Angels Passing (26 page)

‘Pleasure.’ The dog was cowering under the table. ‘How was I? On a scale of ten?’

‘Eight. The second bloke caught you a couple of times.’

‘Paid though, didn’t he? Taking the piss like that?’ He glanced up at Winter, checking he had the right opponent. ‘Big guy? Bit of a gut. Scummer tat up here?’ He touched the outside of his upper arm.

Winter nodded. ‘Scummer’ was Pompey-speak for anyone unlucky enough to come from neighbouring Southampton. Twenty miles, in Portsmouth terms, was all that separated decent people from the Antichrist.

‘I battered him good, din I?’

‘You did.’

‘Din come round for quite a while.’

‘If at all.’

‘Och, you’re joking. He was out of there and in the pub within the hour. I should know. I was fucking buying.’

‘These are friends of yours?’

‘Fuck, no. But you beat the shit out of a man, the least you owe him is a wee drink.’

Winter turned away. It was hard not to think of the lolling head in the first of the Scenes of Crime photographs, Bradley Finch’s skinny body dangling on the end of a rope. Had the beating started here? In this garage? Or had Kenny Foster taken his time and his pleasure elsewhere? Back at the MIR, he’d recommend full forensic on the garage – maybe a strand or two of matching nylon rope, maybe a hit on the dirt under Finch’s fingernails – but for now he was still interested in the contents of the mini-tape.

‘Those video pictures. Who took them?’

‘Pal o’ mine.’

‘Has he got a name?’

‘Sure.’ He nodded. ‘Everyone’s got a name.’

‘It wouldn’t be Bradley Finch, would it?’

‘Finch? Are you fucking deaf? I said pal o’ mine.’

‘You knew Finch?’

‘Everyone knew him. Guy was in your face all the time. Never sussed when he wasn’t wanted. Thought he was everyone’s best mate. You’d tell him and it would still make fuck all difference. Back he’d come with that stupid grin of his.’

‘You’re not surprised he’s dead, then?’

‘Surprised? I’m only surprised he didn’t cop sooner.’

‘So who’d want to kill him? Any ideas?’

‘Sure, pal. You got a day or two?’ He shook his head, bending to the dog and stroking it softly behind the ears when it began to whine.

Winter changed the subject.

‘So tell me about this friend with the camera.’

‘Why, pal?’

‘Because we’d like to talk to him.’

‘About what? Me? The way I fight? What goes down in those little rooms? It’s all there on the tape. You’ve got the whole story. Listen, let me tell you something …’ He got to his feet again and beckoned Winter closer. ‘It’s here, pal. Just here.’ He unbuttoned Winter’s coat and tapped the swell of his belly below the rib cage. ‘That’s where the liver is. Hit it right, hit it hard enough, and the guy’s history. Man did it to me once. Fairground boxer. My own fault. I had a few drinks and thought I was King Kong. He went for my head first, head and face, the way most fighters do, and just as I was settling down, nice and easy, he slipped a big one underneath. I never saw it coming. All I felt was a pain you wouldn’t believe. Like I’d swallowed boiling water. After that, he could take his time, finish me any way he liked.’

‘And?’

‘Another one to the liver. Exact same place. The man was a sadist. He taught me a lot. You believe that, pal?’

Winter held his stony gaze. The palest blue eyes, emptied of everything.

‘You still haven’t given me a name.’

‘Can’t, pal. No point. Guy left for a holiday end of last week.’

‘Where did he go?’

‘Would nae say.’ The smile again, evil, and the face very close. ‘And giving you his name wouldn’t be right, would it? A man shouldn’t be bothered, not on holiday.’

Back out in the sunshine, Winter rejoined Sullivan. Winter had got nowhere with Foster. The man had stuck to his alibi for Friday night and challenged him to disprove it. He’d no idea how the camera had ended up with Bradley Finch, and fuck all interest in how his mate had laid hands on it. The world was a wicked, wicked place and, if Winter was telling him that the Sony had come from a break-in, then he supposed it must be true. If the camera was now going back to its rightful owner, he had only one wee favour to ask. If he bought a replacement mini-tape, might he keep the original?

The question, with its sweet innocence, was a wind-up and Winter knew it. Breaking this man wouldn’t be easy and he’d need to have a great deal more on him to justify formal arrest. Kenny Foster, in short, had already justified his street reputation: clever, ruthless and almost impossible to pin down.

‘What about him and Finch?’

