Deadlight (32 page)

SUNDAY
, 9
JUNE
, 2002,
09.00

Next morning, Faraday felt infinitely better. Even Bev Yates noticed it. His own Saturday night had been a disaster. He’d got home late to find a crusty lasagne in the oven and Melanie asleep on the sofa in the sitting room. Turning on the TV and settling in for a review of the day’s play in Japan and South Korea had been the last straw. Mel had left him to the highlights of Brazil versus China and gone to bed without a word.

Faraday was already at his desk at Kingston Crescent. Yates appeared at the open office door.

‘We’re sure it was Pritchard?’ Yates stifled a yawn.

‘Definitely.’ Faraday had been talking to the DC he’d seconded to the SOC operation in Buriton Tunnel. ‘His sister ID’d the shirt. They’ll be digging out the dental records first thing tomorrow but that’s just to be on the safe side.’

‘She hasn’t had a look at the body?’

‘There isn’t one. And anyway, we’re not going there again.’

Yates nodded. He’d had his own qualms about marching Pritchard along to the mortuary but had told himself it wasn’t his decision. Now, he wanted to know how they were going to sort out the three guys in the hotel without the benefit of their only witness.

‘Get hold of the association secretary,’ Faraday said briskly. ‘We’ll start with him.’

Yates gone, Faraday phoned Willard. A message on his mobile had established that the Det Supt was spending the morning at home and Faraday wondered whether –
like Yates – he was trying to keep some kind of private life together. Willard had a long-term partner in the shape of a psychologist called Sheila. She lived and worked in Bristol and often drove down at weekends.

Willard was gruffer than usual on the phone.

‘OK to talk, sir?’

‘Go on.’

Faraday told him about Pritchard. Willard, as usual, had his own take on this latest development.

‘So why did he do it?’

Faraday said he didn’t know. In the absence of a note, anything else was pure conjecture.

‘Might guilt come into it?’

‘Guilt, how?’

‘Guilt for killing his mate?’

‘You mean Coughlin? You’re serious?’

‘It’s a suggestion, Joe, something you might have to consider. In my view, the guy was by no means eliminated and chucking himself under a train tells me he had something on his conscience.’ He paused to answer a question. Faraday could hear a woman’s voice. Then Willard was back.

‘What’s the status on Coughlin’s flat?’

‘Jerry finished yesterday. He’s got a pile of stuff he’s thinking of submitting for SGM-plus and he did every room with the bacofoil.’

‘Any hits?’

‘Nothing.’

Willard grunted. SGM-plus was the standard DNA test while bacofoil was the Major Crimes code for a forensic technique that laid thin sheets on carpets and flooring. An electrical charge would reveal footprints and other impressions with remarkable clarity.

‘Nothing at
all
?’

‘Nothing to connect the scene to Pritchard. He had soil all over his runners, remember. Had he been in the flat, Scenes of Crime would have picked it up at once.’

‘Maybe he took the runners off.’

‘He was pissed, sir. He was out of his head. Even sober, he wasn’t the kind of guy to wipe his feet.’

‘OK, OK. It’s a thought, that’s all. Cases like these, it doesn’t pay to dismiss the obvious.’

‘Quite.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing, sir. Coughlin was up to date with his mortgage payments and no one else has got a claim on the flat so Jerry’s decided not to release the scene. He’s changed the locks and put alarms in. We can go back any time we like.’

Willard wanted to know where Faraday was headed next. Mention of the association secretary and the Home Club video sparked another query.

‘That’s resource-intensive,’ Willard said. ‘We’re doing a major push in Somerstown today. There might even be some dads around. Where are you getting the bodies?’

Faraday explained that he and Yates would be doing the bulk of the leg work. Priority was a list of guests for last Monday night and a proper sort through the CCTV. With luck, by lunchtime, they might have some names in the frame. He hesitated a moment, expecting another wrangle, but the conversation was evidently over.

‘Good luck.’ Willard had obviously been summoned. ‘And keep me briefed.’

Half an hour later, in Somerstown, a blue Sierra estate coasted to a halt in Fraser Road. Two men got out and opened the tailgate at the back. They pulled out a shape wrapped in a blanket, lowered it roughly to the pavement, and drove away. Minutes later, a paperboy gave it a cautious poke with his foot. The blanket moved.

