No Lovelier Death (19 page)

He returned to the table with the drinks. Lizzie checked her watch.

‘I’ve got half an hour,’ she said. ‘It’s yoga tonight.’

Suttle took the hint. He hadn’t thought this thing through and realised he didn’t know where to start. Willard wants to get his own take on the party across, Faraday had told him. He thinks Saturday night is the tip of the iceberg. We’re all on the
Titanic
and we’re all doomed. Find out whether she’s interested. Then let’s see how we can help.

‘It’s Sandown Road …’ Suttle began.

‘Surprise me.’

‘The bosses think the real story deserves an airing.’

‘Bosses?’

‘Willard.’

‘I bet.’ She nodded. She knew Willard.

Suttle shot her a look. She wasn’t making this any easier.

‘Are you bloody interested or what?’

‘Of course I’m bloody interested. It’s my job to be interested. But since when did they employ you as a PR man? Stick to the day job, Jimmy. PR sucks.’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’m sorry.’

‘Fine.’

He looked up at her, risked a smile. ‘How about I give you a couple of phone numbers? Kids who’d be happy to talk about what happened? Kids who might have sent footage to their friends before we seized their mobes? You could access that stuff. You could use it.’

‘It’s sorted, Jimmy. We’ve got more pictures than we can ever use. Kids are sending stuff in by the bucketload, and what we haven’t seen is there for the taking anyway.’

‘Where?’

‘The Facebook memorial page?’ She started to laugh. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it.’

‘Of course I’ve seen it.’ He looked at his glass. So much for Willard’s clever schemes. ‘So there’s nothing we can help you with?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ She reached across the table and touched his cheek. It meant she was sorry. She asked him how the job was going. He told her about passing his sergeant’s exams. All he had to do now was wait for a vacancy.

‘And when will that happen?’

‘Christ knows. Skippers’ jobs are thin on the ground just now. It could be months. Longer even. Staying on Major Crime would be favourite but I’d have to be bloody lucky.’

‘Or bloody good.’

‘Quite.’ He nodded. He wanted to get back to the party. If he couldn’t interest her in mobile footage or witness details, how else might he help?

She studied him a moment. The party itself, she said, was already old news. They’d caned the arse off the story in all of today’s editions and there were a couple of major feature pieces lined up for tomorrow. By Wednesday something else would have kicked off and the world would be moving on.

Suttle wasn’t having it. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Willard thinks there’s more to it than that. He thinks we’re stretched to breaking point, and from where I’m sitting I have to tell you he’s right. You know one of the really big problems we had on Saturday night? Finding enough Crime Scene blokes to make a decent start on Sunday morning. And you know why? Because of the European Working Time Directive. They were running out of hours. It’s the same for the uniforms, the same for us lot. Two of these parties on the same night and we’d be calling the army in. Three, and you’d start thinking NATO. People don’t realise, Lizzie. They take peace and quiet for granted. They shouldn’t.’

‘Sure. Of course Willard’s got a point. But there’s a problem here because he’s said it already. Yesterday on telly and this morning in any paper you choose to name. They’ve all been quoting him. The end of civilisation’s a great story but not if it’s yesterday’s news.’

‘OK.’ Suttle shrugged. ‘So what else can I offer you?’

‘Is that a serious question?’

‘Try me.’

‘How about Paul Winter?’

‘Winter?’ He was staring at her. ‘Why Winter?’

‘Because he works for Mackenzie. Because Mackenzie’s bloody upset by what happened on Saturday night. And because Mackenzie doesn’t let things like this go unresolved.’ She smiled. ‘Or so we hear.’

‘Did Winter say that?’

‘No, and even if he had I wouldn’t tell you. But think about it, Jimmy. An ex-cop working for a Pompey face. An ex-cop like Winter working for
the
Pompey face. That’s a nightmare, isn’t it? From your point of view?’

