The Take (16 page)

Nikki had been just nineteen when she was first referred to Hennessey. She’d gone to her GP with severe period pains. The GP could find nothing obvious and had referred her to the gynaecological specialist at the local hospital. Hennessy was the best, he’d assured Nikki. And so she’d bought herself a consultation.

‘We were on BUPA,’ McIntyre explained. ‘Had been for years.’

Over the next seven years, Nikki had undergone eleven operations at Hennessey’s hands. All the operations had been private, the bulk conducted at the Advent Hospital up in London where the man appeared to have some sort of deal. Each operation had come with the promise that it would be the last, that it would rid Nikki of pain, and after each operation the pain had got worse. By the time her twenty-sixth birthday had come round, Hennessey had robbed her of her uterus and one ovary. On two occasions, through gross negligence, she’d nearly died. In the opinion of another surgeon, only last year, none of Hennessey’s operations had been either effective or even necessary. They had, of course, been back to him, demanding an explanation, but he’d refused even to meet them. From the man who’d wrecked his daughter’s life, not one word of apology, not a single hint of regret.

McIntyre nodded, his eyes swimming with alcohol. His wife had walked out several months ago, unable to bear it any longer, another casualty.

‘He’s wrecked our lives,’ he said bitterly. ‘He’s wrecked our lives, and I see absolutely no evidence that he’s ever given it a second thought. Can you believe callousness like that? Can you?’

‘They can be bastards,’ Winter said at once, ‘I agree.’

McIntyre appeared not to have heard. He was staring out of the window, his knuckles white around the empty glass, and Winter had a sudden vision of just how purposeless this man’s existence had become. He’d bang around all day in this house, furiously trying to distract himself with the garden, or arrangements for the village fête, knowing all the time that nothing could supplant what had gone, what had been taken from him.

‘Where’s Nikki now?’ Winter asked.

‘Jersey,’ he said stonily. ‘And that’s another thing.’

‘What’s another thing?’

‘She never comes back. Never writes. Rarely even phones. She might be in touch with her mother. I’ve no idea. It’s true what they say about grief, you know. It doesn’t bond people at all. It isolates them.’ His voice trailed off, then he pulled himself together, fixing Winter with one glassy eye. ‘Terrible thing, grief. Drives you mad in a way. Turns you into someone else.’

Nikki, as far as he knew, was trying to make it as a singer in some big hotel on the seafront in St Helier. She’d always been good at music. She’d thumped around on various instruments since she was a kid, and it was her mother who’d first realised that she might have talent. Her teacher in those early days had brought her along in leaps and bounds, and McIntyre had been only too pleased to invest a chunk of his Navy gratuity on a grand piano. To be honest, he’d rather hoped she might make something of a mark in the classical repertoire, but kids are kids and she’d chosen another route. She wrote her own stuff, her own lyrics, her own music, and the last few years, thank God, she’d started to earn a bit of money for herself on the club circuit.

‘People say she has talent. In fact, people say she’s very good.’

‘You haven’t heard her yourself?’

‘Never.’ He was looking at one of the photos. ‘But then she’s never asked me.’

Winter made his excuses and left soon afterwards. The sherries had gone to his head and he wanted to get back to the bungalow, sort himself out, make a few phone calls. On the doorstep, in the bright sunshine, he shook the outstretched hand. McIntyre evidently popped down to Pompey a good deal in the evenings. There was a pub he liked by the Camber Dock. Maybe they could meet again, have a drink or two.

Winter nodded, aware again of how lonely this man was, and how broken.

‘I’m really sorry about your daughter,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’

McIntyre gazed sightlessly down towards the river.

‘Apparently she’s as beautiful as ever,’ he muttered, ‘on the outside.’

Hartigan asked Faraday to stay on after the senior management meeting. Faraday watched the uniforms filing out of the office, his heart sinking. He owed Hartigan a paper on crime prevention initiatives they might be able to launch in the Portsea area, and so far he’d done absolutely nothing about it.

To his relief, Hartigan appeared to have forgotten about the Portsea proposals.

‘Gunwharf,’ he said briskly. ‘Tonight.’

‘Sir?’

