Deadlight, page 33
part #4 of Faraday & Winter Series
‘Inside girls.’ He stepped down the hall, shooing them back to the television. The door shut, he turned to face the two detectives again.
‘So tell me. What’s all this about?’
Dave Michaels, a genius in situations like these, began to explain about the Major Crimes set-up. They were investigating a murder. They had information they were obliged to develop. A number of people could undoubtedly be of assistance. One of them was Gault.
‘But why arrest me?’
‘Because we have to be sure.’
‘Sure of what?’
‘Sure that we can sit you down for a while. Have a little chat.’
Gault shook his head, part bewilderment, part anger, then came the squeak of the garden gate, and a plump, breathless, plain-faced woman appeared at the door, laden with Asda bags.
‘Paulie?’ She was looking at Yates and Michaels. She had a foreign accent, Eastern Europe maybe. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Wish I fucking knew.’
‘Mrs Gault?’ Michaels again. ‘We’re arresting your husband. We’d like him to get dressed.’
The woman lowered the bags to the carpet. The word ‘arrest’ seemed to have robbed her of the power of speech. Dave Michaels stepped forward, the voice of sweet reason, putting a hand on Gault’s arm. It really would be best if Gault took himself back upstairs and put some clothes on. Then they’d all be out of here. Gault stared at him, his face inches from Michaels’, and for a split second Yates knew exactly what was going to happen next.
For a big man, Gault could move surprisingly fast. Lowering his head, he drove it into Dave Michaels’ face. There was a crack of bone against bone and then Michaels was reeling back towards the front door, his hand to his nose, blood pumping through his fingers. Yates threw himself on Gault and the pair of them fell backwards on to the stairs. They fought for a moment or two, crashing sideways against the banisters. Down the hall, the two kids were screaming. Then came the bellow of another voice, Gault’s wife. She was outraged.
‘Paulie,’ she bellowed. ‘Stop it!’
Yates felt Gault make one last effort, then his body went limp. Yates hung on for a moment or two, then eased himself backwards. Michaels was by the door, examining his handkerchief.
For a moment, no one said a word. Then Gault struggled upright on the stairs. He was staring at Yates, fighting to get his breath back.
‘My wife thinks this country’s fucking wonderful,’ he managed at last. ‘No secret police. No knocks on the door.’ His eyes were still blazing. ‘How wrong can you be, eh?’
Twenty-two
MONDAY, 10 JUNE, 2002, 20.00
Faraday heard about Dave Michaels at Kingston Crescent. Beattie safely delivered to the Custody Sergeant at Central police station, Faraday was sitting in Willard’s office, Bev Yates beside him.
‘Police surgeon says he’ll live,’ Willard said. ‘Didn’t even break his nose.’
Faraday smiled to himself. Willard seemed quietly pleased at the news that Gault had lost it. At least they’d laid hands on someone capable of violence.
Willard was looking at Faraday.
‘So where are we now?’
‘Beattie’s being checked in at Waterlooville. He’s insisting on his lawyer, woman from Tavistock. She can’t be here until first thing tomorrow.’
Willard grunted. Beattie’s oppo from Plymouth was also en route from the West Country. His name was Duncan Phillips and – at Willard’s request – a couple of CID from Devon and Cornwall had arrested him at teatime in his Plymstock semi. Under the PACE regulations, the interview teams would have just twenty-four hours to nail down the truth about events at the Alhambra on Monday night, though a uniformed Superintendent could extend that to a day and a half.
Faraday had already done the sums.
‘We’ve got until eight a.m. Wednesday, assuming the extension,’ he told Willard. ‘So we’re really talking tomorrow.’
Bev Yates was doodling notes on a pad at his elbow. First thing Wednesday was the England-Nigeria game, crucial if Sven’s boys were to make it into the next round. He glanced up to find Willard looking his way.
‘What kind of state’s Gault in?’
‘No problem. He could do with finishing his shave but apart from that he’s fine.’
‘You didn’t thump him?’
‘No chance. He’s a big bastard. Thank Christ his missus was there.’
‘What about a brief?’
‘Gault’s settled for the duty. Michelle’s on tonight. She’s at Central now.’
