The Take (27 page)

‘You know Hennessey well, then?’

‘I know him. Let’s put it that way. He comes into the pub lunchtimes when he’s down in Pompey. We talk, you know, like you do.’

‘You know he was a surgeon?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know he’s been struck off?’

‘I know he’s had his problems.’ He was beginning to sound guarded. ‘He’s not the happiest bloke you’ll ever meet.’

Winter waited for him to offer more, but he didn’t. Rick asked him again about that Sunday night.

‘Where were you that evening?’

‘At the pub. Working.’

‘You didn’t go out at all?’

Parrish eyed them both, then offered a slow smile. Traps like these were easy.

‘I went out around ten.’

‘Where to?’

‘The Marriott.’

‘Why?’

‘I got a call from Hennessey.’

‘On the hotel phone?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘On his mobile. I’ve got his number stored. I remember the name coming up.’

‘Do you call him a lot?’ Winter this time. ‘Pals, are you?’

‘I’m supposed to call him if there’s anything happening on some Gunwharf flats he wants. He’s put money down. He lives out in the New Forest somewhere and he wants me to keep an eye open for him, just locally, you know. Kind of agent, if you like.’

‘Has he left your name with the Gunwharf people?’

‘I’ve no idea. If he has, they’ve never been in touch.’

Winter paused. Parrish was impressive. He’d no idea how much they knew, yet so far he hadn’t put a foot wrong. Present tense, too. Clever.

‘Hennessey phoned you that night.’ Rick again. ‘What did he say?’

‘He was pissed out of his head. He had a bottle of Scotch with him and by the time I arrived, most of it had gone.’

‘Why did you go up there?’

‘Because he was threatening to do himself in.’

‘Why didn’t you call the management? On the phone?’

‘Because he wanted to talk. To me. He was one fucked-up bunny, that man. OK, I didn’t know him well, but, hey, you do what you can.’

He shrugged and spread his hands wide, a gesture of comradeship, and Winter remembered Tara Gough’s words. ‘He uses people,’ she’d said. ‘He uses them all the time.’

‘Fucked-up how?’ Winter enquired.

‘Guilt. You probably know about all those women he screwed up on, all those operations he got wrong. Guy doesn’t sleep too good these days and that can do anyone’s head in.’

‘So what happened when you got there?’

‘He was sitting on the bed, crying his eyes out. I didn’t see it at first, but he had a scalpel tucked under the pillow. I tried to get it off him and there was a bit of a scuffle.’

Winter remembered the state of the room: armchair upturned, shards of china on the carpet.

‘How much of a scuffle?’

‘Nothing too serious. We rolled around. I managed to see off the scalpel. I think the tea tray got the worst of it. After that I tried to calm him down and we talked for quite a while before he went for a piss. At least, that’s what he said he was doing.’

‘And?’

‘He tried to open a vein. He had another blade in the bathroom. Lucky I got there in time. He’d slashed his wrist, just here’ – he touched the wristband of his watch – ‘and I think it dawned on him then that he was being a bit of a cunt. There wasn’t a lot of blood but, you know, enough to make him think.’

Rick leaned forward.

‘You stopped the bleeding?’

‘I put a towel around it. He did the rest.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Applied pressure. Stopped the bleeding. The guy’s a surgeon. He knew what he was doing.’

‘Then what?’

‘He wanted me to take him out to his car. He had some suture needles and twine in the first-aid box he carries.’

‘Why didn’t you take him to the QA?’

‘He wouldn’t hear of it, and actually I don’t blame him. Can you imagine it? A surgeon turns up, pissed out of his head, with a wound like that? They’d section him if they had any sense.’

Rick was beginning to look glum. By his elbow were the video stills from the Marriott. Normally, in an interview like this, he’d use them for leverage, letting the suspect talk the usual bollocks then suddenly producing them as evidence of the way things had really been. It was an obvious tactic, having one hundred per cent undisclosed evidence like that up your sleeve, but it was amazing how often it worked. On this occasion, though, all the stills offered was corroboration. There they were, Parrish and Hennessey, pushing out through the Marriott’s main entrance at two in the morning, just the way Parrish had described. Look hard, and you could even see a tiny curl of white where Hennessey still had the towel pressed against his dripping wrist.

Winter didn’t spare the stills a second glance.

‘So where did you go?’

‘I took him back to my place, back to the pub. He was going to tell me what to do, and I’d …’ He shrugged. ‘Just sort him out.’

‘By sewing up his wrist?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Where?’

Winter saw the answer coming a mile off. Parrish was enjoying this.

‘On an old table of mine,’ he said, ‘in the outhouse.’

