“She’s busy.”
“Yeah. And I bet she’s always busy. But you know something, Joe? Busyness is a pile of shit, no matter how many films you make. Why? Because you’ll never change the world. Boy George, your guy Blair, these people are in there for what they can get. Vote them out, you’re dealing with another bunch of bastards. Same with drugs, matter of fact. Tumbril’s a dandy idea. Spend a couple of trillion pounds, sort out all that paperwork, and maybe we get to put Bazza Mackenzie away. But you really think that’ll make the slightest bit of difference? Out on the street where it really matters? My sweet arse.”
“So what do you do?”
“About the drugs thing?”
“About’ Faraday gestured helplessly at the space between them ‘everything.”
“How we should be with each other? Men and women? Fathers and sons? How we can best get through?”
“Yes.”
“Geez, I don’t know.” She reached for a bread roll and tore it apart. “I guess in the end it’s personal. I’ve got a few ideas on the subject, mainly about levelling with folks, being yourself, sparing a little time, taking a risk or two. Your Eadie? Does she read it that way? You tell me.”
“She takes huge risks. That’s what she’s best at. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“And that makes you feel good?”
“Feeling good’s irrelevant. She does what she has to do. I admire her for that.”
“Sure. And where are you in all this? You singular? You plural? She doesn’t care, Joe. Else you wouldn’t be sitting here with me.”
“That’s unfair. You’ve never met her.”
“I don’t have to. Looking at you is all I need.” She let the point sink in. Then she beckoned him towards her, the way you might share a secret with a child. “You’re a good man, Joe Faraday. You’re honest. You care. You put yourself on the line. And that’s from someone who’s got no time for irony.”
Faraday sat back a moment, warmed by her generosity. Then he looked at the faces around him, listened to the swirl of conversation -people getting on with their lives, people coping, people at ease and he felt the tide of panic beginning to rise again.
“That’s all fine,” he muttered. “But it’s not enough, is it?”
Chapter 18
SATURDAY, 22 MARCH 2003, 20.10
The early-morning train to London was full of Pompey fans. They drifted from carriage to carriage, toting bacon baps and cans of Stella, still sober. From time to time, buried in her copy of the Guardian, Eadie caught the name “Preston North End”. Couple more points, according to a fat boy in a Burberry coat, and it’s ours for the fucking taking.
“What’s ours for the fucking taking?” Eadie enquired of the elderly woman sitting beside her.
“The football, dear,” the woman whispered. “Even my Len’s getting excited.”
Minutes later, for the second time, Eadie tried to phone Faraday. Last night, a little to her surprise, he hadn’t returned to the flat, but on reflection that wasn’t so unusual. Saturday mornings, he often left early for a birding expedition and slept at the Bargemaster’s House, not wanting to disturb her.
Faraday’s mobile still wasn’t taking calls. On the off chance, she tried the landline at the Bargemaster’s House just in case he’d opted for a lie-in. The last couple of days she’d noticed a tension in him, a tightness that conversation simply seemed to compound. She’d been meaning to ask him about it, to make the kind of time she sensed he needed, but events as ever had ganged up against her.
There was no answer from the Bargemaster’s House and Eadie glanced at her watch as the train slowed for Woking station. She’d been right first time. By now, Joe had probably been on the road for hours, with his waxed cotton jacket, packets of dried soup, and Thermos full of hot water. She’d never met anyone so organised, so single-minded, so self-sufficient. Pass on a rumour of something exotic, some bird he hadn’t seen for a year or two, and he’d be gone all day. Sorted, she thought, with a tiny stab of relief.
Faraday sat in front of his first-floor study window, his binoculars abandoned, the pad on which he tallied each morning’s birds untouched. Way out on the harbour, high tide, a raft of something grey was floating gently south. They were probably brent geese, he thought, but he couldn’t be bothered to check. That ceaseless urge to seek and find, to classify and record, to keep his finger on the pulse of life beyond this window, had left him. His curiosity had gone. Even the ringing of the phone downstairs had failed to rouse him.
