Beyond Reach (14 page)

She peered up at Callan. Her eyes were milky in the gloom and the expression on her face spoke of nothing but confusion. Strangers coming in through the window? Whatever next?

Faraday took Callan into the hallway. The woman was old, possibly demented. There were special procedures here. Anything worthwhile in the way of evidence would have to be gathered in the presence of an Appropriate Adult. Otherwise it could be ruled inadmissible.

Callan didn’t seem to be listening. She stepped past Faraday and went into the tiny kitchen at the back. Faraday watched from the open doorway as she began to go through the drawers in the dresser. The kitchen belonged in a museum. There was a scatter of potato peelings in the butler sink and a pair of woollen tights pegged to the length of binder twine strung over the gas stove.

‘Bingo!’

Callan had found documents tying the property to the burned-out camper up the road. They included the registration certificate and a sheaf of service bills. She brought them back to the room at the front of the house and showed Faraday.

‘You think she took them out of the van last last night? Meant to destroy them later?’ She nodded at the old woman in the chair. ‘You think this lady might be her mum?’

Mrs Morrissey appeared to have gone to sleep again but responded when Faraday gave her bony shoulder a gentle nudge.

‘Mr Perryman,’ she said at once.

‘Who?’

‘Next door.’ She gestured vaguely at the window. ‘Ask him.’

Faraday and Callan exchanged glances. One more try. Callan knelt beside her, stroked her hand.

‘We want to know about your daughter, Mrs Morrissey. Have you got a daughter?’

The woman looked blank.

‘Mr Perryman,’ she repeated. ‘Next door.’

Faraday knew it was time to give up. Even if they managed to get this woman into court, the defence barrister would tear them to pieces. Oppressive behaviour. Inappropriate conduct. Objection upheld.

Back out in the sunshine, Callan rummaged in her bag for a tiny phial of perfume. She wrinkled her nose in disgust then dabbed some on her wrists and temples.

‘Remind me never to get old,’ she said. ‘What now then, boss?’

Faraday was studying the bungalow next door. Flower beds around a newly mown lawn. UPVC double glazing. And a poster for the church bring-and-buy in one of the front windows.

‘At least we’ve got a name,’ he said.

Mr Perryman turned out to be a courtly, fit-looking man in his early seventies. He invited them into his bungalow. His wife, he said, was on flower-arranging duty at the local church. He himself was due at the chiropodist in Fareham. They were lucky to find anyone in.

Faraday wanted to know about his next-door neighbour. He needed to talk to her in connection with an incident over the weekend. How well did Mr Perryman know her?

‘Very well. Mad as a coot, I’m afraid, but a sweet old thing really.’

‘She lives alone?’

‘Insists on it. I don’t know whether you’ve seen the state of the place but for our money it’s a health hazard. We do our best, of course, but these old folk have their pride. My wife’s itching to get in there with the bleach but Elsie won’t let us touch anything.’

‘Does she have any relatives?’ It was Callan.

‘A daughter-in-law. She lives down in Portsmouth.’

‘And does this daughter-in-law help out?’

‘All the time. Margery and I sort out the daily shopping. We make sure she never goes short of something to eat. But it’s Jeanette who does everything else. She’s a bit of a saint that way.’

‘That’s her name? Jeanette?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she’s up here a lot?’

‘Couple of times a week. She’s got her own problems, believe me, but Mum’s always been a priority. These days that’s good to see. Ideally, Jeanette would like to sell the place and get Mum into a home down in the city but Elsie won’t hear of it.’

Faraday wanted to know about Elsie’s garage. Did she have a car?

‘She used to but it got too much for her. As a matter of fact we helped her sell it.’

‘So the garage is empty?’

‘Yes.’ He glanced at his watch. Time was moving on. ‘You should talk to Jeanette, really. She was here last night, funnily enough.’

He stepped towards the door, trying to bring the conversation to an end. It was Callan who stood in his way.

‘You saw her? Last night?’

‘Yes. There was a car I didn’t recognise outside the bungalow so I popped across. It turned out to be Jeanette’s. A hire car. Some problem with that old van of hers.’