‘Why there?’

‘I’ve got running water, a sink, everything I needed. Plus it wouldn’t make a mess inside.’

‘Neat.’

Winter offered a tiny, private nod of applause. Proctor had already found a couple of human hairs on the flagstones beneath the table. Human blood would doubtless be next. There was a sluice in the outhouse, and gunk from the drains would also yield all kinds of forensic treasure. Yet here was Parrish, plausible to the last, methodically sealing off each of Winter’s precious leads. An explanation for everything, he thought. Far too fucking perfect.

Rick pushed the story forward.

‘So what happened next?’

‘I gave him a bed. He got his head down. Then he left.’

‘Did he bleed at all? In bed?’

‘Yeah. I wasn’t the greatest with the needle.’

‘What happened to the sheets?’

‘I threw them out.’

‘The mattress?’

‘That went too. I’d been meaning to bin it for months.’

Winter stirred again. This guy was becoming a serious irritation.

‘Where did he go?’

‘He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. It was broad daylight and he was still pissed out of his head, but to tell you the truth I didn’t fucking care. All this shit about guilt and suicide and not being able to cope. I’m a publican, not a fucking shrink, know what I mean? Next time, I’m taking him straight to casualty.’

‘You haven’t seen him since?’

‘No way.’

‘He hasn’t been back at all? Hasn’t rung you?’

‘No.’

‘Not even to say thank you?’

‘No. And no flowers in the post, either. I’m telling you, the guy’s out of his tree. That’s the problem in my business. You do your best with your customers and half of them turn out to be nutters.’ He made a big show of looking at his watch, then yawned. ‘Time is money, guys. Can I go now?’

It was Ferguson who passed word to Faraday about the surveillance tape from the Wightlink car park. Faraday joined him in front of the video monitor in the CID office, staring down at the screen. The floodlights around the car park revealed a yawning expanse of empty tarmac, white-lined queueing lanes leading down towards the ferry ramp. In the distance, small at first, a figure appeared. It was a man carrying something bulky in a black plastic sack. He was tall, in jeans and a hooded top. The hood was pulled low, obscuring his face, but it could easily have been Parrish. Easily. Foreshortened by the height of the camera, the figure and his baggage disappeared off the bottom of the screen.

Faraday, checking the clock read-out on the top right-hand corner of the picture, did the sums. 0332. A hint of dawn over the rooftops of Old Portsmouth. Just about right.

Ferguson had a great deal of ground to make up. Now, he spooled the tape forward. Another camera picked up the figure with the bag as he made his way past the booking hall and the first-floor café. Seconds later, at the end of the jetty that hung over the ramp, he disappeared.

‘Where does that go?’ Faraday asked.

Ferguson had frozen the video on the last frame.

‘Gunwharf,’ he said. ‘There’s a ladder gives you access to the site.’

The first interview with Parrish ended at 1244. Winter and Rick Stapleton broke for lunch. They were still in the canteen at the Bridewell when Faraday appeared, and he knew without asking that cracking Parrish was proving to be a great deal tougher than they’d ever anticipated.

‘He’s worked it all out,’ Winter said. ‘It’s like chess. He counters before we even fucking move.’

Faraday collected a pie from the hot shelf and spiralled brown sauce over it. Then he described the contents of the Wightlink tape. Winter confirmed that the time seemed to fit.

‘Did it look like Parrish?’

‘Yes. Not enough for court, but yes.’

‘Any sign of the Mercedes?’

‘No.’

Winter gazed into the middle distance while Faraday asked Rick about a further complication. Even if Parrish coughed, and they managed to turn up a body, that was only half the story. If Winter was right about a contract, who put Parrish up to it? The long list of Hennessey’s surgical victims was an obvious place to start, but Faraday could see the inquiry disappearing to the Major Crimes Suite if that much legwork was involved. He turned to Winter.

‘Any ideas about who might have hired Parrish? Assuming it’s a hit.’

Winter blinked. He seemed not to have been listening.

‘Pass,’ he said. ‘But I tell you something. He hates those bastards. Absolutely loathes them.’

‘What bastards?’

‘The Gunwharf lot. They wouldn’t let him near a pub franchise. They nicked the bird he was shagging. They don’t come to his pub any more. He doesn’t like them at all.’

Faraday was looking blank.

‘So what?’

‘So what?’ Winter suddenly seemed a great deal more cheerful. ‘Say you had a body, or bits of a body. And say you were looking for somewhere to dump it.’

Rick exchanged looks with Faraday. Faraday had abandoned his pie.

‘Go on.’