Suttle said nothing. He gazed across the canal towards the apartment blocks that lined the waterfront. Winter lived in one of those pads. Before he’d joined Mackenzie, Suttle had been round there a great deal. Stunning views. Great crack. A limitless supply of cold Stellas from the fridge. In those days, Winter had been recovering from major brain surgery in America and it had been Suttle’s pleasure to keep an eye on him. More recently, of course, that friendship had ended but, deep down, Suttle realised he missed the man. Winter had taught him everything he knew. Winter had taught him the difference between paperwork and nailing the bad guys. As time slipped by the Job was becoming unrecognisable, and now, sad to say, there were no Winters left.

He looked up. Lizzie Hodson was right. Our loss, he thought, Mackenzie’s gain.

‘You think there might be two investigations going on here?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you think I’m going to be silly enough to confirm that?’

‘Yes.’

Suttle held her eyes for a moment, then smiled and got to his feet. His glass was still untouched.

‘Good luck with the yoga.’ He bent to kiss her. ‘And phone me next time he gets in touch.’

‘Who?’

‘Winter.’

 

Carol Legge was a small cheerful Geordie in her early fifties with a passion for fairy cakes. She worked for the city’s Child Protection Team, and the last time Winter had seen her she’d marked his card about a scrote drug dealer and part-time father called Karl Ewart, triggering a chain of events that put Jimmy Suttle in hospital with a serious stab wound. Two years later Legge was still carrying a hefty caseload for Child Protection, and the news that Winter was no longer working for the Men in Black appeared not to matter.

‘So what is it, pet? How can I help you?’

‘There’s a girl called Jax Bonner. Ring any bells?’

They were sitting in a café in the heart of Fratton. Winter had bought teas at the counter and a packet of fairy cakes from the Easy Shopper round the corner. She sent Winter back to the counter for a knife and a plate, then sliced through the wrapping.

‘Tallish? Keeps shaving her hair off? Lots of previous?’

‘That might be right.’

‘She’s a headcase, pet. Totally psychotic. Leave well alone.’

The thought put a smile on Winter’s face. He helped himself to one of the cakes, brushed crumbs from his mouth.

‘You’ve dealt with her yourself?’

‘Never had reason to. She was on the radar as a nipper but that was before my time. Since then she’s become a bit of a legend. Colleagues of mine from the Youth Offending Team take bets on when she’ll do something
really
silly.’

‘Like?’

‘I don’t know.’ She frowned. ‘Burn a house down? Nick a car and drive it into a bunch of mums outside a school? Kill someone? This is a headline waiting to happen. That’s them talking, pet, not me.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘I haven’t a clue. Like I say, we don’t hold the file.’

‘So who do I talk to?’

‘I’m not sure, pet. That might be difficult. If she’s still school age she’d be at one of the Pupil Referral Units. They call them Harbour Schools now. There’s no way she’d be in mainstream education.’

Winter wetted a finger for the crumbs on his plate. Pupil Referral Units were last-chance dump bins for excluded kids. He’d had dealings with them before, when he was still in the Job. Staff at these schools did their best to get their charges back in line but most of the harder cases never bothered to turn up.

‘Has she got family?’

‘Everyone’s got family, pet. It’s a question of whether it works or not. In her case I’d say no but I’d be guessing. Like I say, you’d need a look at the file.’

Winter nodded, leaving the next question unvoiced. At length, Legge wanted to know why Jax Bonner had suddenly become so important.

‘Saturday night? Sandown Road?’

‘You’re kidding. She was there? At the party?’

‘She may have been. Hand on heart, love, I can’t say for sure.’

‘
Craneswater?
I’d say that was way out of her comfort zone.’ She paused, frowning. ‘So how come all this matters to you?’

‘I have a friend. Let’s call him a client. He pays me to find out stuff. Saturday night he came home to find two bodies beside his swimming pool.’

‘Next door, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s Mackenzie’s place.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re working for him? Mackenzie?’

‘Yes.’

‘Goodness me.’ She looked startled. ‘Bit of a culture shock, isn’t it? Kipping with the enemy?’

‘Not the enemy, love. Not any more. He’s calmed down. He runs a business. He spreads money around. He employs people. He does good deeds. Ask him nicely, and I’m sure he’d sponsor any little scheme your lot might care to dream up.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘Totally. And you’re looking at the man that can make that happen. ’ He found a pen, then scribbled a number on the corner of her newspaper. ‘My new mobile.’ He helped himself to the last of the fairy cakes. ‘Ask for Robin Hood.’