Winter and Sullivan were back in the Escort, en route to Fratton nick. Winter, who was suffering more than he’d let on from last night, was trying to have a doze.

‘Foster hated him,’ he muttered. ‘Loathed him. “Piece of shit” was the phrase.’

‘He said that?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And you really believe it wasn’t Finch behind the camera?’

‘Yeah, I do.’ Winter opened one eye. ‘But where does that take us?’

The Escort ground to a halt in traffic. Winter had noticed a café across the road. Just now, there might be worse things in the world than the all-day breakfast at £2.95.

He tapped Sullivan on the arm and told him to pull over.

‘You know who we should be talking to? About the camera?’ He reached for the door handle. ‘One of those blokes Foster beat the shit out of.’

Misty Gallagher said they were lucky when Bev Yates and Dawn Ellis appeared at her door. She was thinking about wandering over to a fashion freebie on the retail side of Gunwharf but given such a nice surprise she thought she’d skip it. She gave Bev a kiss on the lips. It was good to see him again.

She invited them in and took them straight through to the sunny little lounge. The penthouse apartment was brand new, part of an elegant court at the back of the Gunwharf Quays development, and Yates – who’d fantasised about buying something similar – could even put a price on it. £340,000 bought you three en suite bedrooms, a fitted kitchen with granite worktops, a marble bathroom suite with telephone mixer taps, and the assurance of video security at the main entrance. Already, in nine brief months, sellers in for a quick profit were asking ten grand on top of the price they’d paid.

Misty had reappeared from the kitchen with a bottle of vodka and a carton of cranberry juice.

‘We’re camping here,’ she announced. ‘The harbourside blocks come up for release soon. We’re having one of the ones on the front, for definite. You should see the plans. Makes this place look like a cupboard.’

Ellis, who’d never met Misty before, already disliked her intensely. Only spoiled kids or successful criminals were this brash.

‘Who’s “we”, Mrs Gallagher?’

‘Me and Trude.’ Misty reached up and ruffled Yates’s hair. ‘You should see Trude these days, my love. Even you’re not too old.’

Yates pushed her hand away and sank onto the sofa. Ellis joined him, producing a pocketbook from her bag. She began to ask about Trudy again but Yates reached across, folding the pocketbook shut.

‘Where’s all this come from then, Mist?’ He gestured around. The widescreen Panasonic TV. The Bang and Olufsen speakers. The over-the-top framed photograph of huge green seas breaking around some Breton lighthouse.

‘Fate.’ Misty was beaming at him. ‘The good Lord. My guardian angel. You know me, Bev. Lucky’s my middle name.’

‘Last time we met, you were skint.’

‘Yeah, and pissed as a rat. Couldn’t understand why you never came across. Not like the old days at all, eh, Bev? How’s life, anyway?’

‘Great, thanks.’

‘Shacked up, are you? Spoken for?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who’s the lucky girl, then? Anyone I know?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Kids?’

‘One. Twelve months.’

‘You should get married, then. Make the little bastard legal.’

‘I did, three years ago.’ He paused. ‘Bazza popped the question yet? Or are you off the list?’

Bazza McKenzie, to Bev Yates’s certain knowledge, had paid for all this. The kind of money the cocaine biz pulled in would buy half of Gunwharf. Misty settled herself in the leather recliner and splashed a great deal of vodka over ice cubes before topping it up with cranberry juice.

‘Drink, dear?’ She was looking at Ellis.

‘No, thanks.’

‘Suit yourself.’ She nodded towards Yates. ‘He used to be a knockout once, you know. I know women in this town who’ve shagged him twice and still wanted more. How many men could you say that about, eh? Hand on heart?’ She laughed, tilting her head back, letting the mane of black hair fall halfway down her back, and Ellis knew that she’d been right from the start. Look in the waste bin in the kitchen and you’d find another vodka bottle, empty. This woman had probably been drinking since dawn.

‘We need to ask you about Trudy,’ she said again.

‘Ask away.’

‘She was mates with Helen Bassam. Right?’

‘Yeah, big mates too. It’ll be the funeral next, won’t it? And I expect that dried-up old bag of bones will try and keep the bloody date a secret. Shame really, nice girl like that.’

‘You’re talking about her mother?’

‘Of course I am. People get the wrong idea in this town. It’s women like me get all the grief but you know something? At least I have a relationship with my kid. Me and Trade?’ She crossed two fingers. ‘Like that, we are. Really tight.’

‘I understand she lives with an older man.’