‘You’d be looking for a hidey-hole, wouldn’t you? You’d be looking for a place where no one would ever dream of digging.’

‘Gunwharf?’

‘Spot on. And say you had something against all those bastard suits who’d screwed you over. What you’d do, you’d bury it under one of those bloody great apartments before they went up, and then, if you were really nasty, you’d fuck off somewhere hot and sunny, give it a couple of years, then ring the
News
and tell them all those rich punters were sitting on a corpse. Parrish would love that. He’d count that as evens.’

Faraday’s instincts told him that Winter was talking bollocks. It was too complicated, too contrived. But the more he thought about it, and the more Winter told him about how accomplished Parrish had been in the interview room, the more he warmed to the theory. Not one target, but two. Not simply the price on Hennessey’s head but a big fat whack at the guys across the way who’d treated him so badly. Winter, after all, had a point. Rarely was revenge more elegant.

‘Think about it,’ Winter was saying. ‘They’d have to dig the whole place up. Years afterwards.’

Twenty-Five

Tuesday, 27 June, 1330

The interview with Parrish resumed within the hour, and Faraday sat in the tiny monitoring room next door, listening through speakers.

Winter and Rick walked Parrish through the chronology again, testing every link, every tiny episode that bridged the four hours between the initial phone call and the moment when Hennessey had walked through the doors of the Marriott and disappeared. Once again, despite challenge after challenge, Parrish was word perfect on every detail, not once backtracking, not once changing his story. Even without seeing him face to face, Faraday had to admit that Winter was right. This man had worked out every last detail. And it would take more than Winter’s silky changes of tack to shake him.

Finally, after getting nowhere with the burned-out Mercedes, Winter brought up the Wightlink video.

‘We’ve got some other shots,’ he said. ‘That ferry car park place across the way from the pub. A bloke like you, your size, your build, everything. Half-past three in the morning, with a bloody great sack. Heading for Gunwharf.’

Next door, Faraday was trying to interpret the possibilities that might account for the ensuing silence. Was Parrish flustered? Had they shaken him? Had they at last found a way in?

Alas, no. He heard a tiny cough and the scrape of a chair. Then came Parrish’s voice. He sounded, if anything, amused.

‘Is that right?’ he said softly.

Faraday’s first meeting that day was with Willard. As he’d thought, the Detective Superintendent was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the potential scale of the Hennessey job. A straightforward misper inquiry was one thing. A full bells-and-whistles murder inquiry, with no corpse and a suspect list as long as your arm, was quite another. Just now, as it happened, Major Crimes were swamped with work, but it was Willard’s job to pull in extra bodies from elsewhere, and if necessary he’d do just that. Divisional resources weren’t supposed to cover crimes like these. That’s why they put Major Incident Teams together.

In the end, Faraday managed to negotiate a stay of execution. He had another forty-eight hours to sort the job out. Otherwise it was a surefire upgrade.

After Willard, Hartigan. Once again, face to face was the only way to resolve it. Faraday accepted the offered seat in front of Hartigan’s desk. As ever, the divisional superintendent had absolutely no time for small talk.

‘Bring me up to speed, Joe. I’m hearing all kinds of rumours.’

Faraday explained about developments over the last twenty-four hours. They’d achieved a major breakthrough. They’d established a chronology and a sequence of events, and speaking personally, Faraday had absolutely no doubt where they led.

‘Where’s that, then?’

‘Gunwharf.’

Hartigan was horrified. The way Faraday described it, the possibility of a body having been buried beneath the apartments site was truly bizarre.

‘This is crank stuff, Joe. You can’t possibly be serious.’

Faraday went through it again, endlessly patient. Motivation, opportunity, outcome – classic textbook stuff. For once, it was a pleasure to quote it all back to Hartigan. Not that it made the slightest difference.

‘Think of the practicalities, Joe. Do you have any idea how big the place is?’

‘Thirty-three acres, sir. You showed me.’

‘Exactly. And where do you propose to start?’

‘I haven’t a clue, not at this point in time. My betting’s on the apartment block.’

‘Blocks, Joe. There are two of them, three of them, four of them. And they’re all behind schedule.’

‘Is that a factor?’

‘Strictly speaking, no.’ He frowned, conjuring fresh nightmares from this terrifying scenario. ‘And what about the publicity? Can you imagine the
News
getting hold of this?’

‘Begging your pardon, sir, but that isn’t our problem.’

‘Of course it isn’t, but have you thought it through resources-wise? It’ll cost a fortune. Have you seen the overtime audit for the last quarter? Dear God …’

For a moment, Faraday thought Hartigan was on the verge of a coronary. This was what happened if your interpretation of police work went no further than public relations. Hartigan was pale with foreboding.

