The Take (2 page)

One

Monday, 19 June, early morning

Unable to sleep, Faraday was up by half-past five, nursing his second cup of tea. It had been light for over an hour, a pale grey wash spilling over the mud flats of Langstone Harbour. At half-tide, from the upstairs study, he could see turnstones strutting across the pebbled flats, pausing from time to time to poke around in the pools of standing water. Several of them seemed to follow the mooring lines that snaked out to dinghies and larger craft marooned by the sluicing tide, and he watched a group of three as they squabbled over a yellow smudge of mussel. Aggressive behaviour was rare among turnstones, but over the last few months he’d noticed a number of episodes like these. Must go with the territory, he thought. Inner-city turnstones. Bred to be stroppy.

He turned back from the view, eyeing the mountain of paperwork on his desk. All the years he’d been living with J-J, he’d made it a rule never to bring work home. That, of course, was impossible. It was a rare evening when the phone didn’t ring at least a couple of times. But paper was different. That belonged in his other world, and with the challenge of bringing up a deaf child to meet, he’d made bloody sure it stayed there.

But Joe-Junior had been gone for the best part of a year now, a gangly, loose-limbed twenty-two-year-old who’d blissfully surrendered himself to a sharp-faced French social worker from Caen, and the months of living alone had nagged away at Faraday’s resolve until it was rare not to return with his battered briefcase bulging with stuff he never seemed to have time to sort out at the office. Minutes of meetings he could barely remember. Agendas for meetings he’d do his best not to attend. Amendments to Force Standing Orders. Thick briefs on upcoming European legislation. Incomprehensible strategy papers from the Social Services policy group on child abuse and the At Risk register. Home Office updates on service performance indicators. Risk assessments on more or less everything. Hundreds of thousands of words that were somehow expected to make him a better detective.

Faraday emptied his mug and picked up the yellow pad he normally kept by the telephone. The duty DC had answered the call from the control room about last night’s Donald Duck incident. By the time he’d got to the woman, she was up in Accident and Emergency at the Queen Alexandra hospital getting her injuries sorted out. She’d evidently gone straight home after the incident because she’d left her kids by themselves, and by the time a uniformed patrol had made it to her house, she’d changed into a dressing gown, dumping all her clothes in the washing machine. She’d felt dirty, she’d said. This pervert had touched her. Pawed her. Pressed himself up against her. All of which, in the DC’s dry phrase, was a bit of a shame. Because, even with the washing machine’s filter for examination, nothing makes forensic evidence more difficult to recover than a cupful of BioSurf and the hot-spin cycle.

At the hospital, X-rays had confirmed two broken fingers and a fractured wrist and the DC had piled insult on injury by arranging for a police surgeon to take scrapings from under her fingernails, plus a couple of hairs from her head, for later matching if they were lucky enough to pull in a worthwhile suspect. After discharge from the hospital, he’d driven the woman back to the ponds by the harbour where three uniforms were waiting to identify the scene of crime. The woman had done her best to try and work out exactly where she’d been jumped, but in the dark she’d got hopelessly confused and in the end they’d taped off the whole area, waiting for daylight before beginning a proper search.

This was the third time this year that someone in a Donald Duck mask had exposed himself to local women, but so far there’d never been any suggestion of rape. The DC, on the phone, was still unclear in his own mind whether the guy had simply been trying to defend himself from the flailing dog lead or had had something more substantial in mind, but either way, it didn’t really matter. The woman’s injuries turned a potential nuisance into grievous bodily harm. Crown Court, for sure.

Faraday made his way downstairs, musing on the irony of the case. The incident had taken place barely a hundred yards from his house, here beside Langstone Harbour. Had he been in on Sunday night, he’d probably have heard the woman yelling. A piece of luck like that could have saved him the chore of organising a proper inquiry, getting bodies out there, knocking on doors, asking questions, taking statements, raising actions, looking for leads. They’d have the bloke locked up by now, tidied away, not too much paperwork, minimal fuss. Luck like that might even have stirred a modest herogram from headquarters. Exemplary vigilance. In the best traditions of the force.

