Angels Passing

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘It’s possible. Though you’d be asking why he sold it on the side. To the bloke in Fawcett Road.’

  ‘You’re suggesting he nicked it off Harris?’

  ‘I’m suggesting guys like him would nick anything. Off anyone.’

  ‘He’s right, sir.’ Sammy Rollins had joined them late. ‘It’s all up for grabs as far as blokes like Finch are concerned. That’s something that comes back in the intelligence. That’s why he wasn’t Mr Popular.’

  ‘We need Brian Imber, don’t we?’

  ‘He’s in London. Back at seven.’

  ‘OK.’ Willard glanced at his watch, then leaned back to let Sullivan distribute the coffees. ‘Let’s say that Paul Winter’s got it right. Let’s say that Harris and Finch screwed the place out at Compton. They nicked a load of stuff, including the camera. Finch took a fancy to it, nicked it off Harris, fucked around with putting his nan on the telly, then sold it. Where does that take us?’

  Winter needed no prompting.

  ‘Harris is pissed off, number one. And number two, Foster is pissed off big time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Finch’s already wound him up over the stop-check, giving the traffic blokes his name and address. That’s major lack of respect. And then Harris comes on to him and says the camera’s gone walkabout. With all Foster’s precious fights on it. Situation like that, Foster and Harris would put their heads together.’

  ‘But how do they know Finch’s nicked the camera?’

  ‘Maybe they don’t. But the guy’s got form as far as they’re concerned – and there’s another thing, too.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The call I got on my mobile about the job at Brennan’s. The one that turned out to come from Finch. Let’s assume that Harris had set the job up and that Finch was along for the ride. And let’s assume that there’d been some kind of falling-out. Setting Harris up would be exactly the kind of twat move a bloke like Finch would have made.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’d think it would teach Harris a lesson. Plus take him out for a while. A job like that, Harris would go down, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘And you’re suggesting Harris got to find out about the call?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue, sir. But even if he didn’t, you still get the whispers, don’t you? Blokes like Harris and Foster listen to stuff like that. Finch fucks them over with the stop-check and the camera and here he is doing it again, grassing them up. That’s big time aggro. The least they’d do is ask the boy a question or two.’

  ‘Are you saying that’s what happened?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m saying that’s what might have happened. They might have slapped him about. It might have got out of hand. You know the way these blokes live. Nothing happens at all until they’re half a dozen lagers down and coked out of their heads.’

  ‘Foster doesn’t drink,’ Sullivan said quietly. ‘He told me that first time round at the garage.’

  ‘OK.’ Winter shrugged. ‘Let’s say that’s true. Let’s say he doesn’t drink. Let’s say he’s the only criminal in this city not to like a bevvy or two. That doesn’t make him any the less violent, does it? Or pissed off?’

  Willard held up a hand, stilling the argument. He’d just got a first read of the full post-mortem report on Bradley Finch. It confirmed that he’d been assaulted before he died, and that some of the injuries suggested earlier beatings.

  ‘A couple of rib fractures, at least,’ Willard said. ‘And he’d lost teeth, too. So tell me, was this lad some kind of punchbag? Did everyone take a swing at him?’

  ‘Happens.’ Sammy Rollins again. ‘It’s a bit like school. Once you’re a target, everyone has a pop.’

  ‘But what about Terry Harris? Supposing it’s true he likes violence? How might all that work? Does he do the business himself on Finch? Or does he just watch?’

  ‘Same difference, isn’t it? Either way, Finch didn’t seem the kind of bloke to put up any kind of fight.’

  ‘So why would he stick around with Harris? Assuming Harris was the one giving him a hard time?’

  Sammy Rollins shrugged and said he didn’t know. Winter pushed his chair back from the table. The longer this debate went on, the more he was convinced that there was someone else who would probably have at least some of the answers.

  ‘Where are we with the girl, Louise?’ he asked.

  Willard was sipping his coffee. He’d circulated her details on an all-forces bulletin and put another call through to her uncle at the Nigerian embassy. So far, with absolutely no result.

