Deadlight, page 5
part #4 of Faraday & Winter Series
Faraday uncapped his pen and began to write. He’d authorised Corbett and Yates to drive to London first thing and interview Ainsley Davidson. Corbett had his mother’s address from the prison file and an assurance from one of the screws that he’d probably be there. The address was in Balham, well known to Corbett from his previous life in the Met. Three years in the Streatham CID office, he’d assured Faraday, had taught him everything he needed to know about South London criminals.
There was something in Corbett’s manner that sounded an alarm with Faraday. It wasn’t simply the arrogance of the man, and his obvious impatience to get a result. Confidence and an appetite for hard work were prized qualities in young detectives. No, it was something else, and Faraday knew that Bev Yates had sensed it too. Yates was far too canny and experienced to discuss these thoughts with Faraday but there’d been a moment in the office after Corbett had gone when they’d looked at each other, and raised an eyebrow.
‘Talks a good war, doesn’t he?’ Yates had muttered, reaching for his jacket.
Three
TUESDAY, 4 JUNE, 2002, 22.15
The Pembroke lay in Old Portsmouth, just round the corner from the Anglican cathedral. Recently, it had become a favourite pub of Winter’s. He liked the clientele – an unusual mix of traders, lawyers, churchmen and retired navy matelots – and he enjoyed the beery cheerfulness that came with them. This was a pub for serious drinkers, free from trash music and fourteen-year-old slappers out of their heads on Vodka Ice. Most evenings you could tuck yourself away in a quiet corner and never attract a second glance.
Rooke was waiting for him, sitting bolt upright on a padded bench beneath a tankful of tropical fish. Winter had never quite got over the look of the man – bony face, yellowing skin, wild eyes, scary haircut – but put the damage down to an unusually heavy dose of inbreeding. Rooke was a terrible warning for anyone who spent too much time in Pompey. Stay a generation too long, and you’d end up looking like this.
Winter ordered two Stellas at the bar. Rooke’s glass was already empty.
‘Awright, Rookie?’ Winter slid on to the bench and gave him a nudge. Lager from the glasses slopped on to the table.
‘Listen.’ Rooke beckoned Winter closer. ‘You want to know about the boy Geech, I’ve got be fucking careful.’
Winter grinned at him. Most of his touts enjoyed the foreplay when they met, the preliminary gossip about mutual associates, the chance to slag the local football team, but not Rooke. Rookie kept the conversational frills to an absolute minimum, partly because he had no small talk and partly because being with Winter made him very nervous indeed. He was here to make a point or two. And then he’d go.
‘You know what he looks like, this Darren?’
Winter nodded. He’d seen Darren Geech on countless occasions, mainly around Somerstown. The boy had always been a problem – thin, pasty-faced, vicious – and watching someone like that grow up offered new insights into the crime statistics.
‘So what’s he up to now, young Darren?’
‘Every fucking thing. You want my opinion, it’s all down to his brother, Billy. Billy is a couple of years older than Darren and he’s been at it for ever. The latest thing is computer games. Billy got a re-writer off of a market geezer and he burns game CDs by the fucking thousand and flogs them round the estates, twenty quid apiece. Only problem is, he ain’t got no inserts for the boxes. Don’t stop Billy, though. He just goes to that games shop down Commercial Road with his mates and lifts them empty boxes off the shelf. Mob-handed, no one stops them. But then you wouldn’t, would you?’
Rooke had a point. Even CCTV didn’t seem to deter the likes of Billy Geech. Face a situation like that across the counter, and the loss of a couple of dozen empty CD boxes would seem a small price to pay for staying intact.
‘You’re telling me Darren learned the trade off his brother?’
‘Doing them corner shops? Definitely. Pull a stroke like that once, the rest comes easy. You’d be amazed what a load of blokes can get away with.’
‘Fifteen-year-olds?’
‘They’re the worst. They just don’t care. They do it for the laugh more than anything else. It’s pathetic really. Totally disorganised.’