He gazed numbly at the view and wondered about going back to bed. Unable to sleep, he’d been sitting by the window since before dawn. Last night, against his better judgement, he’d allowed Joyce to invite him in when he’d dropped her off at home. She lived in a featureless modern semi on an estate to the east of Southampton, every trace of her errant husband carefully erased.
She’d slipped a Peggy Lee album into the CD player and then bustled through to the kitchen to brew coffee, leaving Faraday in the tiny box-like lounge-diner surrounded by little colonies of Beanie Babies. How anyone could live with this shade of fuchsia was beyond him and his heart had sunk when she’d thundered up the stairs to the bedroom. Minutes later, in a turquoise dressing gown, she was back down again, raiding her ex-husband’s store of duty-free booze. Cheerfully shameless, she offered him a choice of five liqueurs to go with the coffee and said it might be best to put his Mondeo on the hard standing in front of the garage.
Faraday said no to everything, swallowed the coffee, and headed for the door. On the front step, not the least upset, she gave him a big hug and told him to get a good night’s sleep. He’d smiled at her and said he’d do his best. He drove up the road to turn round, and as he passed the house again he could see her through the net curtains in the lounge, a huge swirl of turquoise, dancing alone to the music.
Now, he wandered downstairs and put the kettle on, forcing himself to plan the day. If he had the energy, he’d put a coat on and walk the three miles to the bird reserve at Farlington Marshes. Contributors to the Birdline website had been talking of short-eared owls and he knew the sight of one of those daylight hunters might cheer him up. Back by mid morning, he’d be in good time to drive down to the Solent Palace Hotel. Maybe he’d treat himself to lunch, find out if the food had improved, pretend he was Graham Wallace, check out the sight lines from the restaurant and the exits to the car park, and all the other stuff that setting up a meet like this involved. The thought filled him with gloom, not because he’d lost faith in the operation but because the very prospect of having to make any kind of decision seemed hopelessly daunting.
The kettle began to boil and he stepped across to switch it off. The teapot lay on the nearby tray. J-J had been the last to use it and a couple of ancient tea bags were still visible inside. Faraday froze for a moment, staring down in bewilderment. His brain appeared to have locked solid. Try as he might, he couldn’t work out what to do next.
Paul Winter was the first customer of the morning at Pompey Blau. He parked his precious Subaru and sauntered across the road towards the forecourt. A breakfast at a café round the corner had improved an already promising day and the sight of a line of gleaming BMWs lifted his spirits still further. He hadn’t felt so cheerful for years.
A small hut at the back of the forecourt housed the sales operation. This, thought Winter, was Pompey at its best. Half a million quid’s worth of German engineering on display and some dosser’s garden shed to tidy up the paperwork.
A youth in a baseball cap and a Saints football top lounged behind the desk. A Saturday copy of the Sun was open at the football page.
“Brave lad.” Winter nodded at the shirt, “You got a death wish or something?”
Without saying a word, the youth twisted round in the chair. Scrolled across the back of the shirt, Scummers Suck.
“Nice one. Mike Valentine around?”
“No.”
“Any idea where I can find him?”
“Seen him at all recently, have you?”
The youth shook his head. His eyes hadn’t left the paper. Winter planted himself in front of the desk, then bent low, his mouth an inch from the youth’s ear.
“What if I want to buy one of those nice cars?” he whispered.
The youth at last lifted his head.
“You can’t.”
“Can’t? How does that work? I thought this was a garage?”
“They’re all sold.”
“All of them? Why doesn’t it say so?”
“Run out of stickies, mate. And my writing’s crap.” He’d gone back to the paper. “Valentine’s probably at Waterlooville. Why don’t you try there?”
Waterlooville was fifteen minutes up the motorway. Once a quiet country town, it had recently sprawled outwards in a rash of trading estates and executive housing developments that threatened to engulf the surrounding countryside.
Mike Valentine Autos occupied a corner site on the trading estate to the west of the town centre. Winter left the Subaru at the kerb side and strolled across to the big, glass-fronted offices beside the showroom. A crescent of blue sofa was littered with motoring magazines and a water cooler bubbled on a stand in the corner. A banner hung on the wall behind the empty reception desk. More For Less, it read. Driving Is Believing.