The HMS
Accolade
association was run by an ex-radio operator called Stanley Wallace. He lived in Drayton, a suburb off the island, and saw no objection to a Sunday
morning meet. He had an office five minutes’ walk from his house. That’s where he kept the association records and he gave Yates the address.

‘Over there.’ Yates had driven Faraday up from Kingston Crescent. ‘Above the fruit and veg.’

They were parked on the main road, across from a parade of shops. The fruit and veg evidently opened on Sunday mornings, admitting a steady trickle of elderly shoppers. Yates and Faraday crossed the road and enquired in the shop for Stanley Wallace. A door at the back led into a storeroom. Turn left by the sacks of potatoes, negotiate boxes of lettuce and cucumber, and a flight of dusty stairs led up to the first floor.

Wallace was waiting in a tiny kitchen, a small, neat man with a wisp of greying moustache. Faraday judged him to be in his fifties. Three mugs were lined up beside a steaming kettle.

‘Tea? Coffee?’

Yates and Faraday settled for coffee. Wallace took them through to a bigger office next door. After the navy he’d re-trained as an accountant and now ran a modest business servicing mainly local clients.

While he disappeared to fetch the coffees, Faraday inspected a framed photograph hanging on the back wall. This time, HMS
Accolade
was side-on to the camera, pictured against the immensity of the ocean. It was a beautiful shot – her bows carving through a huge green wave, the sunshine gleaming on the wetness of her flanks as she began to roll – and there was something in the image that reminded him of J-J’s work. The photographer had managed to capture a special kind of essence. The image spoke of energy and speed, of direction and purpose. No wonder Wallace had hung it on his wall.

‘Bloke shot that from one of the auxiliaries. We’d just taken fuel off him.’

Faraday glanced round. Wallace was shutting the office door with his foot.

‘Was that ’eighty-two?’

‘Yes. Ten days later that ship was history.’

Faraday looked at the photo again. This man has been living with a ghost, he thought.

They settled into office chairs. Faraday began to explain the background to this visit of theirs but Wallace was way ahead of him. On the phone Yates had merely mentioned a major inquiry.

‘This has to be Coughlin, doesn’t it?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I had a couple of the blokes on during the week, local guys. They read about him in the paper.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing. He wasn’t someone we ever thought about a great deal. He never turned up at any of the functions. In fact it was news to us he even lived here.’

Yates had been examining the line of accountancy certificates on another wall. Now he turned to Wallace.

‘Coughlin wasn’t there on Monday night?’

‘Good Lord, no.’

‘But you still remembered his name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why’s that?’

Wallace was sitting at his desk. A fabric roller blind softened the morning sunshine through the window.

‘All ships are special,’ he said at last. ‘Lose one, and they become precious. So do the blokes you’ve served with. Names? Faces? You don’t forget them.’ He offered a wan smile. ‘Ever.’

‘Is that why you organise the association?’

‘Yes. But then someone has to.’ He paused, toying with his coffee. ‘You want to know about Coughlin? He was in my mess …’

His voice trailed off and Faraday realised how awkward this conversation had suddenly become. Wallace was guardian of
Accolade
’s last voyage, keeper of the
ship’s secrets, and the last thing he wanted to do was tarnish those cherished memories.

‘Which mess was that?’ Faraday enquired.

‘The S and S mess. Two Delta. Port side, forward.’

‘And you say Coughlin was in there?’

‘There were thirty-six of us.’ He nodded. ‘Writers. Radio ops like me. Stores assistants. Chefs. Stewards. The Canteen Manager. Odds and sods really.’

‘And Coughlin?’

‘Was a killick chef, three-badge man.’

Yates was lost. Faraday, too. Wallace obliged with a translation. A Killick, he said, was a Leading Hand, often one of the older ratings, and Coughlin had earned himself three good-conduct badges.

Faraday raised an eyebrow.

‘Behaved himself, then?’

‘Hardly. Twelve years of undetected crime. That’s not just Coughlin, that’s more or less everyone, but Coughlin was …’ Again, he failed to finish the sentence.

‘Unpopular?’

‘Certainly. A loner, too. And liable to go off without warning. You didn’t wind a bloke like that up. Not if you didn’t want to risk the consequences.’

‘You’re telling me he was violent? Physical?’

