Turnstone (12 page)

‘Your name, please.’

The voice sounded foreign, just the way it had been when she’d first phoned him.

‘We’re doing all the flats,’ Winter called. ‘Checking on damage from yesterday.’

Mention of the storm opened the door. Winter found himself looking at a woman in her late twenties. She was wearing a red bikini and a pair of Kenzo shades. She had a deep tan, a wonderful body, and as far as Winter could judge, all her teeth seemed intact. Through an open door at the end of the tiny hall, Winter could see a sunbed on the balcony beyond the big lounge.

‘Juanita?’

‘Sí.’

‘OK, are you?’

Without waiting for an answer, Winter stepped past her, walking through to the lounge. Looking round, he sensed at once that the place had been pre-furnished. The bamboo furniture and smoked-glass tables looked too new. Open any of the built-in cupboards, he thought, and you’d find yards of packing material and heavy-duty polythene.

‘Been here long?’

The woman seemed nervous. She headed for the door across the room but Winter got there first. The last thing he needed was her making a phone call.

‘
Policia
,’ he said, showing her his ID card.

She studied it carefully, then nodded. She was clearly no stranger to subterfuge.

‘OK, Mr Winter,’ she said. ‘You want coffee?’

Twelve

Faraday was in the middle of Dorset, driving back to Portsmouth, when Dawn Ellis finally raised him on his mobile.

‘Couple of messages, sir,’ she said crisply. ‘One’s from a Kate Symonds.’

The name snagged in Faraday’s memory. Then he remembered the head-to-head with the journalist from
Coastlines
. Kate Symonds was the girl with lots of attitude who’d wound up Neville Bevan to such spectacular effect.

‘She gave me a number.’ Dawn was saying. ‘She wants you to call.’

Faraday jotted the number down. The other message had come from Nelly Tseng at Port Solent. She’d been on three times this morning and the last of the calls had been fielded by the superintendent’s office.

‘What does she want?’

‘You, sir. She’s gone mental about the twocking last night.’

Twocking was CID shorthand for taking a car without the owner’s consent. The Paulsgrove lads had obviously upped their game.

‘How many vehicles?’

‘Just the one, sir. But it was a Porsche Carrera – and they got involved in some kind of race afterwards. Rolled it on a bend at the top of the estate. The lads are OK but the car’s a write-off.’

Faraday digested the news.

‘And you say Bevan knows about all this?’

‘Affirmative, sir. He wants to see you the minute you get back. Just thought I’d pass the word.’

Dawn rang off and Faraday glanced across at Cathy. She was pale and tight-lipped at the wheel. So far she hadn’t mentioned Pete and neither had Faraday but he sensed that now wasn’t the time for a lengthy conversation. Better to stick to the business in hand.

Faraday pocketed his mobile.

‘You think I’m barmy, don’t you? Going to all this trouble about Maloney?’

Cathy glanced at the number he’d scribbled down.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’

On his return to Portsmouth, Faraday went straight to Bevan’s office. Expecting a ruck over Nelly Tseng and the stolen Porsche, he found the superintendent brooding over a phone call from Patrick McIlvenny.

He explained that the two of them had shared a recent association under the auspices of an outfit called ‘Common Purpose’. Like-minded high achievers met once a month to explore weighty civic issues, and over the course of a year he’d got to know the man. Bevan took a cautious view of friendships outside the job, but he clearly had a lot of respect for the acting head teacher.

Faraday was trying to work out where this conversation was going. Bevan at last got to the point.

‘Patrick described events last night,’ he said. ‘He believes your behaviour amounts to harassment – and on the face of it, he just might be right.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said that you gave his partner an extremely hard time about their relationship. He thought the word “intrusive” wouldn’t have done the conversation justice.’

‘I asked her some questions,’ Faraday said woodenly. ‘She had difficulty with some of the answers.’

‘He disagrees. He says you upset her, disturbed the child and virtually accused them of murder. All without a shred of supporting evidence. He said the inference you’d drawn from events was perfectly clear. You’d made up your mind that the ex-husband – Maloney? – had disappeared under suspicious circumstances and that they – he and his partner – were somehow implicated.’

‘That’s hardly murder.’

‘In his eyes, I’m afraid it was. You took his fingerprints?’

‘I asked whether he was prepared to be fingerprinted, yes.’

‘For what reason?’

Faraday caught the menace in Bevan’s voice. At first he’d thought that the superintendent was going through the motions, discharging a debt of friendship, but now he wasn’t so sure.

‘For the purposes of elimination,’ he said evenly, ‘and it doesn’t stop there, either.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that we may have to search his house, and possibly hers too. If they choose not to co-operate, I may have to get a warrant sworn.’

