Angels Passing

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘As a matter of fact I can.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By talking to the pathologist.’

  ‘And have you done that?’

  ‘Of course I have. Do you seriously think we’d be having this conversation otherwise?’

  ‘And what did he say? The pathologist?’

  ‘He agreed with me that there was nothing to rule out heroin.’

  ‘He agreed with you? What does that mean? I talked to the man this morning. What he said was that it could be heroin. Not a definite. Not for certain. Not one hundred per cent. A maybe. You’ve turned it round. Not only that but you’ve made him party to this pantomime.’

  ‘Joe, I—’

  ‘No, sir. Listen to me. The girl’s mother is quite adamant that she wasn’t doing hard drugs. She’d have noticed. She’d have seen the symptoms. And I agree with her.’

  ‘Joe, that’s a supposition, nothing more. These things are notoriously tricky.’

  ‘Are they?’ Faraday paused for a second, then took a deep breath. ‘OK, let’s say it was heroin. Let’s say it was smack off the street, stuff she scored from some two-bit dealer. Where were the traces of all the other rubbish they cut it with? Or are we talking pure here?’

  Hartigan hadn’t moved. His mouth had tightened into the thinnest of lines.

  ‘I happen to have been back to one of the drugs DCs in the CIMU, and since you’ve asked the question, let me share their intelligence with you. Number one, heroin’s never been so cheap in this city. Number two, it’s never been so pure. If those aren’t good reasons to run the flag up the pole, perhaps you’d be good enough to tell me why. This is never an easy job, Joe, far from it. But I must say life would be a great deal simpler if I felt you had our collective interests at heart.’

  This was tosh and Faraday knew it. ‘Collective interests’ was one of those management phrases that Hartigan put so much trust in. He had dozens of them stored away, bits of glue to stick all those self-important memos together.

  ‘We still can’t be certain the girl was doing smack,’ Faraday insisted. ‘And it’s irresponsible to think otherwise.’

  ‘Is it?’ Hartigan offered him a cold smile. ‘You’ll know that Jane Bassam’s ex-husband has a different opinion.’

  ‘Bassam’s got a serious guilt problem, as well he might.’

  ‘That’s another supposition. I don’t think it helps progress this debate a single inch.’

  Progress this debate?

  ‘There are lives on the line here, sir.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more, Joe. And there might be lots more Helen Bassams.’

  ‘I’m talking about her mother.’

  ‘I know you are, and for the record I want you to know that I find this whole business deeply, deeply repugnant. I hate the bloody press as much as you do but under the circumstances I think you’ll agree they do have their uses. Of course the mother is going to be upset. What mum wouldn’t be? But it’s means and ends, Joe. And in my judgement, the greater good is served by addressing the largest possible audience.’

  ‘And that’s that?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Faraday nodded. He’d taken this exchange as far as he could and there was no point in pressing it any further. The greater good, in Faraday’s opinion, had more to do with Hartigan’s career prospects than ridding the streets of heroin but the drugs and public awareness issue was increasingly the currency of advancement.

  Faraday thought of Brian Imber that night in the restaurant when a couple of pints of Kingfisher had swamped his inhibitions. The day that Hartigan stood up for legalisation and lobbied for a major push against the big dealers was the day Faraday would believe he had a real commitment. For now, he was simply playing to the gallery.

  Hartigan was watching him carefully. Whatever his other failings, the man had an acute appreciation of body language.

  ‘Are you with me, Joe? Or must we go through this whole tiresome business again?’

  Faraday shrugged. The last thing he was going to give Hartigan was the satisfaction of an apology.

  ‘I have to say I think you’re wrong, sir,’ he said stiffly. ‘Our enquiries are still ongoing. As the Coroner’s Officer well knows.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘It means I’ll keep you briefed.’ He pushed back the chair and stood up. ‘Depend on it.’

  Kenny Foster lived in a basement flat in St Andrew’s Road, a stretch of tall Victorian villas that ran north from the bars and one-stop convenience stores of Southsea’s Elm Grove. Sullivan parked the Escort and shot Winter a look.