‘And what time did she leave? Did you happen to notice?’

‘I’ve no idea. The car was still there the last time I looked. And that would have been - I don’t know - ten o’clock.’

‘Did you hear it leave at all? Hear it drive away? In the middle of the night maybe?’

‘No go, I’m afraid. Margery and I both take sleeping tablets. One of the blessings of age. Now, if you don’t mind …’ He was getting agitated about the time. His appointment was in half an hour. The parking in Fareham could be shocking.

Faraday signalled for Callan to let him go. His coat was on a hook beside the door. All three of them stepped out into the sunshine. Faraday thanked him for his time, aware of Callan staring at the tree that overhung the driveway of the old lady’s bungalow next door. As Perryman fumbled for his car keys, she turned back to him.

‘Was Jeanette here first thing Sunday morning?’ she asked. ‘And did you give her a lift back to Portsmouth?’

Perryman paused a moment, buttoning his coat. Then he nodded.

‘Yes to both,’ he said. ‘How on earth did you know that?’

 

Winter was thinking about getting in touch with Faraday when the phone went. It was Carol Legge. She was sitting in her big open-plan office with the rest of the Child Protection Team. They’d had a bit of a chat about Tide Turn Trust and someone had come up with a bright idea. Did Winter have a pen handy?

Winter found a pencil beside yesterday’s Sudoku. The guy’s name was Maurice Sturrock. Most people called him Mo. He’d spent the last eleven years on the Isle of Wight but had been a social worker in Portsmouth before that, which was when Carol had got to know him. Until very recently Mo been driving a desk as a senior manager at the Social Services HQ in Newport. He had a wealth of experience and a great reputation as someone who really cut it as far as the kids were concerned, but just now, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, he was still on gardening leave. If Tide Turn Trust wanted to make a bit of a splash in the world of stroppy youth, she said, then Mo Sturrock would be near-perfect. Especially after his little outburst.

‘His little what?’

‘Google him, pet.’ She was laughing. ‘Fill your boots.’

Winter kept his computer in the spare bedroom. He googled Maurice Sturrock and found himself reading a feature article from the
Guardian.
The article was headed TELLING IT THE WAY IT IS? and appeared to be the text of a speech Sturrock had made to a London conference of senior Social Services managers.

A brief paragraph at the top explained that Sturrock had been standing in for his boss, who had evidently written a lengthy presentation about the miracles of integrated working. Sturrock’s job was simply to read the piece, acknowledge the applause and return to his seat. In the event, though, he’d done no such thing. After a brief tussle with his boss’s prose he’d put the speech aside, eyeballed the audience, and gone totally off-piste.

Everyone in the business, he remarked, knew the truth about conferences like this. That they were an expensive jolly, dressed up to seem worthy and productive, but in essence just a chance to catch up with old mates, have a beer or two, eye the talent, spend the night in a decent hotel, and bugger off home. That might sound fine, he said, but do the sums. Two days of paid time for four hundred delegates on an average salary of around thirty-seven K. Conference fees at £450 a pop. Travel expenses. Hotel bills. Taxi fares. The whole caboodle. In total, you’d be lucky to see any change out of half a million quid.

Winter sat back for a moment, trying to imagine the atmosphere in the conference hall. For once a speaker would have had everyone’s total attention. At last, someone with the bollocks to cut through all the bullshit.

Even on paper, Winter could sense Sturrock’s anger. He’d challenged everyone in the audience to imagine what they could do with half a million pounds. A couple more youth workers on the action team. Access to paid mentors for difficult kids with artistic talents. Cash to hire expensive educational psychologists who might just make the difference. In Sturrock’s own neck of the woods, help like this had become a luxury item, a fantasy, way beyond his overstretched budget. Just getting mainland experts across to the island, he’d pointed out, cost an arm and a leg. So what in God’s name was he doing here? Turning his back on the kids who mattered? Watching half a million precious quid disappear down the plughole?

The speech came to an end. Evidently Sturrock had made no apologies, offered no analysis, no solutions. Wasting time, he concluded, was something we all did. It was a shame, and it mattered, but wasting this kind of time and this kind of money was criminal. Every social worker he’d ever met was trying to do more and more with less and less. And yet here we all were. Kissing goodbye to half a million quid.

