Angels Passing

by Hurley, Graham

‘She was here last night. She’s often here,’ she said at last.

  Faraday was back on the sofa, the album open at a section of sepia portraits, professionally posed and artfully lit. Age and cigarettes may have wrecked Grace Randall’s lungs but her profile had survived the years. The same proud tilt of the chin. The same fine-boned, hawk-like face.

  ‘She loves those pictures.’

  Faraday put the album to one side. Grace Randall’s use of tenses was beginning to worry him. He had to be sure that she understood what he’d been saying. The girl was dead. She’d fallen from a great height. Had Grace managed to follow this? Or had old age and too many sherries blurred the world around her?

  He went through the likely sequence of events again. Finally, he asked the girl’s name.

  ‘Helen,’ Grace wheezed. ‘My Helen.’

  My Helen?

  Gradually, with infinite patience. Faraday managed to tease out her story. Grace had a great-granddaughter, Trudy. Trudy was a frequent visitor. She ran little errands. She fetched bits and pieces of shopping. Helen was her friend and one day she’d come up too. After that, she came often. Grace would tell her about the old days on the Cunard boats, about the songs she sang in the first-class lounge, about the time she’d fallen in love with one of the musicians in the band, and Helen had opened her heart in return. How sad that little girl’s life had been. How much music she’d have in her if she could only listen to herself.

  ‘She used to paint my nails …’ Grace extended her long, trembling fingers ‘… black.’

  Helen had been here last night, she repeated. She was very upset. She had a boyfriend but something had happened, something she wouldn’t talk about. Grace had taken her tablets and gone to bed past midnight but Helen didn’t want to leave. She’d said she’d sleep on the sofa again. She loved that sofa.

  ‘She often spent the night here?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Grace nodded.

  Faraday pressed her further, wanting to know more about the girl’s state of mind, whether she’d got over being upset, whether or not Grace had heard her leave, but the old woman didn’t seem to be listening. There was something else she wanted to say, another fragment of the evening that had come back to her. Helen had answered the door, late. She had a friend, a little boy, a scrap of a thing. She’d seen him in the hall through her open bedroom door. He had a strange laugh, high-pitched, almost a shriek, and an even stranger name.

  Faraday waited and waited, knowing there was no point trying to hurry the conversation along. At length, Grace gave a little nod, pleased with herself.

  ‘Doodie,’ she whispered. ‘She called him Doodie.’

  Three

  FRIDAY, 9 FEBRUARY, late morning

  Faraday read the quote a second time, testing the phrases on his lips. Dawn Ellis and Bev Yates had returned to the ground-floor day room at Chuzzlewit House, answering Faraday’s summons for a meet and an update. A WPC, meanwhile, was stopping with Mrs Bassam until word came from the mortuary that Helen’s body was ready for the formal ID.

  ‘“The first venture, on a path already filled with cool pale radiance …”’ Faraday paused, checking the final phrase ‘“… was a flower who told me her name.”’

  Yates and Ellis exchanged glances. Yates had never had much time for poetry. Flowers with the gift of speech didn’t figure much in the pages of Jet-Ski Monthly.

  Faraday turned the photo over and studied the face again.

  ‘You say the mother gave you a number?’

  ‘It’s a mobile, boss.’ It was Ellis. ‘Turned off last time we tried. His name’s Niamat according to her. He’s Afghan. She thinks he’s got a bedsit or something in St Ronan’s Road.’

  ‘She’s met him?’

  ‘Yes. The last time was around Christmas. Apparently he turned up at the house with some flowers he wanted to give her but she sent him packing.’

  ‘She doesn’t like flowers?’

  ‘She doesn’t like him. She accused him of hanging round her daughter and apparently he had a bit of a go.’

  ‘Speaks English, then?’

  ‘Must do.’

  Faraday was still studying the photo. Mrs Bassam had doubtless been shielding her daughter from predatory males but there might be worse options in this city than a multilingual Afghan with a taste for French poetry. Most kids of Helen Bassam’s age could barely speak English, let alone muster the energy to tackle a foreign language.

  ‘And the daughter was involved? Is that the story?’