Willard nodded. Michelle Brinton was a plump, freckle-faced solicitor in her thirties. Oddly enough, she came from the West Country herself, though a couple of years of Pompey crime had given her sharper elbows.
‘Joe?’ Willard wanted to know about interview strategy.
Faraday took his time, knowing that Willard was old-fashioned when it came to the coalface. Interviews were normally handled by DCs on a squad, but with so many blokes shipped off to the Somerstown inquiry Willard would be pushed to field three teams of two. Under the circumstances, therefore, Faraday was proposing a novel solution.
‘We’re up against the clock,’ he said. ‘I suggest we take a crack at Gault tonight, starting ASAP. Go for open account. See what he’s got to say.’
‘We?’
‘Myself and Yates, sir. So far, all we’ve got to go on is Pritchard. Yates and I both talked to him. It’s not much of a start but it saves briefing two other guys.’
Willard saw the logic at once. He was indeed less than keen to put Faraday at the sharp end – Deputy SIOs were supposed to maintain the wider view – but a breakthrough this abrupt left him little choice. All the other available DCs had just spent a frustrating day toiling up and down stairwells in Somerstown and were in no state to switch back to Merriott.
‘Forensic are in Gault’s place already,’ Willard mused. ‘Devon and Cornwall are sorting out Beattie and Phillips. They reckon they’ll be through the properties by noon tomorrow, first trawl. What else have we got?’
‘Phones,’ Faraday said at once. ‘All three have mobiles. I’ve talked to Brian Imber already and he’ll be on to the TIU for billings first thing.’
‘You’re telling me we’ll get them in time?’
‘We might.’
‘Fat chance.’
The Telephone Intelligence Unit was housed in Winchester, a specialist department charged with wrestling data from the phone companies. Billings, with the added possibility that individual calls could be pinned down geographically, could change the whole direction of an inquiry but often took days – sometimes weeks – to arrive. Willard had been banging this drum for longer than anyone could remember but so far to no great effect.
‘Any previous?’
‘Nothing, sir.’ Yates this time.
‘Brilliant.’ Willard threw his pen down. ‘So it’s really back to our friend Pritchard. All we have is a dead man’s word that these three guys were at the Alhambra Monday night.’
‘Not at all.’ Faraday took up the running. ‘It’s Beattie who’s put them there.’
‘I know that. But what else did he tell you?’
‘Not much. They went for a drink. Coughlin turned up briefly, then left again. Sometime later, they called it a night and went home.’
‘And you think he’ll stick to that?’
‘I think he’ll try.’
Willard revolved in his chair.
‘Of course he will, bound to, and that’s my point, Joe. It’s Pritchard who’s telling us they were really pissed off, Pritchard who has them ranting on about what a tosser Coughlin was, Pritchard who says they were out of their skulls on Lamb’s Navy.’
‘Bacardi, sir,’ Yates murmured.
‘Sure, OK, whatever. But we have to be careful here, don’t we? Because it seems to me that Pritchard had every reason to give us these three guys. Especially if he whacked Coughlin himself.’
Faraday was staring out of the window at the rain. He’d somehow assumed a consensus that Pritchard was out of the frame. Evidently not.
‘I don’t think Pritchard got anywhere near Coughlin that night,’ he said carefully. ‘We should be talking motive and opportunity. He had neither.’
‘You think the defence’d buy that? Bloke who admitted being in love with the man? Potty about him? Jealous as fuck?’
‘Over what?’
‘Who cares? Pritchard was a screaming queen. These blokes are unbalanced. Juries lap that kind of stuff up. And who says he wasn’t there? I thought we had a footprint? Evidenced? Plus the man himself, admitting he popped round?’
‘We do, sir. But he never got in.’
‘I know, Joe. I know. But whose word do we have on that? Apart from Pritchard?’
Faraday wondered about fetching the Scenes of Crime report but decided against it. Willard knew very well that not a shred of forensic evidence connected Pritchard to the inside of 7a Niton Road. As usual, the Det Supt was giving Faraday’s cage a rattle.
Yates stirred.
‘There’s still the taxi,’ he pointed out.
‘And where are we with that?’
