Happy Days (6 page)

‘So what have you got for me?’ His eyes drifted towards the TV.

Winter did his best to look aggrieved. At the very least, an occasion like this deserved a little foreplay.

‘Are you on the meter?’ he inquired. ‘Or can we behave like human beings?’

‘Up to you, mate. I just want to know where you stand.’

‘I stand where I always stood.’

‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘It means that I work for the Man. It means that he’s driving me barmy. Plus I’ve got a problem.’

‘Like what?’ Suttle was still watching the news.

‘Like you blokes turning up with a European Arrest Warrant.’

He at last had Suttle’s full attention. Winter reached for the remote and turned the set off.

‘Why would we do that?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘To me it does. Don’t play games, mate. It’s a bit late for that.’ He studied Winter for a moment or two. ‘Has someone been on to you? One of our people?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Suit yourself, son. The fact is I don’t need a whisper. All you have to do is read the fucking paper.’

Winter had kept the cutting. It came from the
Daily Telegraph
. He fetched it from a drawer in the sideboard and gave it to Suttle. Under EU law, prosecutors Europe-wide could issue a warrant for the arrest of anyone suspected of being guilty of a criminal offence. The accused had no chance of challenging or even seeing the evidence before being shipped abroad for trial. According to the
Telegraph
, the Magistrates’ Court at Horseferry Road was currently processing ten cases every day. Since the scheme started in 2004, extraditions had gone through the roof.

‘I wouldn’t have a prayer, son. I thought this was just about bent Polish plumbers and piss-head students in Magaluf, but I’m wrong, aren’t I?’

Suttle was still reading the article. Finally he looked up.

‘Depends,’ he said.

‘On what?’

‘On what you’ve done.’ He paused. ‘Is it serious?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How serious?’

‘Very.’

‘So serious you need a deal?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And does it involve Mackenzie?’

‘No.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK.’ Suttle checked his watch, then reached for his mobile. ‘I’ll have a Stella, if you’re still offering.’

He made a call while Winter sorted a couple of cold ones from the fridge in the kitchen. Through the open door he could hear him trying to head off an earful from Lizzie. By the time Winter was back in the living room, Suttle was losing his temper.

‘Later, eh?’ He rang off without saying goodbye and tossed the mobile onto the sofa.

Winter gave him the tinny and a glass and made himself comfortable in the big recliner opposite. Way back on division, when Suttle was a young CID aide, Winter had taught him everything he’d known about the Job. He’d sensed from the start that Suttle had the makings of a quality detective, and within months they’d formed a partnership that had taken scalp after scalp. The boy was canny and brave and knew how to listen. He was also excellent company, and when Winter suddenly found himself fighting a brain tumour, it was Suttle who’d helped nurse him through it.

Winter had always liked to think that this was more than repayment for a blinding apprenticeship, and he was right. Suttle, in a way, had become the son he’d never had, and even Winter’s decision to bin the Job and cross to the Dark Side had still left the relationship pretty much intact. Suttle had never hidden his feelings about the move Winter had made. Bazza Mackenzie disgusted him. The man had always been lowlife, and no amount of moolah and posh friends in Craneswater would ever change that. But Suttle had the balls, rare among Winter’s ex-colleagues, to give any man a hearing, and his affection for Mackenzie’s new lieutenant had somehow survived. Winter, he knew for a fact, was a class operator. He was also, deep down, a decent man. And so Suttle, despite everything, still regarded him as a mate.

‘You look knackered, son.’ Winter tipped his glass. ‘Here’s to crime.’

‘Yeah?’

Suttle took a long pull at the Stella and then lay back, gazing at the wall opposite. The phone call to Lizzie seemed to have tripped a switch deep in his brain. The earlier impatience had gone. It had been his wife’s suggestion to ask Winter whether he’d like to be a godfather to Grace, and just now he was deeply thankful he’d said yes.

‘This is fucking horrible,’ he said softly.

‘What, son?’

‘Everything. Lizzie. The baby. The lot.’

Winter, who’d never had kids of his own, could only nod. ‘I bet.’

‘I’m serious. Maybe we don’t get enough sleep, maybe that’s it, but you know what? Having a baby turns you into someone else.’

‘Turns who?’

