No Lovelier Death (20 page)

‘But the disease is all about us. You’re right,
chéri
. The kids are getting
difficiles
because that’s the way your society has gone. You see it everywhere. There’s more space between people, more emotional space. That’s where the kids get lost. Right there in that space. You know what I never see in these flats? In these little houses? A dinner table. A place where people can eat together. Eating is living. Here, people often do neither. That’s why the kids belong to gangs. That’s why they’re outside the corner stores all night. And you know the important word?
Belong.
They belong there, on the street, with each other.’

‘And you’re telling me they have rules?’

‘
Bien sûr.
Of course they have rules. Break the rules and the gang punish you. Break the rules too often, and the gang throw you out. The worst.
Absolument le pire.
’

She abandoned her chair and perched herself on the edge of the table, facing Faraday. She was on fire now - intense, hunched, a pose he recognised from a handful of previous occasions. Few things touched her as deeply as her work. Like Faraday she committed far too much of herself.

She was talking about a particularly difficult fourteen-year-old from a family in Portsea. His mother, she said, had a new baby and a succession of dysfunctional partners. Some of them spent her child benefit on crack-cocaine. Others beat her up. She was so damaged and so preoccupied with the baby that all verbal communication with her adolescent son had ceased. If the boy wanted anything, he left her a note. On good days it worked. Most of the time he went without.

‘So what happened?’

‘He decided to go fishing. He’d been down to the little pier in Old Portsmouth. He’d seen the men with their rods. He made a line with some string. These men, they all know each other, a little group, a little family, a little gang,
n’est-ce pas
? They tell the boy they need
maquereaux
to cut up for bait to catch the bigger fish, the sea bass. You fish for
maquereaux
with a hook and a little feather. They show him how. He starts to catch
les maquereaux
and -
voilà -
they give him 50p for each fish. This boy, he saves enough money for an old rod, to catch sea bass. For sea bass the Chinese in the restaurants pay two pounds, maybe three. But he needs a bag, a waterproof bag, to keep the sea bass. In Portsea boys deliver papers from yellow bags. The bag protects the papers from the rain. And so he gets a job. As a paper boy. After two days he quits the job but he keeps the bag. And so now he has three things. He has a nice waterproof bag. He has money from the sea bass. And he has a new gang, a new family.
Courage, chéri.
Life could be worse.’

Maquereaux
meant mackerel. As he knew only too well, this little parable of hers was a tiny touch on Faraday’s tiller, a reminder that black was an impossible colour to live with, and after a moment’s thought he responded with a tilt of his glass.

‘
Salut.’
He was looking at her laptop, at the lines of text carefully transcribed from her interview tapes. ‘You met more kids today?’

‘
Oui. J’en ai rencontré cinq.
’

‘Five? Really? And what did you ask them?’

‘Today is different. Today I never asked. Today they talked.’

‘About what?’

‘
Quoi?
’ She began to laugh. ‘
Quelle question.
They talk about your party. And you know why? Because most of them were there. They saw everything. They’re famous now,
célèbres.
They had a fine time.’

‘Everything?’ Faraday couldn’t help himself.

‘
Bien sûr.
These kids aren’t stupid. They watch. They listen. And most of all they remember.’

‘Remember what?’

‘How easy it was.’ She grinned. ‘
Quelle rigolade
.’

What a laugh?
Faraday shook his head and turned away. Then he reached for the bottle and filled his empty glass.

TUESDAY, 14 AUGUSTt 2007.
10.47

Esme, Bazza Mackenzie’s daughter, lived inland, on a lush green flank of the Meon Valley. On Tuesdays it had become a habit to drive the children down to Southsea to spend the day with their granny.

Marie had come to look forward to these visits. If the weather behaved itself, the kids liked nothing better than spending the day beside the pool. Bazza, in the spirit of these excursions, had brought them a pair of inflatable armbands each, a little dinghy to splash around in, and an inflatable crocodile for when things got boring. Marie kept the fridge well stocked with chocolate ice cream and party-sized bottles of Coke, and had acquired a bottle of factor 30 for the sunnier days. When Bazza suggested she might give this particular Tuesday a miss, she wouldn’t hear of it. The quicker life in 13 Sandown Road returned to normal, she said, the better she’d feel.

