One Under (3 page)

‘Sure, boss.’

Winter at last turned away from the window, enjoying the little tickle of anticipation that conversations like these had always stirred in him. As a detective on division for more years than he cared to remember, he’d lost count of the mornings he’d answered a phone call or eased into a conversation in a holding cell, and found himself up to his neck in the wreckage of someone else’s life. These chance opportunities, cleverly exploited, had become meat and drink to him, the essence of his busy life, and it was only recently, after the diagnosis and everything else that had gone with it, that he’d recognised how much he relied on them. The limitless capacity of most of the human race to land themselves in the shit had never failed to delight him - and here, it seemed, was yet another example. Some bloke chained to a railway line? A sitting duck for the first train through? How promising was that?

He wandered into the bathroom and began to lather his face, warmed by the thought of the days and weeks to come. He’d been on Major Crimes for nearly three months now, occupying the empty desk in the Intelligence Cell. As a posting after lengthy convalescence, it had seemed a dream job. Normally, Occupational Health found you something cosy and safe, put you out to grass with the muppet statisticians or the Road Safety fascists, then hauled you in every week to make sure you hadn’t blown a fuse with all the excitement, but for reasons Winter still didn’t fully understand he’d managed to avoid all that. Given the seriousness of the brain operation, the DVLA were still withholding his driving licence, a measure which definitely cramped his investigative style, but so far he’d managed to cope by spending a small fortune on cab fares.

Newly shaved, he went through to the master bedroom, still thinking about the body in the tunnel. To be honest, he’d been slightly disappointed by the calibre of jobs that had so far crossed his desk. In three months he’d been involved in two murders, a linked series of rapes and a kidnapping. Both homicides were three-day events - the first a domestic, the second a Southsea club brawl that had got out of hand. The linked series of rapes had been binned after the woman admitted keeping open house for anyone her boyfriend owed, while the kidnapping had turned into an obscure generations-long feud between two branches of the same Kosovan family.

In every case Winter had done his level best to complicate the obvious, to impart some class to this dross, but one of the lessons he’d quickly learned was that the Major Crimes Team were as starved of decent jobs as every other bunch of detectives in the city. Now though, he told himself, it might be different. A body chained to a railway line sounded very promising indeed.

By the time DC Jimmy Suttle rang the entryphone, Winter was contemplating breakfast. Suttle took the lift to the third floor and pushed at the open door. The lad’s transfer onto Major Crimes, nearly a year back, had come as no surprise to Winter. He’d worked with Suttle on a number of jobs on the Pompey Crime Squad, and had been impressed. Unlike most of the kids on the force these days, Suttle was prepared to take a risk or two. He shared Winter’s hatred of paperwork yet he was never shy of making a stand when he thought the older man was going over the top. More important still, it had been Suttle who’d kept an eye on Winter when the brain tumour began to make life truly miserable. Marriage to Joannie had never blessed Winter with kids of his own but with a couple of Scotches inside him he occasionally viewed Suttle as a decent enough substitute.

Now, Suttle stood in the kitchen, staring at the pile of plates in the sink. Thanks to a training course in the West Midlands, he hadn’t seen Winter for a couple of weeks.

‘You’re an old dosser,’ he said. ‘You see that thing next to the fridge? It’s a dishwasher.’

Winter shrugged, rescuing his toast. It was true. He’d been in the apartment for the best part of six months and still hadn’t bothered to sort out all the gadgets that went with the fitted kitchen. A couple of years ago, before the tumour, this would have been inconceivable. Now, it was just another chore that just didn’t seem to matter.

‘Slice of toast, son?’

‘No thanks.’ Suttle glanced up at the kitchen clock. ‘We’re out of here in three minutes.’

By mid-morning, with the help of Jerry Proctor, Faraday had managed to impose some order on the constant trickle of arriving vehicles that turned the long curve of gravel outside the village church into a car park.

A command post had been established at one corner of the nearby pond. A line of blue and white POLICE tape marked an outer cordon, with a local uniform on hand to explain crime scene etiquette to anxious villagers. Up the lane, beyond the railway bridge, a second line of tape barred access to anyone but essential personnel. Through here, an hour or so ago, had trooped the weary passengers from the train itself. Most had long abandoned any thoughts of a normal working day. One of them, meeting a reporter beside the pond, described his first sight of the masked and suited detectives as ‘surreal’.

‘You think you’re off to London,’ he’d said, ‘and you end up in a film set.’

Now, the tunnel awaited the attentions of the search teams, the photographer and the woman whose job it was to transfer every scrap of recovered evidence onto a scale map of the area. Only when Faraday was satisfied with their work would he release the tunnel back to South West Trains, a decision that he already sensed was days away.

First, though, everything had to wait for the pathologist. Proctor had put the calls in after his initial meet with Faraday. Thanks to holiday and other commitments, only two on the regional Home Office list were available. The nearest lived in Bristol. Bristol to Buriton was a two-and-a-half-hour drive. God willing, the pathologist should be with them around midday.

With an hour to kill and Proctor available to take the pathologist into the tunnel, Faraday decided to scout the area, looking for access points to the railway, enlisting the help of the Transport Police Incident Officer with his sheaf of maps. They left the outer cordon, drove back through the village, and then turned south on a road that wound up the wooded face of the Down. At the top of the climb, the Incident Officer braked before hauling the Astra left. He’d already shared what little else he’d picked up from his brief visit to the tunnel. The train, he said, appeared to have sliced the body virtually in two. It was a sight he never wanted to see again.

