Angels Passing

by Hurley, Graham

  He quickly checked the wardrobe and the battered chest of drawers, then backed out of the room and gave Sullivan a yell. When he got to the top of the stairs, he nodded towards the open door and told him to get on the mobile. He wanted a photographer and a van. Quickly.

  Naylor was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Well?’ The grin was back on Winter’s face. ‘What’s the story?’

  I was kidding about Brad,’ Naylor mumbled. ‘He’s been here all the time.’

  ‘You mean living here?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘In that room?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So why’s the wardrobe empty? Doesn’t he have a change of clothes?’

  Naylor took a little half-step backwards, trying to avoid the traps.

  ‘When I say living here—’

  Mrs Naylor appeared in the open doorway behind him. Her face was scarlet with anger.

  ‘That’s all garbage. It’s true what he said before. We haven’t seen Bradley for months.’

  ‘Sure.’ Winter beamed at her, ever helpful. ‘And the fairies left the stuff upstairs.’ He turned back to Naylor. ‘You’ve got a problem here, my old mate, but there are ways and means we can help you. Assuming, of course, you want to keep your missus out of it.’

  ‘Marge?’ Naylor looked blank.

  ‘Yeah. Conspiracy to handling.’ Winter shook his head regretfully. ‘In the Crown Court she could be looking at fourteen years. Some juries can be bloody unreasonable.’

  The colour had drained from Mrs Naylor’s face. For a moment, Sullivan thought she was going to collapse completely.

  Winter was still looking at her husband.

  ‘So why don’t we go through the story again,’ Winter suggested, ‘starting with those mates of Bradley’s?’

  Back home from Southsea police station, Faraday settled down to wait for J-J’s return but the longer he thought about it, the more he realised that he wasn’t up for a lengthy post-mortem on the boy’s love life, not now, not yet. Their life together had revolved around the spillage left over from childhood and adolescence – shared memories of birding trips, days on the beach, occasional expeditions to London – and this new J-J, this refugee from the grown-up world of shipwrecked relationships, was an altogether different proposition. After the best part of a day waiting for the lad to return, he realised that the last thing he wanted was a lengthy conversation about commitment and betrayal.

  He thought he’d put the printout from Helen Bassam’s mobile in his briefcase, and he was right. They were all there, all the numbers she’d so carefully stored, and Trudy Gallagher’s even included her nickname. Carrot.

  Faraday picked up the phone and dialled the number. On call-out days, he told himself, it was OK to quietly volunteer for extra duty. He glanced at his watch. 18.50.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  She had a Pompey accent, sandpapered by too many cigarettes. It didn’t sound like a young voice at all.

  ‘Trudy Gallagher?’

  ‘No chance. Who wants her?’

  Faraday gave his name. He could hear music and bar laughter in the background.

  ‘Old Bill, you say?’ There was more laughter, much closer. This woman had an audience.

  Faraday persevered. He was CID. He was investigating a serious incident. He needed to have a word or two with Trudy Gallagher. Was he talking to someone who knew where she was?

  ‘I’m her mother. I’m the last person who’d bloody know.’

  ‘I thought this was her mobile?’

  ‘You’re right. It was until I nicked it off of her. Bills that massive, what else could I do?’ There was another cackle of laughter. ‘She in trouble then?’

  It occurred to Faraday that Trudy’s mother might be a shorter cut to the boy Doodie than Trudy herself. Talking to kids, even on an informal non-interview basis, could be tricky. Make one slip and the defence lawyers would be all over you.

  ‘Maybe you could help,’ he suggested.

  There was a moment’s pause. In the background, muted voices. Then the woman was back again.

  ‘We’re at the Café Blanc,’ she said. ‘Help yourself.’

  The Café Blanc was in Southsea: sleek black and white decor, chrome and leather seats, gleaming maplewood floor and lots of smoked glass. It had only been open a couple of months and already it had become the happening place for estate agents, car dealers and young professional folk prepared to pay £3.50 for a bottle of Mexican lager. Word on the street suggested that it was a launderette for washing cocaine money and Faraday was in a position to suspect that the rumour was true.

  He parked on a single yellow line opposite and looked across. The big picture windows went with the clientele. Weekends, places like this filled early and already most tables were occupied. These were people who enjoyed being on show.

  He played a game with himself for a minute or two, trying to guess who had been on the other end of the phone, then gave up and dialled the number again. It was a woman sitting at a table in the window who dived for her bag, and the moment she produced her mobile, Faraday rang off.

  She was drinking with two friends. They were getting towards the bottom of a bottle of white wine, and there was another upside down in an ice bucket beside the table. She was tall and striking, with a torrent of jet-black hair that tumbled over her shoulders. She had her legs up on a spare chair, angling herself sideways across the window as if she owned the place. She was wearing tight jeans, red heels and a see-through blouse with a dark blue bra underneath. Her face looked a good deal older than her body.

  Faraday watched her peering at the readout on the mobile to try and identify the call. Three glasses down, he thought; she’d have forgotten his number. He studied the group for another minute or two, trying to work out who was bossing the conversation, and finally concluded that they were all too pissed to care. At length he got out of the car and walked across. Trudy’s mum spotted him before he’d even got the door open.