Winter eyed the phone, a grin on his face, wondering whether he ought to read the
Guardian
more often. In the Job, on countless occasions, he’d had to put up with the same kind of nonsense. Politicians turning
Daily Mail
editorials into bonkers legislation. Managers disappearing up their own arse with all the nonsense about Proportionality and Victim Focus. Fast-track guys on the make, fluent in bollock-speak. What a pleasure to find out that someone, at least, had seen through it all.

Carol Legge answered Winter’s call on the first ring.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘Brilliant, love. What happened when he got back to the office?’

‘They suspended him. He’s been on gardening leave ever since.’

Winter reached for the paper and checked the date: 17 November 2007.

‘Since last
year
?’

‘That’s right. These things take a while. It could be another couple of months, easily.’

‘On full pay?’

‘Yes. This is local authority stuff, pet. There are lots of backsides to cover.’

Winter was looking at the photo that accompanied the article. Mo Sturrock was a forty-something with tinted glasses and a mop of greying hair. In another life he might have been a rock star. No wonder he got on so well with the kids.

Carol was talking about Sturrock’s bosses. They’d been crawling over his records since November and word from the Newport offices suggested that they’d failed to find any skeletons in his cupboard. Going on the record the way he’d done was definitely a sacking offence but in the nature of these things they always liked to find extra dirt.

‘So what are you saying?’ Winter’s interest had quickened.

‘I’m saying they might welcome an offer, pet.’

‘Who might?’

‘Mo’s bosses. They may want him off their hands before it comes to a tribunal.’

‘Excellent.’ Winter reached for a pen. ‘You’ve got a number?’

THURSDAY, 22 MAY 2008. 16.54

Faraday and Steph Callan revisited Jeanette Morrissey towards the end of that same afternoon. Her hired Fiesta was outside the house in Paulsgrove and Faraday could see her shadow behind the net curtains in the front room. When she answered the door there was neither surprise nor alarm in her face. She’s been waiting for us, Faraday thought. Mr Perryman up in Newtown has made a call and warned her to expect a visit. And here we are.

Faraday asked her to accompany them back to the Bridewell for a formal interview in connection with the death of Kyle Munday.

‘Am I under arrest?’

‘No.’

‘So what happens if I refuse? Say I’m too busy? Say you have to wait?’

‘Then I’m afraid we’d insist.’

‘Will it take long?’

‘It may do. That depends.’

She looked at him a moment. ‘There are a couple of things I need to take with me. Do you mind?’

Without waiting for an answer she began to climb the stairs. Faraday was the nearest. He followed her. She paused on the top landing. Her bedroom door was open. There were more photos of her dead son on the dressing table.

‘You’ll give me a couple of minutes?’

‘Of course. Just leave the door open, if you don’t mind.’

She gave him another look, almost accusatory, then nodded at the room next door.

‘That was Tim’s bedroom. Help yourself.’

The invitation had the force of an order. Faraday pushed the door open. The bedroom looked west. A blaze of late-afternoon sunshine streamed through the half-curtained window. The single bed was unmade, the duvet thrown back, the pillow still dimpled with the imprint of a head. A pile of clothes lay on the floor beside it - jeans, a couple of T-shirts, a pair of black and white baseball boots - and there was a guitar propped against a chair in the corner. Beside the chair, on a music stand, a musical score.

Faraday stepped into the room. Motes of dust hung in the stale air. There was a smell of unwashed clothing. One corner of a poster for the Isle of Wight Bestival had come adrift from its little pebble of Blu Tack and the adjacent corkboard was covered with snaps, scribbled reminders and cuttings from various music magazines. Tim Morrissey had died on 5 November. This was his shrine.

‘You know something very strange?’ Jeanette Morrissey was standing in the open doorway. She was holding a sponge bag and what looked like a framed photograph.

‘Tell me.’

‘We’ve got a cat, a fat old thing. We called it Flopsy at first but Tim prefered Coltrane. It used to sleep with him every night - there, on that bed.’