Deadlight (34 page)

‘Not unless I have to. Hospitals freak me out.’

‘Got kids yourself?’

‘Yeah, but not his sort.’

Winter offered a sympathetic nod, then told him about
the state of the flat in Somerstown. Blood-soaked jeans in the bath, baseball bat in the wardrobe, and his mum wandering around with an armful of smack. No wonder the kid had got himself into trouble.

Winter leaned over and patted the carnations before getting to his feet.

‘Lots of water,’ he said. ‘Soon as you like.’

The PC gazed up at him. The body in the bed appeared to have shifted.

‘You’re serious about taking a look?’

‘Of course I am.’ Winter’s hand was already reaching for the door. ‘Couple of minutes, max.’

It took a second or two for Winter’s eyes to adjust to the gloom of the tiny private room. He stood by the bed, staring down. Geech’s face was swollen beyond recognition, both eyes purpled and his nose plainly broken. The guys Bazza used to send the occasional message must have broken his jaw, too, because his mouth was set in a strange rictus, the lips parted in a thin snarl to reveal the remains of his teeth. If you were looking for a single good reason to keep to the straight and narrow, then here it was.

Geech’s eyes were open now, the thinnest slits weeping some nameless liquid. A tiny curl of tongue darted out, moistening the bloated lips. Winter bent low beside the bed, trying to coax some sense from the mumbled obscenities. He might have been kidding himself but he thought he recognised the word ‘dog’.

‘Charlie?’ Winter dug in his pocket and produced a small digital camera. ‘Safe and sound, son. Sends his love.’

He stepped back from the bed. From a couple of metres, using the zoom, the wreckage of Geech’s face filled the viewfinder. A thin dribble of saliva, pinked with fresh blood, had stained the pillow beside his cheek.

He took three shots, the flash erupting in the gloom.
Outside, the PC had got to his feet. One more, Winter thought. The clincher.

Geech’s legs were protected by some kind of cage beneath the sheet. The memory of his own injury still fresh in his mind, Winter stepped closer to the bed, adjusting the zoom as he did so. Geech’s face perfectly framed, Winter gave the bed a little jolt with his foot. The yelp of pain brought the PC to the door.

‘What’s going on?’

Winter was examining the camera.

‘Couple of snaps,’ he said. ‘For the file.’

Back in the lift, Winter checked the shots on the tiny fold-out screen. All of them were ample proof that Bazza knew his business but the last image, Geech’s ruined face twisted back against the pillow, chilled even Winter. On balance, the kid might have been better off dead. It would take months to recover from a beating like this.

Waiting for a taxi, minutes later, Winter remembered the call he’d been meaning to put in. He fumbled for his mobile and scrolled through the stored numbers until he got to ‘Yates’. It took a while for Bev to answer and when he did so, Winter could hear crowd noise in the background. More bloody football, Winter thought.

‘Listen …’ he began. ‘It’s about young Dawn.’

Willard appeared at Kingston Crescent in mid-afternoon. A pub lunch with Sheila had put him in a better mood than usual and he paused outside Faraday’s open office door, jacket hooked over one shoulder.

‘Seafood salad. New potatoes. Decent bottle of Sancerre. And change from thirty quid. Not bad, eh?’

Faraday, who’d so far survived on two apples and a Mars bar from the machine along the corridor, didn’t pursue the conversation. Instead, he got to his feet and followed Willard into his office. Dave Michaels was already there, sorting through a pile of PDFs on
Willard’s conference table. The news from Somerstown was getting worse by the hour.

‘Absolutely fuck all I’m afraid, boss. We thought sheer numbers might crack it but no one’s saying a word. Couple of dozen blokes on house-to-house and all we get is a load of grief about Geech getting dumped like that. Poor little bunny. They think we’re losing it.’

‘They’re right.’ Willard was checking his e-mails. ‘We are.’

He glanced back over his shoulder. Faraday wanted to talk about the tapes at the Home Club. With Pritchard off the plot, their only option was to interview every guest at the
Accolade
’s dinner.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘With four blokes on the strength it might be, yes. We’re talking more than sixty of them.’

