The Take (12 page)

‘What’s the score, then?’

Willard shook the remains of a bottle of brown sauce over his steak and kidney pudding as Faraday explained about the incident at the Marriott. There was no point trying to snow Willard so he came clean about his conversation with Hartigan. His divisional boss wanted to keep a finger in Hennessey’s pie. Faraday was more than happy to fight his departmental corner, but he wanted to be sure that he’d got this thing in perspective. Was there really enough evidence to throw serious effort at the surgeon’s alleged ‘disappearance’? Or was Faraday missing something here?

Willard had no interest in point-scoring as far as his colleagues were concerned. Whatever he felt about career-obsessives like Hartigan he kept strictly to himself. His sole purpose, in his own phrase, was to add quality to investigations, and that meant dishing out available resources with a strict eye on potential outcomes. It was like backing horses. Never waste your money on a rank outsider. Not unless you’d heard a whisper you could trust.

He made Faraday go through every particle of known evidence about Hennessey. Faraday told him everything he’d learned from Cathy Lamb. At length, Willard nodded, spearing another forkful of steak.

‘Adds up to fuck all,’ he grunted. ‘But keep listening, eh?’

Ten

Wednesday, 21 June, early afternoon

Winter had phoned ahead, catching Dierdre Walsh on the point of setting off for a visit to Arundel library. He’d explained that he was making inquiries in connection with Pieter Hennessey and would appreciate a moment or two of her time. When she asked whether it was really important, he said yes.

Buttercup Cottages lay in the middle of the tiny village of Amberley, number two the smaller half of a picturesque timber-framed building that looked as if it might once have been a pub. A square of lawn at the side of the house had recently been mown and the nearby compost heap was topped with fresh grass cuttings. At two in the afternoon, rolled in an empty bottle inside the tiny porch, there was already a note out for the milkman.

Dierdre Walsh was an anxious, thin-faced woman who looked a good deal older than fifty-two. She wore a pair of baggy brown corduroy trousers and a pale blue cardigan over a red and white check shirt, and the moment Winter stepped inside the house he understood why. Despite the heat outside, the place had a definite chill. There was also a smell, sharp and acrid, that Winter at first mistook for cat’s piss. Only later did he realise that the stench was only too human.

Dierdre had already prepared a tray of tea, and to Winter’s relief, they sat outside on a tiny flagstoned patio at the back of the house, dispensing with small talk within seconds. This was a woman who’d lived with the consequences of Hennessey’s work for the best part of a year and time had done nothing to soften the anger she felt at the treatment she’d received at his hands.

Meeting Hennessey, she said, had been a straightforward referral from her GP. He was a gynae consultant at the biggest of the local hospitals. He was the man you went to if you had a problem ‘down there’, and she felt lucky to have got to the top of his patient list within weeks.

‘Lucky? Can you imagine that?’

She sat bolt upright in the sunshine, her bony fingers knotted in her lap, her face shadowed by an ancient straw hat. This was the first time Winter had had the chance to picture Hennessey in action, to get a flavour of the man.

‘What was he like?’

‘
Like?
’ She was watching the plate of chocolate biscuits slowly melting in the sun. ‘He was like you’d imagine any old-style consultant to be. He was loud. He barked a bit, especially when he laughed. If you were a nervous type like me he could be a little bit intimidating. People like Hennessey make you feel very small. It’s a special little knack they have. Small and stupid.’

Winter nodded, thinking of Joannie’s consultant. Not intimidating, exactly. Just superior.

‘They think they know it all,’ he agreed, ‘and they don’t.’

At the hospital, Hennessey had had access to the results of some smears she’d had taken. He’d also examined her himself, an experience that even now sent a shudder through her thin frame.

‘Big fat fingers,’ she said, ‘fingers like sausages. And absolutely no finesse. At the time, you think nothing of it. In fact, you tell yourself you’re making a fuss. But later, when you realise just how hopeless the man really was, you kick yourself for putting up with it all.’

The scan and the examination had led Hennessey to the conclusion that Dierdre needed more than a bladder operation. Her womb should come out as well.

‘There was no discussion,’ she said. ‘He just told me that was what he was going to do.’

‘Did you ask why?’

‘Of course I did.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He just laughed. He thought it was amusing. Then, when I made a bit of a point of it, dug my heels in a bit, do you know what he said? He said I wouldn’t be needing it any more so he’d be doing me a favour. He made it sound like some kind of house clearance, you know, getting rid of all the junk. He had absolutely no idea how hurtful that can be, a woman of my age, a woman of
any
age. It was horrible. Quite horrible.’

‘But there had to be a medical reason, surely?’