‘Lizzie. Me too, probably. I just never sussed any of this would ever happen. You see kids in the park. You see kids on the beach. You see them in the fucking Mothercare catalogue. And it all seems so … I dunno …
simple
. And you know what? It isn’t.’

Winter nodded, surprised by the admission. Suttle never moaned, never complained, never revealed a flicker of self-doubt. That was the way he coped. That was what had taken him to D/S and would doubtless push him further still. The guy was tough as well as honest.

‘It’ll pass,’ Winter said. ‘It’ll get better, easier. Everything always does. Time, son. Give yourself time.’

‘I wish.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘I’m sure you are. It’s just that …’ Suttle shook his head, leaving the thought unvoiced. His glass was nearly empty. Winter was watching him carefully.

‘You want another one?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Thanks.’

The two men sat in silence for a while. To Winter at least it felt companionable and somehow necessary. Back at the start of the year, increasingly alarmed by his boss’s behaviour, he’d made a private decision to find an escape hatch and bail out of the Mackenzie empire. Bazza had become too volatile, too cocky, too erratic. Like many rich men, he seemed to be living in a bubble of his own making. He thought that money and power and influence had put him beyond reach. In this, to Winter’s certain knowledge, he was wrong. Reckless decisions would one day come back to haunt him, and when that happened Winter knew he had to be gone.

He’d shared this conclusion with Suttle, knowing that his young protégé would regard it as a key to all kinds of investigative mischief, and in this he hadn’t been wrong. Within days Suttle had delivered an intelligence file on Martin Skelley to be used as Winter saw fit. In one sense this was an open invitation for Winter to rejoin the forces of law and order, albeit as an informant and provocateur, a pawn in the bigger game of entrapping his boss. In another, far more interesting as far as Winter was concerned, it marked the start of a path that would finally lead him to a safer place. Hantspol, he knew for a fact, would do anything to bring Mackenzie down.

‘He’s there for the taking, son.’

‘Who?’

‘Bazza.’

He explained about his latest caper, the bid to stitch up Pompey North and send the city’s favourite son to Westminster.

Suttle looked shocked. ‘As an MP?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You mean get himself
elected
?’

‘Yeah. As far as Bazza’s concerned, there’s nothing that money and mouth can’t achieve. These days, fuck knows, he’s probably right. Either way, it’s gone to his head. He’s got himself an agent. He’s putting a campaign team together. He’s even worked out a policy or two. This, as I keep telling him,
is going to cost a fortune, but the twat never listens. He just assumes the money’s there. Happily, he’s wrong.’

‘Happily?’

‘He’s vulnerable, son. He’s like a kid. The politics thing is a must-have. He wants it. He
needs
it. As far as Bazza’s concerned, the money looks after itself.’

‘How much are we talking? For this campaign?’

‘A lot.’

‘But he’s a rich man.’

‘That’s what he says.’

‘And you’re telling me he’s wrong?’

‘Yeah. He’s got assets coming out of his ears – property, businesses, whatever – but a lot of this stuff looks really dodgy. Take Dubai. We’ve got huge exposure, all on borrowed money, and you know what? The market’s collapsed. Down 40 per cent in a year. Do the math, son. The guy’s fucked.’

‘No more toot?’

‘Skelley had it all. As you know.’

‘That wasn’t my question.’

‘Then no. The cupboard’s bare. That’s why the guy’s there for the taking.’

Suttle nodded, brooding on the implications. One of the reasons he’d made a name for himself in Intelligence was his ability to see a pattern in events and turn it to his own advantage.

‘I need to know about this Euro-warrant,’ he said at last.

‘No way.’ Winter shook his head.

‘Then why bring it up?’

‘Because you need to be sure about motivation.’

‘Whose?’

‘Mine. Grassing up Bazza isn’t something you’d do lightly. There has to be a reason.’

‘Good point.’ Suttle had the ghost of a smile on his face. His one-time mentor was as sharp as ever. ‘So where do I go next?’

‘Is that a serious question?’

‘Of course it is.’

‘OK.’ Winter bent forward in the chair, abandoning his glass. ‘For my money we play it long. Bazza wants me to sort Skelley. Skelley is a top face. I’ve read that file you gave me. Bazza hasn’t a clue what he’s getting into. Best, says me, to first try and find the funds elsewhere.’