‘You’ve got the grounds?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are you after?’

‘Correspondence, computer files, maybe even some forensic.’

‘Relating to?’

‘Some kind of struggle.’

‘You’re talking full forensic?’

‘Perhaps.’

Faraday, with the greatest reluctance, found himself outlining the circumstances that had led him to McIlvenny. The sense of mutual awkwardness, embarrassment even, had gone. Faraday was beginning to get angry.

‘He certainly has the motivation,’ he concluded, ‘and he may well have had the opportunity. Their alibi, such as it is, relies on each other.’

‘You really think she’s implicated too?’

‘Very possibly.’

‘After giving you the key to the flat? Dear God, Joe, what’s this woman got? Some kind of death wish?’

‘People do strange things.’ Faraday shrugged. ‘And murder isn’t a rational act.’

Bevan stared into space for a moment or two. Faraday had always had the feeling that the superintendent had never quite come to terms with the darker side of human nature, which made him unusual for a policeman.

‘I’m sorry he’s a friend of yours,’ Faraday murmured.

Bevan blinked.

‘That’s immaterial,’ he said sharply.

‘Is it, sir?’

‘Yes. Listen, Joe. The last thing you need from me is a lecture about high-volume crime. You know the stats inside out. You know the battles we’re fighting on the ground. Houses turned over. Cars nicked. All that grief. It might be boring, Joe, and it might be just a touch repetitious, but the fact is that these people pay our bloody wages. They have a voice. They use it. They matter. In the meantime, you’re chasing shadows. He’s probably shacked up with some other woman, this Maloney. It happens, Joe, in case you haven’t noticed.’

Faraday ignored the sarcasm. High-volume crime was code for last night’s events at Port Solent. He couldn’t let that pass.

‘I’m calling her this afternoon,’ Faraday said. ‘It’s being dealt with.’

‘Her?’

‘Nelly Tseng. DC Ellis will be sorting it out.’

‘She’s done it already. Or put a phone call in, at any rate.’

‘On whose instructions?’

‘Mine, Joe,’ Bevan said heavily, ‘as if I didn’t have enough to do.’

There was a long silence. This was rapidly turning into the kind of turf war that Faraday couldn’t afford to lose. He was the DI. The DI managed the divisional CID. His call. Not bloody Bevan’s.

He began to protest, but Bevan wasn’t having it.

‘There’s a desk in the inspectors’ office with your name on it,’ he grunted, ‘and by and large it’s empty.’

‘This morning it was empty.’

‘Quite.’

‘This morning was unusual.’

‘It fucking well better be.’

Faraday returned his stare. He’d later spend hours trying to work out why this conversation had boiled over so quickly but just now they’d reached an impasse.

The real problem was simple. The real problem was that the DI’s job had changed beyond recognition. High-volume crime wasn’t sufficiently serious for him to get involved, not directly at any rate. Anything really tasty, anything at the other end of the scale, was declared a major inquiry and handed over to someone higher up the food chain, a detective chief inspector, or even a detective superintendent.

Either way, as Bevan was so forcefully pointing out, Faraday was trapped behind a desk, a prisoner of the ceaseless flow of paper that would otherwise choke the system. He’d joined the CID to clear up crime. He’d done well. He’d won promotion. And here he was, years later, pulling thirty-five grand a year and feeling like a well-paid clerk.

Bevan had relaxed a little.

‘Maybe you should have taken the MIT board more seriously,’ he muttered, ‘instead of pissing them about. A job’s a job, Joe. All I’m asking is that you do it.’

To Winter’s infinite disappointment, Juanita had disappeared to the bedroom to pull on a pair of jeans and a white sweatshirt before plugging in the percolator and making him a cup of coffee. One brew had led to the promise of a second and now – nearly an hour and a half later – the only memory of her near-naked body was the sight of her bare feet tucked beneath her. She’d used a vivid scarlet varnish on her toenails and the colour worked perfectly against the deep tan of her skin. Add the loop of thin gold chain around her right ankle, and Winter knew exactly why Marty Harrison had become so territorial.

They’d met on the quayside in Puerto Banus, where she’d been working for a yacht charter business. They’d spent time together and she’d introduced Marty to various friends, some of whom were English. A handful of the latter were expatriate criminals with excellent contacts in the drugs business, and for Marty Harrison Juanita had quickly become the perfect bridge between business and pleasure. She set up deals for him – tiny to begin with but rapidly getting bigger. She helped him find the waterside house that had long been his dream. And on the nights when he wasn’t too pissed she was happy to share his bed.