  ‘I’m coming in with you.’

  Winter shook his head.

  ‘No chance,’ he said.

  He got out of the car without another word, then paused at the kerbside, extracting the video cassette from the envelope.

  ‘Hang on to this, son,’ he said. ‘Might come in handy.’

  Sullivan took the envelope and said again that Winter was potty to confront Foster single-handed.

  ‘Confront?’ Winter said mildly. ‘This is about manners, son, not all that macho crap.’

  Foster must have seen him coming. The moment Winter started picking his way down the mildewed steps towards the basement, the front door opened. Foster was wearing a purple dressing gown and not much else. He held the door open and gestured Winter to step inside. The flat was freezing. Someone had just burned the toast and there was an overpowering smell of damp. Nothing in the dark little front room matched the pictures on the videos.

  ‘Where do you fight then?’

  ‘Somewhere else, pal. You’d know it if you saw it.’

  Winter became aware of a woman’s voice calling from the room next door. She wanted to know who’d just come in.

  ‘Friend o’mine,’ Foster yelled. ‘Called round for a wee chat.’ Winter was studying a poster of Robert de Niro taped to the wall over the mantelpiece.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like Simone,’ he said.

  ‘That’s because it isn’t.’

  ‘Not the bird the fat guy you just flattened was shafting, surely?’ He turned to face Foster. ‘Guys like you kill me. You’re like dogs, aren’t you? Got to leave your smell everywhere. Can’t pass a lamp post without pissing on it.’ Winter produced the video from his coat pocket. ‘So what’s all this bollocks got to do with me?’

  ‘Just thought you might fancy it, pal. Change from Antiques Roadshow.’

  ‘Not trying to send another message, were you?’

  ‘Another message?’ Foster scratched his head. ‘Now why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Fuck knows. Here. Have it back.’

  He tossed it across the room, chest height. When Foster caught it, Winter smiled.

  ‘Left-handed, are we? Southpaw?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And you write left-handed? The envelope that crap came in?’ Winter stepped closer. ‘You want to be fucking careful, my son, and you know why? Because my guvnor hates leaving jobs unfinished. Me? I’m old school, too. Which means I’m only too happy to agree with him.’

  For a moment, watching Foster’s face, Winter thought he’d pushed it too far. There was madness in this man, an unpredictability that expressed itself in a thousand little ways. He needed to be top dog, every waking second of the day, and he wasn’t interested in compromise. He eyed Winter for a moment or two, baleful, malevolent, then stepped past him and left the room without a word. Seconds later he was back. He was carrying something in his hand, a garment of some kind, and as he shook it out and held it up, Winter recognised the bloodstained singlet from the video.

  ‘Dried out nicely, pal. Thought you might like it.’

  He tossed the singlet across. Winter let it fall to the floor, not taking his eyes off Foster’s face.

  ‘In my business,’ he smiled, ‘we call that standard MO. You want to be careful, Kenny, and you know why? You’re doing what all crap villains do in this city. You’re beginning to repeat yourself.’


  Faraday stood outside Chuzzlewit House, peering up. Sunshine made all the difference. The last time he’d paced this little square of pavement, the rain had been swirling around the gaunt, twenty-three-storey block. Now the low February sunlight lanced off the windows, a line of dazzling reflections climbing into the blueness of the afternoon sky.

  Start all over again. Assume nothing.

  He rang the caretaker’s button on the entryphone at the main door and asked her to let him in. When he stepped through, she was waiting for him outside the lifts. He wanted to know whether Grace Randall was up to receiving visitors, and had to be reminded of the number of her flat.

  ‘131. Afternoons, she normally takes a little nap. I’ve got a key if you need to get in.’

  She fetched a Yale from the office and offered to accompany him up to Mrs Randall’s. Faraday thanked her but said no.

  He took the lift to the twenty-third floor. When the old lady didn’t respond to his second knock, he used the key to let himself into the flat. The smell hit him at once, the same sickly mix of almonds and bleach. He stood in the hall for a moment, looking into her bedroom. She was propped up against the pillows in the little single bed, one thin hand cupping the clear plastic mask that fed oxygen to her bubbling lungs. Discarded magazines lapped against her chest and she appeared to be asleep. Faraday crept on down the hall and into the living room. The flat faced south and the view from the window, sunlit this time, took his breath away.