  ‘She’ll be able to help us with Finch.’ Winter tapped his notes. ‘I guarantee it.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘They were close. I don’t know whether it was a sexual thing and in a way it doesn’t matter. The point is, he saw a lot of her. He didn’t have a mum and dad, not really, and his nan’s off the planet. Everyone needs someone to talk to and my money’s on the girl. She’s the type. She’d have listened. And I tell you something else, too. Her looks, she’d have blokes like Foster and maybe this Harris sniffing all over her. How come a tosser like Finch is screwing class crumpet like that? No wonder he ended up in her knickers.’

  ‘But they might not have been screwing,’ Willard pointed out. ‘You said so yourself.’

  ‘I meant hanging under the tree.’

  ‘Ah.’ Willard was impressed. ‘I see.’

  He returned to the post-mortem report. What especially interested him was the puncture wound in the foot. According to the pathologist, it was very recent, barely hours old. He’d recovered microscopic particles from the wound, suggesting a rusty nail of some kind.

  ‘Maybe they tried to crucify him first?’ Dave Michaels reached for the biscuits. ‘It’s amazing what Stella can do.’

  Even Willard laughed.

  ‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘One of his trainers had a hole in the sole. Matched the wound perfectly.’

  ‘You think he trod on something?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Willard looked at Winter again. ‘Tell me about that garage of Foster’s. What kind of state’s it in?’

  ‘Chaos. Stuff everywhere.’

  ‘Underfoot? Nails? Something sharp?’

  ‘Could easily have been.’

  ‘So that would put Finch at the garage, wouldn’t it? Some point before he died? Assuming we could evidence it forensically?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Then we’ll do it.’ He turned to Sammy Rollins.

  ‘Do what, sir?’

  ‘Full forensic on the garage. Where are we? Scene of crime four?’

  Rollins totted up the running score. The patch of muddy earth under the tree on Hilsea Lines was SOC one, Finch’s body two, the house in Margate Road three, the burned-out Fiat four.

  ‘SOC five, sir. I’ll talk to Jerry Proctor, get it organised.’

  ‘Do that. Have him standing by for tomorrow morning.’ He looked around the table. ‘Now then, time to take a few prisoners …’

  Half an hour later, Winter and Sullivan were back in the Escort. Stamshaw was an area on the western side of the city, a little enclave of terraced housing adjacent to the firing ranges on the harbour shore and the scrapyard under the motorway that had become a graveyard for various bits of clapped-out naval hardware. Families tended to stay in Stamshaw for generations, as beached as the rusting hulks down the road, and Winter was curious to know whether Harris was one of them. Willard wanted a preliminary interview before making a decision about formal arrest but it was odds-on they’d be back at Harris’s door at first light tomorrow morning. Unless, of course, he had a cast-iron alibi.

  They were still looking for the street when Sullivan asked Winter about the puncture wound in Bradley Finch’s foot. Finch, according to Eddie Galea, had appeared at the café on Friday afternoon, limping. Didn’t that suggest he’d copped the injury earlier?

  ‘Of course it does.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you bring it up?’

>   ‘Because Willard’s hot to do the garage. He thinks Finch might have been slapped around in there before they drove him up to Hilsea Lines and he might be right. At the moment, it’s a question of getting the time line right. No point complicating things when it’s looking so sweet.’

  Sullivan was peering ahead through the windscreen. It was dark now and under the orange lamps some of the streets appeared not to have names.

  ‘There,’ he said suddenly, pulling left.

  Winter counted the houses. Number 62 Aboukir Road was near the end. Sullivan nudged the Escort into the kerb and killed the engine. This was the lower end of Pompey’s housing stock – flat-fronted terraces with doors straight onto the street – but 62 looked smarter than the rest. Flowers in a vase in the front window and fresh-looking paint on the door. Winter knocked twice, hearing an answering bark from the back of the house. Footsteps pattered down the hall, and then came the sound of someone wrestling with the lock. Finally, a child’s face peered up at them through a tiny crack as the door opened.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Your dad in, is he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your mum?’