‘Then it’s going to take a while, Joe.’ Willard had found a message from the Force Intelligence Bureau, up at headquarters. He moved aside and gestured at the screen. Faraday peered at the e-mail. SO11 at New Scotland Yard had come back on the information Corbett claimed to have sourced. There was evidently some kind of surveillance operation under way and Davidson’s name was one of many in the frame. The DI in charge was operating out of Streatham nick. Once the smoke had cleared, Willard thought he might be prepared to give
Merriott
half an hour of his precious time, strictly face to face.

Willard had produced a toothpick.

‘You talk to that girlfriend of Davidson’s again?’

Faraday, irritated by this sudden change of tack, nodded. He and Yates had reinterviewed her yesterday afternoon.

‘And?’

‘She thinks the relationship’s going nowhere and she’s bloody upset about it.’

‘Surprise, surprise. What’s that got to do with us?’

‘Everything, sir.’

‘How come?’

‘Because it confirms she’s straight. Naïve, maybe, but straight. She was definitely with Davidson all Monday night. No way was she lying.’

‘Not even to protect him?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Willard studied the toothpick a moment, gave the sharp end a little suck, then dropped it in the bin.

‘Must be nice to be so certain, Joe. Wish I had that confidence sometimes. Be good to talk to the Met, though … face to face, eh?’ His eyes went back to the e-mail.

Faraday fought the urge to argue. In his view, the Alhambra lead was by far the strongest to date. Three exshipmates of Coughlin with a skinful of lager and some kind of twenty-year grudge? Didn’t that represent a worthwhile line of enquiry?

‘Of course it does, Joe. I’m just asking you to keep an open mind. Elimination can be trickier than you think, especially if you’re relying on instinct.’

‘There were two of us, sir. And we both agreed.’

‘Glad to hear it. So where do we go next?’

Faraday began to explain about the tapes again. One of the guests the association secretary had ID’d was the Master-at-Arms aboard
Accolade
. His name was Dave Beattie and he had a place down in Devon.

‘You’re telling me he’s worth the trip? Four hours there, four hours back?’

‘Definitely. The guy’s job was heading off trouble. And Coughlin was trouble. If anyone knows what happened on that ship, it would have been Beattie.’

‘And you really think there’s any point going down this road? Twenty years is a long time, Joe.’

‘Sure. Of course it is.’

‘Two decades? Some kind of debt to settle? Is that what you’re saying?’

For a moment, trying to fathom Willard’s reluctance to pursue the
Accolade
lead, Faraday was tempted to mention Eadie Sykes and the even longer shadow cast by the Second World War. Sixty years had come and gone since her father had stumbled out of Crete, yet her anger still boiled beneath the images on the tape Faraday had seen. Compared to that episode, the Falklands War was yesterday’s trauma, practically newly minted.

‘Beattie?’ Faraday shrugged. ‘Think of it as copper to copper. We’re both in the same business, sorting out the bad guys, keeping the peace. Chances are he’ll give me a steer, blokes Coughlin had really pissed off. Who knows, he might even come up with names for Monday night, guys who might have ended up at the Alhambra.’

‘So why don’t you phone him?’

‘Because it wouldn’t be the same.’ Faraday nodded at the e-mails on the screen. ‘Strictly face to face, sir. Has to be.’

Bev Yates didn’t get to Portchester until late afternoon. A precautionary phone call home had established that Mel was about to drive the kids across to a birthday party in Winchester. As long as the bloody car didn’t misbehave again, she should be back by seven. Not that she’d had time to sort out anything for supper.

On the phone, Winter had mentioned something about a domestic. He hadn’t gone into any kind of detail but it was plain that Dawn was in need of a little TLC. She’d taken a knock or two over the last couple of days, what with the fire bomb, and writing off the Skoda hadn’t helped. Anyone eavesdropping on the call might have assumed that Dawn had been at the wheel – her judgement call, her fault – but Bev had known Winter far too long to fall for such a neat piece of sleight-of-hand. Nonetheless, he was genuinely concerned about Dawn.
Falling for an arsewipe like Corbett was a serious lapse of taste.

She answered the door on the fourth ring and Yates knew at once she was in big trouble. She looked gaunt, almost haunted.

‘Hi.’ Her voice was flat. ‘Just passing, were you?’

‘Yeah.’

They studied each other for a long moment, then she shrugged and stood back to let him pass. The sour reek of a recent fire still hung in the hall and when he poked his head round the lounge door, he saw that she’d pushed all the furniture to the back of the room.

‘I was going to roll the bloody thing up.’ She gestured at the cratered carpet beneath the window. ‘Only I never seem to get round to it.’

