Borrowed Light (3 page)

Faraday got himself to the Southsea Hovercraft Terminal in time to catch the 08.00 crossing to Ryde. He sat beside the window,
readying himself for the brief trip, his hands tightly knitted in his lap, vaguely surprised to find the world around him
so little changed. Here he was, listening to the pre-recorded safety announcement, his thumping head still full of families
squatting among the wreckage of undone lives, the sky still plaited with shellbursts of white phosphorus. On the websites
he’d consulted they sometimes called it Willy Pete. When surgeons cut deep into flesh to extract a fragment, it burst into
flame again on contact with the air. Faraday shut his eyes. His lifejacket was under his seat. He ought to remember that.

Arriving at Ryde minutes later, he took a taxi to Newport, the island’s biggest town. On the phone Jimmy Suttle had asked
him to go straight to St Mary’s Hospital, where the Home Office pathologist was due to start a series of post-mortems at half
past nine. Suttle, obviously pressed for time, had been sparing with the details but made it clear that pre-autopsy X-rays
would have a critical bearing on the course of the inquiry. Four bodies had been recovered from a major fire. There were already
strong indications that they may have been killed beforehand. The presence of bullets or gunshot or other pre-existing wounds
would be enough to trigger a Major Crime investigation.

Faraday sat in the back of the taxi, trapped in a long queue of traffic, gazing out at a bunch of schoolkids sheltering from
the rain. Most of them were crouched over their mobiles, a blur of tiny fingers texting their mates. Four bodies, he told
himself. House fire. Gunshot wounds. Must get the details right. Must retain them. Must – somehow – surface from this darkness
that seemed to have engulfed him.

The mortuary was towards the back of St Mary’s Hospital, beside one of the staff car parks. Faraday stood in the rain, waiting
for a voice on the entryphone to buzz him in. He hadn’t been to the island
for a while and wondered whether there’d be anyone here that he’d know. In a way he hoped not. Just now there was safety
in the company of strangers. They’d have nothing to measure him by, no reason to look twice at the vagueness in his eyes.

The door unlocked and he stepped inside. The first face he recognised belonged to the pathologist. He’d last seen Simon Pembury
five years ago, here in this very same mortuary. He’d already changed into green scrubs and his handshake was wet and slightly
soapy.

‘Long time.’ He grinned, gesturing at the rain still dripping from Faraday’s tangle of grey curls. ‘Same bloody weather, though.’

‘Great, isn’t it?’ Faraday was trying to remember Pembury’s daughter’s name. He’d seen a photo once. Pretty girl. Durham University.
‘How’s the family?’

‘Thriving, thank God. Susie’s up in town now, registrar at Guy’s, and the wife’s badgering me to retire.’ He grinned. ‘You?’

Faraday was aware of giving the question more thought than it deserved. In the background, deep in conversation with the Scenes
of Crime image specialist, was another face he knew.

‘J-J’s fine,’ he managed at last. ‘I think.’

Pembury stepped aside to find a pair of wellington boots that fit properly. Faraday, with a small jolt of pleasure, realised
that he could put a name to the face across the anteroom.

‘Darren …’ he said. ‘Darren Webster.’

Webster extended a hand. Five years ago, on the same job that had brought Pembury to the island, he’d been an eager young
D/C keen to move to the mainland and test himself on Major Crime. Now there was a wariness in his nod of welcome, a definite
sense that he had territory to defend.

‘Boss.’

‘Still hang-gliding?’

‘Afraid not.’ He managed a wry grin. ‘Still chasing all those birds?’

The image specialist thought it was funny. Faraday too.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Why would I ever stop?’

Faraday sorted himself a coffee, then headed for the loo at the back of the changing room. He’d often wondered what it might
be like to be an alcoholic, having to cope with the real world in your face every morning, and now he was beginning to understand.
Not because he was desperate for a drink – he wasn’t – but because the sheer business of coping was suddenly so bloody difficult.
House fire, he told himself again. Four bodies. X-rays. And maybe pellets of gunshot.

