Angels Passing (35 page)

‘We lost him,’ Faraday said stonily. ‘Last night.’

‘I know that. I’m asking you what’s happened since. You told me he was up there on the roof with her. Now you’re telling me she was out of her head on booze and heroin.’

‘With respect, sir, the pathologist said—’

‘No, Joe, just listen to me for a change. I’m sick of playing catch-up in this job. There’s an agenda out there and it’s about time we seized it. Two Ss, is it?’

‘What, sir?’

‘In Bassam?’

Without waiting for an answer, Hartigan hung up. Cathy was at the door again, a scrap of paper in her hand.

‘Our nice Mr Phillimore,’ she said. ‘The one I mentioned the other night. He’s just phoned up again. Wonders whether you might spare the time to call him.’

Lee Marchant turned out to be an affable twenty-one-year-old with a silver nose ring and a big Pompey grin. Ray Brennan had told him to take an early tea break and he was reading a copy of yesterday’s
Sun
when Winter and Sullivan pushed in through the door. The staff restroom was one half of a big, windowless container behind Fitted Bathrooms with a Coke machine, an electric kettle and a cardboard box full of tea bags. The calender on the wall was still showing December 2000 and someone had drawn a moustache on a curling photo of Jennifer Lopez Sellotaped to the wall.

Marchant wanted to know what all this was about. Sullivan briefly explained.

‘Yeah.’ Marchant nodded. I knows Brad.’

‘Knew. I just told you. He’s dead.’

‘That’s what I meant. Me and him knocked around a bit, more in the early days like, when we was still at school.’

‘School’ was the big comprehensive in West Leigh. They’d regularly bunked off together, hiding in nearby woods for a decent smoke.

‘What about lately?’ Winter hadn’t come here for a chat about Bradley Finch’s schooldays.

‘Like I said, just now and again.’

‘But the other week you were with him? No?’

‘Oh, yeah, yeah.’ Marchant grinned again. ‘You mean me and the Old Bill? Out of order, that was. Just cos the motor’s a wreck, ain’t no reason to pull me. I wasn’t pissed or nothing.’

‘No, but Finch was.’

‘Brad’s always pissed. Brad’s been pissed since he left school.’

‘Why’s that then?’

Marchant hesitated for a moment, looking from one face to the other. Only now did it seem to occur to him that trouble might lie at the end of this conversation.

‘What’s this about then? It ain’t just Brad, is it?’

‘Not entirely, no.’ Winter paused. ‘I asked you a question, son. Why was he always pissed?’

Marchant shrugged, reluctant to carry on. Winter glanced sideways at Sullivan. Sullivan shut his pocketbook.

‘Off the record?’ Winter nodded. ‘Well, Brad … see … he always gets himself in trouble. Always. Never fails. He just winds people up. Don’t ask me how he does it. I don’t know whether he even tries. Maybe he doesn’t know he’s doing it. Maybe it just happens. He’s got that kind of way with him … Know what I mean, like?’

‘What kind of people?’

‘Everyone. Even the people here.’

‘He worked
here?
Finch?’

‘Yeah. Only three days, mind, but that’s the point, see? People weren’t nasty to him, nor nothing. No one shouted at him, not to begin with. It’s just the way he is – gets on yer nerves, gets on everyone’s nerves.’

‘When was this?’ Sullivan’s pocketbook was open again.

‘A month ago? I dunno, can’t remember. But like I said, he just came and went. I hadn’t seen him for a while, that’s why we had them couple of beers a couple of weeks back, the night the Old Bill stopped me.’

Winter was juggling dates. The early spring sale had started on Saturday. When was the stuff ordered?

‘A month back.’

‘Was Finch involved?’

‘Yeah, me and him was working in the warehouse, we both were. We had to draw up the stock lists, like, but Brad couldn’t handle it.’

‘Why not?’

‘He can’t write. Not proper. Never learned how. No problem blagging his way into the job cos he’s got a real mouth on him but he was out of the door by Wednesday.’

Sullivan wanted to know more about Brad’s mates.

‘He never had no mates, that was half his problem. Plenty of cunts ready to take a drink off of him, nights when he was carrying, but no one you’d call a mate.’

‘No names? No blokes he mentioned at all?’

‘No.’

‘Did you get the impression he was keeping heavy company?’

‘Haven’t a clue, mate.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Definitely.’ Winter paused. Sullivan took up the running.

