The Take (23 page)

Faraday tried Winter’s mobile five times before ten o’clock but for some reason it was switched off. Only the thought that he was probably at the hospital prevented him from sending someone to physically deliver the simplest of questions: yes or no? With us or not?

Finally, against his better judgement, he gave in to Joyce’s offer of yet another coffee, hoping to God she didn’t go mad on the sugar again. American obesity wasn’t down to anything as remotely complicated as greed. They simply couldn’t count.

‘You had a great birthday. I’m really glad.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘The mood you’re in. Folks with faces that black have always had a great time. They just didn’t want it to end, is all. Take it from me. I know about disappointment.’

‘You might be right. What’s this?’

Joyce had left a brown envelope beside the brimming cup of coffee. There were a couple of pictures inside. She’d been clearing out the cupboard behind her desk and she’d found them tucked away behind some printer ribbons.

‘That was Vanessa’s cupboard,’ Faraday pointed out.

‘I know. That’s why I rescued them.’ She nodded at the envelope. ‘You might want to keep them. Your decision.’

Faraday opened the envelope and shook three photographs onto the desk. They’d been taken last Christmas, souvenirs from the CID party. In one, Vanessa was posing beneath a pair of reindeer antlers, the green-tinged darkness behind her swimming with faces. In another, her glass was raised to the camera. The third showed Vanessa and Faraday together on the dance floor, umpteen glasses down, enjoying the slowest of smooches.

Looking at the shot, Faraday could hear the music again, a Celtic folk band, the creation of a wild DC from the Drugs Squad up at Havant. They seemed to have played for most of the night, an unending mix of tempos, keening ballads one moment, frenzied foot-stamping rebel songs the next. Vanessa had loved it, surprising Faraday with her knowledge of the words, and afterwards, walking her to the taxi rank, he’d learned that an aunt of hers had once had a holiday home out in County Kerry.

Sleepy-drunk, she’d hung on his arm at the kerbside, describing the taste of the wind in the early mornings and the rags of cloud that blew in from the ocean, wrapping themselves around the mountains behind the cottage. She’d spend hours alone on the beach, she’d said, just watching the waves. They’d come three thousand miles to die at her feet, and she’d dance barefoot in the shallows, celebrating their final moments, because a little death like that was a gladness.

A gladness?

Faraday looked up, a knuckle in his mouth, to find Joyce still there.

‘I did give you that number, didn’t I?’ she asked.

‘What number?’

‘The number I got from Vodafone? The one you were gonna try for yourself?’

Faraday stared up at her, totally lost, then he was back in the world of twenty-five-year-old commercial salesmen and Vanessa’s broken body, painstakingly extracted from the wreckage of the crushed Fiesta. Not a gladness at all, he thought, letting Joyce scribble the number afresh on a corner of the envelope.

Twenty-One

Monday, 26 June, mid-morning

At the Southsea CID office, Rick Stapleton was waiting to check out a couple of details with Ferguson on the Hennessey inquiry when the call came in from Dawn Ellis. She needed a word with him, strictly private, preferably face to face.

‘When?’

‘Now.’

Rick looked around at the empty desks. The rest of Ferguson’s squad were out and about, knocking on doors, but the truth was the inquiry was dead in the water. He himself had talked to the sales people over at Gunwharf, and they’d certainly confirmed that Hennessey had bought three twenty-eight-day options, but he’d got the impression they thought him a bit flaky, and it was therefore no surprise that he hadn’t turned up with the full ten per cent. The fact that anyone could kiss goodbye to three grand was inconceivable to Rick, but the girl in the sales office had told him it was no big deal. Out there, she’d said, people have money you wouldn’t believe. Three grand, to someone like Hennessey, would be small change.

Rick bent to the phone again.

‘Where?’ he said.

They met on the seafront half a mile from Southsea nick. Rick settled himself in the passenger seat of Dawn’s diesel Escort and wound down the window, eyeing a couple of barechested roller-bladers as they cruised past.