Winter smiled, then reached for his glass. Rookie might have been talking about maths or French. The fact that Darren Geech didn’t concentrate hard enough really pissed him off.
‘Fuck all profit, then?’
‘That’s right.’ Rooke frowned. ‘What’s the point in nicking crisps and biscuits? Just makes you fat.’
‘What about booze?’
‘Goes straight down their throats. These kids are off the fucking planet most of the time.’
‘OK.’ Winter leaned forward. ‘So what does all this tell me about Darren Geech?’
For the first time, Rooke ground to a halt. He had the strangest eyes, almost jet black, and Winter – sensing his reluctance to go much further – decided to give him a prod. In these situations, it often paid to bluff your way to the truth.
‘He’s muscling in, isn’t he, young Darren? He wants a slice of that nice pie of yours.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Geech knows what you’re up to. He’s watched you for months, years. He knows who you flog the stuff to, how much it’s worth, and he’s worked out a way of cutting you out. Maybe he’s into special offers. And maybe he knows more people than you.’
‘No chance.’
‘More young people? More fifteen-year-olds? Fourteen-year-olds? Kids still in primary school? You’d have a problem with them, Rookie. No offence, mate, but the paedo register was made for people like you. Just imagine. It’s bad enough having your kids skagging up at night. Think what it would be like if their mums sussed they were renting their arses out as well. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, does it? It’s a hard world, mate. Just the thought’s enough. Plus a word or two from the likes of Darren.’
Winter beamed up at the girl behind the bar. Time for another pint. By the time he got back, Rooke was looking madder than ever.
‘That’s crap,’ he said. ‘I’m no paedo.’
‘I never said you were. I’m just wondering what other people might think.’
‘Well fuck knows why. You’re talking bollocks. Where does all this paedo drivel come from?’
‘Doesn’t matter, my friend. Just let me tell you about Bazza.’
Just the name was enough. Rooke tried to struggle to his feet. Winter laughed, then pulled him back.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Bazza’s a businessman, right? Businessmen look for bigger and bigger markets and just now you’re way off the fucking pace. Especially when young Darren’s whispering in his ear.’
‘Darren’s a kid. Bazza doesn’t deal through kids.’
‘What makes you think that? Bazza would deal through babies if there was money in it.’
‘That’s bollocks, too. You don’t know the bloke.’
‘No?’ Winter extended a hand. ‘Twenty quid says Darren Geech is trying to deal off Bazza. Another twenty says Bazza’s definitely interested. And a tenner on top says you’re trying to stop him. That’s fifty. Shake on it?’
Rooke ignored the proffered hand. He’d come to mark Winter’s card about Darren Geech. That was what they’d agreed and in his view the evening had come to an end. Time to go, pal. Bet or no bet.
‘But you’ve told me fuck all,’ Winter protested.
‘I’ve told you he’s doing them corner shops. And I’ve told you he’s the little cunt that organises it all.’
‘I knew that already. I even know his address. Just like you do.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing, my friend. Except his mother’s been scoring off you for years. Is it cash in hand? Or some other arrangement? I know she’s a dog, Shelley Geech, but better than nothing, eh?’
This time Rooke was serious about leaving. Only Winter’s iron grasp kept him seated. He leaned towards Rooke’s ear, two old friends sharing a mutual confidence.
‘I’m going to turn over young Darren’s place tomorrow,’ Winter murmured. ‘And I need to know where to look. Charlie would be good. Or even smack.’
There was a long silence. Slowly, Winter released his grip. Over in the far corner of the bar, a punch line raised a laugh. Rooke glanced at Winter, then looked quickly away.
‘There’s a wardrobe in his bedroom.’ He swallowed hard. ‘That’s all you’re getting off of me.’
Faraday was exhausted by the time he got home. His precious day off had disappeared under a mountain of paperwork and even now, close to midnight, he wasn’t certain he’d planted a tick in every box. Slowing at the end of the harbourside cul-de-sac that led to the Bargemaster’s House, the Mondeo’s headlights settled on a four-wheel-drive parked outside. Faraday frowned. Did he know anyone who drove a battered Suzuki Vitara?
