One Under (24 page)

Winter didn’t believe a word.

‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly why we need a little chat. Bloke called Mickey Kearns might be a good place to start.’

Winter named a bar in Fratton, the Anson, and told Lewington to be there at half five. Then he hung up.

Outside on the balcony a sea breeze had made the heat more bearable. Winter fetched his new lounger, fixed himself a restorative glass of ice-cold Stella, and settled down with the
Daily Telegraph
, determined to put Jimmy Suttle to the very back of his mind. An hour later, he was woken by the familiar trill of his mobile.

Shading his eyes from the sun, he peered at the tiny screen for caller ID. No clues. He put the mobile to his ear.

‘Winter? That you?’

Winter stiffened, recognising the gruff Pompey vowels. The man was angry. He wanted a meet.

‘My pleasure.’ Winter was on his feet now, turning away from the sunshine, stepping into the silence of his apartment. ‘Where, exactly?’

‘You know the Water Margin? You bloody should do, that new pad of yours.’

‘Here, you mean? In Gunwharf?’

‘Yeah. Table by the window. Ten minutes. Old times, eh?’

 

The Water Margin was an upmarket Chinese restaurant with a fine view of the foot of the Spinnaker Tower. It opened all day at the weekends but this time in the afternoon the clientele was limited to a handful of exhausted shoppers, sampling the last of the lunchtime specials.

Bazza Mackenzie was sitting alone, picking shreds of beef from a bowl of soup. He was wearing a smart-looking pair of tan chinos and a monogrammed burgundy shirt. He’d spent a fortune on his haircut and probably a lot more on the Ralph Lauren shades that lay folded on the tablecloth. To any of his mates from the old 6.57 crew, shock troops for Pompey away games, he’d have been unrecognisable. Misty was right, Winter thought. With twenty million quid in the bank and a tan that had never seen the inside of a bottle, Bazza wants the world to know he’s gone legit.

‘Fancy anything?’ Mackenzie pushed a menu towards the DC. Winter thought he might like a plate of tiger prawns.

‘Number forty-seven,’ he said. ‘Easy on the ginger.’

Mackenzie signalled the waiter, ordering a couple of beers as well. Then he turned back to Winter. He’d never had a talent for small talk.

‘Misty seems to think you’ve got an interest in Mickey Kearns,’ he said. ‘Why’s that?’

Winter took his time. The last thing you did in these situations was let Mackenzie batter you. When it was in his interests, he could be as charming and attentive as you like, but his normal style was altogether more direct, a blend of subtle menace and outright threats that normally worked a treat.

‘Misty?’ Winter said mildly. ‘Keeping well, is she?’

‘You should know, mush. You were all over her a couple of nights ago.’

‘How’s that then?’

‘How’s
that
? You drag her round half the bars in fucking Southsea and you don’t think word’ll get back? What did they do to that brain of yours? Leave it in the operating theatre?’

‘We had a couple of beers.’

‘Sure. And I’m Marco fucking Polo. Misty says you were after a name. She also swears blind she didn’t help you out. But being the devious bastard you are, you’ve come up with Mickey Kearns. Fuck knows why.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, really. Except you can’t stick anything on the boy. And so now, like always, you think you’re going to get a cough out of Sammy Lewington. But it ain’t gonna work like that because Sammy phoned me first. Why? Because he doesn’t fancy it. And you know what? That makes him a whole lot cleverer than you might think.’

Winter looked pained.

‘You’re right, Baz. Bad move.’

‘Mickey, you mean?’

‘Sammy Lewington. And he was always so reliable.’

‘Well, he ain’t anymore. So do us all a favour and leave it out, yeah? Don’t go bothering the man. Just give him a bit of respect for a change.’

‘Respect? Sammy?’ Winter was laughing now. ‘You have to be joking. Things might have changed in this town but you’re not telling me Lewington’s one of them. That man was born frightened.’

‘And you think I don’t know that?’

‘I’m sure you do but there’s more than one way of putting the shits up him. It’s a free world, Baz. We all take our chances, Sammy Lewington included. Shame, though. I quite like the Anson.’

‘I’m not surprised. It’s an arsehole pub.’

