Angels Passing (24 page)

Winter was impressed. On occasions like this, even he could admit that computers had their uses.

‘Where’s Compton?’

He glanced round to find Sullivan staring at the camera’s tiny screen. He’d hit the play button and now he was going backwards through the most recent of the recorded sequences. He squatted beside Winter. On the screen was an old woman sitting in a wing-backed armchair. She was wearing a pink shawl and there were squirly yellow patterns on the brown carpet. She was shielding her face, the way you might ward off driving rain, but when the hand came down there was no mistaking the bewilderment in her eyes.

‘Finch’s nan.’ Winter poked a finger at the little screen. ‘You’d recognise that carpet anywhere.’

Sullivan froze the picture.

‘She was going on about the telly, remember? Kept telling us she’d been on the screen?’ Sullivan tapped the camera. ‘That’s because he’d plugged it in to show her. First he took the shots, then he played them back through the set.’

‘Definitely puts Finch with the camera, then.’

‘No question. Has to.’

He pressed the play button again and then reverse. The picture went to black then flickered into motion. They were looking at a man’s face in extreme close-up. His left eye was purpled with bruising and the swelling had closed it completely. There was fresh blood seeping from a gash over the other eye and more blood trickling from the wreckage of his mouth. He appeared to be unconscious and when the shot widened, pulling away from the face, he turned out to be flat on his back on the floor.

Winter looked harder. No way was this Bradley Finch. The man was wearing a pair of jeans but he was naked from the waist up. There was more bruising around his ribs, angry scarlet welts, and the blood had splashed down over his chest. The camera lingered on the body for a while, a trophy shot, then panned slowly right. The room was small and bare. A couple of chairs had been pushed against the wall and the curtains were drawn across the single window. It must have been daytime outside because a strip of bright light showed where the curtains didn’t quite meet in the middle. The camera moved on round, past a mantelpiece with a clock. The clock said twenty past two. Then, beyond the mantelpiece, the camera finally settled on another figure, vertical this time.

Sullivan froze the camera again, shaking his head in disbelief. The ponytail with its twist of scarlet ribbon. The awesome neck. The glimpse of tattoos beneath the blood-splattered singlet. His arms hung down beside his body, the huge hands still bunched, the knuckles crimson with blood. Sullivan unfroze the picture and the shot began to wobble in towards the head and shoulders. The man’s face was barely marked and there was something in the eyes that spoke of a deep satisfaction. He’d enjoyed however long it had taken to pulp the body on the carpet. It had given him immense pleasure.

He looked at the camera and nodded, then the shot eased out again and he peeled off the singlet and tossed it across the room. The gesture had a slightly ritualistic feel and Sullivan watched as the camera tracked left, discovering the inert body of Foster’s opponent, his battered face half covered by the singlet.

Sullivan at last tore himself away. Winter had produced a bag of Werther’s.

‘Kenny Foster,’ he said mildly. ‘What a surprise.’

Jane Bassam was out when Faraday knocked on her door. A woman in her sixties explained she did the cleaning. Mrs Bassam had gone for a walk. Faraday might find her out on the beach by the Square Tower if it was urgent.

The Square Tower formed part of the fortifications around Old Portsmouth. After Langstone Shore, this was Faraday’s favourite part of the city and he took his time, strolling the quarter mile down past the cathedral to where the High Street bumped up against the curtain of grey stone that walled off the heart of the old town from the sea. Back in the sixteenth century, the Square Tower had been home to Portsmouth’s governor, and the pebble beach that lay beside it had seen countless generations of seamen row out to the men-of-war lying off Spithead.

The beach was empty, and Faraday picked his way past a tangle of construction Portakabins before mounting the long flight of steps that led to the top of the nearby Round Tower. For once it was a beautiful day, brilliant sunshine and clear blue skies with a tiny cap of cloud over the Isle of Wight, and he stood at the rail overlooking the harbour entrance, feeling the sharpness of the air in his lungs, trying to imagine what it would take to throw a ten-year-old clear of the rocks beneath.

