Blood And Honey (47 page)

‘Have you talked to young Tracy recently?’

Faraday shook his head. The last time he’d had a proper conversation with Barber was over the weekend.

‘She went up to town,’ Imber said. ‘She’s got a girlfriend up there. Paula Adamson. Paula’s well placed at Six, high-flyer, got herself involved in
Jetstream
.’

Jetstream
, Imber explained, was the MI6 codename for intelligence operations mounted against our European allies. Some of their more ambitious initiatives extended deep into the Balkans.

‘Paula and Barber have been a item for nearly a year. I gather the relationship extends to the odd professional favour.’ Imber smiled. ‘Barber wanted a steer on Pelly. Turns out he’s cat three, starred.’

Faraday had only the vaguest notions about MI6 protocols. Category 3, it seemed, was a restricted access file. The accompanying star meant that there
was no way Paula Adamson would impart its contents, not even to her very best friend.

‘That means Six have taken a very great interest in Pelly. Quite why, I don’t know.’

‘Have taken?’

‘Are taking. The file is still live. Barber at least got that far.’ Imber got to his feet and checked his watch. ‘It’s just a thought, Joe, that’s all. Bosnia might not be too far off the mark, eh?’

Winter found the dealership without difficulty. The last of the tablets, coupled with a large Scotch from a pub on Wimbledon Hill Road, had settled his stomach. The headaches he could cope with, just, but only he knew how close he’d come to throwing up over Mrs Wishart’s nice new carpet. As it was, he’d been forced to beat a retreat, leaving an apprehensive figure framed in the downstairs window watching him make it back to the car. Only an empty Sainsbury’s bag, hastily retrieved from the boot, had spared him serious embarrassment.

Now, he slipped the Subaru into a space in Customer Parking. The low glass sweep of the showroom was a showcase for a range of Mitsubishis. In the middle of the display was a brand new Shogun. For £32,499 Winter could join the rest of the Wimbledon housewives who needed four-wheel drive and desert-proof air conditioning to make it down to the shops.

Winter found a waste bin for the knotted Sainsbury’s bag, then pushed into the showroom and began to prowl amongst the gleaming saloons. Within seconds a young sales executive was at his elbow.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ He smelled of aftershave.

Winter produced his warrant card. He was trying to trace a Mitsubishi Shogun taken by the dealership in
part exchange for a new model. He had the registration number and the date of the transaction. Could the young man oblige with a couple of other details?

‘Like what, sir?’

‘Fetch the file and I’ll tell you.’

The executive hesitated a moment, then disappeared into a back office. He returned minutes later.

‘If you’re after customer details, sir, there might be a problem. Under the Data Protection Act we—’

Winter cut him short. He’d already acquired current keeper details from Jimmy Suttle. PNC was giving a name in Kingston upon Thames.

‘Jami Singh? Thirty-four Findon Way?’ Winter was reading from his pocketbook.

The executive was deep in the file. A single glance told Winter the information was spot on. The executive looked up.

‘What are you after then?’

‘Number one, I need to know the state of the vehicle when you took it on. Number two, you can tell me what you normally do before you offer it for resale.’

‘Like?’

‘Like a bit of a scrub up.’

‘Oh.’ He looked relieved. ‘I see.’

He went back to the file, flipped through it, then paused, his finger on a scribbled note at the top of the last page. He looked up. He seemed surprised.

‘We normally give PX vehicles a proper going-over but on this one there was no need. The customer had given it the works already. Steam clean. Full valet. The lot.’ He showed Winter the note on the file. ‘The vehicle was pristine, saved us half a day in the car wash.’ He glanced up. ‘You’ve no idea how rare that is.’

The taxi firm operated from the lower half of premises two streets back from Shanklin’s North Road. Darren Webster knew it well. On the wilder Saturday nights, he told Tracy Barber, he and his mates would abandon their cars and share a cab back to Newport. The firm offered police discount for off-duty coppers. Sweet deal.

Barber found a parking space across the road. Darren Webster pushed in through the boarded-up front door. A seating area at the front was empty except for an elderly woman with bleached hair and an enormous pile of shopping. Two controllers at desks behind the counter were working the taxi fleet. Barber looked round. According to Webster, this place had once been a greengrocer’s, and she could still detect the faintest of smells. Onions, she thought. Or maybe leeks.