 

There were evenings when Faraday knew with a troubling certainty that he was going to get drunk, and this was one of them.
Mandolin
had become a media event, making waves across the nation, sending ripples as far as the other side of the planet. Minutes before he’d left Major Crime, Jimmy Suttle had appeared with a cutting from the
Sydney Morning Herald.
TWO SLAIN AT WEEKEND PARTY went the headline. PM WARNS OF ANARCHY.

There were more stories like these, he said. From papers in Europe, in North America, in the Far East. The coverage, while factual, carried an undertone of nemesis, of social debts long overdue for settlement. A commentator in
Le Monde
, in a wounding aside, wondered whether incidents like these wouldn’t become the norm in a society that had lost touch with itself. After two decades of Thatcherism, even under New Labour the English battery chicken was coming home to roost.

Lost touch with itself.
Faraday, driving home, knew it was true. For more years than he cared to remember family and faith had been dissolving in the teeth of a bitter wind. Lately that wind had become a howling gale. Whichever way you measured it - the divorce figures,
Big Brother
, domestic violence, the weekend army of teenage drunks swamping the nation’s A & E departments - society was falling apart. Respect had gone. Not just for each other but for any kind of effort to make a decent fist of life. Failure, by some savage twist of logic, had become a badge of achievement. For countless thousands of kids, cloned by shit television and trashy high-street brands, it was cool to rubbish anything that smacked of genuine effort. You made your mark by hanging out. You found comfort in numbers. You grabbed your pleasures wherever you could. And there wasn’t any argument that couldn’t be settled with a boot or a knife. Welcome to Cool Britannia.

Back at the Bargemaster’s House he uncorked a bottle of Merlot and tried to share some of his anger with Gabrielle. She was on her laptop at the kitchen table, transcribing a pile of notes. She listened for a while, still typing, then stopped when Faraday repeated the phrase that had triggered the war drums in his aching head.

‘Lost touch?
Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire?
’

‘It means disrupted. It’s a question of rhythm. If we were soldiers, we’d be out of step. If we were on the dance floor, we’d be all over the place. The guy used the phrase in
Le Monde
this morning.
La société anglaise ne se reconnait plus.
And he’s right. We don’t know ourselves any more. We can’t hear the music any more. We’ve lost it. It’s gone. We’re a mess.’

She pondered the image for a moment. This is her trade, Faraday thought. Trying to figure out ways that groups of individuals become a tribe.

‘Music’s good.’ She nodded in approval. ‘
Ça accroche.’

‘You think so?’

‘Definitely. It works because music ties us together, because music is glue. When the music stops …’ She shrugged.

‘We fall apart.’

‘
Exactement.
You see it all over the world. You have to
belong
. In Cambodia you see this, in Vietnam, with the mountain people. Beliefs, faith, conduct,
moeurs,
it’s all the same. It’s glue, it’s music. You belong. You sign up. You obey. Here too. Especially here.’

‘Where?’

‘Here.’ She gestured at the pile of transcripts beside the laptop. ‘Somerstown. Portsea. Buckland. All these places. Maybe you’re hearing a different music but deep down it’s the same. You’re part of the tribe, of the gang. Like I say, you
belong.
’

‘Which matters.’

‘
Oui, absolument
. The kids I talk to, most of them have nothing. Family doesn’t work for them, school doesn’t work for them; they have no exams, no bits of paper, nothing. All they have is time. Time and hunger.’

‘For what?’

‘For belonging. The biggest club, the biggest gang, is your
société anglaise
. But to join that club you need the right clothes, the right trainers,
n’est-ce pas
? And for that you need money. But these kids have no money. All they have is each other. And so -
voilà
- they make a little gang, a little tribe of their own. It becomes everything to them. It’s their family, their Church, their everything. So they link their arms together. And they march in step.’

Faraday was beginning to wonder where this conversation might lead. ‘You’re describing the symptoms,’ he said carefully. ‘I’m talking about the disease.’