Just now, she was on a kind of extended stay. Marty had leased the flat for her and bought a brand new Cherokee Jeep as a runaround. Last week, before he’d got himself shot, he’d even been talking about marriage. She nodded, flicking back the fringe of hair from her big brown eyes.

‘Marriage,’ she confirmed.

‘Was he serious?’

‘
Muy
.’

‘Are you?’

‘Maybe.’

Winter frowned.

‘But he’s an animal, isn’t he? Marty?’ He gestured at her, at her body, at those glorious feet. ‘Why him when you could have the pick of the litter?’

She laughed. Perfect teeth.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Animal is right.’

‘You like all that?’

‘I must do.’

Winter shook his head in mock-bewilderment. He was playing the naive old buffer who’d stumbled into a world he didn’t understand. He’d no idea whether she believed him or not but it was certainly fun finding out.

‘You said you got my name from a file.’

‘That’s right. It was an old file of Marty’s. I found it in a drawer in the house down in Puerto Banus. He talked about you sometimes, too.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said you could be bought.’

‘How much?’

‘Five thousand?’ She shrugged. ‘Ten?’

‘Bollocks. That’s way off. He always was a mean little toe-rag.’

She laughed again, throwing back her head, and Winter watched her as she hopped off the sofa and went to check on the coffee pot. At first he couldn’t get over how up-front she was, how incredibly open about everything, but now he was close to accepting that this candour of hers was for real. That’s the way things went, if you were foreign, and beautiful, and shameless, and had the misfortune to fall in with the likes of Marty Harrison.

‘He’s got a girlfriend, you know,’ he called out to her, ‘and a kid, too. You can read about it in the papers.’

‘I know.’ She was back with the coffee. ‘I know about all that.’

‘And?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I told you. If I wanted him all, I could have him like’ – she snapped her fingers – ‘that.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

She was pouring the coffee. Close to she smelled of sunshine and coconut oil.

‘You think there’s a problem?’ she asked.

‘There must be. You phoned me.’

She studied him for a long moment, then put the coffee pot carefully down on the low glass table and extended a hand.

‘Come,’ she said.

On the balcony, Winter followed her pointing finger. Beyond a forest of masts, executive houses lined the far side of the yacht basin.

‘You see the one with the yellow curtains? The one with the sports car behind?’

‘Yes.’

‘That one.’ She nodded. ‘And he says you know this person.’

‘What person?’

‘The person he goes to see so much. The girl who screws for her living there. The
puta
. The whore.’

Winter stared at her, totally lost, then slowly the drift of this strange conversation became clearer. Marty Harrison had been visiting a call-girl. And his outraged mistress wanted to know why.

‘You’ve got a name for me?’

‘Of course.’

‘What is it?’

She looked up at him, moist-eyed, and for the first time it occurred to Winter that she might be serious about Marty Harrison.

‘She calls herself Vikki. Vikki Duvall. You know her?’

Winter fought the urge to give her a big hug. Results like this were sweetest when least expected.

‘Her real name’s Elaine Pope.’ He smiled at her. ‘How can I help?’

Faraday sent Cathy Lamb to sort out the totalled Porsche and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing the Aqua Cab lead. Cathy needed something to take her mind off her marriage and a face-to-face with Nelly Tseng would do exactly that.

By ten past four, Faraday had extracted the names of three drivers from Aqua, all of whom divvied up the shifts on car seventy-three. Car seventy-three had definitely been the cab that had responded to Maloney’s call from the flat on Friday afternoon. On the phone, the first driver was guarded to the point of near silence. No, he hadn’t been working on Friday afternoon. No, he hadn’t a clue who might have been at the wheel. And yes, he’d be more than happy to bring this conversation to an end. Faraday’s second call raised no response at all, not even an answerphone, and he was about to give up on the third, a mobile, when a voice finally came on the line. He sounded apologetic. He’d been asleep in bed. What time was it?

Minutes later, Faraday was on his way to Southsea. Barry Decker occupied a tiny basement flat in a sidestreet off Albert Road. He’d been on shift in car seventy-three all Friday, but he’d gone in for a silly tackle playing football at the weekend and had been laid up with a dodgy knee ever since.

Faraday roused him from his bed, put the kettle on, and then settled him on the sofa.

‘Solent View Mansions,’ he said. ‘Flat seven.’

Decker was trying to raise a flame from his lighter. For the first time in his life, Faraday wished he smoked. Getting to his feet, Decker hobbled across to the kitchenette and lit the roll-up from the gas stove. A lungful of smoke, and his memory finally cleared.

‘Bloke in a leather jacket,’ he said, ‘pissed off as fuck. Steaming, in fact.’