‘There’s a get-together I want you to attend. Tour of the site first, followed by’ – he frowned, reaching for a letter on his desk – ‘a light buffet supper and a chance to meet the team. Harry was coming with me but had to pull out. Sorry about the short notice.’

Harry Barnes was Hartigan’s Chief Inspector. Still struggling with the aftermath of last night, Faraday could think of no good reason for refusing. Not that he intended to let Hartigan off without a fight.

‘Is this straight PR, sir? Or do I have a choice?’

‘Straight PR, Joe. And no, you don’t.’ His finger was already on the intercom button that summoned his management assistant from the outer office. ‘Well done for the Donald Duck business, by the way. A result, I understand.’

Dawn Ellis phoned the number Lee Kennedy had given her from the car. The mobile at the other end appeared to be switched off because all she got was the roar of a large crowd. ‘
Pompey Play Up!
’ went the recorded message, ‘
Play Up Pompey!
’ She hesitated a moment, realising she didn’t have an address, then began to leave a message, but the moment she began to speak a voice she recognised interrupted. The same gruff Pompey mumble.

‘Knew you’d be on. When do you fancy a meet?’

‘Half-past three. Not into small talk, are we?’

‘No point, love. We know what we’re about, don’t we?’

It was a statement, rather than a question, and as she confirmed the North End address Dawn began to wonder about Shelley again. Was this the way he’d talked her into bed? With the number of a house and a promise that she wouldn’t regret it? Or was there something a little less blunt, a little less brutal, going on here?

‘OK, love? Three thirty?’

‘Sure.’ She might have been making a dental appointment. ‘And it’s Dawn, by the way. Not love.’

Winter was back at the bungalow in Bedhampton by lunchtime. He’d bought a Big Mac and fries from the drive-in at Cosham and he ate them at the kitchen table, Hennessey’s files spread around him. The conviction that he was driving an inquiry, exploring avenues, putting various leads together, was deeply comforting. For one thing, it gave him a purchase on the anger that had come with the news of Joannie’s cancer. He wasn’t helpless any more, he wasn’t a pawn in the hands of the bastard medics; on the contrary, he was doing something about them. Plus – a real bonus – the spread of the paperwork across the kitchen table kept the emptiness of the bungalow at bay.

Reaching for his mobile, Winter keyed in the 1471 number he’d retrieved from Hennessey’s New Forest cottage. When the number answered, it proved to be a nursing agency in central London. Winter announced he was phoning on behalf of Pieter Hennessey. The name prompted an immediate transfer to the accounts department. Hennessey, it appeared, was way behind on the settlement of invoices for the hire of theatre staff. Might there be some early prospect of payment?

Winter heard himself apologising profusely for the delay. He was a friend of Hennessey’s. There’d been an unfortunate burglary. The thieves had got away with all kinds of stuff including, alas, the briefcase containing the invoices. Might the agency send down duplicates? He gave his own address for despatch, adding that Hennessey had abandoned the New Forest cottage for somewhere a little less remote.

‘Burglary,’ he explained. ‘Amazing how many people it affects like that.’

The conversation over, Winter turned his attention to the other number. The last place Hennessey had phoned from the cottage was the marina at St Helier. St Helier was in Jersey, and so was Nikki McIntyre, a fact that Winter’s CID years refused to ascribe to coincidence. He’d operated on this girl no fewer than eleven times. He’d never once got to the bottom of what was wrong with her, but he’d clearly never tired of trying to find out. Just what that might suggest in terms of motivation was anyone’s guess, but a very good place to start might be Nikki herself. Here was someone infinitely younger than the bulk of Hennessey’s victims and her loss, for that very reason, was all the more profound.

Winter gathered up the debris of his lunch and reached for his mobile again. Directory Enquiries took him to the information desk at Southampton airport. There were five flights a day to Jersey. Winter checked his watch.

‘Book me on late afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay when I pick up the ticket.’

Fourteen

Thursday, 22 June, mid-afternoon

Dawn Ellis and Rick Stapleton took separate cars to the North End address. Salamanca Road, like the rest of the city, had been built for an age when car ownership was the exception rather than the rule, and the unbroken lines of parked vehicles on both sides did nothing for Rick’s temper. His prawn vol-au-vents had been a disaster. Now he’d have to dream up something else to tickle forty-five discerning palates.