  A woman pulled the door fully open. She was in her thirties, blonde hair in a topknot, no make-up. She looked exhausted but managed the beginnings of a smile.

  ‘What is it?’

  Winter had his warrant card out.

  ‘Mrs Harris?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Your husband in?’

  ‘Afraid not.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘He’s working in Guildford today. Should be back any time now.’

  Nineteen

  TUESDAY, 13 FEBRUARY, 18.00

  Faraday made it to Fratton shortly after half past six. Trying to unknot his day hadn’t been made easier by a long email from headquarters containing an inspection report by a neighbouring force. There were important invasion-of-privacy implications for various levels of surveillance but Faraday had lost the drift within seconds. It was late in the day for an in-depth exploration of RIPA authorisations. What he wanted now was a drink.

  Brian Imber, on the train back from London, had agreed a meet. His day sounded even worse than Faraday’s and he’d be up in the bar at Kingston Crescent around seven. Faraday climbed the stairs to the top floor. There were half a dozen people up there already and, to his surprise, they included the bulky figure of Geoff Willard. Spotting Faraday at the door, he broke off his conversation and insisted on buying a drink. There were a couple of things he wanted to discuss. Stella OK?

  Faraday took the top off his pint and joined Willard at a table over by the window. There was something different about the Detective Superintendent and it took him a second or two to realise what it was. The man was smiling.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Willard nodded at the empty seat.

  Faraday made himself comfortable, wondering whether he should take the question at face value. Was Willard really interested in duty rosters and the implications for Easter overtime? In the traffic jam of emails that threatened to clag up his computer forever?

  ‘Fine,’ he murmured, tipping his glass towards Willard in a toast. ‘You?’

  ‘Never better, Joe. You won’t be up to speed with Bisley but I think we’re getting there. Winter’s playing a blinder. Have to watch him like a hawk but we knew that already, didn’t we?’ He chuckled to himself, then told Faraday about the call Winter had found on his mobile way back before Finch had met his end. Winter had thought it was some routine grass warning him about Brennan’s.

  ‘I know, sir. He was working for me then.’

  ‘Of course he was, Joe.’

  ‘And we staked the place out. Remember? Made Hartigan’s day when no one turned up.’

  ‘Sure.’ Willard beckoned him closer. ‘But it turns out the call came from Finch himself. He had a contact inside Brennan’s and it’s odds-on that Finch and another person of interest to us were planning a job that night, and that Finch had decided to grass him up. Only the bloke never turned up. And you know why? Because Finch was getting himself slapped around. Maybe by this very same bloke. Amazing, isn’t it?’

  Faraday managed to raise a smile. ‘Person of interest’ was Willard’s code for prime suspect, a linguistic sleight of hand that saved him piling all his chips on a single square before he had a ton and a half of evidence. He sat back nursing his glass while Willard offered one or two other little gems from the treasure chest that was Operation Bisley. How the Pompey underworld had clammed up. How Kenny Foster had frightened them all shitless. And how the MIT now had every chance of securing a couple of worthwhile arrests.

  Most of it Faraday managed to follow but the more expansive Willard became, the more he found himself thinking about Marta. Early evenings was the time she’d normally phone. She’d still be at the office or en route home and, like Pavlov’s dog, Faraday had become conditioned to these calls. The last half-hour, every time his mobile had rung, his hand had plunged into his breast pocket, praying to find her number on the readout. And every time it turned out to be work – Cathy after a decision on a CPS file, Hartigan’s management assistant wanting to check his diary – his heart had sunk. Less than twenty-four hours had gone by since he’d left her in that hideous kitchen and already he was a head case. So much for his new-found freedom.

  ‘Something up, Joe?’

  Willard, no fool, had cocked an eyebrow. Faraday shook his head.

  ‘Nothing that can’t be sorted.’

  ‘The job? Or private?’

  ‘Both, if you want the truth.’

  ‘Can I help at all?’

  It was the last question Faraday expected, not least because Willard plainly meant it.