‘Darren.’ One of the controllers was young, no more than twenty. She abandoned her headphones and leaned over the counter to give him a hug. ‘Where were you? Friday night?’

‘Busy.’ Webster shot a look at Barber. ‘Murder job.’

‘Really?’

She wanted the details but Webster shook his head. He was after a grey Peugeot, diesel engine. HN registration.

‘That’d be Scottie.’

‘Ran a fare up to Boniface? The nursing home? Round eleven this morning?’

‘That’s him.’ The girl was consulting a log. ‘Fare rang in from the station at ten forty-eight. Couldn’t find a cab for love nor money. Scott took her back to the station afterwards.’

‘You’ve got a name.’

‘Yeah.’ The girl ran her finger across the log. ‘Unwin.’

Darren threw a look at Tracy Barber. Scottie, it turned out, was having a late lunch. The girl suggested they try Munchies Café on the seafront. Scott had a thing going with the woman who ran it and ate there most days.

It was a five-minute walk to Munchies. Barber counted the number of times Darren Webster met people he evidently knew. By the time they were in sight of the café, she’d concluded he was on nodding terms with half the island.

‘Are you enjoying this?
Congress
, I mean?’

‘Yeah, I am. It’s not what I expected but –’ he gave a passing motorcyclist a wave ‘– yeah.’

‘What did you expect?’

‘I thought there’d be more scope, you know, for doing stuff. On division you’re on your jack. The boss hands out a list of jobs and off you go. This is different. Four, five actions a day? And no real idea how any of it fits together?’

‘Maybe it doesn’t.’ Barber laughed.

‘Yeah.’ Webster had spotted Scottie in the window of the cafe. ‘That had occurred to me, too.’

Scottie was a big man in his late twenties. An old rugby shirt stretched tight across his belly and he badly needed a shave. In a couple of years, thought Barber, he’ll look twice his age.

Webster slipped into the chair across the table. Barber joined him. Scottie was chasing a curl of bacon rind with his knife. Webster did the introductions. Evidently he knew Scottie well.

‘Copper too, are you?’ Scottie eyed Barber. He had a lilting Welsh accent.

‘’Fraid so.’

‘Fantastic overtime, the boyo here says.’ He stabbed a fork in Webster’s direction. ‘Wouldn’t mind a drop of that myself.’

Webster wanted to know about the fare Scottie had picked up from the station.

‘Professional interest, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why’s that?’

Webster wouldn’t say. Scottie folded a slice of bread and began to mop up the last of the egg yolk. A woman even bigger than himself was watching them all from the other side of the counter.

‘Fare was a nice enough lady,’ Scottie said at last. ‘Just come down from London. Her mum died, see, and she had to pick up some bits and pieces. Amazing how often that happens. Relatives over for the leavings.’

‘Was anyone with her?’

‘Yeah, younger lad.’

‘Get a name at all?’

‘No. He didn’t say much.’

‘What about when you were waiting outside the home? Didn’t Pelly come out? Have a chat?’

‘Yeah, you’re right, he did.’ Scottie had abandoned the bread. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Just tell us what they said.’

‘Can’t remember, tell you the truth. I had the radio on by then. Just gossip, it was.’

‘They knew each other?’

‘I’d say so. Friendly enough, yeah.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘I drove them both back to the station. They weren’t going home, mind, not to the mainland. They’d booked a room somewhere in Ryde, the pair of them. I
got the impression the old girl wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow.’

‘Old girl?’

‘The deceased. She’s at some undertaker’s in Newport, getting the treatment. They wanted to pay their respects, like, while they’ve still got the chance. Nice to hear that, these days—’ he signalled the woman behind the counter for coffee ‘– eh?’

By the time Winter made it back to Bedhampton, he was on the point of collapse. Cheered by the sight of a light in the bungalow, he parked the Subaru and sat behind the wheel for a moment, mustering the strength to make it to the front door. For a moment or two he toyed with giving Maddox a ring on her mobile but decided that there had to be limits to this new dependence of his. He wasn’t quite that helpless. Not yet.

She was sitting in the kitchen, rolling a joint.

‘These are for you.’ She nodded at the pile of doobies beside the kettle. ‘Strictly medicinal. I thought they might help.’