The lights were still on in the house downstairs, and letting himself in Faraday heard a bark of laughter coming from the living room. He shut the front door. There was a day sack on the table in the hall and a pair of car keys beside it. He looked up to find himself looking at a woman. She was tall and freckled with a mop of curly blonde hair. She was wearing a pink T-shirt with a map of Antigua on the front and a pair of salt-bleached jeans. Barefoot on the carpet, she stepped forward and grinned.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘You must be Joe’s dad.’
For a moment, the name threw Faraday. Joe, he thought. Joe-Junior. My son.
‘That’s right.’ He shook the offered hand. ‘And you are … ?’
‘Eadie. Eadie Sykes.’
The accent was unmistakable, broad Australian, and at last Faraday made the connection. Eadie Sykes was the video producer who had commissioned J-J over the weekend. She was making a documentary film to celebrate the Little Ships, the armada of tiny craft which had gathered to mark the sixty-second anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation, and the photos he’d been summoned to see this morning were to accompany the advance publicity.
Faraday found J-J in the living room. The black and white prints were now spread in a wide semi-circle on the carpet around the sofa, and for a split second Faraday saw Coughlin’s body again, garnished with photos of a different sort.
J-J was hanging off the sofa. There were three empty cans of Kronenbourg on the table beside him. Faraday wanted to ask him about London, about meeting Janna’s friend, but J-J had other ideas.
‘She likes them,’ he signed up at Faraday, then nodded at the prints on the floor.
Eadie caught the raised thumb.
‘They’re great,’ she said at once. ‘Your boy’s done well. Exactly what I was after.’
‘For God’s sake don’t tell him.’
‘How can I?’
‘Good point.’
Faraday stepped into the kitchen. J-J had obviously been cooking because the place reeked of bacon and burned toast. There were two plates in the sink, both smeared with ketchup. Faraday poured himself a large Scotch and returned to the living room.
‘J-J cook for you?’
‘Yep.’
‘You’re insured?’
‘All risks. Two billion bucks.’ The laugh again. ‘Your boy says you’re a cop.’
‘It’s true.’
‘What kind of cop?’
‘A knackered cop.’ Faraday glanced at his watch. ‘Twelve hours straight. Not bad for a day off, eh?’
‘Try showbiz.’ Eadie knelt quickly and retrieved a print from the carpet. ‘Look at this one. Neat, huh?’
Faraday glanced at the photo. J-J had met the fleet way out off the Isle of Wight, the first time he’d ever been in a speedboat, and he must have transferred on to one of the incoming craft. The shot was taken from midships, and showed the skipper at the wheel with the swell of the open sea behind. The skipper’s face was made for a photo like this, his watery eyes narrowed against the morning sun, and Faraday wondered what those same eyes would have seen, six decades earlier. He’d never quite fathomed the national passion for celebrating military defeats.
Eadie was pointing out the bits of the photo she especially loved. She had big-knuckled hands, almost male, and when she looked up at Faraday he noticed how much damage the sun had done to her face. She looked early forties, Faraday guessed. Maybe older.
‘You make lots of films like this?’
‘Not really. This is for TV. Most of the stuff I do is industrial. Companies mainly, training films, product launches, you name it. TV’s sexy but they never have any money. The other stuff sucks but they always pay on time. So I guess you get to have a choice. Groceries or glory.’ She put the photo to one side. ‘This one’s been fun.’
‘It’s finished?’
‘Rough cut. You want to see it? No problem.’
For a moment Faraday thought she was going to produce a cassette and slip it into the video player and his heart sank at the thought of another hour or so trying to stay half awake, but then she mentioned some kind of office she had in the city. Couple of rooms in Hampshire Terrace. Come up any time.
‘Thanks.’
‘I mean it.’
J-J rolled off the sofa and made for the stairs. It took more than three cans to get him into this kind of state.
Faraday turned back to Eadie Sykes.
‘You’ve been here long? I’m not checking, I promise.’
‘Couple of hours. Your son’s done me proud.’