  ‘Mr Detective!’

  She was on her feet, pushing the spare chair towards him. The buzz of conversation stilled as eyes turned towards Faraday. In this harshly lit goldfish bowl he’d seldom felt so obvious, so exposed.

  ‘Mrs Gallagher?’

  ‘Call me Misty.’

  The name cracked up her two pals. They were all the same age, late thirties, and eyed Faraday up and down, the frankest of appraisals.

  ‘Do you have time for a chat?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Is there somewhere we can go?’

  ‘You name it.’

  More laughter. Faraday nodded towards the door.

  ‘I’ve got a car across the road. This needn’t take long.’

  Misty Gallagher retrieved her bag and headed for the door. Faraday held it open for her, refusing to give her friends the satisfaction of a backward glance. Inside the car she settled herself into the passenger seat. The four-year-old Mondeo was clearly a disappointment.

  ‘Is this yours, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Faraday had started the engine. The seafront, quiet at this time in the evening, was a minute away. As they passed Southsea Castle, he glanced across.

  ‘Why Misty?’ he enquired.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to know, love.’

  This was a new tone of voice – businesslike, wary. Without an audience she was a very different woman. Faraday pulled into a car park beside the Leisure Centre and turned off the engine. There was a silence while she produced a cigarette and lit it.

  Faraday wound down the window. Misty let her head fall back, expelling a long plume of smoke.

  ‘What’s she done then? Trade?’

  ‘Nothing that I know of. Nothing criminal, that is.’ Faraday paused. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Better.’ She drew on the cigarette again, not bothering to explain further.

  ‘Back to school next week, then?’

  ‘Maybe, if it suits her.’ Misty shifted her weight
in the seat, bringing herself round to face Faraday. The spill of light from the security floods fell across her blouse, though her face was still in shadow, and Faraday found himself wondering how many times a week she popped along to the gym.

  ‘She’s got a life of her own, you know, my Trade.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means she does what she does.’

  ‘She still lives with you, then?’

  ‘Some nights, yeah.’

  ‘And other nights?’

  ‘She doesn’t.’

  ‘At her boyfriend’s?’

  ‘Might be.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘What is this anyway?’

  Faraday explained about Helen Bassam and the flats. She’d fallen to her death at some point on Thursday night. Grace Randall lived on the top floor, Trudy’s great-grandma. Correct?

  ‘My nan, yeah.’

  ‘Helen used to go up there, according to Mrs Randall. Trudy must have done the introductions.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Were they still mates, Trudy and Helen?’

  ‘Up to Thursday night, you mean? Yeah, they were.’

  There was another silence, longer this time.

  ‘You don’t seem too upset,’ Faraday said at last, ‘about Helen.’

  ‘That’s because I knew already. It’s been on the radio. The whole fucking world knows.’

  ‘And Trudy?’

  ‘Upset. Really upset. What do you fucking think?’

  Faraday accepted the point with a nod. He wanted to know more about Trudy’s boyfriend. A name would be useful, and a contact number.

  ‘That’s down to Trudy.’

  ‘How old is he, as a matter of interest?’

  ‘Thirty-four? Thirty-five? Looks older sometimes but then he works hard, bless him.’

  ‘And that’s where she is? Nights she’s not with you?’

  ‘Yeah. Takes care of her nice, he does. Nice place. Nice car. Loads of money. Really special bloke. Shows Trude a good time. Always.’ There was the flash of a smile as she stirred in the half-darkness. She was utterly shameless, proud even.

  ‘So what does he do that’s so special, the boyfriend?’

  ‘Dunno. We don’t have those conversations.’

  ‘I meant for a living.’

  ‘I know you did.’

  Faraday looked across at her, recognising where this exchange was going. Half a bottle of Californian Chardonnay hadn’t touched the parts of this woman that really mattered. Despite the vaudeville back at the Café Blanc, she was in total charge.

  ‘There’s a kid called Doodie …’ Faraday began. ‘He’s ten years old and we need to find him. Trudy might be able to help us.’

  ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘Because Trudy knew Helen, and Helen seemed to be mates with the kid Doodie.’

  Faraday paused, beginning to lose his temper. Spelling it out like this made him feel like some teacher in front of a class of retards, precisely the effect the woman was after. She was watching him carefully now. She’d moved again, and the lower half of her face was chalk-white in the glare of the security lights. Full lips. Perfect teeth.

  ‘How well do you know this city, Mr Detective?’

  Faraday turned away. He wasn’t up for these kinds of games and he was beginning to regret this little spell of extra duty. He could have been at home with J-J, analysing why every relationship in the world seemed to be falling apart. Not sitting in the freezing darkness, getting wound up by a woman who hadn’t the slightest intention of trying to help him.

  ‘You haven’t answered the question,’ she reminded him.

  ‘That’s because it’s meaningless.’

