The Price Of Darkness (16 page)

‘Gentlemen … ?’ Willard gestured at the two remaining seats. His physical bulk lent him an air of slight intimidation. He was loyal when it mattered but he never suffered fools and Faraday knew officers way above his own rank who’d quailed at the thought of taking him on. Neither was Willard a man without ambition. After a couple of years in charge of CID, he was already rumoured to have his eyes on an ACPO job.

Faraday and Barrie slipped into their respective chairs. As far as Faraday could tell, the meeting was already under way. The civvy from Media picked up his thread again. He’d been fending off a great deal of media interest from the national press over the Port Solent killing. Jonathan Mallinder, it seemed, had friends in high places.

‘How high?’ It was Willard.

‘As high as it gets. He was tucked up with New Labour. They’d approached him for a couple of sizeable donations and recently there’d been rumours that he was on their list to back one of Blair’s City Academies.’

‘That’s serious money, isn’t it?’

‘Couple of million quid. For that you might end up with a peerage. Apparently Mallinder was keen.’

‘Did we know about this?’ Willard was looking at Barrie.

‘No, sir. I don’t believe we did.’

‘Why on earth not?’

Barrie said he wasn’t entirely sure. He’d authorised Mallinder’s laptop for fast-track analysis but they were still waiting on the results. Production Orders had been served on the two banks that Mallinder had used but details of his various accounts had yet to arrive. Orange, meanwhile, were being unusually slow with his billing data.

‘But what about intel? Who’s driving that?’

‘D/C Suttle.’

‘Anyone with him?’

‘Not at the moment, sir.’

‘Get a D/S in there.’ Willard was looking at Barrie again. ‘Someone who knows what they’re doing. This is ridiculous. The fucking red tops will be telling us who to arrest next.’

‘With respect, sir—’

‘With respect nothing, Joe.
Billhook
’s been operational since Tuesday. It’s now Friday. What else don’t we know?’

He let the question hang in the air, then asked Barrie for an update on promising lines of enquiry. The Scenes of Crime report, as far as Willard could judge, had led nowhere.

‘On the contrary, sir.’ Barrie had got his second wind. ‘It tells us a great deal.’

‘Like how?’

‘Like it gives us a very firm steer on MO. How many Pompey criminals could pull off a killing this efficient?’

‘But that’s my point exactly. Something like this, we need to be looking to London. That’s where these people come from. That’s where they’ve made their money. That’s the kind of circles they move in, New Labour or otherwise. This is an intel job, Martin. It’s got intel stamped all over it. We need to be talking to people in the Met, maybe the Fraud Squad, maybe even SOCA. Someone’s called a debt in. Someone’s a got a grudge. We need to nail down a motive here. And you’re not going to find it in Fratton.’ He paused. ‘Or have I got this wrong?’

Barrie said nothing. The new Serious and Organised Crime Agency had taken over from the National Crime Squad, tackling class ‘A’ drugs and human trafficking. The Detective Superintendent glanced at Faraday, sitting beside him. They’d already discussed yesterday’s interview with Fraser Gibbon, the estate agent.

Faraday summarised the new direction
Billhook
might take. Now, he suspected, wasn’t the moment to speculate about teenage car thieves in deepest Thornhill Park. Willard, as ever, wanted a headline or two.

‘So what are you saying, Joe?’

‘I’m suggesting, sir, that we need to take a much closer look at Benskin. He and Mallinder worked hand in hand. According to Gibbon, something went badly wrong. One moment they were the golden couple, the name on everybody’s lips, the next Mallinder’s trying to carve out a new business career for himself on the south coast. Gibbon says Benskin may have known nothing about his plans to go solo but I find that extremely hard to believe.’

‘And if he knew?’

‘Then there might have been a big problem.’

‘Big enough to justify …’ Willard’s beautifully manicured nails tapped the
Billhook
file ‘… something like this?’

‘Possibly, sir. But we keep an open mind …’ he offered Willard a thin smile ‘… as ever.’

‘Martin?’

‘I agree, sir. Joe and I have been wondering about Mallinder’s missus. She’s pregnant. Maybe the baby’s Benskin’s. These tight little business partnerships get very claustrophobic. It wouldn’t be the first time. And if there was a financial problem on top of that, with Mallinder wanting his money out of the business, then you begin to see every reason why Benskin might be getting a bit edgy.’