‘Like how?’

‘Like Montenegro. We’ve got 10 per cent of a big fuck-off development in a place called Bicici. The rest is owned by a Russian guy. The way I hear it, he might be happy to buy us out. I start negotiations. I get him on the hook. I’m looking at decent money. The election’s getting closer. Then Brown’s away to the Palace or wherever he fucking goes, and the election’s kicked off, and guess what? The Montenegro deal falls through. By now, in Bazza’s little head, he’s got one foot in Parliament. He’s nearly there. All he needs is a whole whack of money to make it happen. So guess whose door I’m knocking on …’

‘Skelley’s.’

‘Exactly. By now Baz is dribbling big time. He wants Pompey North so bad he could practically
eat
it. That’s when he starts being very silly indeed. And that’s when we take him.’

‘We?’

‘We.’

Suttle smiled again. He could see the logic. It was neat. It was devious. And it might even work.

‘So what do you think?’

‘I think it’s cool.’ Suttle’s smile turned into a frown. ‘The election’s months away. Next year probably. April or May.’

‘Exactly. That’s what I mean by playing it long.’

‘But what about the arrest warrant? What happens if someone comes knocking on your door?’

‘You sort it.’

‘You mean some kind of indemnity?’

‘Yeah. Protect me. Keep the fuckers off.’

‘That’s not easy.’

‘No, but it’s not impossible either.’

‘And what would you want after that?’

‘Money. And somewhere to live. And maybe a new ID. Standard deal. Yeah?’

Suttle conceded the point. Winter watched him toying with his drink, swirling the last of the Stella around the glass. Decision time, he thought.

‘So …?’

‘Fuck knows. It’s not me who’ll be calling the shots. You’ve been there. You know the way it works. People like Parsons and Willard – they’re the ones with the exposure.’

Winter nodded. Det Chief Supt Geoff Willard was Head of CID. He’d tried to nail Mackenzie on a number of earlier occasions, and each time he’d failed.

‘He’s still interested? Willard?’

‘Of course he is. Mackenzie behind bars sends the message of his dreams.’

‘So why wouldn’t he buy in?’

‘Because he doesn’t trust you.’

‘Ah …’ Winter nodded. ‘And how about you? Do
you
trust me?’

‘Of course not. But I understand you. And that makes a difference.’

‘It does?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I know when you’re lying.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Of course.’ Suttle offered him a weary smile. ‘Most of the time.’

Lizzie was in the bath with Grace by the time Suttle finally got home. He could hear the splash of water from upstairs and the muted gurgle that his daughter made when she was in a sunny
mood. He crept up the stairs, armed with the placatory bottle he’d bought in the offie round the corner. A decent Rioja. Lizzie’s tipple of choice. And, as it happened, Faraday’s too.

Up on the narrow landing Suttle paused. He could feel one of the floorboards shifting under his weight. They’d only moved into the tiny terraced house a couple of months ago and he still had to find time to get a carpet down. The bathroom door was an inch or two open, and through the crack he could see his wife blowing bubbles for the baby. Lizzie was small-boned and neat and moved with a precision and quickness that had always stirred him. Regular jogs along the nearby seafront had quickly shed the extra stone or two she’d put on during pregnancy, and only last night she’d announced that she was back at the weight she’d been when they first met. Preoccupied with events at the Bargemaster’s House, Suttle had let the news slip by him. Time to make up.

Easing the door open, he stepped quietly into the bathroom. Grace saw him at once, her tiny face creasing into the big rubber grin she saved for moments like these. Lizzie stiffened, aware of another presence in the room, and when her face came round Suttle realised he had even more ground to make up. Then the alarm in her eyes gave way to relief and she reached up for him.

‘Kiss me,’ she said. ‘Bastard.’

Later, after Suttle had put the baby to bed, they opened the bottle. Lizzie appeared to have forgotten all about the earlier conversation on the phone. A couple of mates had been round for a bit of a catch-up. She hadn’t seen either of them for months and they’d made a huge fuss of Grace before beating a tactful retreat at bath time.

Suttle was busy at the stove. He wanted to know more about the surprise callers.

‘Megan and Andy. Megan’s still at the
News
. Andy used to work there but chucked it in. At least that’s what he says.’