  He lingered a moment, watching one of the big Brittany ferries pushing out through the deep water channel. The white of the hull against the blue of the sea belonged on a postcard. He stayed by the window a minute or two longer, waiting for the perfect V of the ferry’s wake to curl against the beach, then retreated to the kitchen.

  Assume nothing. Start all over again.

  He opened the fridge, not knowing quite what he was looking for. A carton of milk and an open packet of Cheddar. Six eggs and a curling slice of corned beef lying on a plate. Apart from that, nothing. The cupboards above were full of crockery and there was a glass jar stuffed with tea bags beside the electric kettle. Only when he was standing by the sink did he think to sort through the rubbish.

  There was a small swing bin in the corner near the door. An empty tin of mackerel was dripping oil on a twist of newspaper, and when he unwrapped the newspaper it was full of potato peelings. He took his jacket off and dug deeper. Eggshells and the stalky bits from a cauliflower. Then, at the very bottom, he found a small white box. There was a pharmacy label on the side and he pulled the box out for a closer look. Beneath Grace Randall’s name, a neat line of type described the tablets inside. ‘Morphine Sulphate’ it read. ‘One tablet every 12 hours, as required.’

  Assume nothing.

  Faraday used kitchen roll to wipe the oil from the box, then carried it through to the bedroom. Asleep or otherwise, there was a conversation to be had here. At the open bedroom door, he paused. Grace Randall was awake by now and didn’t seem the least surprised to find a stranger in her flat.

  ‘DI Faraday. We met last week.’

  ‘We did?’ One thin hand shadowed her eyes, as if she were peering into a bright light. ‘How pleasant. Have you been here long?’

  Faraday explained about the caretaker’s key. He was a policeman, a detective. He’d come up last week about Helen Bassam and he was back to ask more questions.

  ‘It’s the kids,’ she murmured.

  ‘What is, Mrs Randall?’

  ‘They play with the phone thing. From outside.’ She gestured limply towards the door.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Faraday made a mental note. ‘Tell me about young Helen. Tell me what you remember.’

  ‘Helen? Lovely girl.’ The voice had sunk to a whisper. ‘She would have made someone very happy.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know who, by any chance?’

  ‘What, dear?’

  ‘You wouldn’t know who she was keen on? Who she was seeing? Did you ever talk about these things?’

  Grace put a hand to her mouth and smothered a cough. The slightest movement seemed to exhaust her. She pulled the bed sheet up around her chest, composing herself.

  ‘It’s so difficult, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘We were all that age once. Me, I was a scallywag. I suppose that’s why we got on so well.’

  ‘You and Helen?’

  ‘Of course. I had so much to tell her.’ She nodded, closing her eyes.

  For a moment Faraday thought she’d gone to sleep again. Then she sighed.

  ‘I told her once about a love affair I had. Older men can be good for a girl. I honestly believe that.’

  ‘She was having a love affair?’

  ‘So she said.’

  ‘With an older man?’

  ‘I imagine so.’ She smiled up at Faraday. ‘It’s names, isn’t it? Always the first to go at my age.’

  ‘She gave you a name?’

  ‘I can’t remember. Might it be important?’

  It was a good question. Faraday said he didn’t know. He showed her the box of tablets.

  ‘Are these yours by any chance?’ He read out the label. Morphine sulphate.

  Grace fumbled for her glasses.

  ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘MST.’

  ‘And you take them regularly?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have to.’ She patted her chest and took a couple of deep breaths. ‘They’re painkillers. The best. The pain just goes.’ She waved her hand. ‘Just like that.’

  The pain just goes.

  Faraday was thinking about the Thursday night: Helen up here in the flat, another crisis, another rejection, yet another brick wall on the road leading nowhere. Last time Grace Randall had offered him a sherry. Maybe it was just a formality, a social reflex she’d never quite thrown off.