‘Missing me already?’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’

Something in Dawn’s tone brought his head round.

‘What’s the matter?’

Dawn had been rehearsing this conversation in her mind since the morning’s conversation with Cathy. The last thing Rick wanted to hear about was the Donald Duck job. Never pick old scabs. Always move on.

‘There’s something I have to do,’ she said. ‘I’d handle it on my own, but frankly that isn’t an option. You need to be there too.’

‘Where?’

‘Forty-five Salamanca Road.’

Rick frowned for a moment, trying to place the address, then began to laugh.

‘Kennedy’s drum?’

‘Yep.’

‘
Again?
What’s the matter with you? The guy’s off the planet, all that gobbing on about what he can do for you. You’d be better off down Guildhall Walk.’

‘I’m serious, Rick.’

‘Yeah, but why? Why go back?’

‘Because Addison didn’t do it.’

‘That’s what you said last time.’

‘I know. And I’m certain now.’

‘How can you be?’

‘I went back over the statements. You remember that last woman? The woman with the dog? The one who got hurt?’

‘The duty DC talked to her. Up at the hospital.’

‘Yeah, and one of the points she made was the smell on the bloke. Remember?’

Rick looked down for a moment, picking at a cuticle on one of his nails.

‘No,’ he muttered, ‘remind me.’

‘She said he stank of tobacco, cheap tobacco, roll-ups. She made a big point of it. That’s partly why she felt so yukky about the clothes she was wearing. That’s why she threw them in the washing machine.’

‘So?’

‘So the guy’s a smoker. A heavy smoker. Probably rolls his own.’

‘And?’

‘Addison doesn’t smoke.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Rick said at once. ‘That’s supposition.’

‘
Supposition?
’ Dawn couldn’t believe it. ‘Is it my imagination, or did we turn his house over?’

‘We had a look round.’

‘Yeah, exactly,
we
, me and you. You were there, Rick. No ashtrays. No fag packets. No matches. No lighters. No fag ends in the fireplace. No smell. Nothing. That guy hasn’t touched a cigarette for years. He’s probably never smoked. And we’re trying to kid ourselves he climbed all over the woman with the dog? Reeking of fags? Are you kidding?’

‘It’s borrowed gear. He’s laying a false trail.’

‘Yeah? So where is it?’

‘He burned the stuff. Dumped it. Binned it. God knows. Happens all the time.’

‘That’s bollocks. And if
I
think it’s bollocks, what’s a half-decent QC going to say?’

Rick frowned again and returned to his nails, avoiding her gaze, and Dawn suddenly realised that he’d known all along.

‘You owe me,’ she said quietly. ‘This thing about Kennedy, I shouldn’t even have to ask.’

*

The Weather Gage, for the second day running, was empty. Winter gave Tara Gough a little wave as he came in. The place smelled of stale beer laced with disinfectant, and it crossed Winter’s mind that the nonexistent profits probably wouldn’t stretch to a cleaner in the mornings. Maybe Tara did it. Maybe that’s why she bought rubber gloves by the boxful.

‘Long time,’ he said, ‘no see. Where’s our Mr Parrish?’

‘Out at the cash and carry,’ she replied, ‘and he’s your Mr Parrish, not mine.’

There was a single glass on the bar top, just under half-full. Winter studied it a moment, wondering who’d be starting this early. Tara nodded towards the toilets.

‘One of our regulars,’ she said. ‘I count them in and I count them out.’

‘Both hands?’

‘Very funny.’

Winter glanced at his watch.

‘When’s he back, then? Parrish.’

‘Midday at the earliest. He’s got a session with his accountant, too. He was talking about putting the place on the market this morning.’

‘You think he will?’

‘He thinks he may have to. He nearly did it back in the spring, but that was different.’

‘Yeah?’

They were friends now, allies in a common cause. Winter could see it in her eyes. She just loved gossiping, especially when it included an element of revenge.