As it was, though, Faraday had driven out to the New Forest, beyond Southampton, and spent a couple of priceless hours wading through the still-wet heather, waiting for the first churring of a pair of breeding nightjars. He’d visited them last year and the year before. They arrived in May from Africa, shy, dun-coloured birds, almost impossible to spot in their daytime scrapes among the gorse. Only at night would they emerge, fleeting silhouettes against the last of the sunset as they hunted for insects and moths. They flew in spurts, twisting and gliding, the churring noise issuing from the syrinx in their throats. Stand absolutely still, as Faraday had done, and a couple of handclaps might bring on the birds in big swoopy circles, curious to check out this stranger in their midst. He’d played the game for the best part of an hour, the birds softening his rage about Vanessa, and with the light finally drained from the night sky, he’d driven back down the road to a favourite pub and offered a private toast to her memory with three pints of Romsey bitter. Allies like Vanessa were hard to find. Dead, he knew that the ongoing war would be that much more pitiless.

He put a couple of slices of bread under the grill and looked half-heartedly for bacon. The fridge, like so much else in the house, was beginning to fall apart. The place needed a thorough going-over. Sills and window frames on the weather side of the property were showing signs of rot and he’d known for months that it was time to get out the ladder and the sandpaper, but the one thing he was never short of was excuses. Another ruck about overtime allocations. Another outbreak of vehicle thefts. Another crisis with a dodgy informer.

The thought of bacon finally abandoned, he buttered the toast, wandered through to the living room and stood in front of the big glass doors that opened on to the harbour, disappointed to find a thick grey ledge of cloud where the sun ought to be. The light was flat and lustreless. The water was the colour of lead. Even the oyster-catchers, normally so pert, seemed to have difficulty stirring themselves. Sometimes, just sometimes, Faraday felt his whole life could do with a stiff scrub-down and a coat or two of Weathershield. Something to keep the rain away, for Christ’s sake. Something
bright
for a change.

Paul Winter, against his better judgement, finally agreed to accompany his wife to the hospital. It wasn’t about taking the time off (though that was the excuse he’d offered her) and it wasn’t that he didn’t think she meant it when she woke him up early and asked him to be there. It was just this thing about the Queen Alexandra. He hated the big hospital on the hill. He hated the kind of people who went there: overweight, ugly, greyfaced. He hated the bossy, in-yer-face posters on the corridor walls: don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t shag. He hated the heads-down weariness you encountered in the lift. And he hated, most of all, the feeling of resignation, of
defeat
, that overwhelmed you the moment you stepped inside the place. Life was about seizing opportunities, about playing the game to maximum advantage, about staying ahead of the pack. Hospitals, especially big anonymous ones like the QA, were for the also-rans.

Joannie’s appointment card directed them to the gastro-intestinal clinic. She’d been to the GP twice since Christmas, complaining of pains beneath her rib cage. The first time, she’d come away with tablets for dyspepsia. The tablets had made no difference at all, and the second time the GP had referred her to the QA for tests and a scan.

By now, she wasn’t eating properly or sleeping well. Winter, cheerfully dispassionate, put it down to her ongoing failure to get on
Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?
As an ex-teacher, she was certain she could get at least as far as £64,000, a conviction which made Winter a willing accomplice when it came to making the calls to the contestants’ line after the show. Sixty-four grand would make all the difference. Sixty-four grand might even put daylight between himself and the likes of Faraday.

The fact that he’d been paper-sifted out of contention for the DC vacancy on the Drugs Squad – the fact that he hadn’t even made it to the fucking interview board – still rankled, and the knowledge that it was Faraday who had shafted him made the insult even worse. ‘Fails occasionally to see the big picture’, Faraday had written, a form of management-speak that suggested Winter was a law unto himself. This was a judgement Winter himself wouldn’t necessarily dispute, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Winter had got Faraday a result on the Oomes case, and Faraday
still
didn’t understand that one good turn deserved another. ‘
Fails occasionally to see the big picture
’. A killer phrase like that, and Winter was lucky not to be back in uniform, posted to traffic cones and the challenge of the lost-property store.

