Deadlight, page 21
part #4 of Faraday & Winter Series
At length, Pritchard appeared at the door with a mug of tea. He was wearing a shirt with stains down the front and a pair of black trousers that were too big round the waist. He tottered across to the table and collapsed in the other chair. Half the night seeing off the remains of the Johnnie Walker had made him look gaunter than ever.
‘I’m not sure I can do this.’ He put the tea down and his hands shook as he tried to light a cigarette.
‘Kevin, mate, you have to. Without a statement we’re fucked. In fact without a statement, we needn’t have gone to bloody Gibraltar at all.’
‘I meant the body. Sean.’
‘Ah …’
Coughlin’s corpse had been returned from the post-mortem in Southampton and was now in a fridge in the local mortuary. The senior technician at the mortuary was a soccer fanatic called Jake. He turned out every Saturday afternoon for a decent Pompey League side but Yates had assured him that they could have Coughlin sorted by midday at the latest. Now, Yates glanced at his watch. 10.14. Say an hour for the statement, and they’d still be through by twelve.
‘First things first, Kev.’ Yates stationed an ashtray under the cigarette. ‘Let’s start with Monday evening. You do the talking and I’ll write it all down.’
Yates bent to his briefcase and produced a statement form. Pritchard lurched to the door and pleaded for more tea. Back at the table, he put his head in his hands.
‘Monday night?’ he began.
The statement turned into one long ramble. If anything, he seemed to have forgotten most of the facts he’d been so certain about less than a day ago. Monday night had lost all shape, all meaning, just a string of random impressions. A couple of guest meals early on. Some crisis with the wrong tin of soup. The empty bar and the prospect of a quiet night with the football highlights. The three guys crashing in from nowhere – fucking nowhere, you understand that? – and turning on poor Sean. The way they’d looked at him. The stuff they must have been saying. The fat one standing there in the window, giving Sean the finger as he shot off into the night. What did these guys have on Sean? What had he ever done to them? If only he’d answered the phone when he’d rung. If only he’d had a chance to say goodbye. If only. If only.
‘Fat one?’ Yates had his pen poised.
‘Big bastard.’ Pritchard nodded. ‘See the weight on him.’
‘Face? Hair?’
‘Skinhead. Baldilocks.’
Yates put the pen down.
‘Clothes?’
‘Jacket. Tie. Blue tie. Blue tie with a crest on it.’ This was turning into a quiz show, Yates thought. Or a séance. Did Pritchard expect voices? Sean Coughlin swaying in with a fresh pot of tea and a kiss? He picked up the pen again and started writing while Pritchard had a fresh think about Monday night, the fog slowly lifting.
Half an hour later, to Yates’s relief, most of it was there, right facts, right order. Far more often than he should, he’d had to prompt and suggest, playing the driver at the wheel of Pritchard’s clapped-out memory, using his own recall of the Gibraltar interview to provide a map, but in the end – everything considered – it made a good solid five pages, the last one initialled in Pritchard’s wavering hand.
‘Now then.’ Yates got to his feet and consulted his watch. ‘We up for it, Kevin?’
It was the first name again. The eyes began to swim with tears.
‘How important is this?’
‘Very, mate. What you’re going to do is grace Sean Coughlin’s death with a little dignity. That make any sense?’
Yates had once heard Faraday use exactly this phrase. He watched Pritchard clambering slowly back over the sentence, sorting out the words, cocking his huge head, trying to understand exactly what difference a visit to the mortuary might make. Grace? Dignity?
At length, he took a deep breath and nodded.
‘Let’s do it,’ he said.
The mortuary was at the back of St Mary’s hospital, a big Victorian institution with an outer keep of modern, post-war blocks. Recognising Jake’s boy-racer Escort, Yates pulled in behind it. Jake was waiting for them in the sunshine. He kept a special suit for occasions like these, a dark two-piece from Austin Reed with narrow lapels and a sombre cut. On other occasions, Yates had seen him mistaken for an undertaker.
‘This way, gentlemen.’
He led them into a waiting room. It was immediately colder, a perceptible chill, and it was obvious that Jake had been busy with the air freshener. Not that Pritchard appeared to notice. His face was quite blank, a mask. Clasped together in front of his body, the knuckles of his hands were white with tension.