She looked up at him. The light was dim in the kitchen, one of Joannie’s forty-watt bulbs, and it was only when he swayed towards her, reaching for support, that she realised the state he was in. Seconds later she was making him comfortable on the sofa next door.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I thought you went to the doctor?’

Winter shook his head. He’d been to London. Asked around.

‘Asked who? Asked what?’

Slowly, Winter let the story spill out. He’d been following the wrong leads. He’d assumed a professional hit, a contract, a buffer between Wishart and
the Nigerian charmer who’d somehow pissed him off, but all the time he’d been wrong. Wishart hadn’t put a contract out at all. No, he’d done the fucking job himself.

‘You can prove that?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I haven’t got the evidence. I’ve got some old slapper up in Port Solent who was shagging the black guy. I’ve got her word that chummy was getting spooked by someone in a black four by four. And I’ve got Wishart binning his wife’s Shogun within days. Was it black? Yes. Did he hose every last particle of DNA off it? Stands to fucking reason. But a file like that wouldn’t even make it to the CPS. Let alone court.’

Maddox wanted to know about the CPS. Winter told her. Crown Prosecution Service. First of umpteen fences a successful operation had to hurdle.
Plover
, he concluded wearily, hadn’t got a prayer.

‘
Plover
?’

‘Us. This. You. Wishart. Me.’

He lay back and closed his eyes. He seemed to have gone beyond the headaches, beyond the strange hallucinatory bubbles that curtained his vision, beyond any expectation that he might – one day – restore some kind of order to his life. All that was left, he told himself, was this small moment in time: Joannie’s worn cushions beneath his bum and Maddox cross-legged beside him on the carpet, her face inches from his.

‘They phoned,’ she whispered at last.

‘Who?’

‘The consultant.’ She frowned. ‘Frazer?’

Winter nodded. His hand found hers. He didn’t want to know any more.

With the
Congress
team depleted, the office in the Ryde MIR that served as a base for the inquiry’s DCs was virtually empty. Darren Webster found himself a desk in the corner, hunted out a copy of
Yellow Pages
, and went to work.

His first call found the senior technician at the mortuary still in his office. Webster, who’d attended a number of post-mortems at St Mary’s, wanted to know about a Mrs Mary Unwin. Her body had been shipped across from a nursing home in Shanklin a couple of days ago. The Home Office pathologist had completed his investigation within twenty-four hours. Where was she now?

‘Gone.’ The technician named an undertaker’s in Newport. ‘They collected her this afternoon.’

‘Got the number there?’

‘No problem.’

The undertaker’s, too, were still at work. Young Mary was being prepared to receive visitors. The appointments book indicated a viewing in the Chapel of Rest at noon tomorrow. Name of Unwin.

‘How many people?’

‘One, as far I can gather. The daughter, we think. She wants to discuss arrangements for the funeral.’

Webster scribbled himself a note and turned to
Yellow Pages
. From ‘Guest Houses, Hotels and Inns’ he began to extract every accommodation address in Ryde, listing the names and numbers on a pad at his elbow. By the time he’d finished, he had twenty-eight. Call by call, he worked slowly down the list – always the same introduction, always the same question.

The seventeenth call went to a guest house a stone’s throw from the police station.

‘Ryde Haven Hotel. How can I help?’

‘My name’s Detective Constable Webster. I’m trying to trace a guest. Do you have a Mrs Unwin registered?’

‘Hang on, I’ll find out.’

Webster doodled on the bottom corner of the pad, waiting for a reply. The doodle, a series of cartoony hang-gliders, was beginning to spiral up towards his scribbled notes.

The receptionist was back. ‘Mrs E. Unwin?’

‘That’s her. Is there anyone else sharing the room?’

‘Not sharing, no. He’s got a room of his own.’

‘He? Do you have a name?’

‘Hang on.’

Another wait. This time Webster left the doodle alone. Finally she picked up the phone again.

‘Looks like Chris to me,’ she said. ‘Though the writing’s terrible.’

‘Chris who?’

‘Chris Unwin.’

Webster thanked the receptionist and asked her to keep the call confidential. Then he put the phone down, sitting motionless, staring at the wall. Minutes later Tracy Barber put her head round the door.

‘Boss wants to see you,’ she said. ‘Sharpish.’

Webster got up and hooked his jacket off the back of the chair.