  ‘Dotty about him. Besotted. Mum did her best to get between them but anything she said just made it worse. Lately, she said she’s been tearing her hair out. The girl was just too young. At fourteen, you make all the obvious mistakes.’

  Faraday looked to Yates for confirmation. In his early forties, the DC had recently married the twenty-two-year-old daughter of a wealthy family in the Meon Valley. Bev Yates had never looked his age, and he and the lovely Melanie made a handsome couple, but if anyone knew about the generation gap it should be him.

  Yates reached for the photo. He seldom missed an opportunity to state the obvious.

  ‘He’s shagging for Kabul,’ he said briefly. ‘Best place for him.’

  ‘You think he’s an illegal?’

  ‘No idea, boss. I’ll let you know when we find him.’

  Faraday retrieved the photo and added a note to the pad at his elbow. Lover boy would doubtless be holed up in one of the many near-derelict houses that had been bought for a song and toshed for the small army of asylum seekers which had recently descended on the city. At £500 per month, straight from Social Services, it was easy money for the landlords who preyed on the refugees, but that was another story.

  ‘The girl spent part of last night here, a flat on the top floor,’ Faraday said. ‘Every tenant has a key to the roof area but the old girl who owns the flat can’t find hers. That explains how the girl got on the roof. Did the mum mention the flats at all?’

  ‘No. We asked her, but the answer’s no. When the girl stayed away at night, she assumed she was kipping at her mate’s.’

  ‘Assumed?’ This girl was fourteen. Old Portsmouth was a God-fearing, respectable area.

  ‘Mum and her didn’t get on. I think our family welfare friends would call it breakdown.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘So she says. The father’s off with a new partner. She doesn’t strike me as a woman with friends. Maybe the FLO …’

  Faraday nodded, making another note. In situations like these, he’d be requesting a Family Liaison Officer, schooled in coping with the aftermath of sudden death. In Mrs Bassam’s case, it would at least put a human face on all the questions they might need to ask.

  ‘There’s a kid called Doodie …’ Faraday began. ‘Young. A boy. The old girl puts him in the flat around midnight.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘She thinks around ten.’

  ‘Ten?’ Yates exchanged a look with Ellis. Ten-year-olds belonged in a different script. Surely.

  Faraday paused for a moment, wondering whether to describe his exchange with Grace Randall, but decided he’d never do justice to the woman’s strangely lucid dottiness. At ninety, she was living proof that you ended up entombed in your memories, a life no less rich for being almost over.

  ‘She’s up for company,’ he said instead, ‘and I think the girl probably was as well. Old folk like people dropping in, especially ones who keep coming back.’

  ‘But what was this Doodie kid doing in some old biddie’s flat at midnight?’

  ‘She doesn’t know. She says she’d never seen him before. Ask Mrs Bassam. Ask her whether Helen ever mentioned Doodie. Put it on the list.’

  Yates produced a pad.

  ‘And you think he might have the key to the roof?’

  ‘I think he might be a witness. I’ve checked on the overnight Mispers again but no Doodie. I’ve put a couple of calls into the CPU but they haven’t come back yet. Plus no one else seems to have heard
of him.’

  The CPU was the Child Protection Unit, working from an office at force training headquarters at Netley. Their database drew on inputs from Social Services, Educational Welfare Officers and the city’s Persistent Young Offender team. If anyone had a lead on Doodie, it would be the CPU.

  Yates was gazing at his pad. ‘But how did the girl get into the flats in the first place? There’s a swipe system on the doors. You need a special key.’

  ‘Mrs Randall had a code number she’d give to carers. You tap it in at the main entrance door downstairs.’

  ‘And she gave it to Helen?’

  Faraday nodded.

  ‘Either that, or her friend did. The old lady’s got a great-granddaughter, Trudy. She was mates with Helen.’

  ‘Trudy Gallagher?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Yates shot Ellis a look. He’d already rung the number they’d got from Mrs Bassam and found himself talking to the girl’s mother.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Trudy’s at home.’

  ‘Not at school?’

  ‘No. She had a couple of wisdom teeth out earlier this week and apparently she’s not feeling too clever. I checked it out with the school and it seems to be kosher.’

