Deadlight (41 page)

The soft patter of the falling rain was interrupted by a knock at the front door.

‘Your mates must be here.’ Beattie was getting to his feet, suddenly businesslike. ‘Do us a favour?’

‘What’s that?’

‘The dog. Dorothy only puts up with him on sufferance. Couldn’t take him to Pompey with us, could we?’

Paul Gault lived in a modest terraced house in the depths of Milton, a tightly knit suburb on the eastern edges of Southsea. Yates had agreed half six for the interview but arrived twenty minutes early. He’d brought Dave Michaels with him, just in case, but he didn’t think things would turn sticky.

On the phone, Gault had been extremely accommodating, the flat Pompey mumble laced with cheerful expletives. He’d read about Coughlin in the paper and was happy to spare Yates half an hour of his time. ‘You wanna talk about last Monday night?’ He’d laughed. ‘Absolutely no problem, mush. What I can fucking remember.’

Now, Yates and Michaels walked the ten metres to Gault’s house, trying to avoid the worst of the rain. There were two wet gnomes in the front garden and a tiny brass plate on the front door warning about the moggie inside. ‘Killer Tabby,’ the message went. ‘Beware.’

Yates rang the bell. He could hear kids inside and the bellow of a telly at full blast. Then came heavy footsteps down the hall and Yates found himself looking at a
bulky, balding man in his mid-forties. He was wearing a string vest tucked into a pair of scruffy shell-suit bottoms and he’d obviously been up in the bathroom because one half of his face was still covered in shaving foam.

‘Yeah?’

‘DC Yates. This is DS Michaels.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’ His hand was still wet. ‘Bit previous, ain’t ya?’

Yates apologised. Maybe Gault would like to get some clothes on. It was wet out.

‘I thought we were doing this at home?’

‘Change of plan, Paul.’ Yates stepped inside and read him the caution. Gault didn’t understand a word.

‘Suspicion of murder?’ He looked totally blank. ‘This some kind of wind-up?’

Dave Michaels was already enquiring about the kids. How old were they? Was his wife at home? Anyone available to keep an eye on them?

‘No fucking way. They’re seven and eight. I’m here until the missus gets back.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Asda. Shopping. Listen, I’m not with you. What’s any of this got to do with me?’

Yates invited him again to get dressed. The quicker they got this thing moving, the quicker he’d be home again. Yates took him by the arm, easing him towards the stairs.

‘There’s a question of the house, too. Some of our guys will need to take a look round.’

‘What for?’ Gault tore his arm free. Yates stepped back, wary now. There was an air of sudden menace about Gault that shaving foam did nothing to disguise. ‘Listen, I’m asking you guys some fucking questions. You barge in here, accuse me of Christ knows what, you don’t think I—’ He broke off. Two little faces had appeared around the door at the end of the hall, both girls. Wide-eyed,
they watched as the scene developed. Daddy shouting. Daddy upset.

‘Inside girls.’ He stepped down the hall, shooing them back to the television. The door shut, he turned to face the two detectives again.

‘So tell me. What’s all this about?’

Dave Michaels, a genius in situations like these, began to explain about the Major Crimes set-up. They were investigating a murder. They had information they were obliged to develop. A number of people could undoubtedly be of assistance. One of them was Gault.

‘But why arrest me?’

‘Because we have to be sure.’

‘Sure of what?’

‘Sure that we can sit you down for a while. Have a little chat.’

Gault shook his head, part bewilderment, part anger, then came the squeak of the garden gate, and a plump, breathless, plain-faced woman appeared at the door, laden with Asda bags.

‘Paulie?’ She was looking at Yates and Michaels. She had a foreign accent, Eastern Europe maybe. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Wish I fucking knew.’

‘Mrs Gault?’ Michaels again. ‘We’re arresting your husband. We’d like him to get dressed.’

The woman lowered the bags to the carpet. The word ‘arrest’ seemed to have robbed her of the power of speech. Dave Michaels stepped forward, the voice of sweet reason, putting a hand on Gault’s arm. It really would be best if Gault took himself back upstairs and put some clothes on. Then they’d all be out of here. Gault stared at him, his face inches from Michaels’, and for a split second Yates knew exactly what was going to happen next.