Faraday sat back, following the route on the map, his finger tracing the narrowing track until the tarmac disappeared and they were bumping along a rutted path between fields of grass ready for mowing. Ahead, he could see a corn bunting perched on a strand of barbed wire and, for a moment, through the open window, he caught the signature call of this stout little creature. The
jangle-jangle
of keys, he thought, remembering hot summer days spent birding on the dusty Spanish steppes, his ear cupped for this same halting song.

‘Empty, isn’t it?’ The Incident Officer gestured off to the right, where the ground dipped away. ‘Can’t make your job any the easier.’

Faraday nodded, forcing himself to concentrate. So far, on the way up from the village, they must have passed no more than half a dozen properties. All of these people, while memories were still fresh, would require a visit from the enquiry team. Did they have dogs or a CCTV camera? Had they heard anything suspicious last night? Headlights at two in the morning? Strange cars? Any other disturbance?

Faraday looked down at the map, aware of the familiar drumbeat of questions in his brain. Had the Detective Superintendent managed to lay hands on the small army of specialists that would make the Major Incident Room tick? Had he - Faraday - thought hard enough about a form of words to keep the press happy? Was it too early to draw up a specific set of Time and Scene Parameters?

The latter question deserved special attention. The time frame seemed relatively straightforward. Already - on the basis of information from the Transport Police boys - he’d calculated a three-hour window between the last train through the tunnel on Sunday and next morning’s London-bound service that had turned 500 metres of darkness into a crime scene. But the physical issue of Scene Parameters - quite how widely he should cast his investigative net - was partly dependent on the recce they were undertaking. Maps were always invaluable but nothing beat a first-hand feel for the shape of the terrain.

The car came to a sudden halt and Faraday glanced up to find himself looking at a locked gate barring a gap in the hedge. The Incident Officer got out and Faraday followed him as he clambered over the gate. Beyond, a track plunged down between encroaching hedgerows. At the end, explained the Incident Officer, was the deep cutting that funnelled into the southern mouth of the tunnel.

They walked down the path, single file, Faraday looking for signs of recent disturbance. Had the victim stumbled down this way, dragged by God knows who, maybe roped, maybe injured? Or was he already dead, killed by unknown hands? At the bottom, the path turned sharply right, offering a sudden view of a new-looking chain-link fence. Beyond the fence, on the bed of the cutting, lay two sets of railway tracks.

Faraday gazed down for a moment or two, aware of the gathering heat of the day. It was quiet on the edge of the embankment. Insects hummed and buzzed in the undergrowth. Far away, he could hear the lowing of cattle. Then came the sudden flap of disturbed wood pigeons and the cackle of a pheasant, before peace returned to the surrounding woodland.

The Incident Officer was explaining that the railway was fenced on both sides for miles north and south. From time to time there were bridges and level crossings, both of which gave access to the track. The only way of physically checking the fence itself was to walk the path beside the clinker.

Faraday nodded, adding another note to his check-list. The fence was substantial, at least six feet high, and as far as he could see looked intact, no sign of intruders; but the Incident Officer was right - every trackside metre had to be checked. Faraday found himself calculating the man hours involved in an exercise like this. Then he heard a distant purring noise that called attention to itself above the busy symphony of high summer. Turtle doves, he thought, with a sudden jolt of pleasure.

Minutes later, toiling back up the path towards the Astra, Faraday took a call on his Airwave. It was Proctor. The pathologist had arrived earlier than expected; he’d got himself kitted up and they were about to enter the tunnel. Was it safe to assume they could go ahead without Faraday?

Faraday found the transmit button.

‘That’s a yes,’ he said.

 

Major Crimes occupied a suite of offices at the back of Kingston Crescent police station, a stone’s throw from Portsmouth’s Commercial Docks. On the second floor, Winter’s perch commanded a fine view of the rooftops of nearby Stamshaw, framed in the distance by the chalk-gashed swell of Portsdown Hill. Out of breath after climbing the back stairs from the car park, Winter found DC Tracy Barber sitting at his desk.

Barber was a relatively recent addition to the Major Crimes team, a tall, handsome-looking woman with a big, square face, lesbian tastes in relationships and a fondness for tailored suits. Years of service in Special Branch had quickly drawn Winter’s attention, and the fact that her sheer competence had won Faraday’s confidence made her a doubly useful ally.

‘Kicking off, isn’t it?’ Barber was already on her feet, surrendering Winter’s chair. Winter motioned her down again, squeezing his bulk behind the other desk.

‘Dead right, love.’ Winter grinned. Footsteps down the long central corridor. The non-stop ringing of phones. Shouted questions. Muttered answers. An occasional thump as someone kicked an office door shut. Winter loved all this: the buzz, the urgency, the sense of a machine - complex and voraciously demanding - shaking itself into gear.

‘Where’s the boss?’

‘Barrie’s in his office, preparing for the DCI interviews. Faraday’s out at the tunnel. He called in a couple of minutes ago. Here … ’

Winter took the proffered scrap of paper. The Major Crimes Detective Chief Inspector had recently left for pastures new. Normally, his replacement would be Senior Investigating Officer on a job like this. Except the hunt was still on for a suitable candidate.

‘So who’s in charge?’

‘Faraday, as far as I can gather. Barrie’s due for leave.’

‘So Faraday runs it?’

Barber caught the inflection at once. ‘Yes. You really don’t like him, do you?’

‘You’re wrong, love. Believe it or not, we go back a long way. He’s different, that’s all.’

‘You’re telling me that’s a crime?’

‘Christ, no. It’s just that I’ve never quite sussed what makes him tick. He’s had some decent jobs; he’s done well, but you’d never know it, not the way he behaves. Most bosses I’ve come across can’t resist a little boast. They’re in it for the medals, the glory, all that bollocks that comes with the rank. Faraday … ?’ Winter shrugged, glancing down at the message. ‘Most days you’d never take him for a copper.’