‘So where do we park?’

He was talking to Dawn on the mobile. Dawn was fifty metres ahead of him, cruising for a space. Eventually she found a couple. Four streets away.

‘You’ll have to come back on foot,’ she told him, bending to his lowered window. ‘Here’s too far to stay in the car.’

‘So what am I supposed to do? Blend?’

‘Whatever it takes.’ She peered down at him. ‘Just as long as you keep listening.’

The arrangement, much practised, was simple. Dawn had wired herself with a mike and a radio transmitter. The transmitter would stay in her jeans pocket, with the mike already built into a specially adapted mobile which she’d link-clip to the waistband of her jeans. The mike would be transmitting from the moment she walked up to Lee Kennedy’s front door. Rick would be half a minute away, monitoring the conversation through an earpiece. As long as she kept her jeans on, as he rather acidly pointed out, the loop was foolproof.

Rick shrugged, parked his car and joined Dawn on the pavement. Once they’d tested the transmitter, he accompanied her as far as the corner of Salamanca Road.

‘Number forty-five,’ she pointed out, ‘yellow door.’

She left him buried in the bits of yesterday’s
News
that had survived the prawns, and crossed the road towards Kennedy’s house. The curtains were drawn in the big bay window upstairs. Bad sign.

She rang the bell, wondering why she didn’t feel nervous. She heard feet clattering down a flight of stairs, then Kennedy was holding the door open, inviting her in. He was wearing tennis shorts and a Lacoste top. His feet and legs were bare and lightly tanned. He had the legs of an athlete, leanly muscled, little whorls of blond hair, and the slow smile spoke volumes about how much he enjoyed her eyeing them.

‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I won’t bite.’

To her surprise, the house felt comfortable and lived in. There was a newish sports bike propped in the hall, drop handlebars and thin wheels, with a rolled towel bungeed to the rack at the back. Through a half-open door at the end of the hall, she glimpsed a kitchen. It looked clean, well equipped.

‘Something to drink?’

‘Please.’

‘Cappuccino again?’

Despite herself, she was impressed. This man remembered what she’d been drinking in Jimmy’s. Not a complete fuckwit, then.

She followed him into the kitchen. A big fridge with a clear-glass door was stocked with every kind of booze: lager, beer, wines, plus three kinds of vodka.

‘Thirsty man.’

‘Not me, love. I don’t.’

‘Not at all?’

‘Never. Fruit juice, mainly orange. Boring, innit?’

‘Thirsty friends then?’

He didn’t answer, busying himself instead with a huge, chrome Gaggia coffee machine that dominated one corner of the kitchen’s beechwood surfaces. She watched him at work. His hands, like his feet, were big. Long fingers. Clear, unflecked, well-shaped nails.

Dawn looked round, wondering who else was in residence.

‘None of you work, then?’

‘None of who?’

‘You. And whoever else lives here.’

‘What gave you that idea?’

‘About working?’ She nodded at a couple of tennis racquets, propped by the door. ‘This time of day? Just in from the courts?’

‘I teach the game,’ he said simply. ‘It’s one of the things I do.’

On his own, without Shelley, Lee Kennedy might have been a different man. The banter, like a radio, was turned down. He was subtler, altogether more human.

‘That call last night,’ she began. ‘Do you often phone complete strangers in the middle of the night?’

‘Yeah, since you ask.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I felt like it. And because I knew you’d be exactly right.’

‘Right for what?’

He smiled at her, and for a moment she thought he was going to make a move, but he was simply readjusting himself slightly, fitting his long body into the angle between the fridge and the wall.

There was a pinboard on the wall, covered with newspaper cuttings. Photos of a footballer featured in a couple of them, action photos from some game or other. The shots were too small for her to be sure about the face, but the number on the shirt was clear enough.

‘Is that you?’ She gestured at the board, ‘Number nine?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Football too, is it?’

‘Yeah. June’s my month off. The rest of the year I’m a pro-footballer.’ He opened the fridge with his foot and reached in for a carton of juice. ‘Do you know anything about football?’ His eyes didn’t leave hers.

‘Nothing, I’m afraid. Does that make me very stupid?’

‘Not stupid, no. Not when we can’t even get a result against bloody
Romania
.’