The lagers arrived. Winter raised his glass. ‘To Mickey Kearns,’ he said. ‘So why all the drama?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘But I do, Baz, I do. And, one way or another, I’m going to find out. As you’ve probably sussed.’

‘That would be silly. In fact that would be a real mistake.’

‘Yeah? Why’s that then? You used to be subtler than this, Baz. Maybe it’s the clobber. Maybe you’re feeling, you know, a bit insecure. Take a tip, mate. Dress the way you really are. Be true to yourself. Stick to the Burberry. You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? All this gear?’

When Mackenzie got really angry, he had a habit of biting his lower lip. Any minute now, Winter thought, he’s going to draw blood.

The waiter returned with a plate of tiger prawns. He enquired whether Winter wanted chopsticks. Winter looked at the prawns a moment, then glanced up at Mackenzie.

‘Are you going to be sensible? Or do I take this lot home?’

‘Sensible?’

‘About our Mr Kearns? The way I see it, Baz, you’re staking him. I don’t know how much, and I don’t know who else is chucking money in the pot, and if you want a little something for free then you ought to know that my bosses have no real interest just now in finding out. But you know what? That’s because they never suss how everything fits. Life’s a puzzle, Baz. It’s all dots. Join them up in the right order, and guess whose pretty face we’re looking at?’

Mackenzie reached for his shades but Winter got there first, covering them with his hand.

‘You want to talk about Mickey Kearns or not, Baz? Only there are ways we can sort this thing out.’

‘Fuck off, Winter.’

‘It’s a serious offer.’

‘You’re off your head, mush. I’m not one of your fucking grasses. This kind of shit, I could—’

‘What, Baz? What could you do? You going to tell me? Spell it out? Only my gang’s a lot bigger than yours, even now.’

Winter at last let go of the sunglasses. Mackenzie didn’t touch them. He began to say something, then had second thoughts. Winter was beaming at him. The waiter was at his elbow, still wanting to know what to do.

Winter nodded down at the bowl of glistening prawns.

‘Bag that lot for me, will you?’ He pushed his chair back. ‘Mr Mackenzie’s paying.’

 

Willard waited until the meeting with Martin Barrie was over before beckoning Faraday aside.

‘Somewhere private?’

Faraday led Willard back to his office. To Barrie’s relief, Willard appeared happy with the thrust of
Coppice
. A death this bizarre, as he’d told a reporter only a couple of hours ago, merited detailed and meticulous investigation. Buried amongst the hundreds of individual enquiries already actioned were the key leads that would finally resolve themselves into a pattern. Only when that pattern was secure - properly evidenced, 100 per cent lawyer proof - would Detective Superintendent Barrie and his team be in a position to contemplate arrests.

Faraday shut the door and offered Willard a seat. The new Head of CID was dressed for a weekend on the water. He’d recently made a sizeable investment in a twenty-seven-foot yacht, and was still fine-tuning a brand new set of sails ahead of Cowes Week. The yacht had a berth across the harbour. With the tide still on the ebb, Willard needed to be away sharpish.

‘Winter,’ he said. ‘What do you think so far?’

The question took Faraday by surprise. Winter was the last thing on his mind.

‘He’s been fine,’ he said carefully. ‘Just fine.’

‘What does that mean, Joe?’

‘It means that he’s driven the Intelligence Cell exactly the way we wanted. Good analysis. Good work rate. And single-handed, too, until yesterday.’

‘He’s ticking the right boxes then?’

‘Definitely.’

‘No complaints at all?’

‘Not complaints, no … ’

‘What then? Surprises?’

‘Yes.’ Faraday frowned, trying to frame the thought. ‘Let’s say he’s more complex than I’d realised.’

‘Did we ever think otherwise?’

‘No, sir. But there’s something extra there, something I hadn’t seen before. He seems to have sorted something out in his head. I don’t mean the tumour, it’s something else. He seems -’ he shrugged ‘- different.’

‘And you think that’s about the illness? What he’s been through?’

‘Yes, I do. In one sense, he seems more at ease with himself. There’s still plenty of the old DC Winter. Management meetings, for instance. He’ll never be a team player. He’s still got no time for all that sitting around. But he makes it less obvious than he used to. And he’s still sharp as a tack, no question about that.’