‘Girlfriends?’

‘Only one he talked about. Black chick. Never had the pleasure, me, but he was crazy about her.’

‘Had they got it on?’

‘He said yes. Non-stop.’

‘Did you believe him?’

Marchant paused again, weighing the question. A staff break had begun now and a succession of girls in matching blue Brennan’s smocks were queueing for the Coke machine.

‘No,’ Marchant said at last. ‘If you want it straight, I don’t think he stood a prayer with anyone.’

Faraday parked his Mondeo beside the Square Tower and limped slowly up the High Street. The rain had cleared overnight and thin sunlight bathed the soft grey stones of the cathedral. Leaving the office, given Cathy Lamb’s current mood, was an act of some bravery but Faraday was beyond bitter asides about impossible workloads and part-time bosses. He didn’t even care that J-J had failed to show up at Highland Road. Just to feel the sun on his face was enough.

He paused on the pavement, looking up. He’d always liked this cathedral. A recent appeal had extended the nave towards the west but the building itself and the surrounding close still had a scale altogether in keeping with Portsmouth’s standing in the world. While it might lack the grand Gothic gestures of the calendar cathedrals – towering spires, flying buttresses – it had a certain down-home charm Faraday always found immensely attractive. It didn’t keep you at arm’s length. It wasn’t stately and slightly intimidating, the way Salisbury and Lincoln could be. On the contrary, it seemed to beckon you in, offering the most domestic of welcomes. The cathedral, like the city itself, was a mongrel, growing like Topsy as the years drifted by. In the grander order of things, it always knew its place.

Phillimore’s house lay further up the High Street, between the cathedral and the neat little cul-de-sac where Jane Bassam lived. There was a poster for an anti-mines charity in one window and a big glass crystal suspended in the other. Beside the crystal, enjoying the sunshine, was a slender Siamese cat.

Phillimore opened the door to Faraday’s knock. He looked early middle-aged, forty at the most. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of baggy jeans. He had a runner’s build, slight, but it was the face that drew you in. He had a face made for laughter and the sparkle in his eyes offered immediate, unconditional friendship. This was a man who’d show you the brighter side of everything. No wonder Jane Bassam had sought the Lord within these walls.

Faraday introduced himself. Phillimore’s handshake was warm. He was grateful that Faraday had found the time to pop down and he hoped his journey wouldn’t be wasted.

The house smelled of joss sticks. The framed colour shots in the hall looked African, and there were more as the stairs wound upwards. Hundreds of families camped out on an abandoned railway station. Old men bent under bundles of firewood. A legless child peering up from a hospital bed.

‘Angola,’ Phillimore murmured. ‘Ninety-eight.’

The sitting room was up on the first floor, a small, warm, intimate space with a threadbare oriental carpet and postcards pinned to the cluttered bookshelves. A piano had somehow found space for itself against the back wall and a cushioned seat in the tiny bay window was littered with copies of the
New Statesman
and
Private Eye
. Two more cats sprawled in front of the hissing gas fire and Faraday was reminded irresistibly of a weekend course he’d once attended at one of the older Oxford colleges. If you needed a glimpse of a peace the world had left behind then this was surely it.

‘There’s coffee if you’d like one.’

Faraday said yes, scanning the bookshelves while Phillimore disappeared downstairs again. Albert Camus and J.D. Salinger. The
Rough Guide to Venice
. A handful of African poets. Phillimore returned with two Oxfam mugs. The coffee was a freshly brewed bitter roast, a world away from the swill at Southsea nick. It came, said Phillimore, from a cooperative in Brighton, imported straight from a people’s plantation in Jamaica. He had a leaflet with the details and insisted Faraday take it.

‘Spread the word,’ he said. ‘Please.’

Faraday folded the leaflet into his jacket. What, exactly, did Phillimore want to discuss?

‘Good point.’ He cleared a space amongst the magazines and settled himself in the window. ‘It’s about Jane Bassam.’

He wanted to be frank with Faraday because there was no point wasting his time. He’d first met Jane through the parish choir. He sang with the tenors. She was an alto. They’d shared the odd conversation after choir practice on Friday nights and bumped into each other at various social functions. Then, to her very evident distress, her marriage had begun to collapse.

Faraday stirred. He didn’t feel altogether comfortable with this kind of candour.

‘Does Mrs Bassam know—?’

