Beyond Reach (21 page)

 

In Paulsgrove, the entire parade of shops had been sealed off. Mums with buggies and clusters of kids stood behind the flapping lines of blue and white tape while paramedics hurried between the restaurant and the line of waiting ambulances at the kerbside. Faraday, stepping out of Suttle’s Impreza, counted three uniform cars. The white Transit from the Force Support Unit was parked round the corner.

DCI Parsons was locked in conversation with a uniformed inspector. Faraday was beginning to wonder whether she ever left the estate. Maybe she lived here now, kept her ear to the ground, patrolled the streets at night.

Suttle intercepted a uniformed sergeant whom he evidently knew. His name was Dave Kenyon. He threw Faraday a nod.

‘A bunch of kids turned up around five,’ he told Suttle. ‘It seems they were after money for some funeral or other. They went to every shop along here but it was the Chinese who really stuck it to them.’

The boss, he said, had been behind the till sorting out a cash float for the night. When the kids walked in and demanded fifty quid he told them to get lost. One of the kids set a dog on him. A guy from the kitchen waded in with a meat cleaver and took the dog’s head off. At that point, it started getting serious.

‘How serious?’ It was Faraday.

‘There were two more guys in the kitchen. They both had knives. The kids waded in, the way you do, and three of them got stabbed. One of them’s dead, another’s looking extremely dodgy.’

‘And the Chinese?’

‘The kids had knives of their own. One of the Chinese got stabbed in the throat but they seem to think he’ll live. Another one took a blade in the arse but he’s still standing.’

‘Any customers?’

‘Half a dozen, max. They do a half-price offer before seven. The ones who couldn’t get out ended up standing on the tables.’

The sergeant broke off, beckoned by his inspector. Parsons joined Faraday.

‘We should have got a grip of this,’ she said at once.

‘I’m not with you.’

‘I understand the FLO warned you about the funeral arrangements, what they were planning, the sheer bloody scale of the thing. We should have anticipated something like this, we should have thought it through.’

‘You mean I should have thought it through.’

‘Yes.’

It was a direct challenge. Later, they’d doubtless have a longer conversation. In the meantime, Faraday was to organise retrieval of the CCTV footage.

‘It exists?’

‘It does, Joe. Thank Christ one of us still has some kind of interest.’ Access to the restaurant was limited to the paramedics. A couple of the kids and one of the Chinese were still receiving attention inside. Parsons handed Faraday a number.

‘What’s this?’

‘That’s the guy who runs the place. Don’t ask me his name. He’s probably up at the hospital by now but he’ll know how to access the CCTV.’

She was right. Mr Hua was in a cubicle at A & E having wounds in his thigh stitched up. The dog had taken a chunk out of his lower leg as well. Faraday asked him about the CCTV.

‘In my office,’ he said. ‘You want the recording?’

‘Yes please.’

‘Machine behind the door. Take it, my friend.’

Suttle was at the kerbside, talking to an investigator from Scenes of Crime. Another CSI was en route, plus a Crime Scene Co-ordinator. According to one of the attending uniforms, the interior of the restaurant was a mess.

‘Real DNA-fest.’ He was struggling into a one-piece forensic suit. ‘Blood everywhere.’

Faraday explained about the CCTV footage. It was by no means certain that all the kids were in custody. A couple may have legged it.

‘Not the dog, though, eh?’ Mr Cheerful zipped up the suit and left to sort out the CCTV.

Faraday rejoined Suttle. Parsons was back in her Audi, shouting at her mobile. Willard, Faraday thought. Poor bastard.

Suttle wanted to know how Faraday was going to play this.

‘Are we still talking
Melody,
boss
?
Or
Highfield
? Or what?’

It was a good question. Did a couple of homicides and a riot qualify for a new operational code name? Or was this an extension of Tim Morrissey’s death? And of Munday’s?

‘Ask Parsons,’ Faraday told him. ‘I’ll organise the troops.’

Faraday got a lift with a uniform back to Fratton. A procedure existed for moments like these. He rang the on-call D/I, briefly described what had happened, and then found himself a DVD player. The first trawl through the CCTV footage was normally an intel responsibility but Suttle was still in Paulsgrove and Faraday needed a fix on exactly what had happened.