  ‘So what about last night?’

  ‘At home. Like I say.’

  ‘Did Helen Bassam come round?’

  ‘The mother says definitely not. Hasn’t seen her all week.’

  ‘So when Helen told her mum …?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Yates nodded. ‘The girl was talking bollocks. Whoever she saw it couldn’t have been Trudy.’

  Faraday glanced at his watch. He’d lose the uniforms at lunchtime. From that point on, the inquiry was effectively in the hands of Yates and Ellis. For the time being, Faraday himself would remain in charge as Senior Investigating Officer, though that too might change. As soon as possible, he wanted Yates to check the CCTV tapes for the period around midnight. The kid Doodie had to be on the entry cameras and presumably one of the two lift cameras as well. They needed to establish when he got in and when he left and Faraday wanted a printout of the best of the mugshots.

  He paused.

  ‘And if he stops the lift on any other floor, check out the residents. OK?’

  Faraday got to his feet. Scenes of Crime had finished outside and he’d shortly be returning the day room to the warden. He’d get the G28, the form for reporting a sudden death, to the Coroner’s Office but he wanted Dawn Ellis to accompany Mrs Bassam for the formal ID on the girl’s body. Ellis pulled a face.

  ‘Can’t the WPC run Mrs Bassam up there?’

  ‘No, I’d prefer you to do it. The girl’s got to be her daughter. Maybe she’ll tell you more once she’s seen her for real.’

  Ellis shrugged, resigned to another difficult scene. ‘A shoulder to cry on,’ she said softly. ‘Never fails, does it?’

  Winter was on the phone, waiting for his call to answer, when Faraday got back to Southsea nick. Winter watched him put his head round the corner of the CID office, summoning Cathy with a nod, and found himself wondering again about the DFs love life.

  He’d long had Faraday down as a loser when it came to women. Twenty years bringing up a deaf son had obviously cramped his social style, and office gossip suggested that a brief affair with the widow of a local art dealer had quickly hit the buffers, but with the boy at last off his hands he seemed to be making up for lost time.

  In one sense, Winter wished him nothing but good luck. In his own experience, affairs with married women offered the perfect fusion of theft plus brilliant sex. Once you’d blagged it off a woman who was dying for the odd variation or two you knew there was nothing better. But the thought of Faraday at it with someone else’s wife sat oddly with everything else he knew about the man. When it came to the job, Faraday could be a nightmare. He’d never met anyone else who was so straight.

  At last, Winter bent to the phone. He’d lost count of the number of calls he’d made this morning, trying to pin down the job at Brennan’s. The informers he rated were plugged in right across the city but so far all he’d drawn was a big fat blank. No one had heard as much as a whisper. Brennan’s was known as a dodgy place to screw. Word was the bloke kept Alsatians on site at night and never fed the bastards. Who’d trade their arse for a vanful of fucking cordless drills?

  The voice at the other end hadn’t a clue. After yet another dispiriting football conversation about Pompey’s last home performance, Winter hung up. Soon Cathy Lamb would be after him for hard intelligence on tonight’s little expedition. She’d have chivvied Faraday into negotiating the overtime, but this kind of extra resource would only come at a price. No one parted with fifty hours’ overtime unless they were guaranteed a result. That’s the way the job worked these days. That’s why fewer and fewer of the troops were prepared to take a punt. Stick your neck out, wave a flag for a bit of that nice pre-emptive policing, and God help you if you got it wrong. Winter thought about it for a moment or two longer, then pushed back his chair and headed for the door. In situations like these, there were certain calls you couldn’t risk from the office. Not if the word ‘pension’ meant anything at all.

  Mrs Bassam wasn’t at home when Dawn Ellis returned to Old Portsmouth. She’d already tried her mobile with no result and now she understood why. According to the WPC parked outside, Jane Bassam had taken herself off to the cathedral for a while.

  The cathedral was a couple of minutes’ walk down the High Street, a pleasant modest building that had once served as the township’s parish church. Ellis hesitated at the door, wondering quite where CID procedure ended and privacy began. Anyone in this situation deserved an hour or so of quiet contemplation, she thought. Lose your only child and there’d be knots that only silence could untie.