‘Oh, I think there was. Later, when I kicked up a fuss about what had happened, he said some of the cells they’d stained looked pre-cancerous. But why didn’t he explain that at the time? Instead of playing God?’

Playing God. It was a good image, Winter thought. It fitted them all, every single one of them. The power to turn this woman’s life into a constant misery. The power to hand Joannie a death sentence.

He jotted down a note to himself, listening to Dierdre describe the afternoon she’d surfaced after the operation. Then, and for days afterwards, she couldn’t understand the constant dampness between her legs, and the smell. At first she’d put it down to some kind of post-operative reaction. It was the body sorting itself out, the nurses told her. The constant trickle of warm urine would soon dry up. But it didn’t. Not in hospital, not during convalescence at a friend’s house, and not for a single moment over the weeks and months to come. She leaked like an old tap with a dodgy washer. And the image, once again, was Hennessey’s.

‘He
said
that?’

‘Those very words. I’m not making it up, Mr Winter. It was when I insisted on going back to see him. I was upset, naturally. I wanted him to do something about it.’

‘And?’

‘He just said I’d have to put up with it. He said it was wear and tear. An old tap’ – she nodded – ‘with a dodgy washer.’

‘Nothing to do with him?’

‘Absolutely not. When I asked, he said there was nothing more he could do for me.’

‘No apology?’

‘
Apology
? People like Hennessey don’t apologise, Mr Winter. They’re not in the apology business. And you know why? Because they’re never wrong. Mistakes are something that other people make. Never them. As far as he was concerned, he’d done a thoroughly professional job and that was that. If I wanted anything else done about my’ – she made a loose gesture towards her lap – ‘waterworks, then I’d be better off going to see a plumber. Can you imagine a
doctor
telling you that?’

Hurt and outraged, she’d sought a second opinion. The consultant on this occasion was a good deal kinder but confirmed that her incontinence would remain chronic. Hennessey was right. There was nothing to be done.

‘Did he explain why you’d got the problem? This second quack?’

‘Of course not. They never do. They just cover up for each other. He probably knows. In fact, I’m sure he knows. But the last person he’s going to tell is me. Isn’t that amazing? It’s my body he’s wrecked, my life I have to cope with, yet none of them are man enough to come clean.’

‘You’re sure it was Hennessey’s fault?’

She looked at him for a moment, despairing, then pulled herself together.

‘All I know is this. When they put me under, everything worked the way it should. When I came round afterwards, I was leaking like a sieve. The person in charge of me in between was Hennessey. It’s simple logic, Mr Winter. It had to be him.’ She paused, then gestured at her lap again. ‘Do you know what I’m wearing under this lot? Plastic pants, like a baby, and four nappies a day.’

Later, before Winter left, she fetched a box file from the house. Other Hennessey victims had got together and compared notes. They were all women, and in many cases the stories were the same. A bluff arrogance you’d ignore in the belief that this man knew what he was doing. A botched operation that went horribly wrong. Months and months of post-operative pain, the wounds salted by Hennessey’s blunt refusal to accept any particle of blame. She quickly sorted through the inch-deep pile of letters, and as she did so Winter glimpsed names he recognised from his own research. Finally, with a little grunt of pleasure, she found what she was looking for.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Do you have a pen?’

The girl’s name was Nikki McIntyre. Unlike most of Hennessey’s victims, she was young, still in her twenties. She was also extremely striking, beautiful even, and if Winter was really interested in seeing what kind of havoc a man like Hennessey could wreak, then he could do no better than pay her a visit. She lived in the Meon Valley, and her story deserved the widest possible audience.

Winter scribbled down the number and enquired whether Dierdre happened to know where Hennessey had gone. Were she or her lawyers still in touch? Had there been any contact recently?

Dierdre shook her head. She hadn’t seen Hennessey for months – which was probably just as well.

‘Why’s that?’ Winter was on his feet now, ready to leave, eager to progress the investigation.

Dierdre was shuffling the letters back into order. She closed the lid on the box file and finally looked up.

‘Because on bad days,’ she said, offering Winter a thin smile, ‘I could cheerfully kill him.’

Mid-afternoon, Dawn Ellis made time to have a second crack at Shelley Beavis. With Addison formally charged with GBH the pressure had eased slightly on the Donald Duck job, but she didn’t share Rick Stapleton’s faith in the strength of the file they’d be preparing for the Crown Prosecution Service, and she anticipated all kinds of questions from the CPS lawyers. There were bits of the jigsaw that didn’t fit properly. And one of them was Shelley Beavis.