Esme arrived earlier than usual. Girlfriends were raving about some 1920s cocktail dresses in a fashion outlet in Gunwharf. A purple sequined number at a 70 per cent discount was a steal and she needed to be down there before the size 12s got snapped up.

Guy, the oldest of the three kids, was a born explorer. At home he thought nothing of patrolling the acres of fenced-in meadow on his own, chasing one or other of Esme’s horses. In Sandown Road, once the novelty of the pool had worn off, he’d take a wander round the garden.

At the back of the garden a hedge separated Bazza’s property from number 15. The house had been empty for some months and the hedge had seen better days. Since the spring Guy had made himself a tunnel through the tangle of dead briar and discovered a sandpit on the other side. One of his prized possessions was a collection of toy soldiers that had once belonged to Bazza, and every Tuesday he liked nothing better than to crawl through the tunnel with handfuls of his granddad’s Nazi storm troopers, and stage elaborate mock battles in the privacy of the hijacked standpit.

Bazza’s model soldiers had come with a couple of ancient toy field guns. The guns took broken-off matchsticks as ammo. The matchsticks sometimes got buried way under the sand. Which is how young Guy found the mobile.

The first Marie knew of the boy’s find was a fit of giggles from the direction of the pool. Guy had brought back his trophy find from next door’s sandpit and was showing it off to his sisters. Thanks to Esme all three kids knew their way round mobile phones. What especially fascinated them were the pictures you could watch.

From the kitchen window Marie could see them crowding round Guy. He’d shaded the mobe from the sun and he was doubled over with laughter. Marie loaded a tray with doughnuts and stepped outside onto the patio. It was Guy who volunteered the phone.

‘What’s that?’ he said.

Marie took the mobile. Without her reading glasses she couldn’t be sure but a second look beneath the shade of the nearby tree confirmed her worst suspicions.

‘Where did you find this, Guy darling?’

‘There.’ He was pointing at the briar hedge, proud of himself. ‘It was really deep. I really had to dig.’

‘You mean next door?’

‘Yes.’

‘In the sandpit?’

‘Yes.

‘Fine. I expect you’re hungry.’

Ignoring their questions, she handed out the doughnuts and then retreated to the kitchen. Bazza was in his office at the hotel. He picked up on the first ring. Marie still had the mobile. She blew sand off the tiny screen.

‘I’m looking at Rachel Ault,’ she said briefly. ‘With a mouthful of someone’s dick.’

 

Bazza’s call caught Winter at home in Gunwharf. He’d spent half the morning trying to figure out ways of finding Jax Bonner. Within minutes he was pointing the Lexus towards Craneswater.

By now Bazza was back at Sandown Road. Guy had returned next door to the sandpit while his sisters watched cartoons on a portable TV Marie had rigged up beside the pool. Bazza sat at the kitchen table. He’d accessed the stored numbers on the phone and noted them down. When Winter stepped in from the patio, he glanced up.

‘Bonz? Fearless? Jersey K?’

‘Never heard of them.’

‘Pete? Dudie? Sprocket?’

‘Pass.’

‘Rakka? Mum? Nikki?’

‘Phone Mum.’

‘I just did. No answer.’

Winter nodded. He asked for the phone and checked one of the numbers before keying it in. He waited a second or two, then a grin spread from ear to ear.

He returned the phone to Bazza. He hadn’t said a word.

‘Well?’

‘Her name’s Nikki Dunlop. She’s a coach down at the pool. Ten quid says she’s shacked up with Matt Berriman.’

‘His mobe then?’

‘I’d say so.’

‘And his dick?

‘Send her the pictures. She might know.’

Even Marie laughed. When the kids had demanded an explanation she’d said that the girl on the screen had been playing a kind of party game. When they’d asked whether it was a treat or not, she’d said yes.

Bazza wasn’t interested in party games.

‘Marie says this came out of next door’s sandpit. I thought your lot would have done a proper search?’

‘Only your garden and the Aults’, Baz. They’d need a separate warrant for number 15.’

‘You’re sure about that? You don’t think they planted the fucker?’

‘I doubt it. They’re not that bright.’