Winter lingered beside the desk for a moment or two. Twenty-five years in the job had given him a talent for reading documents upside down, but he had to double-check before he believed the figure on the sales invoice. A two-year-old Beemer for 9500? Couldn’t be done.
There were dozens more invoices underneath. He stepped round the desk and began to flick through them. A 2002-reg series 5 for 14,950. A Mercedes S for 11,750. No wonder everyone he knew in the job was beating a path to Mike Valentine’s door. This wasn’t a sales operation, it was a charity.
“Can I help you?”
A woman had appeared from a room at the back. She was young, tall and blonde with a spray-on top and low-slung jeans to showcase her belly piercing. Winter offered a cheerful grin. If her name wasn’t Sharon, it should have been.
“Mike Valentine?”
“Not here today.” She was looking down at the invoices. “You from the VAT or something?”
“Just curious. Friend told me this was the place to come for a bargain.”
“You wanna carV She seemed astonished.
“That’s right. Prices like these, who wouldn’t?”
“Yeah?” She frowned, then started picking at a nail. “You’ll have to talk to Mike, then. There’s no one else now.”
“Why’s that then?”
“Dunno.” She shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“Fine. Love to. Where is he?”
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“London.”
“What about the cars next door?”
“Most of them are gone, sold. Bloke came in this morning and cancelled on the blue series 3 convertible. You can have a look at that, if you want.”
“Through there?” Winter nodded across at the door that led into the showroom. “You got a service history or anything?”
“Try the workshop at the back. There’s a bloke called Barry.” She sank into the chair behind the desk and dug around in the drawer for a nail file. The conversation was evidently over.
Winter headed for the showroom. Amongst half a dozen cars was the blue convertible. Winter made a cursory inspection, gave one of the front wheels a kick, noticed the distinctive Play Up Pompey sticker on the back, then headed out into the sunshine again.
The workshop, invisible from the road, was a breeze-block construction with folding metal doors. Two CCTV cameras looked down on the apron of oil-stained tarmac at the front and a prominent sign threatened illegal parkers with clamping. One of the two doors was open, and Winter stepped into the gloom, peering round.
The workshop was bigger than he’d expected. A couple of inspection pits occupied one side and a powered chain hoist hung from one of the overhead girders. Like every other detective in the area, Winter had picked up the gossip after Valentine had survived a carefully plotted road stop on the A3 shortly before Christmas. Judging by the resources they’d thrown at the job surveillance, traffic cars, spotter plane -you’d have expected something substantial in the way of a result, yet even the wreckers in Scenes of Crime had failed to find even a trace of anything naughty.
The fact that Valentine was tied in with Bazza Mackenzie was common knowledge, but Christmas was the first time that Winter had given the partnership serious thought. Maybe the guys who’d set up the intercept were right, he thought. Maybe Valentine’s lads really did run shit loads of cocaine down from London. If so, then a workshop like this would be exactly the kind of unloading facility they’d need.
Except for a tidy-looking BMW X5, the garage was empty. Winter sauntered across and took a look. Someone had been working on the vehicle only recently because there was dirty oil in a plastic bowl between the front wheels. The tyres were new, too, tiny whiskers of rubber curling up from the tread. Curious, Winter peered inside. The BMW’s documentation lay pouched in a plastic wallet on the dashboard. On the passenger seat, was a new-looking Michelin European road map. Winter returned to the front of the vehicle, making a mental note of the registration, then he noticed the tiny black triangles of black tape patched carefully onto the headlights. They, too, looked new. Preparations for a trip abroad, he thought.
He heard a door bang, then footsteps. Turning round, Winter found himself looking at a small, thin figure in stained green overalls. The face, for a second, looked familiar: receding hair, bony skull, small deeply recessed eyes. He’d seen this man recently, maybe in one of the Custody Suite photos that decorated the cork board in the CID squad office at Highland Road.
“What’s this, then?” The man was wiping his hands on a tangle of oily rag. A good night’s sleep would do wonders for his complexion.