‘You want me to do it?’

Without waiting for an answer, he stepped into the room. Sorting the carpet was the work of a minute. On his hands and knees at the back of the room, he got her to help him move the furniture. Moments later, they were standing on the underlay.

‘Should I hang on to the carpet? For the insurance people?’

Yates shook his head. Scenes of Crime had come and gone. Insurance assessors never turned out for less than a five-figure claim. Best get rid of it.

‘How?’

‘Leave it to me.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘Always.’

She made him tea, then changed her mind and broke out a four-pack of San Miguel she’d been hoarding for months. Infinitely more cheerful, she carried the bottles out to the back garden and fetched a couple of chairs from the lean-to beside the kitchen door. Out of the wind, the sun was warm.

‘How’s life in the country, then?’

‘Fucking awful. Second biggest mistake I ever made.’

‘And the first?’

Yates didn’t answer. The sun felt wonderful on his face. He sat back in the chair, tipped the bottle to his mouth, took a long pull at the San Miguel, then closed his eyes and sighed. For the first time in weeks, he felt truly relaxed.

‘Tell me about Andy,’ he murmured at last. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Really? I thought you were … you know …’

‘Shagging?’

‘Yeah.’

‘We were. Or sort of.’

‘Sort of? What kind of shagging’s that?’ Yates opened one eye, waiting for an answer, but Dawn shook her head. The thing was over. That’s all Bev needed to know. She’d spent a bit of time at Winter’s, tried to sort herself out over Corbett and now she was back home again, happy never to see the bloody man again.

Yates thought about this for a moment, trying to disentangle what he really felt about Dawn, then decided it didn’t matter. They’d been partners on countless jobs, shared cars, stake-outs, fuck-ups, monster bollockings from Cathy Lamb, the lot. Now, sitting in the sunshine on a Sunday afternoon, they might have been brother and sister. He fancied her, of course he did. Once or twice, especially recently, he’d even been tempted to make a move or two, stuffing the leaks in his little boat with something more real than the occasional porn mags that did the rounds in the CID office. At the moment, though, this was nice. Just conversation.

‘You know something about Corbett?’ he mused. ‘The man’s a maniac. He’s got this thing about a bloke we’ve been after, ex-con. It now turns out the guy’s in the clear but Corbett won’t have it. Chases him around, real stalker job, trying to put him back in the frame. Won’t
leave it alone, won’t take no for an answer. Sad, really. Know what I mean?’

The story drove the smile from Dawn’s face. She wanted to know more.

‘There isn’t any more,’ Yates said. ‘He’s bonkers. Deep space. Another galaxy. Take him to a psychiatrist and they’d section him.’

Dawn flinched at the phrase.

‘But he doesn’t give up. Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yeah. In one.’

‘Even when it’s obvious? When’ – she frowned, reaching for the rest of the sentence – ‘there’s no way he can ever get what he wants?’

‘Exactly. Problem is, he looks pretty normal.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s worse than that. He looks great. Dresses the part. Drives a big black car
and
a monster bike. Talks the talk. Most women I know would be counting the days.’

‘Like you did?’

‘Yeah.’ She gazed at the bottle in her hand, then shuddered. ‘Like I did.’

‘So what happened?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘But I do, love. I do.’

‘Then I’m not going to tell you.’

‘Did he hurt you?’ Yates was sitting bolt upright now, one hand over his eyes to shade out the sun. ‘Physically, I mean?’

Dawn studied him a moment, then turned away.

‘That’s the wrong question. Physical I can handle. Physical’s easy. It’s the rest I find a bit tricky.’

‘He did hurt you.’

She looked at him again, unblinking this time. Then she reached forward and took his hand.

‘You should go,’ she said softly. ‘Before this gets really silly.’

‘You mean that?’

‘Yes.’

Yates eyed her, then swallowed the rest of his San Miguel and glanced at his watch. Nearly five.

‘What about the carpet?’

‘Fuck the carpet.’ She let go of his hand. ‘We’ll sort the carpet some other time.’

Faraday was still in his office when J-J’s e-mail arrived. Last time he’d seen the boy, first thing this morning, he’d been sprawled in bed, sound asleep. Now he was at his PC, updating Faraday on the latest addition to their crowded social diary.
Patti’s coming down from London to see us
, it went.
Said she could stay the night. What do we do about dinner?