He wasn’t at all sure that he believed Anghared’s explanation for the nickname Doodie, and one swift glance down at the foreshore was enough to confirm how reckless you’d need to be to even attempt such a stunt. But then recklessness was the currency of this city. Recklessness had sent men to war after war. Recklessness had kept the French at bay, and the Germans and the Spanish. And that same virus, that same appetite for defiance and a bit of a laugh, still bubbled in the city’s lifeblood.

Faraday was watching a tiny fishing smack butting in against the tide. The harbour mouth was narrow, barely a couple of hundred yards, another rite of passage for Pompey kids. Centuries ago a heavy iron chain had been laid across to the Gosport shore, resting on the seabed. In times of war the chain could be raised, barring entrance to the harbour, and the remains of this primitive barrier were still visible, brown and rusting, at low tide. These days, of course, there were other ways of keeping the enemy at bay, but the longer Faraday spent in the city and the deeper he plumbed its depths, the more certain he became about what made the place tick.

Portsmouth owed its very existence to aggression. Without the vigorous push to expand British influence overseas, there would never have been a navy, and without a navy Portsmouth would still be a slightly larger version of Hayling Island, a flat, spiritless chequerboard of bungalows, smallholdings and poorly stocked corner shops, the perfect retirement location if you’d pretty much given up on real life. As it was, though, successive wars had been the making of Pompey, giving it pride and purpose, and the only problem with the enduring post-war peace had been the vacuum it left in its wake. Hence, perhaps, the city’s current reputation as a great place for a fight. Robbed of an enemy of the state, the locals had to make do by battering each other.

True? Faraday didn’t know. It was a neat enough theory and would serve to keep a conversation going, but just now he knew he was talking to himself. One of the blessings Marta had brought with her was the constant assurance of a listening ear. She’d always claimed she was at her happiest hearing him bang on, and after a while he’d believed her. Now though, his loyal audience had gone, and as the implications began to sink in he realised that the real loss would be her company. Not sex. Not the dancing fingertips and the scalding tongue. But laughter and friendship. She’d warmed the bits of him that were fed up with the solitary life, and he’d made the terrible mistake of assuming that somehow she’d be there forever.

He pulled his coat around him, watching the long, rippling V of the fishing smack’s wake break on the ramparts across the harbour mouth. The next few weeks would be tough going. He missed her already. The knowledge that she wouldn’t even be available at the end of a phone was hard to take. In some respects, he thought, it was better to pretend she’d died. Just like Janna.

He turned back, towards the steps, then caught a flash of red on the beach below. It was Jane Bassam. Even the bulky scarlet fleece couldn’t disguise the tall, erect figure as she made her way towards the water’s edge. He watched her for a moment or two as she bent for a pebble, wondering whether he wasn’t using this woman as an excuse to get out of the office. Then he remembered the sight of her daughter, skew-limbed on the wet pavement beneath the flats, and he knew that he owed her, at the very least, a proper establishing of the facts.

She wasn’t pleased to see him.

‘What is it now?’

He explained about Niamat Tabibi. The man had been outraged at the suggestion that the baby might have been his. Which left Faraday with one or two problems.

‘You believed him?’

‘Yes. I can’t be sure, of course, not until we get the results back from the labs.’

‘You tested him?’

‘He volunteered a swab.’

She shrugged and turned away. Another of life’s little surprises, unspeakably cruel.

‘Then it must have been someone else,’ she said stonily.

‘Exactly. Do you have any idea who?’

‘None at all. But I don’t suppose it really matters any more, does it?’

Faraday didn’t reply. Had Niamat admitted it, or should the match yet prove positive, he was certain this woman would be baying for justice. That was one of the puzzles about committed Christians. In situations like these, they could be truly implacable.

‘There’s something else …’ he began.

‘About Niamat?’

‘No, Mrs Bassam. About you.’

‘Me?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘What?’

Faraday took his time. Over towards the Isle of Wight, one of the huge Japanese container ships was inbound for Southampton.

‘There’s a man called Phillimore, a cleric of some kind connected with the cathedral. Do you know him at all?’

‘Of course. His name’s Nigel.’ She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of the anorak, a gesture – thought Faraday – of defiance.

‘Do you know him well?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do. We both sing in the cathedral choir. May I ask what any of this has got to do with you?’