Jake had a quiet word. Sean Coughlin was next door in the chapel. There were chairs by the body and absolutely no pressure on time. Pritchard could go in there alone, or with Yates, or with both of them. It was his decision, his call. All the occasion demanded in terms of formalities was a confirmation that this was, indeed, Sean Arthur Coughlin.
Pritchard was having trouble with his eyes. He rubbed them a couple of times with the back of his hand, then sniffed. Jake appeared at his elbow with a box of tissues. They were pink.
Pritchard shook his head. He wanted Yates to go in there with him. He needed support, a hand, anything.
‘Help me,’ he said quietly. ‘Please.’
Yates took his arm and steered him gently towards the door. The chapel was even darker, pricked with light from two candles. Coughlin lay on a trolley. The trolley was draped with a sheet, and the long hump of his body was softened with a funeral pall. Coughlin’s head lay on a pillow. There were still signs of bruising around his cheek and jaw, shades of yellow and purple, but the swelling had gone down and he looked – to Yates – remarkably peaceful. He had a big face, like Pritchard, and there was barely any trace of grey in the thick, black hair.
‘He never wore it like that. Never.’ The hair was combed low on the forehead. Pritchard seemed outraged. ‘Who did that?’
Yates muttered something about post-mortem procedures but Pritchard wasn’t listening. He knelt by the body, his face inches from Coughlin’s. He wanted to kiss his lover. He wanted to say goodbye. Yates stepped backwards and turned away, giving him a little privacy, then came a tiny gasp, almost animal, a strangled noise deep in Pritchard’s throat. Yates looked round. Pritchard had tried to backcomb Coughlin’s hair with his fingers, but pushing away the funeral pall had revealed a crude line of stitches across Coughlin’s scalp. They were big stitches and they puckered the flesh, a terrible reminder that this lover of his wasn’t, after all, asleep.
Yates stepped quickly forward, taking Pritchard’s arm again. He could feel his whole body trembling.
‘Sorry, Kev …’ he murmured. ‘But is this Coughlin?’
Pritchard was staring down at Coughlin’s face. He wanted to say no. He wanted to rub those hideous stitches out. He wanted to put the time machine into reverse, go back to Monday night, leave the three guys in the lounge bar, and be there for the moment when this man of his needed him most.
Instead, he turned away, sobbing.
‘You see why I loved him?’ he said.
Winter did his best to hurry the SOC boys along. Once they’d finished with Dawn Ellis’s lounge, they moved out into the front garden. Neighbours, intrigued by the sight of two men in baggy white suits crawling all over Dawn’s front lawn, lurked behind curtains and made a series of unnecessary trips to the pillar box at the end of the road, curious to know what lay behind this dramatic little flurry of activity. Dawn, who’d always kept her job to herself, gave them a tired smile. The SOC van at the kerbside was unmarked. Challenged for an explanation, she’d decided to blame an infestation of killer bugs.
Winter loved this thought. After a sleepless night in the tiny spare bedroom, he’d been up since six. He’d got Willard’s weekend off to a flying start with a brisk phone call, checked the fridge for milk for the SOC team, and then decided to treat Dawn Ellis to a proper breakfast. Cooking one-handed was a new challenge, but he’d made a fair job of eggs on toast, loading the tray with a huge mug of tea and spilling barely a drop as he juggled his way up the narrow stairs. After last night, the least the girl deserved was a little TLC.
Dawn was still asleep when he knocked at the bedroom door and though her face told him the last thing she wanted was food, she was touched by the gesture and told him so. Perched on the edge of her bed, Winter had cheerfully demolished the eggs, enquiring whether she had any preference when it came to glaziers. There were umpteen firms in the city who’d charge the earth for an insurance job but he knew a bloke in Fratton who’d do it cash for thirty pounds and he’d be happy to give him a ring. Dawn, bewildered by Winter’s matter-of-factness, told him she was past caring. The SOC van had arrived shortly afterwards, both blokes gagging for tea.
