Beyond Reach (47 page)

The memory warmed him, drew him back to this morning’s encounter with Tessa Fogle. He hadn’t given much thought to what he’d find at the converted chapel. Day after working day he stepped into other people’s lives. Often he was there to deal with the consequences of family breakdown. A single mother on the game battered by a drunken client. A vengeful husband taking it out on his luckless wife. A son kicked to death for drug debts.

Case by case, incident by incident, the evidence mounted, and Faraday knew it was hard to avoid the dark conclusion that he and others like him were watching a society tearing itself apart. For some unfathomable reason, all the post-war miracles hadn’t worked. Better health care, shorter working hours, greater affluence, even the guarantee of a longer lifespan had failed to make people happier. We whined more. We worried more. And we started wondering when the shiny must-have bubble that was modern life would burst.

Then, all of a sudden, you walked into the seeming chaos of the Fogle household and you realised that there was still plenty of room for warmth and laughter in the world. Faraday didn’t doubt for a moment that times would have been tough for them, maybe still were. Kids weren’t cheap to run and three of them would cost a fortune. Tessa hadn’t volunteered anything about her partner and trying to imagine what he did for a living was pure guesswork, but jobs were scarce on the island and the pay was lousy.

A glance through the kitchen window told Faraday that much of their veg was home-grown and she’d mentioned a local fox that had designs on the chicken coop beyond the onion sets. Her oldest, she said, had recently acquired a .22 rifle and sat up late some nights. The boy had turned out to be a natural with the gun and was on the promise of a trip across to Fratton Park for a decent home game if he ended up nailing Mr Hungry.

The story had made Faraday laugh. It was funny, and real, and smacked of a proper family. One way or another, he’d concluded, Tessa Fogle and her brood were making it work. Before leaving, Faraday had given her a card. Any problem, he’d told her, just get on the phone.

At the far end of the marsh Faraday stopped to watch a circling buzzard. According to the RSPB website, there were two breeding pairs. Later, enjoying the last of the coffee from the Thermos, he spent a contented hour hunkered down beside a stand of reeds. Through the red spots he had perfect line of sight on a family of lapwings, busying around beside a lined scrape amongst the scrub and heather. There were three chicks with Mum and Dad, tiny little speckled pom-poms, battling to keep up with their parents as they foraged for food. Another take on domestic life, Faraday thought, wondering about the possibility of a pint before he returned to the ferry.

By the time he finally left the marsh, it was sunset. The shadows were lengthening over the harbour and he paused beside the long crescent of beach, hearing the soft lap of the tide. The beach was littered with debris and there was a faint tarry smell he always associated with waterside evenings like these at the Bargemaster’s House. He paused for a moment, enjoying the silence, then came a distant flap of wings and a distinctive harsh croaking sound and he looked up to see a pair of grey herons flying overhead, heading home to their roost. He half-turned to follow their progress, catching the wide spread of their wings against the failing light, knowing it was a moment to treasure. Dimpsy, he thought, fumbling for his car keys.

FRIDAY, 13 JUNE 2008. 11.42

Mo Sturrock had never worked so hard in his life. Ten days, flat out. A week and a half of hurried phone calls, snatched conversations, carefully noted promises. Ignoring the stipulation that he was meant to stay at home, awaiting the call to his final disciplinary hearing, he’d come across daily on the hovercraft, begging time with senior city officials, cornering key social workers, making his case with a magistrate or two, spreading the word about Tide Turn’s bold new initiative. He’d even sacrificed his morning session on the rowing machine to squeeze an extra half-hour from his working day.

The reactions, though, had been worth it. Everywhere he went there’d been agreement that issues around youth offending were in dire need of a good shake. The Every Child Matters agenda had provided a launch pad for all kinds of enterprising schemes, some effective, others not, but the brutal truth was that lots of kids were still getting lost, still getting into bad company, still getting into trouble.

Many of their problems were rooted in their early years, the product of a chaotic home life, and sorting out that kind of damage once the child had got to early adolescence was a real challenge. Social workers, in theory, could do it. And mentoring schemes, properly funded, had met with a degree of success. But the real need was for what one ex-policewoman called ‘credible messengers’. Kids these days listened to no one. Except that rare individual who stepped into their lives, shot them a smile, tossed them a challenge and - in the process - left them seriously impressed.