The X-rays were the first item on Pembury’s agenda. A radiographer arrived with a portable machine and Faraday watched while
each of the corpses was wheeled in from the fridge room. For some
reason he hadn’t anticipated the contents of the body bags. One of the mortuary technicians was double-checking the ID tag
on the first bag against the file held by the Crime Scene Investigator. The CSI made a note of the time and stepped aside
while the bag was unzipped and its contents transferred to the slab.

Faraday had seen what fires could do before, on dozens of occasions, and this blackened grotesque should have come as no surprise.
Intense heat contracts the bigger muscles in the arms and legs, and the faceless figure in front of him seemed to have readied
itself for a fight. The arms were raised, the fists clenched, the legs bent at the knees. There was something deeply primitive
about the pose, Faraday thought, something that spoke of helplessness and anger as well as pain.

The radiographer retired while the machine took the first set of X-rays. Three more bodies followed. One, recognisably a woman,
was more intact than the rest. When Faraday asked about what – exactly – they were dealing with, the CSI pulled a face. The
farmhouse had been thatched, he said. The roof had collapsed inwards, leaving a bonfire contained by the outer cob walls,
which even now, a day and a half later, were still warm to the touch.

Faraday could smell the smoke on the first of the bodies to be examined. He watched Pembury carefully dissecting down through
folds of cooked muscle, aware of an acrid aftertaste that seemed to reach deep inside his throat. The X-rays were available
by now. All four indicated gunshot wounds and Faraday felt his spirits lift when Pembury’s scalpel confirmed the presence
of tiny pellets of lead. So far, the inquiry would have been handled locally. Now, under the iron grip of DCI Gail Parsons,
everything would be folded into Major Crime. Not an accidental house fire at all, but multiple homicide probably followed
by an act of arson.

The first of the pellets had appeared, a tiny sphere of lead, lightly coated in body fluids, glistening under the mortuary
lights in the jaws of Pembury’s tweezers. The image specialist stepped forward. First the stills camera. Then video. Faraday
was looking at the head on the slab, at the smudge of blackened features, at the thin crust of liquid that had bubbled out
of the skull under the intense heat. So far, to his relief, the sheer predictability of the post-mortem – the script that
pathologist after pathologist was obliged to follow – had stilled the voices in his head. But then he caught the smell again,
smoke laced with something sweeter, and his stomach churned as he remembered his first glimpse of the pathetic bundle of bandages
that was Leila. This blackened gargoyle could have been her on the slab, he told himself. Easily.

The pathologist had found another pellet. The CSI stepped forward
with an evidence bag and held it open. Faraday watched this tiny piece of theatre, his own hands knotting again, the squeeze
and knead of thumbs against fingers, and knew he had to leave the room. He couldn’t take this stuff any more. Not this.

He’d seen the shower earlier. It was in the changing room. He stood under the scalding water, as hot as he could bear it,
his face tilted up, his eyes closed. The roar of heavy jets taking off from the airfield near the hospital. The morning one
of the cleaners left a carefully folded newspaper on the table beside his bed. The paper was in Arabic. He hadn’t a clue about
the headline but it was the photo that had drawn the cleaner’s attention and it was that same photo that came back to him
now. After ten days of laying waste to Gaza, local newspaper editors no longer saw any merit in restraint. The child’s body
had no head. Dogs tore at the open throat.

Then, from miles away, came another noise that Faraday took a second or two to recognise. Opening his eyes, he found himself
face to face with D/C Darren Webster. He’d pulled back the plastic curtain on the shower. He’d seen Faraday leave the post-mortem
and wanted to know that he was OK.

‘I’m fine.’ Faraday wiped his face, thankful that the water masked his tears. ‘Just fine.’

Winter happened to be at Mackenzie’s house that morning. Between them, he and Stu Norcliffe had convinced Bazza that they
must make a start on stemming the haemorrhage of funds that was edging Mackenzie’s business empire towards the blackest of
holes.

On the basis of the last quarter’s figures, backed up by a one-year overview, Stu had drawn up a list of enterprises that
would survive the coming recession. These included Speedy Cabs, a brace of fast-food outlets much patronised by students,
a martial arts gym, an upmarket seafood restaurant with a loyal clientele, a Fratton corner shop specialising in exotic reptiles,
a jobs agency serving the call-centre sector, a security consultancy offering cut-price twenty-four-hour protection and the
Royal Trafalgar. These businesses, said Stu, would thrive in hard times, and he was therefore proposing to float them off,
ring-fenced from the dodgier areas of Mackenzie’s empire. These, to Mackenzie’s acute distress, included pretty much the rest
of what he’d so carefully jigsawed together.