Now, Winter wanted to know when they’d be through. The glazier went to his allotment Saturday afternoons and was getting tired of waiting for the phone call. Hang on much longer, and Winter would be back with the cowboys from the city.
The older of the two SOCOs told Winter thirty minutes. Apart from the print they’d lifted from the remains of the bottle they’d drawn a blank, but Proctor had made it absolutely plain that Willard would be going over every line of their report and Proctor didn’t make that kind of stuff up. Winter, back inside the house, heard the cheep of a mobile. Moments later, one of the white suits came tramping down the hall. He’d had a bit of news. The NAAFIS guys at Netley had scored a hit on the print.
Winter, still trying to remember where he’d put the glazier’s number, shot an enquiring look at the SOCO.
‘Bloke called Darren Geech?’ The SOCO was looking at the teapot again. ‘That mean anything to you?’
After Bev Yates had left the office, Faraday remembered the photo album. It had formed part of the forensic seizure from the Alhambra Hotel, the morning Jerry Proctor’s boys had gone through Pritchard’s flat, and Faraday had hung on to it in case he needed to evidence the relationship between Pritchard and Coughlin. Now, deep in thought, he went down the corridor to the exhibits cupboard and retrieved it for a second look.
A lot of the photos went back years – a younger, happier Pritchard mugging for the camera with a series of men – and some of them featured excursions on a new-looking mountain bike. To Faraday, these snaps came as a surprise. He’d never associated Pritchard with physical exercise but he’d certainly invested a bob or two in the right gear – cycle helmet, Lycra shorts – and the wooded slopes that filled the background of shot after shot suggested some serious terrain.
It was this same landscape that reappeared in many of the more recent shots. By now, Pritchard had met Coughlin. The bike had disappeared and the pair of them were clad in walking gear – Berghaus anoraks, proper boots. Most of the photos featured either one or the other, a clear indication that they’d been alone on these outings, and Faraday lingered on a particular shot of Pritchard. He was lying on his side, a blanket spread beneath him. The remains of a picnic lay scattered beside an open Ordnance Survey map. It was obviously hot, because Pritchard had his shirt off. Peering up at the camera, he’d propped his sunglasses on the very end of his nose, camping it up for Coughlin’s benefit, but there was something about the expression on his face, something in the eyes maybe, that spoke of a total dependence. Love would be too gentle a word. Enslavement was much closer.
Returning from the mortuary, Yates had reported on Pritchard’s state of mind. Taking him to ID Coughlin had been a really bad idea. Coming away in the car, the bloke had been inconsolable. Only Jackie, back in the hotel, had been able to do anything about the tears.
Now, turning the photo upside down to get a better look at the Ordnance Survey map, Faraday felt the slightest twinge of guilt. Given his own conviction that Pritchard was telling the truth – both about Monday night, and about his feelings for Coughlin – Faraday began to wonder about the damage he might have done. Death, in his own experience, was incomprehensible. Experts who spoke of the psychiatric benefits of viewing the deceased, of accommodation and closure, had obviously never visited a mortuary. Had he been over-hasty with Pritchard? Should he have ignored the coroner’s officer’s pleas to get the paperwork sorted? In truth, he didn’t know.
He gazed down at the map in the photo, then suddenly realised where these two men had been. Queen Elizabeth Country Park, he thought. Just up the A3.
‘Mr Faraday?’
Faraday looked up to find Scottie standing at the open door. He was carrying a B&Q plastic bag. Work on his mother-in-law’s dodgy overflow had obviously drawn blood because he had a fresh plaster wrapped round his forefinger.
‘Here.’ He took a buff file from the bag and gave it to Faraday. ‘Before we do anything else, you ought to read this.’
It was Winter’s idea to take Dawn Ellis to the supermarket. At his insistence, she drove him to the big Sainsbury’s down the road from his bungalow at Bedhampton. Saturday afternoon, the place was packed. Dawn pushed the trolley while Winter criss-crossed the aisles, plucking items from the shelves. Dawn, who had been a veggie for longer than anyone could remember, watched the pile of pre-packed meat grow and grow. Pork chops. Bacon. Sausages.
‘Is any of this for me?’ she said. ‘Only you really needn’t bother.’