Rawlinson Road was in its normal state of urban squalor, and the chaos wasn’t helped by a newish BMW 7 series half-parked on the pavement across the entrance to Shelley’s basement flat. Dawn glanced at the car as she edged past. There was a tangle of sports gear tossed into the passenger footwell – white shorts, hooded top, blue socks – and a pair of brand-new Reebok trainers in an open box on the back seat. A cutout in the shape of a blue number nine football shirt hung from the driving mirror.

Dawn negotiated the steps to Shelley’s front door. There was a yellow stick-it over the Yale lock and she peered at the message. ‘Jimmy’s’, it read. Nothing else. Just ‘Jimmy’s’. Jimmy’s was a café-bar a couple of minutes’ walk away. The chrome-and-leather decor attracted a certain clientele – hard-drinking car dealers, guys running contraband tobacco, call-girls from the quality end of the trade – and often featured in the late-night disturbance reports.

Dawn knocked twice and waited to see whether anyone was in. When there was no response, she turned to go, then stopped. Something had happened to the wood around the door lock. She eased the stick-it away and took a good look. Where the door met the frame, there were gouge marks in the timber. Someone had been trying to get in, either with a jemmy or some kind of chisel. As far as the area was concerned, this would be par for the course. Student flats, in particular, were favourite targets for walk-in thieves and the crime stats were heavy with nicked PCs and audio gear. But successful or otherwise, what was especially interesting about this break-in was the fact that it was so recent. Two days ago, when Dawn had been here with Rick Stapleton, the wood around the lock had been undamaged.

Making a mental note to check the burglary ring-ins, Dawn returned to the pavement. It was by no means certain that the note on the door had come from the owner of the BMW, but there was something about that single word, Jimmy’s, that roused her curiosity. It was so peremptory. So blunt. It wasn’t a message at all. It was a command. Jimmy’s.
Be there
.

The moment she stepped into the café-bar from the street, Dawn knew that luck was with her. Shelley was sitting on a stool at the bar. She had a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of Becks in the other, and as soon as she recognised Dawn she turned at once to the man beside her, doing her best to use his body to shield her face.

The bar was tiny, no more than a couple of paces from end to end. Dawn ordered a cappuccino. Shelley had nowhere to hide.

‘Hi.’ Dawn grinned at her. ‘How are you?’

Shelley shook her head, lost for words. Close to, she had a bruise on her right cheek bone, the swelling beginning to close her right eye. The damage, like the gouge-marks on the door, looked very recent.

The man beside her had turned round. He was tall and slim and wore an Armani T-shirt under a beautifully cut linen suit. His head was shaved and he had the kind of tan that spoke of long afternoons on the beach. There was something slightly Italian about him, a practised languor, and the way he flaunted an obvious fitness made Dawn wonder about the Beamer up the road, with its little blue number nine man dangling from the rear-view mirror. Was this the guy who’d chucked his sports gear in the footwell? The guy who’d left the note?

‘Awright, then?’

Broad Pompey, not an Italian at all.

‘Fine, thanks. You?’

He nodded, smiling down at her. Dawn had rarely been so frankly appraised. He ran his eyes up and down her body. She was wearing a T-shirt cut tighter than usual and he didn’t bother to disguise his approval.

‘Name’s Lee.’ He extended a hand. ‘Mate of Shel’s, are you?’

Dawn glanced across at Shelley. She wanted to be anywhere but here.

‘Yeah.’ Dawn nodded. ‘Kind of.’

‘College, is it?’

Lee was looking at Shelley. Shelley nodded at once, a quick jerk of the head.

‘That’s right.’

‘Gonna introduce us then?’

Dawn stepped in, introducing herself. Nothing could disguise the panic in Shelley’s eyes. Not that Lee was interested in Shelley any more.

‘Good gig is it, college? Only I fancy that, one day. Girls like you and Shel, can’t go wrong, can you?’

Dawn rode the patter with practised ease. Three years on the squad had given her a lifetime’s insights into the male psyche, and it was child’s play to deal with chat-up lines like these.

‘Suit like that, you should be in a real city,’ she said. ‘Wear quality gear round here, you’ll get arrested.’

‘What for?’

‘Nicking it.’

Lee thought that was really funny, and Dawn recognised a new light in his eyes. Cathy Lamb was right when she said that laughter was the best aphrodisiac.

‘What are you studying, then? Media stuff? Same as Shel?’

‘People.’

‘What?’

‘People. I study people.’

‘You joking? Is this a wind-up?’

‘Not at all. Anthropology. That’s what I study.’

‘Shel?’

Still unsure, Lee was looking to Shelley for confirmation. This guy hates being bested, Dawn thought. Especially by a woman.