Winter had read last January’s copy of
OK!
twice before Joannie’s name was called. She took his arm and followed the nurse into the office at the end. The consultant got up the moment they appeared at the door, extending a hand to Joannie, and as soon as Winter saw the expression on his face he knew something terrible had happened. Bad news was like a smell. There was no disguising it.

The consultant was tall, with a long, bony face and the hint of a northern accent. While Joannie made herself comfortable, he ducked his head to check a file.

‘What is it?’ Winter heard himself say. ‘What’s wrong?’

Despite everything, he hadn’t once given the possibility of anything serious a moment’s thought. Joannie was as strong as an ox. Twenty-four years of marriage – countless fallings-out, countless makings-up – told him that she was immortal. However badly he treated her, whatever he got up to, she’d been there for him. Her capacity for punishment, for forgiveness, was infinite. Now this.

The consultant took a tissue from a box on his desk and went through the motions of blowing his nose.

‘Mrs Winter,’ he began at last, ‘you’ll forgive me, but I’m afraid there’s no point in beating around the bush. Conversations like this can be difficult. If you feel you need …’ He left the sentence unfinished, nodding at the box of tissues.

Fucking Kleenex? Winter was on his feet now.

‘Just tell us,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

For the first time, the consultant spared him a glance.

‘Mr Winter?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Please sit down. There’s no reason to make this more—’

‘I asked you a question.’

‘And I’m about to answer it.’ He turned his head. ‘Mrs Winter, I’m afraid …’

Joannie reached up for her husband, tugging him back. With some reluctance, Winter sat down. The consultant’s tone had changed. His eyes were on the file again and he sounded like he was reading a death sentence. Winter had heard judges more sympathetic than this.

‘Pancreatic what?’ he said.

‘Carcinoma, Mr Winter.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Cancer.’

‘
Cancer?
’ Winter stared at him, suddenly chilled. ‘You’re joking. Joannie?
Cancer?
’

There was a long silence. From the waiting room came the rattle of a tea trolley. Then Joannie’s voice, smaller than Winter had ever heard it.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive, Mrs Winter.’

‘Can you’ – she hesitated – ‘do anything?’

‘Alas, no. We can try and make life easier for you, maybe a small operation, just to tidy things up … but no, long-term, I’m afraid no. This is a particularly aggressive cancer. You have secondaries in the stomach and liver. There are drugs, of course. Palliative treatment. The hospice. But I wouldn’t want to mislead you about the outcome.’

‘So …?’

‘About three months, Mrs Winter.’ The consultant inched the box of Kleenex towards her. ‘Though even in a case like this it’s hard to be precise.’

Faraday had been at his desk at Southsea police station for several hours by the time Cathy Lamb arrived for their regular Monday conference. She’d driven down from Fratton nick where she had an office of her own. The old divisions of Portsmouth North and South were in the process of amalgamation into a single super-division, and in the consequent administrative uncertainties, Cathy had seized her chance. CID was short of Detective Inspectors to fight the rising tide of so-called volume crime, and with Faraday’s support Cathy had made it to acting DI. Responsibility suited her. She’d been in the job a couple of months now, and she plainly loved it. A big woman, crop-haired with an open, outdoors face, her gaze was steadier than ever.

‘How’s your little treasure, then?’ She nodded back towards the big open-plan CID office along the corridor where Vanessa’s replacement was punishing the photocopier.

Faraday pulled a face.

‘She’s got some kind of agency for Beanie Babies,’ he said. ‘She brings the bloody things in every day, trying to flog them. Drives the blokes mad.’

‘Why don’t you tell her not to?’

‘I did. She doesn’t listen.’

Faraday got to his feet and shut the door. The new management assistant was called Joyce. She was an overweight American in her early forties, the kind of woman who from day one had presumed an intimacy which didn’t exist. With Vanessa, Faraday had been only too happy to offload endless administrative baggage, including material which was extremely sensitive, freeing up precious time he could devote to something worthwhile. With this woman, that kind of trust was out of the question.

Cathy seemed amused.

‘I hear her husband’s in the job.’