For a big man, Gault could move surprisingly fast. Lowering his head, he drove it into Dave Michaels’ face.
There was a crack of bone against bone and then Michaels was reeling back towards the front door, his hand to his nose, blood pumping through his fingers. Yates threw himself on Gault and the pair of them fell backwards on to the stairs. They fought for a moment or two, crashing sideways against the banisters. Down the hall, the two kids were screaming. Then came the bellow of another voice, Gault’s wife. She was outraged.

‘Paulie,’ she bellowed. ‘Stop it!’

Yates felt Gault make one last effort, then his body went limp. Yates hung on for a moment or two, then eased himself backwards. Michaels was by the door, examining his handkerchief.

For a moment, no one said a word. Then Gault struggled upright on the stairs. He was staring at Yates, fighting to get his breath back.

‘My wife thinks this country’s fucking wonderful,’ he managed at last. ‘No secret police. No knocks on the door.’ His eyes were still blazing. ‘How wrong can you be, eh?’

MONDAY
, 10
JUNE
, 2002,
20.00

Faraday heard about Dave Michaels at Kingston Crescent. Beattie safely delivered to the Custody Sergeant at Central police station, Faraday was sitting in Willard’s office, Bev Yates beside him.

‘Police surgeon says he’ll live,’ Willard said. ‘Didn’t even break his nose.’

Faraday smiled to himself. Willard seemed quietly pleased at the news that Gault had lost it. At least they’d laid hands on someone capable of violence.

Willard was looking at Faraday.

‘So where are we now?’

‘Beattie’s being checked in at Waterlooville. He’s insisting on his lawyer, woman from Tavistock. She can’t be here until first thing tomorrow.’

Willard grunted. Beattie’s oppo from Plymouth was also en route from the West Country. His name was Duncan Phillips and – at Willard’s request – a couple of CID from Devon and Cornwall had arrested him at teatime in his Plymstock semi. Under the PACE regulations, the interview teams would have just twenty-four hours to nail down the truth about events at the Alhambra on Monday night, though a uniformed Superintendent could extend that to a day and a half.

Faraday had already done the sums.

‘We’ve got until eight a.m. Wednesday, assuming the extension,’ he told Willard. ‘So we’re really talking tomorrow.’

Bev Yates was doodling notes on a pad at his elbow. First thing Wednesday was the England-Nigeria game,
crucial if Sven’s boys were to make it into the next round. He glanced up to find Willard looking his way.

‘What kind of state’s Gault in?’

‘No problem. He could do with finishing his shave but apart from that he’s fine.’

‘You didn’t thump him?’

‘No chance. He’s a big bastard. Thank Christ his missus was there.’

‘What about a brief?’

‘Gault’s settled for the duty. Michelle’s on tonight. She’s at Central now.’

Willard nodded. Michelle Brinton was a plump, freckle-faced solicitor in her thirties. Oddly enough, she came from the West Country herself, though a couple of years of Pompey crime had given her sharper elbows.

‘Joe?’ Willard wanted to know about interview strategy.

Faraday took his time, knowing that Willard was old-fashioned when it came to the coalface. Interviews were normally handled by DCs on a squad, but with so many blokes shipped off to the Somerstown inquiry Willard would be pushed to field three teams of two. Under the circumstances, therefore, Faraday was proposing a novel solution.

‘We’re up against the clock,’ he said. ‘I suggest we take a crack at Gault tonight, starting ASAP. Go for open account. See what he’s got to say.’

‘We?’

‘Myself and Yates, sir. So far, all we’ve got to go on is Pritchard. Yates and I both talked to him. It’s not much of a start but it saves briefing two other guys.’

Willard saw the logic at once. He was indeed less than keen to put Faraday at the sharp end – Deputy SIOs were supposed to maintain the wider view – but a breakthrough this abrupt left him little choice. All the other available DCs had just spent a frustrating day toiling up
and down stairwells in Somerstown and were in no state to switch back to
Merriott
.

‘Forensic are in Gault’s place already,’ Willard mused. ‘Devon and Cornwall are sorting out Beattie and Phillips. They reckon they’ll be through the properties by noon tomorrow, first trawl. What else have we got?’

‘Phones,’ Faraday said at once. ‘All three have mobiles. I’ve talked to Brian Imber already and he’ll be on to the TIU for billings first thing.’

‘You’re telling me we’ll get them in time?’

‘We might.’

‘Fat chance.’