He shook his head, more pity than anger, enquiring whether she’d watched England dumped from Euro 2000 a couple of weeks back, then shrugged when she said no.

‘I don’t blame you. Pathetic, it was. Worse than pathetic. They played like wankers, all of them. Fifty grand a week? You have to be joking.’

He smiled his secret smile again, and Dawn suddenly remembered the intro on his recorded message tape, the roar of a huge crowd …

‘The Pompey Chimes,’ he explained when she asked. ‘You’re telling me you’ve never heard of the Pompey Chimes?’

‘Should I have?’

‘Yeah, you should, living here. It’s a city thing. The football doesn’t matter. It’s the Fratton End. Anyone’ll tell you that. Even Shel.’

‘Is that who you play for? Pompey?’

‘No.’ He shook his head as he handed her a steaming cappuccino. ‘I went close once, a while back, then I got scouted. Gillingham. Half a season at Brighton. Then back to the Gills again. I was only a kid, but I thought I was Pele.’ He paused. ‘Pele?’

Dawn’s laughter was genuine. Try as she might to reinterpret them, the vibes were anything but menacing. The guy was happy to chat.

‘Brazilian,’ she said. ‘Even I know that.’

‘OK, then. Gillingham isn’t Santos. And I wasn’t Pele. That’s the point I was making. Not that it mattered then. I was in dreamland.’

‘And now?’

‘Doc Martens League. Number five last year. Old Trafford it ain’t, but I still get paid.’ He nodded, refusing to take the conversation any further.

Dawn lifted the cup to her lips, realising she’d forgotten all about Rick. The cappuccino was delicious.

‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’

‘Go for it.’

‘Shelley’s face. Was that your doing?’

‘She told you I lumped her?’

‘No. She didn’t tell me anything. I was just wondering, that’s all.’

Kennedy thought about it for a moment or two, then nodded.

‘Yeah,’ he said simply. ‘That was me.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘Because she pissed me off.’

‘How?’

‘Don’t ask.’

‘Do you lump every woman who pisses you off?’

‘No, not normally. It was just’ – he shrugged – ‘a spur of the moment thing.’

‘Not your fault?’

‘Oh, no, definitely my fault, definitely. It’s just …’ He frowned, as if genuinely puzzled. ‘I dunno really. She was there one minute. The next, I’d smacked her.’

‘Wouldn’t be booze, would it?’ Dawn nodded at the fridge.

‘Definitely not. Coffee OK?’

‘Nice, yeah.’ She looked around at the neatly folded tea towels and the rack of spotlessly clean washing up. A woman’s touch. Definitely. ‘What’s the deal here?’ she asked at last.

‘Deal? There isn’t a deal.’

‘Yes, there is. You phone me in the middle of the night and you tell me you’ve got a proposition to make.’

Kennedy looked briefly pained.

‘You’re telling me you don’t want it?’

‘Want what?’

‘A fuck.’

‘Is that the proposition?’

‘It’s part of it, yeah.’

‘So what’s the other part?’

‘That depends on you.’

‘On how good I am, you mean?’

‘Yeah.’

Dawn couldn’t help smiling. She’d been propositioned dozens of times in her life, but never like this. Filling in a form would have been more romantic.

‘What about Shelley?’ she enquired. ‘Doesn’t she count in all this?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s cool about it. Every time.’

‘OK, then.’ Dawn gestured towards the draining board. ‘What about your wife? Your partner? Whoever lives here with you?’

Kennedy looked at her for a moment, then burst out laughing.

‘You think there’s someone else lives here? You think I can’t run a plate under a tap?’

‘All this is yours?’

‘Yeah, and mine alone. That’s the beauty of it. Listen’ – he took a tiny step towards her, easing a stiffness in his lower back – ‘I’ve got a proposal. This afternoon happens to be shit. Not a good idea at all. You’ve got my number. You know the address. When you’ve worked out whether you fancy it or not, just give me another ring. I meant it about the money, by the way. You’d be a right little earner, you would, and if you want to bring someone else with you next time, a mate, feel free. Bloke or bird, makes no odds.’ He grinned at her again, ‘Fair play?’

Not long afterwards, back at his car four streets away, Rick was incandescent.