‘This is ridiculous, Joe. I’ll talk to the Detective Superintendent. It’s his responsibility, not ours.’

‘I have already. He’s given me until Thursday.’

‘Then stick with what we know. Keep hammering at the man Parrish. If you need an extension, I’ll be only too happy to oblige.’

Faraday stared at him for a long moment. Every officer in charge of an investigation keeps a Policy Book, a minute-by-minute account of exactly where an investigation is going. On a complex inquiry, it becomes an invaluable reference tool: every action recorded, every decision justified. Faraday, too, was keeping a Policy Book.

‘I’ll bring it up, sir,’ he said quietly, ‘and perhaps you’d like to note your objections to the search. In writing, if you don’t mind.’

Hartigan watched him leave. Ten minutes later, Faraday took a phone call from his management assistant. The Gunwharf search could go ahead.

When Winter finally made it to Meonstoke, Ronald McIntyre was on the point of leaving. Suitcases lay beside his little Toyota and Winter could see him through the open front door. He was standing in the hall, erect in his blazer and cravat, the phone pressed to his ear.

When the conversation came to an end, Winter stepped inside and took him by the elbow. Gentle pressure, friendly pressure. McIntyre, to his alarm, found himself in the big lounge. The curtains were already half-drawn in anticipation of his exit.

‘I need to know about the deal with Parrish,’ Winter explained.

McIntyre didn’t want to think about Parrish any more. That was over, done. He was off to the West Country, he told Winter, a fortnight’s day-sailing with a chum down in Salcombe. He’d finished with evenings in the Weather Gage.

‘Do I make myself clear?’

Winter ignored the challenge. He nodded towards the sofa and told McIntyre to sit down.

‘You have a choice,’ he explained softly. ‘Either you start telling me about Parrish or this relationship of ours becomes a bit more official.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I arrest you.’

McIntyre looked startled.

‘What for?’

‘Conspiracy to murder. You’ve virtually admitted it.’

‘I’ve done no such thing. I agreed I lent the wretched man some money. Is that a crime?’

‘It depends why you did it. Parrish is under arrest. We’ve talked to him twice already and I must say there’s every prospect of him telling us exactly what happened. You’re part of that story, Ronnie. You know it, and so do I.’ He paused. ‘Pleas in mitigation can count for a lot.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that I can have a word with the judge. In these circumstances, it helps to understand what you and Nikki have been through.’

‘
Judge?
’

‘I’m afraid so. Unless …’ Winter frowned, as if struck by a sudden idea. ‘Unless we can sort something out about Parrish.’ He gestured at the space between them. ‘Here and now.’

McIntyre, at first, wasn’t having it. OK, he’d lent Parrish the money, as he’d already admitted, but in time he’d get it back. There’d never been any question of services rendered. He’d be crazy to hire a hit man. If he really wanted to see Hennessey dead, he’d do it himself. With the greatest pleasure.

Winter let him come to a full stop. Then he patted him on the shoulder.

‘Crazy is a good word,’ he agreed. ‘No one’s blaming you here, Ronnie, least of all me.’ He nodded towards the piano and the gallery of framed photos. Nikki as a kid, sprawled on a blanket on the lawn. Nikki on the beach at Seaview, guarding a circle of perfect sandpies. Nikki on Graduation Day, champagne and smiles. ‘Are you really telling me you’d let him get away with it? Is that what fathers do?’

McIntyre was less certain now. Winter suggested a drink. There were two decent glasses of sherry left in the decanter. McIntyre emptied his without a word.

‘I can help you here,’ Winter told him.

‘How?’

‘By keeping this … between us.’

‘Private, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have your word on that?’

‘Yes.’ Winter sipped at the sherry. ‘I just need to know about proof.’

‘What kind of proof?’

‘Proof that the man’s dead. You don’t part with twenty grand without proof.’ He tipped the glass in a mock-toast. ‘Do you, Ronnie?’

McIntyre was gazing out of the window, his eyes filmed with alcohol. He sat there bolt upright for perhaps a minute, then carefully replaced his empty glass on the presentation silver tray and left the room.
CAPTAIN RONALD ARTHUR MCINTYRE
, went the inscription,
FROM THE WARDROOM OF HMS
NOTTINGHAM
. WITH RESPECT AND GRATITUDE
. He was back moments later. Winter watched him slip an audio cassette into the hi-fi and press the play button. Then he sank into the nearby armchair, his eyes returning to the lawn and the river beyond the window.