The Telephone Intelligence Unit was housed in Winchester, a specialist department charged with wrestling data from the phone companies. Billings, with the added possibility that individual calls could be pinned down geographically, could change the whole direction of an inquiry but often took days – sometimes weeks – to arrive. Willard had been banging this drum for longer than anyone could remember but so far to no great effect.

‘Any previous?’

‘Nothing, sir.’ Yates this time.

‘Brilliant.’ Willard threw his pen down. ‘So it’s really back to our friend Pritchard. All we have is a dead man’s word that these three guys were at the Alhambra Monday night.’

‘Not at all.’ Faraday took up the running. ‘It’s Beattie who’s put them there.’

‘I know that. But what else did he tell you?’

‘Not much. They went for a drink. Coughlin turned up briefly, then left again. Sometime later, they called it a night and went home.’

‘And you think he’ll stick to that?’

‘I think he’ll try.’

Willard revolved in his chair.

‘Of course he will, bound to, and that’s my point, Joe. It’s Pritchard who’s telling us they were really pissed off,
Pritchard who has them ranting on about what a tosser Coughlin was, Pritchard who says they were out of their skulls on Lamb’s Navy.’

‘Bacardi, sir,’ Yates murmured.

‘Sure, OK, whatever. But we have to be careful here, don’t we? Because it seems to me that Pritchard had every reason to give us these three guys. Especially if he whacked Coughlin himself.’

Faraday was staring out of the window at the rain. He’d somehow assumed a consensus that Pritchard was out of the frame. Evidently not.

‘I don’t think Pritchard got anywhere near Coughlin that night,’ he said carefully. ‘We should be talking motive and opportunity. He had neither.’

‘You think the defence’d buy that? Bloke who admitted being in love with the man? Potty about him? Jealous as fuck?’

‘Over what?’

‘Who cares? Pritchard was a screaming queen. These blokes are unbalanced. Juries lap that kind of stuff up. And who says he wasn’t there? I thought we had a footprint? Evidenced? Plus the man himself, admitting he popped round?’

‘We do, sir. But he never got in.’

‘I know, Joe. I know. But whose word do we have on that? Apart from Pritchard?’

Faraday wondered about fetching the Scenes of Crime report but decided against it. Willard knew very well that not a shred of forensic evidence connected Pritchard to the inside of 7a Niton Road. As usual, the Det Supt was giving Faraday’s cage a rattle.

Yates stirred.

‘There’s still the taxi,’ he pointed out.

‘And where are we with that?’

‘I talked to Aqua again this morning. The driver who picked the three of them up from the hotel is still in Amsterdam. They gave me his girlfriend’s number. She
hasn’t a clue where he’s staying but she says he’s back on Wednesday.’

‘What time?’

‘Early. He’s on a KLM cheapie. I checked with the airline. Seven o’clock in the morning, Gatwick.’

Faraday and Willard exchanged glances. Seven on Wednesday morning was dangerously close to the moment the PACE clock finally stopped. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

Willard scowled. It was at moments like these, backed into a corner, that he was frequently at his best.

‘What if we send you up to Gatwick if we have to?’ He was looking at Yates. ‘Give ourselves a bit of leeway?’

‘Fine, sir.’ Yates beamed at him. ‘Be my pleasure.’

Winter took a cab to the funfair. Clarence Pier was beside the hovercraft terminal on Southsea seafront, an acre or so of tacky rides plus a cavernous amusement arcade packed full of fruit machines and hi-tech video games. For a quid, you could battle anything from Mike Tyson to the Gulf War. Not that Winter was in the mood.

Mick Clarence, the youth worker from the Persistent Young Offender scheme, had phoned an hour or so earlier. He’d pushed Winter’s photos around likely Somerstown contacts but got little response. Then, just minutes ago, he’d taken a call from a lad whose voice he hadn’t recognised. The boy had seen the state Darren had got himself into and wanted to know more. He wasn’t prepared to give his name, but when Clarence explained about Winter he’d thought a meet might be in order. Winter, tucked up with one of Joannie’s Ruth Rendells, wasn’t best pleased but knew he had little choice. The visit from the Traffic Sergeant had shaken him more than he cared to admit. Somehow or other, he had to look for ways of turning imminent disaster to his own account.

On the phone, Mick Clarence had mentioned a game
called Formula One Plus. According to his new contact, it was the hottest of the new rides. Winter would find this rendezvous towards the back of the arcade, near one of the fire exits, and he spotted it now, three youths in a gaggle beside it, none of them more than fourteen.