‘Bright, my arse. So where does that leave Mr Berriman? I’ve been telling myself I owe this guy. Now I find his knob halfway down young Rachel’s throat and the evidence in my other neighbour’s garden. To get to that sandpit you’d probably go through the hedge. That puts him on my property, doesn’t it? Or am I missing a trick here?’

Winter didn’t reply. The spare doughnut looked too good to ignore. After a couple of mouthfuls, he licked the sugar from his fingers.

‘I talked to him yesterday,’ he said at last. ‘He’s got some quaint ideas, that lad.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like not wanting to grass his mates up.’

‘Grassing? To us? How does that work?’

‘It doesn’t, Baz. And that’s what I told him. I got the impression he wants to freelance this thing, handle it himself.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘I agree.’

‘Shall I give Westie a call?’

‘The boy may have saved your life, Baz.’ Winter was looking pained. ‘He certainly spared you a good slapping.’

‘That’s not an answer, mush. It’s Tuesday. The Aults are back the day after tomorrow. Like I told you yesterday, we need a result, a name, maybe a couple of names, something that says I haven’t totally screwed up. We had a great meeting last night. The MP bloke’s gonna give the Filth a kicking. But Aultie’s going to want more than that. He’ll want to know who did his daughter. I can’t shake the bloke’s hand with fuck all to tell him, can I?’

‘No, Baz.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘I know you are.’

‘What about the girl Danny mentioned? Jix?’

‘It’s Jax, Baz. And she’s a bit of a problem too.’

‘Well fucking solve it, mush. That’s what I pay you for.
Comprende?
’

 

It was late morning before Faraday began to surface from the hangover. A couple of Ibuprofen first thing had failed to still his thumping head and two more when he arrived at the office had been equally useless. Three cups of tea plus a bacon sandwich fetched from a nearby café by one of the management assistants had put something solid in his stomach, and by the time Suttle knocked at his office door the worst of the nausea had passed.

‘You look shit, boss.’

‘Thanks. Never try to outdrink the French. They’ve got livers of iron.’

It was true. By the time he’d stumbled off to bed, Gabrielle must have sunk at least a bottle of her own. Then she’d gone back to her laptop.

‘What have we got?’ The thickness of Suttle’s file looked promising.

‘Just an update, boss, really. Jerry Proctor rang me from Netley. His lads at the Aults’ place are going through the rooms at the top of the house. According to the girl Samantha, Rachel had a laptop. They can’t find it.’

‘Nicked, you think?’

‘That’s Jerry’s view. They’ve done the full monty on her bedroom, taken a look at all the other rooms. Sam says she kept everything on it. Emails. Stuff for her Facebook page. Poems. Photos. A bit of a diary. The lot.’

‘Shit.’

‘Exactly.’

‘What about the other computer?’

‘That’s the PC in Ault’s study. The screen got trashed but the computer itself was OK. My guess is it was too old to get nicked. It’s at Netley now. They’re going to bump it up the queue for hard-disk analysis just in case she’d been using it.’

‘What else have they got?’

‘Multiple specimens. Jerry says we’re talking lots of spillage. I think he means semen.’

‘Where?’

‘The upstairs bathroom, which we knew about already. The upstairs landing. The Aults’ bedroom - that’s the bed, bits and pieces on the carpet, stuff on a little armchair. There’s shit up there too. Smeared across one pillow.’

‘Nice.’ Faraday was beginning to regret the bacon sandwich. Suttle hadn’t finished.

‘So he’s asking for a steer, really. Whether or not you want to send the lot away or wait.’

‘That’s down to DCI Parsons. They’re all bagged up?’

‘Of course. They’re in the fridge at Netley. Ready and waiting.’

Faraday nodded. He’d seen the big samples fridge at Netley. Jerry kept the milk in there as well. He looked up at Suttle, trying to get his thoughts in order.

‘We’ve got semen in Rachel’s throat from the PM. Am I right?’

‘Yes, boss. Jenny took smears from her body at the scene too. They tested positive for semen from her throat and her vagina.’

‘Results?’

‘Friday. Tops.’ He paused. ‘So what about the other samples?’

‘Ask the DCI.’