  He settled himself on the end of her bed. Assume nothing.

  ‘Do you keep alcohol here, by any chance?’

  ‘You want a drink, dear?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘In the lounge. Next to the television.’

  It looked like the kind of cabinet you might keep glasses in. Faraday opened it. Two bottles of sherry, one half empty. Another of Martini. And a quarter bottle of Scotch. Quite enough to take you up the stairs to the roof. Add twenty mgs of morphine sulphate, scale the retaining wall, have another think about that shitty, shitty life of yours, and gravity would do the rest.

  Faraday heard a wheezing noise in the hall, then a ‘clack-clack’ he couldn’t quite explain. He closed the cupboard and turned round. Grace Randall was standing by the open door anchored to a Zimmer frame.

  It took her a while to catch her breath. Finally she gestured towards the cabinet. ‘You found what you wanted?’

  Faraday nodded. He’d sorted out a card with his direct line at Southsea police station, and now he laid it carefully on the cabinet.

  ‘My number,’ he said, ‘in case the kids come back.’

  Winter shared his news with Dave Michaels. Willard was up in Winchester attending a lecture from a DI on the anti-terrorist squad.

  ‘Foster’s left-handed,’ he repeated, ‘just like the bloke who tied the knot.’

  ‘What knot?’

  ‘The knot on the rope. Finch’s knot.’

  ‘Gotcha.’ Dave Michaels nodded. ‘And?’

  ‘Has to be him. Has to be.’

  ‘Because he’s left-handed?’

  ‘Yeah, and because he’s a vicious, sadistic bastard who gets off on hurting other people. We’re talking serious head case here, skip. I’m telling you, the guy’s a psychopath. Not only that, he’s got a fucking God complex. He’s the man and he wants the whole world to know it. That’s why Finch looked the way he did, poor little bugger. That’s why he was strung up the way he was. Foster might as well have written us a letter. It’s that fucking obvious.’

  ‘Evidence?’ Michaels asked drily.

  ‘It’ll come. He’ll make a mistake because he’s not as bright as he thin
ks he is. I just hope it happens in time. Before he does it again.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Michaels grinned, pulling a sheet of paper towards him. ‘Well, I might have some good news for you.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You know the girl? The black girl? Louise?’ Winter nodded. ‘She’s been in touch with one of the students in the house. She wants him to bring some gear up, clothes mainly.’

  ‘Up where?’

  ‘Waterloo. Tomorrow morning, eleven-thirty by the Burger King. She’s sending him fifty quid for the trip. He’s over the moon.’

  Winter thought hard for a moment. The fact that the girl seemed to be in one piece was good news. But why the elaborate arrangements?

  ‘Apparently she’s not keen to come back down here. Ever.’ Dave Michaels grinned. ‘Hard to believe, eh?’

  *

  Faraday treated himself to two pints in the pub across from the cathedral before walking the hundred yards to Nigel Phillimore’s house. His ankle, like his head, felt infinitely better and he was gladdened by the sight of a light in Phillimore’s upstairs window.

  Phillimore opened the door. This morning he’d been wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Now he was clad in a cassock.

  ‘Detective Inspector,’ he murmured. ‘What a surprise.’

  Faraday followed him upstairs. Phillimore said he was lucky to catch him in. Evensong had only just finished and he’d normally be at his desk in Cathedral House, catching up with paperwork.

  ‘You’ve got a moment?’ Faraday found himself looking at the photographs again.

  ‘I’ve got all evening. Sit down. Make yourself at home.’

  Phillimore went downstairs again and returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  ‘Red OK? It’s only Sainsbury’s, I’m afraid.’

  Faraday smiled. Whatever else Angola taught you, this man certainly knew how to put visitors at their ease.

  He sat down in the window seat while Phillimore uncorked the wine. The last couple of hours, he’d been haunted by something Grace Randall had said. Older men can be good for a girl. Was this an old woman’s fantasy? A phrase plucked from her own life? Or had Helen Bassam sat down and poured her young heart out?

  ‘There are aspects of Helen’s death we still find … ah … troubling,’ Faraday began.