Faraday hesitated. Strictly speaking, there were limits here, lines you shouldn’t cross without a very good reason, but something in her manner made him dispense with the small courtesies of criminal investigation.

‘I’m thinking about Helen,’ he said slowly. ‘Were there any grounds for her believing that you and Phillimore might have been …’ he shrugged ‘… close?’

Faraday watched the effect of his question. Amazement first. Then anger.

‘Helen?’ she said hotly. ‘You really think she’d spare two seconds to think about me? Highly unlikely, Mr Faraday. And no, we weren’t having an affair.’

‘Did you see a lot of him?’ This time she faltered.

‘There have been times, yes.’

‘You were friends?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good friends?’

‘I’d like to think so.’

‘And you spent a lot of time with him?’

‘Socially, you mean? Yes. He has a house around the corner from me. It belongs to the diocese, of course, but he has the run of the place.’

‘And you used to pop round there?’

‘Certainly. Divorce can be an awkward time, Mr Faraday. And Nigel has pastoral responsibilities.’

‘He was counselling you?’

‘I didn’t say that. I counted him as a friend. We have similar tastes in theatre and music. Mahler. The Beethoven string quartets. Certain bits of Haydn. Excuse me, but is this any of your business?’

‘I don’t know, Mrs Bassam. I’m simply trying to get inside Helen’s head. It may be that she thought you were up to something. I imagine that having another man around could be very disturbing if you’d just lost your father.’

‘But that’s why we always met at Nigel’s place. That was the whole point. She didn’t have another man around.’

‘You’re telling me you were trying to hide something?’

‘I’m telling you I had her best interests at heart. She was fine. She had more friends than she could cope with. Me? I had Nigel.’

‘A friend.’

‘Yes, and a very good friend. For whom I was immensely grateful.’

She nodded, emphasising the point, and Faraday had a sudden vision of this woman on her knees in that chilly front room, giving thanks for the gift of Nigel Phillimore. He’d been a blessing, a little surprise parcel, wrapped and ribboned by the good Lord.

‘And now?’

‘Now’s different.’

‘Why?’ Faraday frowned, making a little gesture with his hands. ‘Surely now’s the time you need support more than ever?’

Winter and Sullivan paid a visit to Dave Michaels. The DS was busy on the phone. They waited in his office. The moment he was free, Sullivan handed him the camera. He fired it up and put it to his eye, playing with the zoom control while Winter explained about the visit to Oddz ’n’ Sodz. In a statement, Troy Smith had confirmed that he’d bought the Sony from Bradley Finch. As the video sequence in his nan’s flat so amply confirmed.

By now, Michaels was engrossed in the material recorded on the mini-tape. There was yards of it, at least three separate fights. Given that the camera hadn’t been nicked until 14 January, that made Kenny Foster a very busy man. None of the fights had lasted more than ten minutes or so but there’d been no guarantee of that at the start. No wonder he kept so fit.

Michaels glanced up at Winter.

‘So who’s the guy holding the camera?’

‘Finch, presumably.’

‘But how come Finch’s in with a hard nut like Foster? He’s not in Foster’s league.’

‘Pass. He might be a second of some kind, or the stakeholder. Brian Imber might know.’

‘Stakeholder? Finch? You wouldn’t trust him to hold your sweater. The boy was a pillock.’

Winter shrugged.

‘Maybe it was just the fact that he had the camera then. Maybe Foster wanted a permanent record. Something to keep himself amused. Nights when there’s nothing on the telly.’

‘Sure.’ Michaels shot him a look. ‘But it’s odd though, isn’t it? Foster’s a class apart.’

He reached for the phone and dialled a number. When it answered he asked for Brian Imber. Seconds later, the conversation was over.

‘He’s in London all day. Back tonight.’ He picked up the camera again and weighed it in his hand. ‘So where do we think this takes us?’

‘We traced it to a break-in,’ Sullivan said at once. He gave Michaels the details.

‘You’re saying Finch screwed the place?’

‘Must have done. He’s tooled up for it. We found the kit in his nan’s place.’

‘You think he did it alone?’

‘Might have done. Hard to say.’

‘What kind of job was it?’

‘Quality. Alarm disabled. No prints. Nothing silly left behind. Quick in and out, according to the file. Plus they nicked a shotgun.’