‘Yes. Don’t ask me the details, but I know he was trying to raise money for the Gunwharf bid. He had his eye on one of the pub franchises in the leisure complex. He’s convinced he could do huge business if he got the formula right, but the commercial people blew him away.’ She smiled. ‘That was just after me and the kids moved out. Really made his week.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘About the franchise?’ Winter nodded. ‘Richard told me. He tells me everything. That’s another reason he’s such a sweetie. Drink?’

Winter shook his head. He’d be off now. This afternoon, once Parrish was back, he’d maybe have a word or two.

He folded his copy of the
Daily Telegraph
and turned to go. Behind him, he heard the sigh of the door that led through to the lavatories. He glanced over his shoulder, briefly registering the tall, erect figure making its way back towards the barstool. Tara was in conversation with him already, producing a saucer full of peanuts, and as the lone drinker made himself comfortable Winter realised where he’d seen the man before. The converted barn beside the river with the ducks paddling past. The long sweep of the grand piano, laden with photographs. The mottled, liver-spotted hand that had poured him sherry after sherry. Ronald McIntyre. Nikki’s father.

Winter walked the length of the quay before finding a public phone box. Directory Enquiries gave him the phone number of the pub. He dialled it on his mobile. There’d been an extension at the back of the bar. He’d seen it.

Tara? Paul Winter.’

He asked her to take the phone out of earshot.

‘Who are you worried about?’

‘The guy at the bar.’

Winter heard the rustle of movement as she decamped. Then she was back on the phone.

‘He’s fine. He’s no problem. He’s a nice old boy. What’s going on?’

‘You say he’s a regular?’

‘Couple of times a week. Sometimes more. Why?’

‘Always this time of day?’

‘Normally evenings. He tells me he can’t stand the traffic during the day, though how he makes it home at all some nights defeats me.’

‘And Hennessey? Has he ever bumped into Hennessey?’

There was a longish silence. Winter was watching a pair of swans preening themselves on one of the pontoons. No, he thought. The answer is no.

‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Hennessey only comes in at lunchtimes. When he’s down, that is.’

‘So they’ve never met?’

‘No.’

‘OK.’ Winter walked on. He felt the sun on his face. He felt warmth flooding his whole body. Just one more question, he thought. Just one. Tara?’

‘Yes?’

‘Tell me about Parrish and the guy at the bar. Do they chat like old mates? Old buddies? Is Parrish all over him? The way you described with Hennessey?’

‘Like a rash.’ He could hear Tara laughing. ‘That’s why the old boy keeps coming in.’

It took Faraday less than five minutes to find the Half Moon Café. He’d driven up from Southsea and parked at the back of Cosham nick. The Half Moon was midway down the high street, wedged between a charity shop and Woolworth’s. Today’s special offer, according to a handwritten square of cardboard in the window, was a choice of roasts at £3.99. Including tea and a slice.

The café was busy, mums with babies mainly, and the air was blue with cigarette smoke. Meals and prices were chalked on a blackboard and a weary-looking woman perched beside the till at the end of the counter took the orders. Faraday asked for a cup of tea and found himself a table at the back. Perfect, he thought. Grandstand seat.

The café got even busier. After a while, Faraday produced his mobile and dialled the number again. He heard an answering trill from the steamy, neon-lit space behind the counter, and then came the same voice, a kid’s voice, thick Pompey accent, a voice barely out of adolescence.

‘Yeah?’

‘Just checking.’

‘Yer what?’

‘Come next door. There’s someone needs you.’

‘Yer
what
?’

‘You heard me, son. Just step next door.’

Faraday was watching the counter, his phone back in his pocket. After a moment or two, a pale, pock-marked youth appeared, looking carefully around. He wasn’t spoiled for choice. Among a couple of dozen women, Faraday’s was the only male face.

