Happy Days (21 page)

The room was bare except for a table and two chairs. There was a faint smell of disinfectant. A woman sat in one of the chairs, her naked back angled towards the door. A lamp on the table threw a pool of light onto an elaborate rose tattoo between her shoulder blades. The tattoo was half finished, and a big guy in a grey T-shirt was in the process of adding another thorn to the stalk that snaked down towards the top of her jeans. He was mid-thirties, sturdily built, with a shock of blond hair, and the irritation on his face as he turned towards the door spoke of a deep concentration. There was a protocol here, house rules, and Winter had just broken them all.

‘Maddox?’ he queried.

The woman looked round. She was a girl. She was still in her teens. Winter couldn’t speak a word of Serbo-Croat but it was obvious she wanted to know what was going on.

Winter apologised and made his excuses. He was looking for someone called Maddox. He thought she lived here.

‘She does’, the guy said. ‘We both do.’

‘So do you know where she is?’

‘Of course. Who are you?’

Winter introduced himself, said he was expected.

‘You’re from England? You’re the cop?’

‘Used to be.’

‘Josip.’ He put his tattoo machine to one side and extended a hand.

Winter did his best to mask his disappointment. Not once, for some reason, had he expected another man in Maddox’s life. Not here. Not now.

‘I should have phoned,’ he said lamely.

‘No problem.’ Josip checked his watch. ‘You need to go to the agency. She works late on Thursdays.’

The agency was a couple of streets away. Winter lingered outside for a moment, scanning the properties for sale in the window, wondering how anyone could justify asking 240,000 euros for a tatty-looking flat-roofed bungalow with a rusting child’s swing in the garden. Inside the agency, as far as he could see, the reception area was empty. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The door must have triggered some kind of alarm because at once he heard movement overhead. Then came a clatter of footsteps down a flight of stairs and the door behind the counter flew open. Maddox.

In five years she’d aged more than Winter would ever have expected. She was thinner, gaunter, and the long fall of black hair was threaded with grey. But her poise, her presence, the way she held herself, the way the suddenness of her smile warmed the space between them, told Winter that she still had it. This was the woman who, five years earlier, had charmed the grouchiest turnkeys at the Custody Suite in Pompey Central. Nothing in that respect had changed.

She reached out, touching his battered face, and then put a finger to her lips when he started to explain. Upstairs she settled him in a chair by the window and gave him a gentle scolding for not getting in touch. She was, as ever, a working girl. She’d had to start late today in case he’d turned up at the apartment. And her boss was a lot less forgiving than Steve Richardson.

Winter was determined to get Montenegro off his chest. When he’d finished telling her about the guys in the hotel room she asked him what the police had said.

‘I never told them.’

‘Why not?’

‘No point. The way I hear it, they’re as bent as everyone else.’

‘Then maybe you should have phoned home. Called for the cavalry.’

He gazed at her, remembering Josip’s line about the English cop, and realised what he’d never told her.

‘I left the Job,’ he said. ‘I binned it.’

‘You’re not a cop any more?’

‘No.’

‘So what do you do?’

‘Good question. Later, eh?’

She made coffee. He wanted to know what she was doing here, flogging godforsaken bungalows on the edge of the Balkans, and most of all he wanted to know about Josip.

‘You’ve met him?’

‘I have. Tell him I’m sorry breaking in like that. Tell him old habits die hard.’

Winter’s take on their brief introduction made Maddox laugh. The girl was Joe’s star patient. She’d just signed a record contract in Zagreb and had millions of kuna to spend. Josip thought she was a bit in love with him but that was typical.

‘Of what?’

‘Joe. He makes life up. He does it all the time. The truth is he went to school with her eldest brother and gives her special rates for old time’s sake.’

‘He comes from round here? Josip?’

‘Yep. Born and bred.’

She’d met Josip, she explained, in a bar on the Venezuelan coast. She’d been travelling with a friend, dropping down from Nicaragua en route to Brazil. He was skippering a charter yacht for a party of rich Americans who were relaxed about extra company.

‘So what happened?’

‘I never got to Brazil. Not by bus, anyway.’