‘I talked to Aqua again this morning. The driver who picked the three of them up from the hotel is still in Amsterdam. They gave me his girlfriend’s number. She hasn’t a clue where he’s staying but she says he’s back on Wednesday.’
‘What time?’
‘Early. He’s on a KLM cheapie. I checked with the airline. Seven o’clock in the morning, Gatwick.’
Faraday and Willard exchanged glances. Seven on Wednesday morning was dangerously close to the moment the PACE clock finally stopped. The timing couldn’t have been worse.
Willard scowled. It was at moments like these, backed into a corner, that he was frequently at his best.
‘What if we send you up to Gatwick if we have to?’ He was looking at Yates. ‘Give ourselves a bit of leeway?’
‘Fine, sir.’ Yates beamed at him. ‘Be my pleasure.’
Winter took a cab to the funfair. Clarence Pier was beside the hovercraft terminal on Southsea seafront, an acre or so of tacky rides plus a cavernous amusement arcade packed full of fruit machines and hi-tech video games. For a quid, you could battle anything from Mike Tyson to the Gulf War. Not that Winter was in the mood.
Mick Clarence, the youth worker from the Persistent Young Offender scheme, had phoned an hour or so earlier. He’d pushed Winter’s photos around likely Somerstown contacts but got little response. Then, just minutes ago, he’d taken a call from a lad whose voice he hadn’t recognised. The boy had seen the state Darren had got himself into and wanted to know more. He wasn’t prepared to give his name, but when Clarence explained about Winter he’d thought a meet might be in order. Winter, tucked up with one of Joannie’s Ruth Rendells, wasn’t best pleased but knew he had little choice. The visit from the Traffic Sergeant had shaken him more than he cared to admit. Somehow or other, he had to look for ways of turning imminent disaster to his own account.
On the phone, Mick Clarence had mentioned a game called Formula One Plus. According to his new contact, it was the hottest of the new rides. Winter would find this rendezvous towards the back of the arcade, near one of the fire exits, and he spotted it now, three youths in a gaggle beside it, none of them more than fourteen.
For a Monday night, the arcade was empty. The nylon carpet, cratered with cigarette burns, felt slippery underfoot.
‘Who phoned Mick Clarence, then?’ Winter saw little point in smalltalk.
Three faces, shadowed under baseball caps, stared him out. Under different circumstances, this situation could have been threatening and Winter found himself wondering yet again what had happened to the nation’s youth. In his day, wickedness began and ended at scout camp. These days, you found yourself counting the bodies.
At length, the smallest of the youths nodded at the machine. He was wearing baggy jeans and a Liverpool top. The Nike Air trainers looked brand new.
‘You got any money?’
‘I might have.’
‘We need three quid for starters. One go each.’
Winter eyed him a moment, then found a pound coin. The youth grinned at his mates and slipped quickly on to the bench seat, a child again. Winter had yet to give him the coin.
‘How does it work, then?’
The youth explained the controls – steering wheel, fingertip gear shift, two pedals for throttle and brake – then grabbed the money. The console came to life. A choice of options scrolled on to the screen, race circuits from Hockenheim to Sao Paolo. The youth went for Monte Carlo, and then spent a second or two contemplating his choice of weather.
‘Heatwave?’ One of his mates grinned. ‘Well cool.’
‘Whose been on this afternoon?’
‘Fuck knows. Let’s see.’
The youth at the wheel called up a list of current title contenders. Half a dozen names appeared on the screen. The fastest time to date had been posted by someone calling himself ‘Iceman’.
‘Wanker. I know him. You gonna do this or what?’
The youth at the wheel hit the Go button. The sound effects were deafening. A couple of dozen bright little Formula One cars squatted on the starting grid, maximum revs, then the lights on the overhead gantry flicked to green and the race began. The youths crowded round, sucked in by the noise of burning rubber, and even Winter had to admit to a flutter of excitement. The lad behind the wheel drove with some style, taking the first corner wide and passing a blur of scarlet on the outside of the bend. Seconds later, he was powering along the Corniche.
One of his mates was pointing at a huge white yacht in the harbour, the sundeck at the stern decorated with nubile young flesh.
