Angels Passing (8 page)

He opened the front door, knowing at once that it wasn’t Marta. She always put music on, or the radio. She hated silence.

‘Hello?’

Nothing. Wary now, Faraday dropped his briefcase by the door. The kitchen lay beyond the big living room. He stepped towards the open door, recognising the familiar clang of the grill pan, then stopped in his tracks. The hair was shorter and he’d lost a bit of weight, but no one else in the world buttered toast that way.

Faraday reached out, touching his son lightly on the shoulder.

‘J-J,’ he signed. ‘What’s going on?’

Six

SATURDAY
, 10
FEBRUARY
,
early morning

By half four in the morning, Bev Yates was beginning to have serious doubts about any kind of result on the Brennan’s job. He and Paul Winter had spent the last six hours in the warehouse area behind the Retail Centre, eyeing hundreds of boxes of cordless drills, self-fit alarm systems and other DIY goodies in the confident expectation that someone would arrive to nick them.

Outside, in a series of hastily surveyed Observation Points, the rest of the team were deployed – five uniforms and one CID. Cathy Lamb, coordinating the ambush, had insisted on strict radio silence in case the opposition were using scanners, and so the night had passed in a chilly silence occasionally broken by whispered conversation. The temperature had plunged after the rain and Yates and Brennan were as frozen as the guys outside. Winter had done his best to persuade Ray Brennan to keep the heating on in the warehouse but the store boss had made some excuse or other about the timer settings. No wonder he made so much money.

Yates eased himself upright beside the pillar he’d been using as a backrest, and did another set of stretches to get some warmth back inside his body. Winter sat beside him, huddled in a big old car coat. He’d flattened some empty cardboard boxes and used them as insulation against the cold of the concrete floor, and for the second time that night Yates wondered whether he’d gone to sleep.

He reached down and gave him a shake.

‘All right?’

Winter grunted something Yates didn’t catch and a match flared briefly in the darkness. Winter’s third cheroot of the night. Bad sign.

Yates set off for another circuit of the space around him. His eyes had long got used to the darkness and he padded silently from pallet to pallet, wondering yet again whether Winter had got this thing right. The man had balls, he’d never doubted it, and recently he’d pulled a couple of major strokes for which Faraday – in particular – had been extremely grateful. Last year’s Gunwharf job, when Winter had broken a bizarre scam to bury a body under umpteen million quids’ worth of harbourside apartments, had spared the force a great deal of embarrassment, and Yates had seen a couple of the memos that had gone Winter’s way. Winter being Winter, he’d probably papered half his house with photocopies, but that didn’t alter the fact that the guy was an oddball, a relic, the kind of exhibit you’d put in a museum dedicated to the bad old days.

Yates himself was very nearly Winter’s age. At forty-three, he’d lived through the culture changes that had dragged the CID out of the Stone Age. Not for a moment did he believe that hours at the computer and near-abstention from alcohol had made them better detectives. On the contrary, the bloody job was harder than ever and he wasn’t alone in wondering whether it was even possible to make a difference any more.

But that wasn’t the point. Winter, with his bent little ways, actively refused to bend the knee to the squeaky clean code of professional conduct that had become the CID bible. It was lunacy, he said, to have to spend half a day at the computer simply to register a new informer. Just like it was crazy to have to fill in a million forms to put some nutter under surveillance. The fact that a lot of this grief came from legislation – politicians rather than the management – made not the slightest bit of difference. Winter had always got results by trusting his own MO. And likewise, the fact that he broke every rule in the process didn’t matter. He put the guys away quite a lot of the time, and compared to most of the blokes around him that was a very definite result.

A lot of Winter’s front was bluster, of course, but that hadn’t occurred to Yates until recently when he’d taken a hard look at the way the guy really operated and realised that Winter would always do the bare minimum to cover his arse. These days, you had to keep up with the form-filling because the defence brief would rip you to pieces in court if you didn’t. Winter knew that, and sorted out the necessary paperwork well in advance, but he always made it very plain – and very public – that he resented every second he wasn’t out there making life difficult for the scrotes who kidded themselves they were immune to law and order. These were the guys CID ought to be seizing by the throat. Otherwise, he said, they might as well call it a day and become public librarians, filing all those nice books away and worrying about the backlog of unpaid fines.