  Inside, she thought at first that the cathedral was empty. Rows of seats extended across the nave towards the organ loft. Beyond were the choir stalls and finally the altar. She paused, telling herself that Jane Bassam was already on her way home or on the nearby seafront, but then her eyes adjusted to the big, shadowed spaces and she recognised the tall, erect figure in a distant pew, bent in prayer.

  Ellis found a chair at the back of the nave and settled down to wait. It was rare to make a space like this for yourself in the working day and almost at once she was drawn back to the sprawled, broken figure on the wet pavement beneath the flats. Whether or not this girl’s death deserved a full-scale CID inquiry wasn’t the issue. People like herself and Bev Yates were there to investigate breaches of the law but in this case the only law that really mattered was the law of gravity. Something had tipped Helen Bassam over the edge and the truly frightening thing was how many other Helen Bassams – kids, for Christ’s sake – had taken that final step.

  Only months before, she’d been called to another jumper, a young lad of seventeen who’d chosen the top of the city centre’s multi-storey car park to launch himself into oblivion. The brief CID inquiry had run out of steam after a couple of days but its findings had been both uncomfortable and depressing.

  The boy had done wonders at GCSE. His predicted A levels were outstanding and he was a dead cert for a business studies degree at one of the better universities. Under these circumstances, no one had him down as a manic depressive or a suicide, least of all his parents. Yet there he was, on another metal tray in the mortuary fridge, leaving behind a note that was all the more chilling for its rationality. He’d looked hard at life. He’d played by the rules. He’d done his very best. And he’d decided, in the end, that it was all crap.

  Ellis leaned back, resting her head against the pillar behind the chair. How do you answer a challenge like that? How do you persuade a kid with everything to live for that he’d got it wrong? The note had run to a couple of pages, a charge sheet against a society he’d come to regard as obscene. The relentless materialism. The political cowardice. The pollution. The greed. The hypocrisy. Everyone got it in the neck, from Rupert Murdoch to Tony Blair, but t
he real sadness wasn’t the hole he left behind, or even the waste of a young life, but the fact that in so many instances the lad had been right.

  A copy of the note had done the rounds in the CID office, and different hands had added extra charges to the indictment. They ranged from gripes about political correctness to the strange sentencing habits of certain magistrates and they formed a characteristically acid footnote to a document that was terrifying in the bluntness of its truth. The fact was that the lad had been spot-on and the trick nowadays, Ellis had concluded, was finding a way to survive all the crap. If you were lucky, and thick-skinned, you got by. Otherwise, if you were young enough and had the guts, you might start thinking seriously about fall parameters.

  Ellis heard the squeak of a chair as Mrs Bassam got to her feet. She made her way towards the aisle, genuflected, hesitated for a moment, and then walked towards the back of the nave. Ellis intercepted her at the door, knowing at once that she was the last person this woman wanted to see.

  ‘This won’t take very long,’ Ellis heard herself saying, I promise.’

  All morning, Faraday had known that there’d be no alternative to a head-to-head with Hartigan about the Brennan’s job. From the moment Cathy had briefed him on the intelligence that had come Winter’s way, he’d anticipated the path that led to the Ops Superintendent’s door. Everything in the world now boiled down to money. And as far as volume crime was concerned, Hartigan held the purse strings.

  The Superintendent’s office was at Fratton police station. Hartigan was a small, intense, obsessively neat little man who’d acquired a well-earned reputation for management prowess. He’d sniffed the winds of change that had blown through the upper corridors of police forces all over the country and knew that serious ambition was best served by falling in step with their new political masters.

  If fighting crime required a mastery of New Labour-speak, then so be it. If Best Value Performance Indicators and European Foundation Quality Management flagged the path to ACPO rank, then Hartigan was the first in the queue to volunteer for the endless seminars, translating the lessons he’d learned into a blizzard of must-read memos that fluttered slowly down to the shop floor. Some of these memos had become collectors’ items, but strip away the fancy language and what you were left with was the simplest of messages: think money. The politicians were demanding more and more for less and less, an unsquareable circle that led to confrontations like these.