Winter didn’t reply. By the time they were heading for the check-out, the big trolley was full. Winter added a litre bottle of Scotch, another of Bacardi, paid with his Switch card and lent Dawn his good hand for the push across the car park to her little Peugeot. Only when she’d packed everything away in the boot did he volunteer any kind of explanation.
‘We’re laying in supplies,’ he said. ‘Think siege.’
‘We?’
‘You’re coming to stay with me for a bit. We’ll nip back to your place and pay off the glazier. The place should be secure once you’ve locked up. You’ll need some clothes, of course, but we’ll be OK for food.’
‘Do I get a choice in any of this?’
‘Not after last night you don’t.’
‘But there’s no way Geech is coming back. Even he’s not that stupid.’
‘It’s not Geech you should be worrying about, love.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Is it?’
It took a while for Faraday to get to grips with the file. HMS Accolade had been a Type 21 frigate. An attached photograph showed a sleek grey warship with a flared bow. A single gun turret lay forward of the bridge and there was a small flight deck with room for a helicopter aft.
In 1982, according to the section of the file flagged by Scottie, Accolade had been on exercises in the Mediterranean when Galtieri invaded the Falklands. With Argentinian forces pouring into Port Stanley, she’d been ordered to join the Task Force, pausing at Gibraltar to refuel and replenish, and again at Ascension to pick up extra stores plus six Stingray anti-submarine missiles. On 12 May, she’d entered the Total Exclusion Zone. Nine days later, she’d been on picket duty in San Carlos Water when she was attacked by Argentinian Skyhawks. Three bombs registered direct hits. Within twenty minutes, irrecoverably damaged, she’d sunk with the loss of nineteen lives.
‘Coughlin’s ship,’ Scottie reminded Faraday. ‘Big-time trauma.’
Faraday nodded, still uncertain why he was reading the file. They knew already that Accolade had gone down in the Falklands. They knew, too, that the loss of a ship was a uniquely terrible experience, akin to nothing else. Your home, your reputation, your pride, your belongings, your very identity, all gone. But what did any of that have to do with an overweight prison officer, killed at home twenty years later?
‘Go back a couple of pages. The yellow sticky.’ Scottie nodded at the file. ‘Fifteenth of May?’
Faraday did his best to concentrate. Any time now he was due a conference with Willard. Briefly surfacing from the swamp of Hexham, the Det Supt wanted an interim review on Merriott. Live lines of enquiry were the key to any investigation and Faraday knew there were questions he’d have to answer about Davidson. Aside from anything else, Willard was still keeper of the Policy Book.
‘Halfway down. Look.’ Scottie was on his feet beside Faraday, his bandaged finger indicating two paragraphs towards the foot of the page. The rating’s name was Matthew Warren. He’d been a steward. Between 23.30 on the fourteenth and 06.00 on the fifteenth, he’d unaccountably gone missing. A search had been ordered of the entire ship. His absence confirmed, the Captain had ordered Accolade turned around. For five hours, the frigate had backtracked, making allowances for wind and current. At noon, with no sign of a body or even a lifejacket, Warren had been declared lost at sea.
Faraday looked up.
‘And?’
‘Warren was a youngster, a kid, just eighteen. He served as a steward in the wardroom. Coughlin was a killick chef, cock of the walk. They’d have worked together, messed together.’
‘But what’s your point?’
Scottie wouldn’t sit down. He went to the window, looked out, glanced back, looked out again, and watching him Faraday realised he’d probably been rehearsing this moment for days. For a naval regulator with one eye on a subsequent career in the CID, this was the answer to Scottie’s dreams.
‘You think any of that’s a coincidence?’ he said at last. ‘Coughlin? A bloke with his reputation? Young kid? Baby of the mess? Still in nappies?’
‘I’m not with you. Blokes go missing at sea all the time, don’t they?’
‘No way. Guy goes over the side, it’s a major drama. Ship’s Investigation. Board of Inquiry. The lot. The only reason this one never made the headlines was the war. Six days later nineteen blokes were dead, Christ knows how many were injured, and they’d lost the ship as well. No wonder no one spared a thought for Matthew Warren.’