  ‘The job’s impossible,’ he admitted. ‘But then we’ve all known that for years. Everything else?’ He shrugged. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Crashed and burned?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Willard nodded. He kept his own social arrangements to himself, refusing to mix real life with the job, but Faraday had heard enough to suspect that he had a longstanding liaison with a psychologist in Bristol. Willard’s marriage was dead and buried and he had no kids to worry about so a nice tidy relationship with a fellow professional probably served him pretty well.

  Now he leaned across the table and touched Faraday lightly on the arm, a gesture that reminded Faraday of a sympathetic GP. There were things that might be done here, a course of treatment that might help.

  ‘We had a conversation the other day, Joe. Up at Hilsea Lines.’

  ‘We did?’

  ‘You bloody know we did. The job coming up on the MIR.’ He sat back, glancing at his watch. ‘Definitely worth a thought, eh?’

  Winter and Sullivan sat in the Escort outside Harris’s house for the best part of half an hour. When he didn’t turn up, Winter decided it was time for a serious chat with his wife. When she answered the door, Winter invited himself and Sullivan in. Was there somewhere they could talk before her husband came back?

  With some reluctance, she led them down the hall and into the long lounge-diner that stretched the length of the house. The place was immaculate and the furniture looked brand new. A line of photographs on the mantelpiece recorded her daughter’s progress through primary school and there was a framed watercolour of Bosham, a little village up the coast, on the opposite wall. A bookcase in the corner was piled with old copies of the National Geographic and there was even a small electronic piano with the score of ‘Clair de Lune’ propped against the music stand. Try and imagine a burglar’s gaff and the last thing you’d come up with was this neat, cosy little nest.

  Mrs Harris gestured at the sofa and settled herself in an armchair. She looked tense and physically wiped out, but behind the obvious exhaustion there lurked a sense of bewilderment. This was a woman who’d got on the wrong train, Winter thought, and hadn’t a clue how to get off.

  Sullivan already
had his pocketbook open. Mrs Harris’s first name was Jill. The child was called Maisie. She was the apple of Mum’s eye.

  The child sat on the floor, her head back against her mother’s knees, while Sullivan briefly explained about the enquiries they were pursuing. It was important to establish where Mrs Harris and her husband had been on Friday night. She could start, if she liked, around six o’clock.

  ‘But you still haven’t told me what all this is about.’

  Winter took up the running.

  ‘It’s a murder inquiry, Mrs Harris. Like DC Sullivan said.’

  ‘But who? Who got murdered?’

  ‘A man called Bradley Finch.’ He paused. ‘Know him at all, did you?’

  Mrs Harris looked pole-axed. Finally, she managed a nod.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘He came round here sometimes, thin boy, silly laugh.’ Her hand found her daughter’s shoulder. ‘Murdered?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  She shook her head and pulled her cardigan more tightly around her. Sullivan went back to Friday night.

  ‘So where were you, Mrs Harris?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘All evening? All of you?’

  Mrs Harris just stared at him. She was frightened now, and it showed in her eyes.

  ‘We stayed in, didn’t we, Mum?’ It was her daughter.

  ‘That’s right.’ Mrs Harris nodded. ‘We had pancakes with maple syrup, your favourite.’ She reached down and stroked her daughter’s hair. A thin little hand reached up for hers.

  ‘You all stayed in?’ Sullivan offered Maisie an encouraging smile. ‘Dad, too?’

  ‘He went out.’

  ‘Mrs Harris?’

  ‘That’s right. I remember now. Maisie’s right. Terry went out.’

  ‘What kind of time?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. I have enough trouble getting my name right some days.’

  ‘Early,’ Maisie said. ‘Dad went out early.’

  ‘How early?’

  ‘Seven o’clock?’ She looked up at her mother.

  ‘And what time did he come back?’

  Maisie shrugged. She’d been in bed. She hadn’t a clue. Sullivan turned his attention back to Mrs Harris. By now, she was acutely uncomfortable. Whatever loyalty she owed Terry Harris was stretched to the absolute limit.