According to the time printout, the kids entered the restaurant at 17.13. The resolution on the pictures was excellent and Faraday recognised the faces from the
Melody
file. Casey Milligan. Jason Dominey. Ross McMurdo. A girl was with them too, and the moment she turned round he knew it was Roxanne Claridge. The same determination to share her chest with anyone who might be looking. The same instinct to find the only mirror in the room. Dominey had Munday’s pit bull.

The camera was positioned high up behind the serving counter. In the foreground the restaurant’s owner was shaking bags of change into the till. He looked up as the kids came in. The thin scatter of diners did likewise. Dominey approached the counter. At sixteen he’d perfected the rolling Pompey swagger, hands dug into the pockets of his shell suit. He had a hoodie pulled forward over his baseball cap and his face was in shadow. There was no soundtrack with the pictures but it didn’t take much to imagine the dialogue.

The Chinese shook his head. He must have said something forceful because another of the kids pushed forward, alongside Dominey, and reached for the man’s throat. The Chinese stepped back and Faraday saw his right hand find the panic button. Dominey had rounded the counter by now and Faraday got his first proper look at the dog. All those nights caged up in Munday’s garden had worked a treat. He couldn’t wait to get stuck in.

Dominey must have demanded money again. The cash register was still open. Faraday watched the Chinese shake his head and push the drawer shut. Dominey bent to the dog and let it off the chain. The dog hurled itself at the Chinese, who did his best to fight it off. Faraday slowed the action. Had the dog jumped any higher the Chinese would have been in real trouble but as it was the damage was bad enough. Clamped to the man’s thigh, its legs flailing, the pit bull shook its massive head left and right, tearing at the flesh. Blood began to pump through tears in the cloth of the trousers while the kids looked on, laughing.

Then, from nowhere, a thin figure in a pair of blue track bottoms appeared. He was a Chinese from the kitchen. Naked above the waist, he was holding a meat cleaver. He pulled hard on the dog’s back legs before bringing the cleaver down across the back of the animal’s neck. It was a beautiful blow, perfectly judged, and the sharpness of the glittering blade neatly severed the pit bull’s head from its body. Nobody moved. Not even the owner. Then one of the other kids, Casey Milligan, pulled a knife and lunged at the half-naked Chinese across the counter.

By now, a couple of the diners were making for the door to the street but they were too late. Another Chinese had decided to surprise the kids. He must have raced round from the rear entrance. He pushed in through the front door, locked it, and plunged into the melee around the counter. Faraday saw his arm rising and falling. He had a long kitchen knife and knew exactly how to use it. A couple of the diners, unaware that the dog was no longer a threat, had climbed onto their tables.

Faraday paused the action. He’d lost track of the developing pattern of the fight. Yet another Chinese had emerged from the kitchen. He too was armed with a knife, holding the kids at bay while he helped his limping boss to safety. His face, frozen on the screen, told its own story. Hatred, Faraday thought. Salted with an implacable desire for revenge.

His finger found the Play button and the carnage resumed. Dominey was lying behind the counter, blood pouring from a wound in his chest. McMurdo was on his knees, begging for mercy. Only Casey Milligan and the girl Roxanne were left standing. Milligan, braver than the rest, tried to go to McMurdo’s aid, slashing at thin air with what looked like a sheath knife, big showy widescreen moves. The bare-chested Chinese let him come, chose his moment, then drove the cleaver deep into his face. Milligan’s mouth dropped open. He doubtless screamed. Then he fell, clutching the gaping wound in his cheek, his hand scarlet with his own blood. The Chinese struck again, taking him in the throat this time before stepping back and eyeballing the girl.

The fight was over. Faraday, in a moment that would stay with him forever, stopped the action a second time, knowing he was glad. Not that the violence was over. But because people, at last, were taking a stand. A week ago Jeanette Morrissey had killed Kyle Munday. Now this.

SATURDAY, 24 MAY 2008. 19.34

It was early evening before Winter got through to Mackenzie. His mobile had been on divert for hours. Now Bazza picked up on his landline.

‘Been out with Marie, mush. Spot of shopping.’

‘Somewhere nice, I hope.’