‘And himself, too.’ Faraday looked down at his own drink. ‘How do you get through to him, as a matter of interest?’
‘I point a lot. But then I do that in real life, as well. Film directors have to stay on top, comes with the turf.’ The grin again. ‘Sounds sexy, doesn’t it? But then you’d have the same problem, being a homicide cop.’
‘You think being a cop’s sexy?’
‘I know it is.’
‘How?’
‘By looking.’
For a moment, Faraday thought he’d misunderstood her. Then the amusement on her face told him otherwise.
‘You should learn to take a compliment,’ she said. ‘It’s really easy once you get the hang of it.’
J-J returned shortly afterwards. Faraday could tell from the splashes across his T-shirt that he’d put his head under the tap. Kneeling on the carpet, he began to collect the prints and slide them into an envelope. Eadie touched him on the arm with her foot, a curiously intimate gesture, and when he glanced up she tapped her watch and then put her hands together and cushioned her head against them. Bedtime.
Watching, Faraday offered to act as translator.
‘No need.’ J-J had given her the envelope. ‘Like I said, we make out just fine.’
J-J was on his feet again. Less awkwardly than Faraday expected, he gave her a little kiss and escorted her across the room. At the door to the hall, she paused and looked back at Faraday.
‘See you for the rough cut.’ She grinned at him. ‘Beer’s on me next time.’
Faraday was in the kitchen by the time J-J returned from the front door. Faraday nodded at the debris in the sink and volunteered to wipe. He wanted to know about London, about the Ansel prints, and most of all about the American woman who bridged the years back to Janna and J-J’s birth.
J-J set to with the squeegee and a tiny square of scourer. He was the world’s worst washer-up and trying to sign at the same time didn’t help. The Ansel stuff, he thought, had been fantastic. Huge unpeopled landscapes. Mountains to die for. And an amazing shot of the moon rising over a township somewhere way down south. The way Ansel had framed these photos looked so, so simple but the woman, whose name was Patti, had explained about the sheer weight of equipment Ansel had hauled around, and J-J had come away half ashamed of the dinky little camera he carried today.
‘You could talk to her OK?’
‘There was someone there who signed. She’d set it up. It wasn’t a problem.’
‘And what was she like?’
‘Pretty. And nice, too.’
‘She talk about mum at all?’
‘She had some photos.’
‘Photos?’ Faraday gazed at him. ‘You brought them back?’
‘Yeah. I’ll show you.’
Faraday fought a rising excitement, edged with something darker. He had his own stash of photos, a carefully taped package he hadn’t opened for years. Everything was in there, every last shred of photographic evidence. He and Janna had spent seventeen months together and many of the best moments had found their way on to film. Faraday wrestling with a dinghy on Puget Sound. Janna in her high-school bikini stretched out on the lawn of a borrowed summerhouse. The pair of them snapped by a friend at Christmas, bodies entwined, gloriously drunk. Photos like these had become stepping stones across the most important period of his life, a route he knew he could trust. Now came the prospect of a fresh perspective.
J-J dried his hands and disappeared into the living room. When he came back, he was carrying a Jiffy bag. He emptied the contents on to the kitchen table and Faraday found himself looking at the woman he’d never stopped loving.
Young. She looked so young.
He picked up the nearest of the photos. The colour had faded a little over the years but there was no mistaking the firm set of the jaw line, the mischief in the eyes, the way her mouth curled up when she smiled.
He’d first met her in a bookshop in Seattle, the corner on the upstairs floor where they kept the biographies. She’d been looking for something on Tennyson. He’d babbled on about the Isle of Wight. His mum and dad lived a mile down the road from Tennyson’s house. Winter weekends he’d walk the three miles out across Tennyson Down to the Needles. The name Tennyson had freighted his adolescence, and here he was, years later, desperately trying to turn all those heavy memories into a conversation.
‘You ever read the poetry?’
He’d confessed he hadn’t. Poetry had always been difficult, remote stuff. He’d tried hard at school but it had never happened for him.