This, to Mo Sturrock, was the essence of his Offshore initiative. It had to be ongoing, building session on session. It had to be physically daunting, confronting the kind of kids who already deemed themselves tough. And it had to be led by hard bastards who’d clearly seen a bit of real life. Kids would listen to people like this. The Navy PTI, with his shorn scalp and eagle tats, was perfect. You could see it in his eyes, in his body language, in the way he knew how to use silence. That guy had been somewhere horrible. And that, to many of Pompey’s problem kids, made him very credible indeed.

Bazza agreed. Sturrock was sitting in his office at the Trafalgar, going through the PowerPoint presentation for next week’s launch. The PTI would be present to field questions in the Victory Gallery, and Sturrock had been canny enough to acquire some video footage from the days when he’d been part of the Pompey field gun crew. He’d built the archive pictures into a longer sequence and now he cued the video and sat back, half-watching Bazza’s face.

‘Fabulous, son.’ The PTI was riding the gun barrel along a cable strung between two trestles. ‘Just look at that fucker.’

The next sequence showed the crew reassembling the gun. Everything was a blur, the drills perfectly rehearsed, each man aware that the smallest mistake could lose a finger or break a leg. Seconds later, the PTI slammed a shell into the breech and gave the order to fire. Smoke from the charge curled round the gun crew before the picture dissolved into a slow pan across Portsmouth Harbour, accompanied by the PTI’s growl. That same discipline, he said, would lie at the heart of the Offshore Challenge. And here on the harbour is where the adventure would begin.

Bazza was spellbound. For a moment Sturrock thought he was going to demand a rerun. Then he turned to Sturrock and gave him a playful punch on the upper arm.

‘Brilliant, mush. Fucking mustard. Works a treat. What else have you got?’

Sturrock had taken his own video camera on his travels over the past ten days and every time he sensed agreement or enthusiasm he’d been bold enough to ask for an on-screen endorsement. These he’d later edited into a sequence intercut with shots of kids hanging out on Pompey street corners: Lacoste trainers, Henri Lloyd tops, baseball caps and lashings of attitude. The Lord Mayor came first. An ex-matelot himself, he wished the Offshore Challenge every success. Other faces followed: men and women Sturrock had plucked from every corner of the city’s establishment. Bazza knew them all, surprised that a County Court judge had spared Tide Turn five minutes of his precious time, delighted that both the Pompey MPs had given him the thumbs up, and intrigued by the surprise appearance of a leading newscaster from BBC South. Clearly smitten by Sturrock’s pitch, she wished Tide Turn bon voyage and a safe landfall. The Offshore would offer kids a fighting chance, she said. And the rest was down to them.

‘How did you get to her, son?’

‘I phoned in. Told her what we’re about. Told her the way it would work. Turned out her little brother’s in trouble with the Bill. Nice lady.’

‘You
met
her?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And?’

‘Nice lady.’

Bazza turned back to the screen. He couldn’t get enough of this stuff. During the months that Winter had been in charge he’d had the faintest glimpse of what might be possible but this was beyond his wildest dreams. Paulie had been right. Sturrock was a genius.

Sturrock wanted to know how the invites were going.

‘That’s Marie’s baby. I’m surprised you haven’t been in touch.’

‘No time, Baz. I’ve been flat out.’

‘Then you’d better bell her, son.’ Bazza gave him a wink. ‘I think she’s missing you.’

 

To Faraday’s surprise, it had taken more than a week to prepare for
Sangster
’s next step. An hour with the deputy head of Scientific Services at the Netley Training HQ had established the ground rules. A familial DNA search would cost over five K. To justify that kind of money,
Sangster
had to pass certain tests. Number one, the original paperwork on the Fogle rape had to get the nod from the CPS. If it turned out not to be lawyer-proof then there’d never be any prospect of taking
Sangster
to court. Number two, Faraday had to guarantee enough detectives to action the findings of the familial search.
Sangster
was liable to be looking at hundreds of names. There were ways of prioritising this list but every action had to be individually authorised at ACC level and there’d still be dozens of doors to knock on.