As soon as they made eye contact, Faraday waved him across. The boy promptly disappeared. On his feet, Faraday squeezed past the woman at the till, ignoring her protests. The cooking area was at the back. Oil bubbled in a blackened chipper while a fat woman in her sixties did her best to wrestle pre-cut chips from a big plastic bag.

‘Where’s the lad?’

The woman turned to look at him, an expression of mild curiosity on her face. Then she jerked a fat thumb towards a tiny office area round the corner. Over the desk was a Pompey football poster. The door to the alley at the back was open. Faraday stepped through, avoiding a dustbin full of discarded slops, following the alley round to the side. The lad was at the end, his back to a big iron gate that was plainly locked. He was thin and of medium height, wore baggy, grease-stained jeans, a Pompey football top and trashed runners. His hair, black and lank, fell sideways from a centre parting. His head lowered, he peered through the hair at Faraday. He looked terrified.

‘I’m gonna call the police!’ he shouted. ‘You can’t do this!’

Faraday had his warrant card out.

‘I am the police,’ he said, ‘and I’m afraid I can.’

Faraday offered him the choice of the nick round the corner or the table he’d just abandoned in the café. The youth, whose name was Brent, settled for the café. Faraday sat him down with his back to the street. He wanted to talk about a man called Matthew Prentice. Did Brent know him?

‘What if I do?’

‘Just answer the question.’

‘Yeah.’ He tipped up his chin, defiant now. ‘I knows him.’

‘You know him well?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Mates?’

‘Sort of, yeah. He’s older than me, like, but … yeah.’

Faraday produced a notebook and scribbled down a line to himself, aware of Brent watching him. This was a youth off one of the estates, Paulsgrove maybe, or Wymering. Faraday had done business with hundreds of them over the years. Without a qualification to their names, most of them had a sharp, streetwise intelligence it would be foolish to underestimate.

‘He does business here,’ Faraday suggested, ‘your mate.’

‘He comes round with the crisps and stuff, yeah.’

‘How often?’

‘Dunno.’ The youth shrugged.

‘Every week?’

‘No. More like two.’

‘OK.’ Faraday nodded. ‘You remember that last time he came?’

For the first time it dawned on Brent where this conversation was going. Faraday could see the curtains coming down. It was like being in the theatre. End of act one. He made another note, then looked up.

‘He had an accident, didn’t he?’

‘Did he?’ Brent picked at the formica around the edge of the table. ‘I dunno nothing about no accident.’

‘You’re mates with this guy, and you don’t know he nearly got himself killed?’

‘It weren’t that bad,’ he said hotly.

‘What wasn’t?’

There was a long silence. One or two of the women, curious, were exchanging glances. Brent announced he’d had enough of talking. Said he had to get back to the kitchen. Faraday reached across as he tried to get to his feet.

‘Sit down,’ he said, ‘while I tell you something.’

He described the accident the way Accident Investigation had pieced it together, the Vectra racing down Larkrise Avenue, the Fiesta slowing in its path. The impact, a couple of degrees off head on, had spun both vehicles. The Vectra had been doing fifty-three miles an hour. The Fiesta was practically stopped.

‘Do you know Larkrise Avenue?’

The youth, with great reluctance, nodded a yes.

‘Good. Because that’s where I lost a very close friend. She was driving the Fiesta. And your mate Matthew killed her. And you know why he killed her? Because he was on his mobile. Talking to you.’

Faraday meant it to sound like a hanging offence, taking a phone call, and he knew he’d succeeded. Brent was shaking his head.

‘I don’t remember no phone call.’

‘Yes, you do. He was on his way here. We’ve checked, Brent. You were his next stop. He was late. That’s why he phoned.’

‘I didn’t have the phone then.’

‘Where was it?’

‘At home, I’d left it at home.’

‘Then how come you made another call right afterwards? Five minutes afterwards?’

‘How d’you know that, then?’

‘We’ve got the print-out, son. It’s all there, black and white, timed to the second.’

‘It was someone else. I lent it to someone else.’