‘So where was he on Monday night?’

‘At home, sir.’ It was Faraday. ‘He’s got a place in Limehouse. Down by the river.’

‘And he was there alone?’

‘That’s what he says.’

‘No one to stand it up? No corroboration?’

‘Only his PC. He claims he was on the internet until gone midnight, preparing for a meeting he had in Barcelona the following day. Then he sent a load of e-mails. He’s quite happy for us to check it all out.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I’d say he’s probably telling the truth. But that’s not the point. Benskin isn’t short of a bob or two. What’s the going rate these days? A hit as clean as this one? Ten grand? Fifteen? If Mallinder’s really rocking the boat, and if the new baby was Benskin’s in the first place, then that kind of money starts looking cheap.’

‘OK…’ Willard opened the file and scribbled himself a note.

Barrie wanted to add something else. He was looking at the civvy from Media.

‘If this New Labour thing is kosher,’ he began, ‘that could be a factor too. Maybe Benskin’s a Tory. Or maybe, like the rest of us, he thinks politics is a waste of time. Having his partner making rash promises about a couple of million quid could be a problem …’ He spread his bony hands wide. ‘No?’

‘That suggests the money might be coming from the business.’ The civvy was looking dubious. ‘The way I’m hearing it, Mallinder had private means.’

‘That I doubt.’ Faraday shook his head. ‘According to Gibbon, he was scraping the barrel. Selling his place in Wimbledon would have bought him something very respectable in Old Portsmouth, but if he was suddenly living alone with a divorce on his hands he’d have been stretched. Gibbon says he was a bluffer.’

‘Has to be.’ Willard, for the first time, had a smile on his face. ‘New Labour? Bunch of control-freak wankers.’

There was a ripple of laughter around the table. Willard had absolutely no patience with the bright-eyed Downing Street zealots who had turned the Home Office into a rod for every senior copper’s back. Only now, after months of savage trench warfare, had the force managed to resist a shotgun marriage with neighbouring Thames Valley.

He began to muse afresh about the political angle. Faraday scented revenge in the air. Finally, he closed the file and addressed himself to Martin Barrie.

‘
Billhook
’s intel cell is key to all this,’ he said again. ‘You need to sort out an extra face or two. Suttle’s a good lad but he’s young. Let me know who you come up with.’

 

Winter was on the train by ten o’clock. He checked carefully along the platform at the Harbour station seconds before the guard closed the doors, confirming that the heavy in jeans and a leather jacket had got on the train. He’d seen him before, months back, when Bazza had taken a table for the CID boxing benefit on South Parade Pier. That night, pissed, this same face had shed his tuxedo and threatened the referee with a battering unless he reversed his decision against a young black lad from Stamshaw. The referee had told him to shut it and even Bazza had mustered the grace to look embarrassed, but the double chin and the savage grade one had lodged in Winter’s brain. This morning, leaving Blake House, he’d clocked him on the promenade overlooking the Harbour. Minutes later, as Winter plodded through the rain to the station, he’d still been twenty metres behind. Bazza, he realised, was taking no chances.

At Southampton Central Winter changed trains. The Bournemouth connection was coming down from Waterloo. According to the electronic boards, it was already fifteen minutes late. Easily time for a coffee.

Winter strolled into the buffet, eyeing the mirror behind the counter. The heavy was outside on the platform, buried in a copy of the
Daily Star,
nicely positioned to keep tabs on his target. Winter toyed with the idea of buying him a latte, striking up a conversation, reminiscing about the old days, but decided against it. Ten to one the guy had no sense of humour.

The Bournemouth train finally arrived. Winter boarded a carriage near the end, no longer bothering to check along the platform. In this situation it paid to trust the arrangements, and after this morning’s conversation on the phone he didn’t anticipate any glitches.