‘But?’

‘But … nothing, really. Except he’s really vulnerable. ’

‘
Vulnerable?
Winter?’

‘Yes, sir. Take what happened to DC Suttle. I always knew they were close. In fact Suttle’s the only bloke recently that Winter’s really had time for. But I never realised how much he cared about the lad.’

Faraday described finding Winter at the hospital.

‘He’d lost it. He was gone. Totally distraught. I think Suttle brought something to his life that wasn’t there before.’

‘Like a son, you mean?’

‘Yes.’ Winter nodded. ‘Exactly.’

‘Hmm … ’ Willard was gazing out of the window. Faraday wondered whether he was checking the wind.

‘What about this new place of his?’

‘You mean Gunwharf?’

‘Yes. Have you been there?’

Faraday nodded. It was big, he said. Impressive. Fabulous views.

‘Not cheap then.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

‘How much do you think?’

‘I’ve no idea, sir.’ He frowned. ‘Why?’

Willard was on his feet now, glancing at his watch.

‘Call it insurance, Joe,’ he said at last. ‘My time of life, the last thing you need are surprises. I’ll be back in the office first thing Monday. Talk to some estate agents and get me a figure.’ He paused by the door, glancing back. ‘Yeah?’

 

Willard drove out of Kingston Crescent and headed back into the city. He’d phoned earlier, fixing a time and a place, and there were still a couple of spaces in the seafront car park beside the funfair. Locking his Saab, he spared a moment or two for the view. One of the Isle of Wight car ferries was nosing out of the harbour, buoyed by the last of the ebb tide, and a scatter of yachts were bearing away under a decent sea breeze. Nice, he thought.

Covert Operations favoured the new Skodas. He’d spotted the car at once. There were two figures sitting in the front, both plain clothes, and one of them leaned back and unlocked the door as Willard approached. They’d never seen him in jeans and a T-shirt before.

Willard slid his bulk onto the rear seat, shut the door.

‘Well?’

The undercover officer in the passenger seat had been nursing a camera. He passed it back to Willard.

‘It’s all set up, sir. Screen’s on the back.’

Willard tried to shield the tiny screen from the spill of sunshine through the side window. The young DC behind the wheel was describing the way they’d handled the assignment, one of them covering the apartment block itself, the other in the car on the approach road outside Gunwharf. Whether he left on foot or by cab, they’d had the target nicely boxed off.

Willard nodded. He’d made sense of the image, the two men at the restaurant table, heads together, deep in conversation. The guy with the camera must have been working at a distance but the telephoto lens removed any ambiguities about the target’s choice of company.

‘Bazza Mackenzie,’ Willard said thoughtfully.

 

Buckland lay immediately south of Kingston Crescent, at the very heart of Portsmouth. The Luftwaffe, overflying the nearby naval dockyard, had razed entire streets and the post-war planners did the rest, replacing acre after acre of Victorian terraces with their vision of a more wholesome future. Decades later, the area figured prominently on most of the poverty indices, and CID files were full of no-hopers who’d launched their criminal careers in the shadows of the surrounding tower blocks. Winter, who had no time for wank theories about social deprivation, rather liked the area. It was authentically rough. It looked you in the eye. If Buckland was a haircut, he thought, you’d be talking a serious grade one.

The address Faraday had given him lay in one of the streets off the long central road that threaded through the middle of the estate. The taxi driver, concentrating on the speed bumps, missed the turn. Winter told him to stop, paid the fare, got out.

Number 33 was halfway down on the left-hand side. Winter hadn’t bothered to phone ahead, telling himself there was no point. All he had was a name.

An enormous woman in her fifties answered his knock. She was wearing pink slippers and an extra large jogging suit. Her bare arms were coated with flour and there were splash marks down the front of her apron. Behind her, Winter could see the light on in a tiny kitchen.

‘What’s this?’ The woman wiped her hands on the apron and took the proffered ID. She had a broad Pompey accent underscored with a hint of something foreign.

‘It’s a warrant card, love. My name’s Winter. CID.’

‘Old Bill then?’ She looked at him, neither hostile nor defensive. A first, Winter thought.

He said he was looking for Donna Werbinski. It wasn’t a drama or anything, he just wanted a chat.