They’d spent that summer afloat. Josip had a favourite cousin he’d virtually grown up with. The cousin was now a bridge officer with a shipping line headquartered in Split, and a decade at sea had made him a great deal of money. A loan had bought Josip an old schooner they’d found in a marina in Martinique. Joe, whose second passion in life was DIY, had fixed it up, and they’d spent the following couple of years island-hopping around the Caribbean.

‘So what’s Joe’s first passion?’

‘Apart from me, you mean?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Art stuff. Painting. Sketching. That’s what got him into tattooing. He’s an interesting man, Joe. It’s not obvious at first, but he’s really unusual.’

Tattooing, she said, had paid their way. Every time they dropped anchor, she and Joe would put fliers around. Guys on the yachting circuit paid ninety-five dollars an hour. Adapting his technique to black skin had taken Joe a while to perfect, but in the end it had worked just fine. Instead of money, the locals paid with fruit and fish. Unlike other visiting yachties, they never got robbed.

‘So why did you come back?’

‘Joe’s mum got sick. And so did I.’

‘What happened?’

‘She’s still in hospital. I don’t think it’s going to be long.’

‘I meant you.’

‘Don’t ask.’ Her fingers briefly touched her midriff. ‘But I’m fine now.’

At Winter’s insistence, once she’d packed up for the evening and locked the agency, they went to a nearby sports bar. There was football on the plasma screens, but Inter Milan v. Roma had failed to pull the crowds in. Winter found them a shadowed table at the back.

‘So tell me …’ she said.

Winter explained about his journey to the Dark Side. How his bosses had screwed up on a u/c job to kipper Pompey’s drug lord and how Winter had nearly died as a result. How he’d decided to bin the rest of his CID service and join Bazza Mackenzie for real. How well it had worked for the first couple of years – good money, good company, good everything – and how more recently it had begun to destroy him.

‘That’s a big word, my love.’

‘I mean it.’ He reached for her hand. ‘It’s killing me in ways you wouldn’t believe. I thought I went into this thing with my eyes open. Turns out I was wrong. You do stuff, you let yourself get involved in stuff, and it comes back to haunt you.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

He gave her a look. In the half-light she was the old Maddox, a woman who could rob you of your deepest secrets without you scarcely knowing it. She worked a particular magic, an allure all the more potent for being so understated, and he realised how much he’d missed her. She was, in a word, classy.

‘I got caught up in a contract killing in Spain. It wasn’t down to me, but I was the one closest to the action. That’s not a distinction that’s going to cut much ice with a Spanish jury.’

‘They want to
arrest
you?’

‘They will. In the end it’s bound to happen. Fuck knows, they may have a warrant already.’

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘Here’s fine. There’s no extradition treaty between Spain and Croatia. Not yet, anyway. Not until this lot join the EU.’

‘So you’re safe?’

‘Yeah. Pretty much.’

‘So how long are you staying?’

‘A day or so, max. We just need to get things ironed out.’

They talked about the apartment in Blake House. Winter said there’d be no problem getting a buyer. The market for
property in the UK wasn’t great, but places in Gunwharf were holding up OK and he’d be disappointed if he didn’t get at least 500K.

‘Fifty per cent is 250K. Will that be enough?’

‘That’ll be plenty. We’re buying another boat. Once Joe’s mum’s gone, we’re off again.’

Winter’s heart sank. An hour locked in conversation with this wonderful woman and he’d forgotten all about Josip.

‘Somewhere nice?’ he inquired.

‘Greece. The islands. Then wherever. What about you?’

This, Winter knew, was the question he couldn’t dodge. Since yesterday he’d thought of nothing else. His days with Mackenzie were definitely numbered. Exactly how he dug the tunnel and hoodwinked the guards was yet to be negotiated, but afterwards he needed somewhere to hide, somewhere to rest up, somewhere safe beyond anyone’s knowledge, and anyone’s reach. Except, perhaps, Maddox.

‘I was thinking maybe here.’

‘
Porec?
’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why? How would that work?’

He gazed at her for a long moment. Rule one in a situation like this was to trust nobody. The fewer people you shared stuff with, the closer to your chest you played your cards, the smaller the chance of it all falling apart. Yet there had to be someone in your life you could rely on. Otherwise that life wasn’t worth living.

‘I was thinking you might be able to find me somewhere to get my head down, somewhere to live. You must know places.’

‘Of course I do. I sell them.’ She’d withdrawn her hand. ‘You’re planning on buying?’