‘That’s right. Lucky thing.’

‘And she’s sixteen.’

‘Just.’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Mind? Nice bloke like that? Business of his own? Rich as well as tasty?
Mind?
’

‘So how much do you see of Trudy?’

‘Lots. I told you, dear, we’re like mates. She’s a gobby little thing, just like her mum. Comes over most days.’

‘She’s not at school?’

‘Hates it. Bores her stiff.’

‘Doesn’t work at all?’

‘No need. Money’s not a problem, not being with Mikey. Miller’s Motors ring any bells?’

Ellis glanced sideways at Yates. Misty had let her skirt ride way up her thigh but his eyes had glazed as if he couldn’t quite connect the dots in this bizarre conversation. Sixteen years old. Should be at school. Shacked up instead with some poxy car dealer.

‘Tell us about Helen.’ He struggled upright on the sofa and planted his elbows on his knees. ‘The kid’s dead, Mist. This stuff’s for real.’

‘What do you want to know, love?’

‘I want to know whether or not she was doing drugs.’

‘Everyone does drugs. It’s like the rain. You can’t avoid it.’

‘Including Helen?’

‘Of course.’

‘You know that for sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How?’

‘Trade told me. Not real drugs. Not your serious gear. But tablets. Es at weekends, speed to stay awake, other stuff I’ve never heard of. It’s not that they’ve got a habit or anything. It’s recreational, isn’t it? Sometimes I wonder, I really do.’

‘Wonder what?’

‘How we ever got by at weekends. Without drugs.’

Yates was looking hard at his hands. Ellis took up the running.

‘Where does all this gear come from then?’

‘All over, dear. I could give you phone numbers. Depends what you’re after, of course, but you’d be unlucky not to score within half an hour, especially round here. It’s like pizza delivery. Except pizza takes longer.’ She nodded, then took a long pull at the vodka.

None of this was news to Ellis. Like every other detective in the city, she was resigned to kids getting off on anything they could stuff down their throats. What was truly shocking, though, was this woman’s candour. It was her own daughter, her own daughter’s mate. And she truly didn’t care.

‘Did Helen stay here ever?’

‘Sometimes, yeah.’

‘What was she like?’

‘Like? As a person, you mean? She was nice, screwed up but nice. And a looker, too. She and Trude made a real pair. Walk into Tiger-Tiger with them and you wouldn’t never put your hand in your purse.’

‘But the drugs? You’ve seen them using?’

For the first time, Misty’s foot found the brake pedal. She shook her head, emphatic. Neither kid ever did drugs under her roof. Not Trude. And certainly not Helen.

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I told them. I explained about it. House rules, I called it. And that’s the point, dear. Get yourself a relationship with your kid and they listen. Lay down the law like that cow of a mother did to Helen and you just drive them away. No decent parent wants that, now do they?’

The question was addressed to Yates. He lifted his head and looked her in the eye, and Ellis knew at once that he’d had enough of all this bullshit. His life had moved on and he wanted Misty Gallagher to know it.

‘So tell us, Mist. Tell us why you don’t let these kids – Helen, Trudy – do their drugs when you’re around. How does all that work? Just for the record?’

Misty reached for her glass again but this time she didn’t drink. Instead, she tipped the rim towards him, the most intimate of toasts.

‘Because I know that tossers like you will come onto me one day’ – she smiled – ‘asking fucking silly questions like that.’

Two calls to the Major Incident Room at Fratton failed to raise Brian Imber. At the first try, there was no reply. On the second occasion, the clerk on the other end didn’t have a clue where he might be. Only when Faraday went back to the Crime Squad at Havant did one of the DSs tell him that Imber had gone to the Yard for a conference.

‘Back tonight,’ he said. ‘Round seven.’

He gave Faraday Imber’s mobile number and rang off. The mobe was on call divert but he left a message asking for an urgent meet. Whatever Yates and Ellis came up with at Misty Gallagher’s wouldn’t be enough. As far as drugs went, he needed the kind of in-depth, up-to-the-minute brief that only Imber could supply.

He glanced at his watch, thankful that Hartigan had at last departed. Angered by Faraday’s lack of enthusiasm for exploiting Helen Bassam’s death, the Superintendent had conducted the rest of the meeting like a masterclass in management theory, tearing Faraday’s thoughts on domestic burglary to shreds. The deadline for draft submissions was barely a week away and he’d given Faraday four days to come up with a decently thought-out analysis.