He settled peaceably into a seat by the window to watch the endless panorama of the docks unfold. He’d always had a sneaking affection for Southampton, something he was careful to keep to himself, and to him the essence of the city lay here, in the huge cruise liners moored alongside, in the towering cranes and big slab-sided container ships. The containers themselves were stacked high beside the track, a solid wall of oblong boxes, and it fascinated him to think of each of them stuffed to the brim with hi-tech toasters and two-grand plasma screens, and all the other toys that kept the nation so content. The Asians had life cracked, he thought ruefully. Knock this stuff out for tuppence a shot and someone on the other side of the world will pay you a fortune for it.

The docks thinned. Then the train clattered over a bridge and after a last glimpse down Southampton Water they were heading for the New Forest. Winter sat back and closed his eyes, wondering what the next couple of hours would bring. He’d met this woman just once in his life, a month or so before Christmas, and he’d disliked her on sight. She was tiny, with a mop of ginger curls and a huge chest. She’d come down from the north, Lancashire somewhere, and was said to have ambitions way beyond D/I.

He’d heard that the regulars on Covert Ops avoided her like a bad smell, blanking her jokes and leaving her out of the coffee runs to the machine down the corridor. It didn’t pay to be too leery when it came to working alongside a new guvnor but Winter gathered that they were in no danger of any kind of comeback because this woman was too thick to realise what they thought of her. She talked a good war, everyone said, but when the bullets started flying she was fucking useless. Given the importance of her role in this new life of his, Winter was less than reassured.

At Bournemouth he took his time waiting for a cab. When the queue had gone, he hailed a silver Peugeot, knowing that there were three more rides waiting on the rank. When the driver asked him where he wanted to go, he gave his new minder a decent chance to get into the car behind before fumbling in his pocket and producing the appointments card.

‘Bournemouth Royal, mate,’ he said, settling back.

The hospital was ten minutes away. The cab dropped Winter at the main entrance. He paid the driver and ambled in. The reception desk was busy. He joined the queue, aware of his minder lurking outside the League of Friends shop barely feet away. When Winter’s turn came at the reception desk, he shot the woman a smile and asked for the Department of Oncology.

‘Just a check-up in case it’s come back, love,’ he said loudly, tapping his head. ‘At least that’s what they’re telling me.’

The department was on the third floor. Winter took the lift, no longer bothering to keep his minder in tow. The man had all the information he needed. Doubtless Bazza would be thrilled. Hospital visit, boss. Totally routine.

The door to the consultant’s office was guarded by a secretary in a rather severe two-piece suit. She took Winter’s name, consulted a typed list at her elbow and asked him to take a seat. Winter was halfway through an article on stag weekends in Slovakia when a nurse appeared.

‘This way, Mr Winter.’

Winter followed her back out into the corridor. There was no sign of his minder. The nurse paused at a door marked
Private
, knocked twice and stepped in. Winter followed her. D/I Gale Parsons was sitting behind a desk cluttered with medical journals. Give her a white jacket, Winter thought, and she could make a half-decent career out of this.

The nurse disappeared. Parsons nodded at the empty chair. She was extremely angry.

‘The call you made this morning,’ she said at once, ‘was totally out of order. I’ve never been spoken to like that in my life. Not as a probationer, not as a new D/C and certainly not recently. Do you think an apology might be in order?’

‘Fuck, no.’

Winter unbuttoned his jacket, spread his legs. He’d phoned her earlier, dialling the dedicated number. Normal procedure called for regular debriefs at a witness protection house in Lewisham, currently standing empty. Only in the direst emergency would Winter be permitted to insist on a meeting here, at the hospital.

Parsons was still demanding an apology. Winter told her she had to be joking.

‘You think I enjoy that kind of language first thing in the morning?’

‘I haven’t a clue.’

‘Well, let me mark your card. Nobody ever said this was going to be easy, least of all me, but part of our job is learning how to cope with pressure. And, by that test, I suspect you’ve got a problem.’

‘You suspect right.’

‘Good. At least we understand each other.’ Parsons produced a briefcase and took out a notepad and a pen. ‘Now I want you to explain it all to me again but this time I’d ask you to keep a civil tongue in your head.’

Winter went through the sequence of events. He’d been awake half the night, gazing up at the ceiling, rerunning the exchange with Bazza in his head, trying to remember every last word, every tiny nuance, testing his own performance to see whether it really did hold water. Bazza, by the end, had seemed at least half-convinced that Riquelme was wrong. But that, as he knew only too well, meant absolutely nothing.