‘I dunno. I’m not sure. Maybe some kind of rental first, see how it goes, then get something more permanent if it works out.’

‘You’d need a job?’

‘Probably not.’

‘But you think you could cope with it? Hack it? Life out here? The language? No friends? No contacts?’

‘There’s you.’ Winter offered a weak smile. ‘And Joe.’

‘Sure. But we’ll have gone.’

‘Yeah.’ Winter gazed down at his empty glass. ‘Of course.’

The silence thickened between them. The Roma centre forward poked a lovely pass over the bar. A lone drinker in the corner shook his head and turned away.

‘What about tonight? Have you got somewhere?’

‘No.’

‘I can sort something out. I’ve got the keys to a place down the road. It’s a bit pokey but it’ll do for a night or two.’ She leaned against Winter and then cupped his face between her hands. She’d always read him like a book. ‘You’re hurting, aren’t you?’

‘No.’ Winter shook his head. ‘No way.’

‘You are. I can see it.’

‘Yeah?’ He risked a look at her face. For some reason he felt close to tears. ‘It’s been a shit couple of days, love. I need to have a think about things.’

‘You do, my love. We’ll talk again tomorrow.’

‘When?’ He jumped in too quickly. He was definitely losing it.

‘Maybe lunchtime. Maybe late afternoon. Fridays are always a bit difficult. Give me a ring, eh?’

‘I can’t. They nicked my phone.’

‘I’ve got a spare. It’s back at the office. We’ll pick it up when I get the keys.’

Winter nodded. Something he’d been looking forward to, something he realised he’d taken for granted, was evaporating in front of his eyes. She had a life, this woman, and to no one’s surprise Paul Winter wasn’t part of it.

‘When I do a runner I’ll be in for the full makeover,’ he said.
‘Name. History. Inside-leg measurement. The lot. You think Joe might do me a couple of tatts?’

Maddox was still very close. He could smell the wine on her breath.

‘I’m sure he would.’ She kissed his ear. ‘You know how he describes what he does?’

‘Tell me.’

‘He says he gets a sense of what a person is really like. And then he puts what’s inside outside.’

‘Horrible.’ Winter sat back and closed his eyes. ‘Who’d want to look at that?’

The room that Maddox sorted out was small and airless with a tiny window that looked out onto the street at knee level. The shower in the tiny bathroom dripped all night, and by the time the first grey light filtered in through the curtains Winter was wide awake. Lying in the half-darkness under the thin duvet, wondering what else he had to say to Maddox, he realised he’d never felt more lonely in his life. If this was the shape of the years to come, he thought, then maybe he’d be better off in some Spanish nick. Either way, he felt life pressing in around him. Tiny rooms. The rough company of strangers. And an eternity of empty bars.

He had breakfast at a café on the waterfront. A plate of scrambled eggs cheered him up a little, and he was amused by a brief conversation with an elderly couple on the next table. They’d come on a coach from Blackburn. They were staying in a nice hotel at the back of the main square. And they’d decided between them that Winter must have been in a road accident.

‘Easily done, love.’ The woman leaned across and patted him on the arm. ‘No one wears the seat belts on these coaches, do they?’

Winter decided to use the morning to explore the curve of bay to the south, telling himself the least he owed Porec was a bit of a poke around. If he was going to be spending a bit of
time here, he ought to get to know the place. He paid his bill, said goodbye to the couple from Blackburn and set off.

As soon as he got to the marina, it was obvious that the season had come to an end. Boats were chocked up for the winter on the dockside and a lone cyclist had stopped to feed a small army of cats. Beyond the marina the waterside path led to a concrete lido. There was space for hundreds of bathers, and in high summer Winter could picture the mayhem, but now a man of uncertain age lay staked out on his towel, the lido’s sole occupant, enjoying the September sunshine.

Winter found himself a bench and did the same. After a while the sunbather struggled to his feet and slipped into the water. Winter watched him swimming way out into the bay, a steady breaststroke, nothing splashy, no drama. He made it to a line of buoys and back, and Winter wondered if in his place he’d have the self-discipline to adopt a routine like this. He could certainly lose a pound or two, and if the life he had to lead was to be this solitary then too bad. He could take up gardening. He could make a real effort to understand football. He might even read a book or two.