At first, Winter couldn’t make any sense of the tape, it was just a series of scraping noises. Then he heard a grunt, followed by a man’s voice. It was Parrish. He sounded out of breath. He was telling someone to hold still. This shouldn’t take long, he was saying, just relax. Then another voice with a distinctive South African accent. Do this, then this, now pull, now carry the needle through, not like that, the other way, yes, and again, yes, much better. The dialogue went on for a while, a master class in suturing, then came a moment of complete silence followed by the sound of a heavy thud, cold steel splintering through bone. A man screamed. Another thud, the screaming fainter this time. Then, finally, a return to silence.

McIntyre nodded. His eyes were bright with excitement.

‘Hennessey,’ he confirmed. ‘Definitely Hennessey.’

‘You know that for sure?’

‘I talked to him on the phone a number of times, when Nikki was seeing him. You don’t forget a voice like that.’

Winter was still gazing at the hi-fi.

‘Where did Parrish do it? Did he tell you?’

‘He’s got a garage, or workshop or something, round the back of the pub. He’s got fridges in there for the meat and what have you.’

‘And that’s where it happened?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did he do with the body?’

‘He cut it up, there and then.’

‘And?’

‘I didn’t ask. It’s somewhere very safe. That’s all he told me.’

Winter drained his glass and stood up. McIntyre stared at his outstretched hand.

‘That’s it? We’ve finished?’

‘Of course. You’re off on holiday aren’t you?’ He smiled. ‘Have a great time. You’ve earned it.’

Winter was on the long sweep of motorway that cuts through Portsdown Hill when he finally managed to raise Tara Gough on her mobile. She’d been engaged for the last twenty minutes while he raced down the Meon Valley.

‘It’s Winter. Where are you?’

‘At home. The pub’s still sealed off.’

‘OK, listen. That light.’

‘What light?’

At ninety-five miles an hour, Winter hit the brakes. Why did people still bother with seventy in the outside lane?

‘The neon tube in the outhouse,’ he explained tersely. ‘The one with the fucking great hum.’

‘The flicker, you mean?’

‘Yeah, and the noise. How long’s it been like that?’

‘Weeks, months. I keep telling Rob but he never gets round to fixing it. It’s worse than not having a light at all.’ She paused. ‘Why do you want to know?’

The van had finally moved over. To the right, beyond the roofs of Paulsgrove, the city was laid out like a map, sunlight winking off a distant tower block.

‘You mentioned boats,’ he said.

‘Like … how?’

‘Parrish and McIntyre. You said they talked about boats.’

‘That’s right. They did.’

‘Has Parrish got a boat?’

‘Yes, love of his life, big motor cruiser thing.’

‘Name?’

‘
Crazy Lady
.’

‘Where is it?’

‘In the Camber. Last time I looked.’

The last person Faraday expected to see was Dawn Ellis. She appeared at the door of his office, asking for a brief chat, and it was several seconds before he realised she had company.

‘Cath,’ he said, fetching a couple of chairs. ‘Some kind of deputation?’

Cathy Lamb allowed herself the faintest smile. Dawn was obviously the one who was going to do the talking.

‘Well, girls?’ Faraday was awaiting word from the Bridewell. Winter wanted another crack at Parrish.

‘It’s about Addison,’ Dawn began.

Faraday gazed at her. She sounded strangely formal, almost strained. Was this what half a day with Cathy Lamb did to you?

‘What about him?’ he asked.

‘I think he’s innocent. I think we’ve nicked the wrong guy.’

She went through the evidence. Shelley’s career as an apprentice porn star. Lee Kennedy’s ambitions as a movie producer. The fact that the girl herself was sure that Addison had nothing to do with the Donald Duck incidents. The fact that Kennedy had a major grudge against him. Finally, she brought herself full circle.

‘Addison didn’t do it, boss. Believe me.’

Faraday was looking at Cathy Lamb. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Faraday for a second.

‘Just thought you ought to know,’ she said quietly, ‘before the CPS get their hands on the file.’

Faraday acknowledged the favour with a nod. He knew exactly what was going on here. Cathy was enjoying a moment or two of the sweetest revenge. And, God knows, she probably deserved it.

He turned back to Dawn.

‘So who are we looking for now?’ he enquired drily. ‘Who
is
Donald Duck?’

Dawn exchanged glances with Cathy.

‘I think it’s Beavis,’ she said.

‘Have you put it to him?’

‘No. But everything else adds up. He’s got no alibi. He smokes like a chimney. And he’s thick as a brick.’

‘But why would he want to do it?’

‘Because Kennedy told him to. He worships Kennedy. He worships the ground he walks on. If the man said jump, he’d jump.’