Faraday was in conference with DCI Gail Parsons. She’d summoned him to a small, bare office at force HQ in Winchester where she appeared to be working. Faraday wondered whether she and Willard were still trying to extract some shred of self-respect from the shambles of Operation
Causeway.
If so, Mackenzie still seemed to be in the driving seat.

‘I haven’t got much time, Joe. Just give me the bones of the thing.’

Faraday summarised the steps he’d taken to revive
Sangster
. The CPS had okayed the paperwork. He’d reviewed every investigative step taken by the squad at the time and saw no prospect of reopening any of their lines of enquiry. The only way forward lay in a familial DNA search, for which, of course, there’d be a cost.

‘But that’s down to Scientific Services, Joe. It’s their budget, not mine.’ Her attention had been caught by an email that had just appeared on her PC. Whatever she was reading brought her no joy. ‘You’ve got a squad?’

‘Two D/Cs.’

‘Will that be enough?’

‘That’s all there is. Netley seem happy enough.’

‘Intel?’

‘D/S Suttle.’

‘Good.’ She began to tap a reply to the email. ‘You’ve seen the survivor? Got her consent?’

‘I went over last week. She lives on the Isle of Wight.’

‘And she’s happy?’

‘More or less.’

Faraday summarised Tessa’s thoughts on the matter. Like most raped women, she nursed an understandable resentment against the perpetrator. If there was a decent chance of finding the man, then so be it. Her only worry was her partner.

‘He knows?’

‘No.’

‘Is this someone new? Someone recent?’

‘They’ve been together more than twenty years.’

‘Really?’ She stopped typing. ‘And she’s never told him?’

‘No. In fact she never told anyone apart from her parents.’

‘And that’s worked for her?’

‘Yeah.’ Faraday nodded. ‘I think it has. They’ve got three kids. She says they’re very happy. How common is that?’

‘Good question, Joe. What happens when we take the guy to court?’

‘Then she’ll have to tell him, obviously. She’s asked for a heads-up if we make an arrest. Seemed reasonable enough to me.’

‘Of course.’ Her head turned to the screen and her fingers settled on the keyboard again. ‘Let’s go for it then, eh?’

 

Mo Sturrock found Marie at home in Craneswater. He hadn’t been to Sandown Road since Guy’s return and he sensed at once that something was missing.

‘They’ve gone home, Mo. The place feels like a tomb.’

‘You miss them?’

‘The kids? Definitely. The rest of it was horrible.’

‘No repercussions, though?’

‘Only the police. That nice Helen Christian fixed up for Guy to be interviewed. It happened at the end of last week. They’ve got a special place up in Havant where they take kids his age.’

‘How did he get on?’

‘I only talked to him on the phone. He said it was OK but that means nothing. I think they fall over backwards to be nice to the kids but Guy doesn’t give much away when it comes to things like this. Between you and me I think he was pretty traumatised by the whole thing.’

‘Anyone would be.’

‘That’s right. He asked after you, by the way. You made a bit of a hit there.’

‘I barely saw him.’

‘That’s not the point, Mo. You were the Man as far as his sisters were concerned and some of that’s rubbed off. You should take him out one day, go swimming or something. Shame you didn’t come to Thorpe Park. That was another nightmare.’ She forced a smile. ‘How’s the Big One?’

The Big One had become private code for the Offshore Challenge. Mo told her what he’d organised. Bazza had seen the PowerPoint.

‘I know. He couldn’t stop talking about it. No offence, Mo, but he’s easily pleased by that kind of stuff.’

Sturrock wanted to know about take-up on the invites. The launch was scheduled for Wednesday. By now, she might have a rough idea about numbers.

‘Very good. In fact excellent.’

‘You sound surprised.’

‘I’m not, Mo, I’m pleased. Pleased for Tide Turn and pleased for you. You’ve worked your socks off. I haven’t seen my husband so impressed for years.’

‘Good. Have you got a list?’

Marie nodded and left the kitchen. Her files were next door. She returned with a Waitrose bag and emptied it on the table. Adding email acceptances to phone messages and replies sent in by post, Tide Turn was already expecting over a hundred guests.