‘I gave up half my afternoon for that drivel?’

Dawn put a finger to his lips. She was genuinely grateful he’d minded her back. She wanted him to know that.

‘And you’re telling me it was worth it?’ he insisted.

She was still thinking, still letting the pieces swirl around in her head.

‘He’s running a business there,’ she said at last. ‘The bad news is we’ll have to go back.’

Rick was staring at her.

‘
We
?’

Paul Winter was in Jersey by that evening. From the airport, he phoned a DC in the St Helier CID office he’d done business with before, keeping an eye on luxury cars stolen to order on the island and shipped into the Portsmouth freight terminal aboard sealed containers. The guy’s name was Steve Brehaut, but the girl in the office said he was away on a job in France and wouldn’t be back until the weekend. Winter thought for a moment about going through the proper channels but decided against it. Talking to the management might mean a referral back to Faraday. Quicker, safer, to play private eye for the evening.

He took a taxi into St Helier. The driver dropped him at Tourist Information where he waited impatiently behind a small queue of Germans before explaining his problem to the girl behind the counter. A friend’s daughter was singing at one of the local hotels, big place, somewhere on the seafront. Her name was Nikki, Nikki McIntyre. Might she appear on a poster or in publicity for the hotel? Might there be a quick way of running her to earth?

There wasn’t. The girl had never heard of her, but was happy to help in whatever way she could. Minutes later, Winter left with a handful of hotel brochures and a map. The seafront stretched away before him, around the long curve of the bay. The first six enquiries were useless. Most hotels assumed their clientele would be sixty-plus and supplied entertainment to match. Then, as the office blocks and seafood restaurants began to give way to winding drives and shuttered houses, Winter found her.

The hotel was called L’Abbaye. Tucked away behind thick stone walls and a frieze of silver birches, it had an intimacy and a sense of quiet good taste that suggested serious money. The woman behind the reception desk studied Winter over a pair of pince-nez glasses before confirming that Nikki McIntyre did indeed entertain guests there three nights a week.

‘Tonight?’

‘Indeed.’

‘What kind of time?’

‘About nine o’clock.’ She raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘Will you be requiring a room, Mr …?’

Winter had been studying the tariff. A couple of nights at L’Abbaye cost more than a season ticket at Fratton Park.

‘I’m staying with friends,’ he said. ‘Would you happen to have a number for Nikki?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir. We’re not permitted to give out information like that. As I say, nine o’clock. I’d advise you to get here earlier than that, though. High season, we tend to be pretty busy.’

‘She attracts a big crowd?’

‘Thursdays are certainly popular.’ She offered Winter a quiet smile. ‘Especially with the menfolk.’

Minutes before Faraday’s tour of the Gunwharf Quays site was due to begin, he took a call on his mobile. He was stuck in traffic at roadworks outside the main dockyard gate, a Strauss waltz on the radio, trying to get in the mood. The voice on the phone took him straight back to bed.

‘Marta,’ he said, ‘I’ve been meaning to phone.’

‘But you couldn’t?’

‘I left the number at home.’

‘Really?’

She sounded slightly reproachful, as if they’d been lovers for months, and Faraday found himself wondering about the question of etiquette. What kinds of obligation lay at the end of a night like that? What on earth happened next?

Marta was talking about some concert or other at the city’s Guildhall. She had a couple of complimentary tickets and no one to keep her company. The concert was on Saturday night. How did Faraday feel about coming along?

‘I’ll take a rain check,’ Faraday said quickly. ‘Saturday might be difficult.’

‘You’ll ring me? Tomorrow?’

‘Definitely.’

The traffic began to move at last, and Faraday eased his way through the cones. He was curious to know how Marta had got hold of his number.

‘You gave it to me, Joe.’

‘Did I?’

‘
Oui
. I thought detectives had fantastic memories.’

She rang off without bothering to say goodbye, and Faraday was left shaking his head. Just the sound of her laughter was enough to stir him.

At the Gunwharf site, he left the car beside a muddy encampment of portacabins and joined Hartigan in the headquarters building for a pre-tour brief. A young project manager bounced through a Powerpoint presentation and fielded questions from the couple of dozen invited guests, each of them carefully badged.