Outside, miles away, Yates heard the clatter of an early morning train. Every minute that passed made it more unlikely they’d see any action. In his experience, villains were just like everyone else. Get the job sorted as soon as possible and fuck off back to bed.

He paused by the big steel doors, peering back into the darkness. He could just make out the glow of Winter’s cheroot and he wondered again about the intelligence he’d produced to stand this job up. He didn’t claim to understand, or even like, Winter. The guy, most days, was a total head case. But what did deserve a bit of sympathy was what had happened to his private life. You had to feel sorry for a bloke who’d lost his wife like that, blown away by cancer after all those years of marriage. Winter had been no angel when it came to helping himself to passing crumpet, far from it, but he’d seen him and his missus together on a couple of social occasions and you could sense how much he relied on her.

Yates made his way back towards Winter, cursing as he stumbled into a forklift truck. There comes a moment in every stake-out when you cut your losses and run, and minutes later it was no surprise to hear Cathy Lamb at last breaking radio silence. It was gone five in the morning. Pretty soon, people would be going to work. No point hanging around any longer.

Winter struggled to his feet, farting noisily in the darkness. Come Monday, Yates knew there’d be the mother and father of a post-mortem. With all that overtime to pay, Hartigan would be looking for blood. Yet Winter, typically, seemed untroubled. If it wasn’t tonight, it would be tomorrow, or the night after. Shame they couldn’t have fun like this more often.

The radio crackled again, and Cathy came on. This time it was a message for Winter.

‘I was right in the first place,’ she said briefly.

‘Come again?’

‘You should have stuck to bloody Albufeira.’

Faraday awoke from deep sleep to the trilling of his bedside phone. His head hurt and it was still dark. He turned the light on and fumbled for his watch. Nearly seven. Cathy Lamb, he thought, with news from Brennan’s.

‘Sir?’

It was a male voice, the overnight duty DC. He was up at Hilsea Lines and he was looking at a body hanging from a tree. Scenes of Crime were on their way and some uniforms were already on site. As duty DI, maybe Mr Faraday should drive up.

Faraday fumbled his way to the bathroom, swallowed two ibuprofens, and did his best to ignore the wreckage in the kitchen. At God knows what hour, he’d thrown together a meal for himself and his son, and the evidence was everywhere. Why so many saucepans for spaghetti Bolognese? And how come
three
empty bottles of red?

He backed his Mondeo into the road, uncomfortably aware that he was probably still pissed. At this hour the roads should be empty but he never underestimated the vindictiveness of the guys on traffic. Most of them would give a week’s salary to pull CID on a drink/drive, and a DI at the wheel would make it even sweeter.

He headed north, through the interminable miles of takeaways and charity shops, aware of the first cold fingers of dawn above the rooftops away to his right. On mornings like this, muddle-headed and slightly nauseous, Faraday would have given anything for a couple of vigorous hours’ birding in the New Forest, combing Boldrewood for bramblings. The last thing he needed was another suicide.

Hilsea Lines straddled the very top of the island, a couple of miles of fortified ramparts designed to keep the French at bay. They’d gone up in the mid-nineteenth century, overlooking Portscreek, the thin, muddy strip of water that cut the city off from the mainland and served as Pompey’s moat. Faraday had always rather liked the area. Overgrown and thickly wooded, it offered a home for a satisfying range of winter birds as well as the small army of predatory gay men that had turned the area into – in Cathy Lamb’s phrase – a top bogging spot.

Access to Hilsea Lines took Faraday past a newish housing estate. First right, and he was in the cul-de-sac that ended in a big patch of rough ground that served as a turning circle. The road was already taped off, and Faraday pulled to a halt behind one of the SOCO vans from Cosham. On his left, in the thin grey light, were the brick bastions at the rear of the ramparts; on his right, behind a tall steel fence, a small industrial development.

A bulky figure in a white zip-up suit emerged from behind the van. To Faraday’s relief, it was DS Jerry Proctor, the most senior of the Scenes of Crime team. Unlike the young Crime Scene Manager who’d made yesterday morning such a pain, Proctor had turned years of experience into a blunt, no-nonsense working style that managed to preserve every particle of forensic evidence while keeping everyone onside. He was a huge, bear-like man with a dry wit and a heavy-duty handshake, the kind of painstaking, nuts-and-bolts copper who compelled instant respect. Faraday had worked with him on countless jobs and trusted him implicitly.