‘Could be. I never saw it myself but you hear things.’

‘Like what?’

Wallace was getting agitated now. This, Faraday sensed, was close to betrayal.

‘Runs ashore,’ he said at last. ‘Twenty-ones were very close. We belonged to the Fighting Fourth, the Fourth Frigate Squadron, and we’d be alongside in Amsterdam or Hamburg or some place like that. There was even a club, the 21 Club. We had T-shirts printed, ties too. Runs ashore could get hectic, believe me.’

‘And Coughlin?’

‘Coughlin was out ahead of us. Put drink in him and
he’d push it to the limit. His speciality was the young skins.’

Faraday and Yates exchanged glances. Skins?

‘Kids. The babies of the mess. Coughlin saw to it they had a good time. Insisted, actually.’ He studied his fingernails for a moment, and Faraday began to suspect that he’d been waiting for a conversation like this for years. Coughlin had been a stain on
Accolade
’s memory and now was the time to get rid of it.

‘I remember the last run ashore in Amsterdam. We all ended up in this crap bar, most of the S and S mess. Coughlin had been drinking all night but he could handle it, big guy, had the weight on him. They got up to all kinds of stuff in this bar and a couple of the girls had a stunt they used to pull. They had stools at the bar. You sat on a stool looking out from the bar, then leaned your head back so it rested on the top. You put a note in your mouth, ten guilders, twenty, whatever, and then one of these girls squatted over you, stark naked, and took the note – you know – with her fanny. They were Indonesian. Real lookers, some of them.’

‘And Coughlin?’ Faraday said again.

‘He’d got hold of one of the youngest lads, real nipper. He lifted him on to the stool and then put a fifty-guilder note in his mouth. For fifty guilders you got a bag-off afterwards.’

‘A bag what?’

‘A shag. Jackspeak.’

‘So what happened?’

‘The girl did the business, got the note, then came round the bar for the nipper. There was a place out the back, little cubicle, it never took long. We were all of us cheering, of course, giving it some, but then Coughlin stepped in. He wouldn’t let the nipper go out with the girl. I can see it now. He just stood there, blocking the way.’

‘Why?’ Yates was entranced.

‘Because it was his money. And because it was his money he said he had a right to decide how the thing should go. He wanted the girl to do it there, on the floor, with all us lot watching.’

‘She agreed?’

‘Not at first. He had to give her another fifty.’

‘And then?’

‘Then she got down to it. Stripped the nipper. Laid him on the floor. It was awful, just dreadful, poor kid.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he wasn’t up for it. Not his fault, Christ. All those blokes ogling you? Bellyful of lager? And this bint doing her best to stir you up? Coughlin loved it. You could see it on his face. He’d humiliated this poor lad and he just couldn’t get enough of it. All the guys thought it was a hoot, of course. They were all telling the nipper to jack it in and let them have a go. Coughlin ended up raffling her. Got half his money back.’

‘Didn’t have her himself, then?’ It was Yates.

‘No way. He’d shag anything, mind, but not that night. That night he was just after making this kid’s life a misery. It was horrible.’

There was a long silence. Faraday’s gaze had wandered back to the photograph on the wall.

‘That wouldn’t have been Matthew Warren, by any chance?’ he said at last.

Wallace looked startled.

‘You know about Warren?’

‘I know he went over the side, yes.’

‘I see.’ He looked away a moment, then nodded. ‘You’re right. It was Warren.’

Willard, outraged, sent two DCs to the Queen Alexandra Hospital. One of them was Andy Corbett. He led the way through the big sliding door into Accident and Emergency and flashed his warrant card at the woman behind the reception desk. He wanted a word with someone
about a Darren Geech. She scribbled a note and told him to take a seat. Corbett headed for the drinks machine.

Ten minutes later, he and the other DC were summoned to a desk in the Major Injuries reception area. The duty registrar, a middle-aged Kenyan, told them that Geech had been admitted with suspected fractures to both legs and severe bruising to his face and lower body. He was currently in X-Ray and would be kept on a ward for at least a couple of days for a thorough assessment. He was fully conscious, but for the time being there was absolutely no prospect of any kind of interview. Corbett did his best to push it, talking pointedly about a homicide inquiry, but the registrar was already shepherding them back towards the waiting room. The unit was very busy just now. He was glad he’d been able to help.