Phillimore held up his hands, anticipating the question.

‘We’ve discussed it at length, Mr Faraday. In fact it’s Jane’s idea that I talk to you. I’m an outsider. That’s the beauty of the church. It’s easier for people like me.’

Outsider? Faraday wanted to ask.

‘Go on,’ he said instead.

One of the cats stretched, yawned and stalked across the carpet towards the window. Curled up on Phillimore’s lap, it began to wash itself.

‘Jane was going through a very tough time. We talked, of course, and I did what I could to comfort her.’

Faraday nodded. Duty of care, he thought. He ought to throw a little party of his own and introduce this man to Hartigan.

‘What about her daughter? Helen?’

‘I’m afraid that’s the point.’

‘Afraid?’

‘Yes. Helen was in the choir, too. In fact she’d been in the choir for some time, way before I joined the chapter. Good voice, nice kid.’

‘And?’

‘She …’ he frowned, treading carefully now. ‘… got the wrong idea. She thought – assumed – we were having some kind of affair. And I must say she wasn’t the only one. Cathedrals are strange institutions, Mr Faraday. I don’t know how familiar you are with church politics but it can sometimes be just a touch claustrophobic. We watch each other like hawks. And we don’t always draw the right conclusions.’

Faraday knew absolutely nothing about church politics but experience had taught him that one organisation was very much like another. Gossip came with the territory, whether you were a policeman or a cleric.

‘There were rumours?’

‘Yes, and Helen picked them up.’

‘Were they true?’

‘No.’ The smile again, total candour. ‘They weren’t. Jane and I were very good friends. We’re still close. We even went away together; took a little trip up to Bath only yesterday.’

Faraday remembered the suitcase in Jane Bassam’s hall and the sudden transformation in her attitude. Was comfort and conversation really enough to put a smile like that on her face?

‘Friends?’ Faraday queried.

‘You sound disappointed.’

‘Not at all. Adultery isn’t a crime, by the way, and I’m not in the business of passing judgement. But I’m still not sure where all this leads. You’re a priest. You offer comfort. But why phone me about it?’

‘Because Helen Bassam was an extremely disturbed young woman.’

‘She came to you too?’

‘Yes. At first she was angry. With me. It was way before Christmas. She sat here in this room and wanted to know exactly what was going on. No, that’s not quite true. She’d already made up her mind what was going on and she wanted to know why, what right I’d got to smash her parents’ marriage up.’

‘She said that?’

‘Oh, yes. Her father had gone by then and I was the one who’d driven him out. Ironic, really, given the circumstances.’

‘What did you say to her?’

‘I told her the truth. I told her that marriages are seldom made in heaven and that her father had found a new partner. She knew that, of course, but she was having problems with the … ah … chronology. She was putting the cart before the horse, and in this instance I was the cart. The whole sad episode was down to me, my fault.’

Faraday was thinking of the Afghan, Niamat Tabibi. Helen must have unloaded on him, too. No wonder he’d pointed Faraday in Phillimore’s direction.

‘She believed you?’

‘In the end she did, yes. But you have to be careful in these situations, Mr Faraday. Girls like Helen can be very unpredictable. Fourteen’s a very tricky age.’

‘What are you telling me?’

‘Anger, hate … Emotions like that can turn to something else. It can happen very quickly.’

Faraday stared at him, suddenly realising where this conversation was going. N for Niamat. N for Nigel.

‘She got a crush on you?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid she did.’

‘A serious crush?’

‘Yes, oh yes.’

She’d been round at the house all hours. Her mother had a key and she’d taken a copy, letting herself in, preparing little treats in the kitchen, having the kettle on for when Phillimore got home.

‘Playing the wife?’

‘More the mistress. She began to turn up in clothes that were …’ he frowned ‘… inappropriate to say the least.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean revealing. She was sending me a message. I’d have been blind not to have received it.’

‘And how did that make you feel?’

‘Concerned, if you want the truth. Helen wanted to be part of my life and she only knew one way to make that happen. The Church of England has become very cautious, Mr Faraday. Helen was still a child and when I tell you that there are rules that govern our behaviour, I mean just that. Take the choir. If I’m alone with a choirboy – or girl – I have to keep the door open. If I want to pat them on the back, encourage them, congratulate them, it has to be between here and here.’ He touched his shoulder blade and the top of his arm. I know it sounds absurd but that’s the way it is.’