It was a cold, raw morning and everything felt wet underfoot. Proctor nodded up towards the frieze of trees on top of the ramparts. The body was a young, white male. Proctor judged him to be in his early twenties. He’d been discovered by one of the locals, a guy out with his dog around half five in the morning.

‘Why so early?’

‘He’s saying he runs a football team, bunch of young lads, decent league side. They’re playing on the Isle of Wight today, eleven o’clock kick-off. Hence the early start. Moffat is checking it out.’

Moffat was the overnight duty DC. The dog-walker had phoned 999, and a uniformed patrol had hauled in Moffat.

Faraday was looking up at the top of the earth rampart. He caught glimpses of white through the trees as Proctor’s team went about their business but he knew there was no point asking for a look. Already the SOCO had established an inner and outer cordon, lengths of blue and white tape dancing in the chilly wind, and no one would be allowed near the body until Proctor was happy that he’d combed every last square foot of ground within the taped area.

‘So what’s the strength?’

They were at the back of the van. Proctor was hunting for a clipboard and tape measure. In cases like these, it was important to establish some kind of chain of events. Men suspended themselves from ropes for all sorts of reasons. Some did it for thrills, heightening the pleasure of masturbation before loosening the knot. Others were distressed enough to do it for real and end it all.

‘He’s practically naked, for a start.’ Proctor had found the tape measure. ‘Just a thong, a woman’s thong, around his crotch.’

‘What about his clothes?’

‘In a pile, nearby. Jeans, trainers, socks, boxers, but no top.’

Faraday nodded. Last night, while not as cold as this morning, had been pretty unpleasant – certainly chilly enough to warrant a shirt of some kind. But why the thong?

‘Haven’t a clue. Might be a wanker or a suicide, of course, but I’d say neither.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Someone had a go at him first.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Pretty certain. There’s bruising down here …’ He touched his own ribs on the right-hand side. ‘And his face is a mess. Cuts and abrasions around the eyes. You don’t get that from a rope.’

‘Hands?’

‘Not much. No knuckle damage that I can see. He may have been tied up.’

Faraday raised an eyebrow. No one in the SOCO’s position, least of all someone as experienced as Proctor, jumped to easy conclusions. The fact that he’d pretty much excluded suicide already was immensely significant.

‘Have we got a name?’

‘Nothing. Nothing in his pockets, no mobile, no keys, no money even. And by the look of his Reeboks, he was dragged up the bank there. Mud all over the toes. He might have been unconscious. He might even have been dead already. Too early to tell.’

‘Vehicle?’

‘Has to be. But the guy with the dog walked right along this road before going up on top and says he saw bugger all first thing. The place was empty.’

‘What was he doing up top? In pitch darkness?’

‘He said the dog did a runner. In fact it was the dog who found the body. Barked like a bastard, he says.’

‘Tyre marks?’ Faraday nodded down the road towards the end.

‘Everywhere, multiple patterns. This is a great shagging spot, famous for it.’

Faraday produced his mobile, realising with some relief that his headache had gone. Then he paused, looking across at Proctor.

‘He’d need to jump off something …’ he frowned ‘… wouldn’t he?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And?’

‘There’s an old Schweppes crate up there, the kind you put empties in. If you upended the thing to give yourself the height, and you’d got the rope good and tight …’ He shrugged. ‘The crate’s up there beneath the body, so I suppose it’s possible.’

Faraday was trying to envisage the way you’d do it, with a plastic crate and a length of rope, half naked in the pouring rain. A moment’s thought and it seemed even more unlikely.

‘You’re thinking other people?’

Proctor shot him a look. There was a protocol here, an unspoken ban on leading questions, and Faraday had just ignored it.

‘Yeah,’ he said at length, ‘I am. And something else, too. Whoever strung him up, if he was strung up, was sending a message. Bloke looks pathetic in that thong. Just like he’s meant to. Hang a notice round his neck and you couldn’t make it plainer.’

Proctor gave Faraday a parting nod and excused himself. There was a ton of stuff to get through and he’d leave Faraday to have a think about calling in the Home Office pathologist. His tone of voice left no doubts about his own opinion in the matter but strictly speaking the decision belonged at headquarters level, the request routed through Willard. Either way, as both men well knew, the Detective Superintendent would expect to be in on the action from the start.