‘Salisbury. She loves it there. Can’t get enough of the place. You know what? Give her half a chance and we’d start looking for a house.’

He sounded relaxed and cheerful, the spat in the gym forgotten. They’d probably toured the shops together, had a cosy lunch, buried their differences with a decent bottle of wine. Winter was about to change all that.

‘Ezzie’s disappeared,’ he said. ‘She packed her bags this morning.’

‘You’re fucking joking.’

There was a
clunk
as Mackenzie dropped the phone. Winter heard the slam of a door in the background. Then he was back again.

‘Where’s she gone?’

‘No one knows.’

‘You’ve talked to Stu?’

‘Yeah. She left him a note. Said she’d be back next week sometime. She put a kiss at the bottom. He couldn’t work out whether she was taking the piss or not.’

‘A kiss? What the fuck does that mean?’

‘That’s exactly what he said. I told him she’s probably having second thoughts.’

‘About?’

‘Lover boy. I told you it wouldn’t last, Baz. All you have to do is listen.’

Mackenzie grunted. Irony, Winter knew, was a waste of breath.

‘Listen, mush. You at home? Give me five minutes, yeah?’ He hung up.

Winter waited. Outside, beyond the harbour, he could make out the beginnings of a glorious sunset. Moments later, the phone rang. Baz seemed to have forgotten about Salisbury.

‘Get over here, mush. We’ve got a huge fucking problem.’

 

By the time DCI Gail Parsons got back to the Major Crime Department, Jason Dominey had died. Faraday had taken the call from Jimmy Suttle. He put his head round Parsons’ office door and gave her the news. She was crouched over her desk, intent on her PC screen, exactly the way she sometimes drove the Audi.

‘How many’s that then, Joe?’

‘Two. Casey Milligan died in the restaurant. Dominey made it as far as the QA.’ The Queen Alexandra was the city’s biggest hospital.

‘What about the rest of them?’

‘McMurdo’s got stab wounds to his shoulder and arm. Mr Hua’s still at A & E with the Chinese who got it in the arse and they’re operating on the other guy. It’s a throat wound but they don’t think it’s life-threatening.’

‘And the girl?’

‘Unmarked. Apparently her mum’s already talking to the
News of the World.
’

‘Brilliant. That’s all we need.’

Parsons pushed her chair back from the desk. Word about the Blue Dragon had spread across the city. Radio and TV were using the word ‘massacre’. Parsons was still awaiting confirmation but she understood that a couple of other Chinese restaurants in the city had already received death threats.

‘This is a disaster, Joe. Normally I’d be talking damage limitation but I suspect it’s a bit late for that. We need a coping policy. Fast.’

Faraday nodded. These situations always called for a fall guy and he had absolutely no doubt who that was going to be. He could see it in her eyes, in the way she was almost measuring him for the drop. This year’s buzzword was Community Policing and a double killing with this kind of exposure would do nothing for the feel-good factor. Parsons was right. They were looking at a disaster.

Faraday studied her a moment.

‘I’m a copper, boss. Four kids go into a restaurant. They’re known to us. They have previous. They demand money with menaces. The owner has a perfect right to say no. They set the dog on him. The thing kicks off.’

‘Is that some kind of defence?’

‘Only if you think I’ve got a case to answer.’

She returned his look but denied him the satisfaction of a reply. Instead, she nodded at her phone.

‘Mr Willard was on just now. He wants to know we’re on top of this thing.’

She meant the investigation. Faraday ran through the steps the duty D/I had already taken. A D/C had arrested McMurdo and Claridge at the hospital on suspicion of blackmail. Their clothing had been seized for forensic analysis and they’d both be swabbed for DNA and subjected to a full medical examination. Another D/C was waiting for an interpreter at the hospital before taking statements from the Chinese. A couple of FLOs, meanwhile, had been dispatched to deliver the death message to the parents of the slain teenagers.

Later, while Scenes of Crime sorted out the carnage in the restaurant, a smallish squad would do house-to-house calls to plot the kids’ movements. Other shopkeepers along the parade had already come forward, volunteering statements. These same kids, they said, had tried it on with them as well, demanding money, saying it was a contribution to a worthy cause, trying to pretend they had a duty to honour one of Paulsgrove’s finest.