war.”

  “Hell, no. But you know something? The problem isn’t what folk like Bush get us into. It isn’t even all those little kids you’re going to see in the wreckage once we’ve bombed the bejesus out of the place. No, the real problem is the fact that us Americans actually believe all this shit. We’re doing it for liberty and freedom. We’re killing Iraqis to make them better human beings. Believe me, sheriff, when the world comes to an end, it’ll be the Americans who pull the trigger. And you know something else? It’ll be in all our best interests. You heard it first from me, Joe. Takes a Yank to know a Yank.” She applied a final dab of powder from a small compact, then snapped it shut. “How about you?”

  “I loathe it.”

  “I meant your love life.”

  “What?” Faraday brought the car to a halt again. The directness of this woman never ceased to amaze him. Even Eadie Sykes was a novice compared to Joyce.

  “Just wondering, honey. Last time I had the pleasure of your company, you were shacked up with a Spanish lady. Am I right?”

  “Yes. Sort of.”

  “Still together?”

  “No.”

  “Someone else?”

  “Yes.”

  “Serious?”

  “Straightforward. We laugh a lot.”

  “You love her?”

  “That’s a big question.”

  “You living together?”

  “No.”

  “She got a place of her own? Somewhere private?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she married? Tied up with someone else?”

  “Absolutely not.” He looked across at her. “What is this?”

  “Nothing, honey. Just curious, that’s all. You know something else about the Big C? It gives you the right to ask the hard questions.” She paused a moment, staring out at the lunchtime shoppers dodging through the stalled traffic. “Mind if I pop another one?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “OK.” She reached forward and tapped the receipt Faraday had left on the dashboard. “How come you’re having room service at the Sally Port Hotel if this relationship’s so great?”

  Eadie Sykes found Martin Eckersley bent over a copy of the Independent when she finally made it to the Cafe Parisien. She was ten minutes late and he was already on page 4.

  She pulled up a seat and gave the proffered menu the briefest of glances.

  “Three-egg omelette and fries.” She nodded at the empty cup beside the paper. “Cappuccino to start.”

  “I thought you were on a diet?”

  “Never. We’re talking four miles a day at the moment, and that’s before I even break a sweat. Girl’s got to refuel otherwise she falls over.” She grinned at him. “How’s you?”

  “Busy.”

  He began to tell her about the Leigh Park death, a woman in her mid forties with a history of mental disturbance and a fondness for cheap vodka. She’d been found dead in bed with an empty bottle of painkillers on the pillow and no sign of a note. Eadie let him air his worries about the possibility of interference by some other party, then leant forward, touching him lightly on the hand.

  “Daniel Kelly…?” she said.

  Eckersley paused in mid sentence. He was a small, neat, attentive man with bright eyes behind rimless glasses and a carefully tended moustache. A lawyer by training, he’d left a profitable Birmingham practice after a couple of years as Deputy for the city’s Coroner. The world of sudden death, he’d once confessed to Eadie, had put him back in touch with real life. Not as just an inquisitor, trying to establish the truth about a particular set of circumstances, but as a human being, doing his best to ease the grief of those left behind.

  “I read the file this morning,” he said. “Such as it is. One of my blokes talked to a DC first thing. How much do we know about the lad?”

  The ‘we? put a smile on Eadie’s face. She’d known from their first meeting that she represented something new and slightly exotic in this man’s life.

  “He was bright, very bright. Older than your average student and pretty much alone.”

  She told him about Kelly’s background, the wreckage of his parents’ marriage, the way he’d rafted around the world on a fat monthly allowance, a bewildered loner looking for some sense of direction.

  “Or purpose.”

  “Quite.”

  “And the drugs?”

  “Supplied that purpose.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I am. You should listen to him, Martin. A couple of tapes are on their way to you. A nice detective seized them this morning. Kept asking me about supply of Class A drugs. Made me feel like a criminal.”

  “You were there,” Eckersley pointed out. “In fact you were probably the last person to see him alive. That makes you a witness.”

  “That’s what he said but that doesn’t mean I killed him, does it? The key word here is “witness”. I played the recording angel. Got it all down on tape, the whole story.”

  “Good stuff? Effective?”

  “Unbelievable. You can judge for yourself but, believe me, the guy’s amazing. What he says is pretty controversial and it might not be our take on hard drugs but that doesn’t make it any less valid. More to the point,
he sounds authentic. He’s been there. He is there. Any kid watching will know that, sense that, and at the end of the day some of them just might listen. Here.” Eadie rummaged in her day sack and produced a hastily folded photocopy. “I know you’ve got the world’s best memory but I thought this might help.”

  Eckersley studied the photocopy. Three months ago, he’d been part of the review process, helping to check out Eadie’s submission to the Portsmouth Pathways Partnership for match-funding on her video project. Their first encounter had taken place in the Coroner’s Office at Highland Road police station, a meeting of minds fuelled by appalling coffee. Eadie had deliberately left room for last-minute adjustments in the twenty-four-page submission document believing that heavyweight support could only strengthen her case and within a week, after further exchanges on the phone, she and Eckersley had agreed the single paragraph that seemed to sum up the thrust of Eadie’s video.

  Eadie waited until Eckersley had finished. Then she retrieved the photocopy, looking him in the eye, and began to read the paragraph aloud.

  ” ‘The documentary maker has a duty to level the ground between the audience at risk and the real nature of the offending behaviour. The emphasis should be on reality … on real people, real causes, real consequences. There should be no need for homilies, for finger-wagging, for lists of do’s and don’ts. The case for not using drugs should make itself.’ “

  She glanced up. “The important word is “consequences”, Martin. Like I said, the interview is knockout, but if you want the truth there’s only so much that words can do. What we need now are pictures, the rest of the story, what actually happens in a case like this.”

  “You mean the post-mortem.”

  “Sure. And the funeral. And the father. And maybe you. All of that.”

  “You don’t think that’s intrusive?”

  “Intrusive? Dear God, of course it’s intrusive. But that’s precisely the issue because drugs themselves are intrusive. In fact they’re so bloody intrusive they kill you. And even if that doesn’t happen, even if you limp on, more or less intact, they still take your life away. If that wasn’t the truth, we wouldn’t be talking like this. Nor would I be spending half my life running round after bloody junkies.” She beckoned him closer, aware of listening ears at nearby tables. “My point is simple, Martin. It’s consequences again. Just ask yourself a question. How many kids are going to be shooting up if they’re thinking about bodies on slabs? About Daniel Kelly getting himself sliced up? Emptied? Weighed? Whatever else happens in the mortuary? Is all that such a great advert for hard drugs?”