  ‘Who says? A girl jumps off a block of flats. My Trude’s shacked up with a bloke twice her age. You’re looking for some kid of ten. The world’s gone crazy, Mr Detective, and maybe that’s where you ought to start.’ She flashed him another smile, wider this time, and then ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on the dashboard. Faraday heard the soft clunk as she opened the door, then she was back again, leaning across the car, much closer this time. ‘You know something?’ she murmured. ‘You’d look great in glasses.’

  She let the thought hang between them, then touched him lightly on the cheek with the back of her hand the way you’d comfort a child, before pushing the door open and getting out. Faraday watched her walking back towards the main road, mystified.

  Glasses?

  They were halfway back to Fratton nick before Sullivan got it off his chest. Winter was at the wheel, trying to shift a dawdling Metro with bursts of full beam.

  ‘That was totally out of order,’ Sullivan muttered.

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Back there. The way you handled it.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Winter glanced across. If anything, he looked amused.

  He’d sat Naylor down and explained the facts of life to him. They’d be seizing the property upstairs, pending checks on recent break-ins. There’d be plenty of people keen to find out exactly what all this bent gear was doing in Naylor’s spare room but in the meantime Winter would be grateful for a little help with these names that kept cropping up. Bradley’s mates. The ones that kept leading him astray.

  Naylor, even without his wife giving him the evil eye, had been extremely reluctant to even hazard a guess on who they might have been but Winter had left him in no doubt about the consequences of clamming up. If he valued his liberty, and his marriage, then now was the time to give that dodgy memory of his a bit of a shake. There were ways that Winter might be able to help them both. But only if Naylor came up with some names.

  In the end, convinced that Winter meant it, Naylor rummaged around for a piece of paper and scribbled a couple of names for Winter to take away. By staying mute, by not permitting these names to pass his lips, he seemed to cling to the belief that he hadn’t parted with anything important, but Winter knew otherwise. One of these two blokes, Colin McGuire, was a serious head case and the back of a Littlewoods envelope was now proof positive that Naylor had grassed him up. That was what always amazed him about these people: they were so, so thick.

  Sullivan was still having a go about the way Winter had tackled the Naylors. It seemed his CID training hadn’t prepared him for anything like this. What about PACE requirements? What about the need for a warrant if you started poking round other people’s houses? Didn’t any of that matter any more? Or had Winter just chucked the book of rules away?

  They were driving up the northern slope of Portsdown Hill. At the top, where the ground fell away, the windscreen was suddenly filled with the city below, mapped with line after line of orange lights stretching out towards the blackness of the Solent. The main road dropped to the right here, down towards the suburb of Cosham, but Winter pulled the Escort abruptly left. Another road ran along the crest of the hill. Within half a mile, there was a car park. Winter coasted to a halt and killed the engine.

  ‘OK, son. So what’s your real problem?’

  Sullivan was ready for this. He turned on Winter, word perfect on the charge sheet. The way they’d just burst in. The way he’d played the wife off against the husband. The traps he’d set. The leading questions. The implicit threats. There were procedures here, strokes you shouldn’t pull, and as far as he could see there wasn’t a single rule he hadn’t broken. They depended on public trust, on people’s respect. A couple more gigs like that and no one in his right mind would ever talk to CID again.

  Winter, his eyes shut, might have been asleep. At length he yawned.

  ‘You really believe all that drivel?’

  ‘It’s not drivel. And if you were halfway decent, you’d understand that.’

  ‘You’re telling me Naylor would have come across if I’d played Mr Nice?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. You never tried.’

  ‘Too fucking right, I never tried. And do you know why? Because these people are shit, total arseholes. The only language they understand is force. W
e can’t smack them around any more but next best is just as effective. You turn them against themselves, son. You find out where the weaknesses are and you go in and sort them out. I don’t know what they taught you at Netley but in my book that’s the way you get the job done. We’re not talking textbooks here, we’re talking real life.’

  Sullivan wasn’t having it.

  ‘Shit’s a good word,’ he said hotly. ‘That’s exactly what you made me feel back there. You were an embarrassment, the way you treated them. I felt like something I’d brought in on my shoe. Is that why I put my hand up for this job?’

  Winter permitted himself a long sigh, more regret than anger. The job had changed. Everyone said so. But what kind of planet did this sanctimonious little bastard come from? Did he really believe in all this civil liberties crap? All these endless mission statements about the need for transparency? Did he really think that tea and sympathy would charm a result from the likes of Naylor?

  ‘They’re animals,’ he repeated wearily, ‘and you give animals a good kicking.’

  ‘So why didn’t we statement them?’

  ‘Because I want to let him think about it a bit. The longer he thinks, the more stuff we’ll have on young Bradley. Jesus, Naylor might know the whole fucking story but the only way we’ll ever find out is by him believing he’s got a bit of latitude, a bit of room for manoeuvre. If he thinks we’ll hold off on the gear then it’s odds-on he’ll start talking.’

  ‘OK, so then what?’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘What happens if he gives us everything? Everything he knows?’

  Winter frowned for a moment, making sure he’d understood the question. ‘Afterwards, you mean? After he’s come across with some decent names?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Winter shook his head in disbelief. ‘We nick him, of course. Handling at the very least.’