‘Look at the tits on that,’ he chortled. ‘Well fucking fit.’
The harbour had gone. Next came a tunnel, the scream of the engines suddenly redoubled. Winter waited until a disc of light appeared, ballooning as the car burst into the dazzle of a perfect Monte Carlo afternoon, then he slipped a photo from his pocket, reached forward, and propped it on the screen. There was a scream of tyres as the youth at the wheel braked. Briefly, he fought for control, then threw himself backwards as the car hit the barrier and somersaulted into the crowd.
‘Fuck off,’ he yelled. ‘What’s all that about?’
The other two were staring at Darren Geech, his head arched back on the pillow, his face barely recognisable. This was the moment Winter had given the bed a nudge and the agony was unmistakable.
‘Been to see him yet? Only it might be wise to hang on a couple of weeks because he’s finding it hard to talk.’
The youth at the wheel didn’t care. He wanted another quid. Winter ignored him.
‘Who made the call to Mick Clarence then? Tonight?’
Two pairs of eyes flicked to the driver. The youth at the wheel was still complaining about the crash. His first lap had been going really well, half a second up on his all-time best. Keep that up, and he’d be untouchable.
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Winter had retrieved the picture. ‘Darren copped this because he upset the wrong people. The wrong people want Darren put away. Unless my lot get some help, the wrong people are going to be looking for more Darrens.’
The youth at the wheel had managed to re-set the game. One of his mates stirred, ignoring the cars on the grid.
‘What’s that then? This help?’
‘Statements. Witness statements. People who might have been around when Darren did the bloke in Fraser Road.’
‘That’s grassing,’ the youth said flatly. ‘No one fucking grasses.’
Winter looked at him. Mick Clarence’s point. Exactly.
‘You’re right, son,’ he said. ‘But there are limits here. What Darren did was out of order. It’s not me saying it. It’s the blokes he upset. Anyone with half a brain would draw the line at doing what Darren did. Now he’s lucky to have even that.’
‘What?’
‘Half a brain.’
‘But what did he do, though, Darren? Apart from that arsehole in Fraser Road?’
‘Us. One of us. That might sound like a right laugh to you but we think it’s a serious piss-off. And you know what? Bazza Mackenzie happens to agree with us. Some things you do. Some you don’t. Problem with Darren, he never knew the difference.’ Winter paused, then passed the photo. ‘There’s a phone number on the back. It’s a police number, direct line, a Mr Hayder. When you get through, mention that you’ve been talking to me. You’d be amazed at how nice we can be sometimes.’
Winter stepped back a moment, letting the thought sink in. The youth at the wheel had emerged from the Monte Carlo tunnel for a second time though Winter could see his heart wasn’t in it because the lap time was crap. Aware of everyone watching, he let out a half-hearted whoop and gunned it into the next corner, failing to brake in time to avoid the car in front. The screen suddenly filled with the back of a dawdling Ferrari. This time, the crash was terminal.
‘Shit,’ he said bitterly. ‘Look what you’ve done now.’
The first session with Paul Gault started at 20.47. It would have been fifteen minutes earlier but Faraday had been involved in a head-to-head with the Custody Sergeant. No way was he going to take responsibility for Beattie’s dog. He had nowhere to put the bloody animal since the local authority had taken over responsibility for strays and the last thing he was going to do on a wet Monday evening was take it outside for walkies. If Faraday had been silly enough to cart it 170 miles in the back of his car, then it could bloody stay there.
Faraday, slightly perturbed by the accusatory way the dog kept looking at him, had racked his brains to find a home. Taking it back to the Bargemaster’s House was a non-starter. J-J had once been bitten by a collie and gave anything with a bark a very wide berth indeed. That left friends, and in the end Faraday had been driven to give Eadie Sykes a ring. No problem, she said at once. She had the remains of the weekend’s joint and it would be a pleasure to see them both.
‘Both?’
‘You, too.’
Now, Faraday settled into the chair across from Gault, starting the tape machines and announcing the time, date and individuals present. Beside Gault sat Michelle Brinton. A severe black two-piece gave the solicitor a lean, rather London look. Either that, or she’d started taking her gym membership seriously.