Winter explained about the blue convertible, wanted more details. The mechanic told him the car was a dog.
“Got shunted up the arse in a motorway pile-up. Twisted chassis. Fuck all we can do about it.”
“Shame.” Winter nodded back towards the showroom. “What about the rest of them?”
“Couple of decent motors. The series 7 is a steal. That kind of price, you could clean up if you had the patience. Private sale after, ad in the paper, fifteen grand easy.”
“So what are you asking?”
“Eleven three. And it’s gone, in case you’re wondering.”
Winter nodded, plunging his hands in his pockets. He could detect bitterness in seconds and this man had plenty.
“How come everything goes so fast?” he enquired.
“Always has done. Pile ‘em high, sell ‘em for fuck all. Shift enough motors, do it quick, and no one has time to spot how it’s done. Same with them magicians, ain’t it?” He made a shuffling motion with his hands, invisible cards in some pavement scam, then cleared his throat and turned his head to spit into the gloom.
“No motors left, then? Except the bent Beemer?”
“That’s right, mate, all gone.”
“So when should I come back?”
“Wouldn’t bother if I were you. He’s selling up.”
“Who’s selling up?”
“My boss. Selling up and shipping out. Couple of weeks, this place’ll be doing bathrooms. Great, if you fancy selling fucking khazis for the rest of your life.”
The Solent Palace Hotel occupied a prime site on the seafront Look one way, and the long line of Ladies Mile tracked across the Common towards Southsea Castle. Look the other, and the sweep of the promenade took the eye west towards the busy mouth of Portsmouth Harbour. From the upper floors, on a clear day, you could see fifteen miles across the Isle of Wight to the low, blue hump of Tennyson Down. Faraday, who’d once spent half a morning in a top-floor bedroom trying to get to the bottom of an alleged
rape, remembered being transfixed by the view. Tennyson Down was the landscape of his youth, miles and miles of close-cropped turf that still spoke to him across the years. Just now, he could think of nothing sweeter than to be back there, perched on the cliff top, listening to a skylark belting its head off, invisible against the sun.
The hotel restaurant on the first floor was a long, sunny room with tall picture windows over-curtained in heavy brocade. At a couple of minutes before noon, it was virtually empty. An elderly couple at a nearby table were puzzling over the Daily Telegraph crossword. In a far corner, a waiter was polishing glasses.
Faraday found himself a table by the window. He could feel the sun through the glass and he swapped chairs so the thin warmth bathed his face. He closed his eyes a moment, forcing himself to relax. There was something about the feel of this place that reminded him of a convalescent home. Its very emptiness should have been peopled with casualties, he thought, and amongst those broken bodies he was tempted to number himself. He felt exhausted, physically knocked-about, a front-line survivor evacuated from some far-flung war, and when he opened his eyes again he half expected a nurse to turn up with a wheelchair, ready to give him a breath or two of fresh air.
“What can I get you, sir?” It was the waiter.
Faraday looked at him, vaguely surprised.
“Lunch?”
“The menu’s there, sir. I’ll be back in two ticks.”
Faraday studied the menu, presented again with the impossibility of making any kind of choice. Lightly poached salmon on a bed of watercress? Breast of chicken, Italian-style? He hadn’t a clue.
He put the menu to one side and gazed out of the window. Tomorrow’s business, he’d decided, could pretty much look after itself. If Willard was really determined to keep this latest episode in the Tumbril story so tight even Brian Imber didn’t know then there was precious little that Faraday could make in the way of prior arrangements. He’d already acquired RIPA authority for the operation, which would protect the covertly gathered evidence in court. Tomorrow, God willing, Wallace and Mackenzie would turn up, and Mackenzie would make a choice of table. Faraday and Willard, meanwhile, would be parked across the road, eagerly tuned in to whatever followed. Faraday got to his feet and took a precautionary peek round the curtain, confirming that even now, on a busy Saturday, there were still parking spaces across the road. Tomorrow, McNaughton, Wallace’s handler, would grab another of them, and the rest was down to the miracle of radio waves.
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