Bazza was sitting at the kitchen table in the big house in Sandown Road, pretending not to listen to Stu’s thoughts about
a retirement development on the Costa Esmeralda. In Stu’s view, Playa Esmeralda
was sucking the life out of the rest of the Spanish portfolio.

‘So we bin it? Yeah?’ Mackenzie was watching the big wall-mounted plasma screen. Fern Britton doing her best with a pink Pilates
ball.

‘Definitely. And
muy
pronto
.’

‘But half the fucking world are over sixty. They’ve got to live somewhere.’

‘Yeah, but not in Spain any more. We’ve been through it, Baz. The poor sods down there are stuffed. Number one, they won’t
be getting interest on their savings any more. Number two, what’s left is worth zilch.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of sterling. Because of the euro. The rest of the world has found us out, Baz. Have you tried buying a beer in Europe
recently? The pound’s fucked.’

‘That’s now, Stu. You’re not telling me this is for ever. I say we wait, hold our nerve. Never did us any harm in the old
days.’

Norcliffe shook his head. Talking to Bazza in this mood was a waste of time. He pushed his stool back from the breakfast bar
and got to his feet.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home.’

‘Why?’

Norcliffe was stooping for his briefcase, Bazza’s question ignored, when Winter heard the front door open. Seconds later,
Marie stepped into the kitchen. The pinkness in her face and the brightness in her eyes told Winter she’d been swimming again.

‘How many lengths?’ he enquired.

‘Fifty, since you’re asking.’

‘How far’s that?’

‘I haven’t a clue.’

Winter watched her shake her towel out before bundling it into the washing machine. Since the troubles last year her life
had been transformed. Eight months ago, after the trauma of little Guy’s kidnap, she’d been resigned to her daughter and Stu
and the kids all moving out to Spain. Instead they’d bought a huge old house in the next road and she saw her grandchildren
pretty much every day. Life, she’d recently told Winter, couldn’t be sweeter.

The retirement development on the Costa Esmeralda had always been Marie’s baby. Bazza told her what her son-in-law had in
mind.

Marie was at the sink now, rinsing out her Speedo.

‘Shame,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure Stuart knows best.’

‘And that’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?’ Bazza shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re off the planet, you lot. I work
day and night putting all this together. I make it cushty for you – I make it legit,
respectable – and now we just piss it all away? How does that work? Anyone care to tell me?’

No one offered him the satisfaction of an argument. Norcliffe left the room without a word while Marie asked whether Winter
wanted a bite of lunch. After a solid hour in the water she was famished.

Winter said yes to prawn salad and fresh bread. He’d accompanied her and the kids to the pool on a number of occasions and
had watched the impact she made on even the younger guys. A woman in her mid-forties, still blonde, still slender, she could
still turn heads without a whisper of self-regard. In this respect, as in many others, Bazza didn’t know how lucky he was.

Bazza didn’t care a hoot about lunch. He had something else on his mind. ‘You talk to Stu about this new job of his?’ He was
speaking to Winter.

‘No.’

‘Some new boutique bank? Whatever the fuck that might be?’

‘No.’

‘He says he’s giving it serious thought. It’d be Mayfair. Again.’

‘Is that right?’ Winter glanced at Marie. She’d hate having Stu back in London. She’d worry about Ezzie and the kids.

Marie appeared not to be listening. She’d got hold of the TV remote and had changed channels for the lunchtime news. After
the weather forecast came the local round-up.

‘That’s Johnny’s place …’ she said quietly. ‘I swear it is.’

Winter turned towards the screen. The remains of some kind of farmhouse were smouldering under a thin drizzle. It had no roof
and the entire property was surrounded by police no entry tape. Through an open window, framed by the blackened wood, two
Scenes of Crime guys were on their hands and knees, sifting through a pile of debris. The item cut to a different shot. A
small army of officers was advancing inch by inch down a long meadow towards the hedge at the bottom. In the distance, behind
the commentary, Winter could hear a dog barking.