The Take (22 page)

‘Looked like it.’

‘So why’ – Winter gestured at the space where Parrish had been – ‘not admit it?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

Parrish returned from upstairs, running a hand through his hair. He was wearing a thin suede jacket over the T-shirt. Pausing briefly beside the bar, he threw a sideways glance at Tara. He’d be gone a couple of hours. There was stuff for the microwave in the smaller fridge. Not that they were expecting a coach party. He laughed at his own joke, a dry, mirthless bark of laughter, and Winter turned on his barstool to watch him leave. Something struck him about the shape of Parrish’s shoulders, the cut of the jacket, and as he disappeared into the last of the sunshine Winter suddenly realised that he’d seen this man before. On the Marriott surveillance video. Leaving the hotel. With Hennessey.

Faraday was trying to fix the coffee percolator when he heard the front-door bell. He put the plug to one side and was halfway to the door when he recognised Marta’s footsteps up the hall. Her feet were bare on the polished wooden boards and she was still wearing Faraday’s dressing gown.

The door opened and there was a moment of silence before he heard a woman’s voice, surprise hardening into something much terser.

‘I’m intruding,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

It was Ruth. She was carrying a present of some kind. She looked tight-lipped.

‘Marta,’ Faraday muttered, ‘meet Ruth.’

The two women eyed each other. Then Marta stepped aside with a flourish and invited Ruth in. Ruth hesitated, then shook her head. Her eyes didn’t leave Faraday’s face.

‘Wrong house,’ she murmured. ‘My mistake.’

She turned on her heel and disappeared into the gathering dusk. Then Faraday heard the sound of a car door closing and the cough of an engine.

‘Friend of yours?’ Marta was looking amused.

‘I’m not sure.’ Faraday closed the door. ‘I think so.’

Later, when Marta had showered and gone, Faraday sat alone in his upstairs study, staring at the pictures on the wall. Some were etchings and lithographs, trophies from long afternoons in Winchester antique shops. Others were colour photographs plundered from birding magazines. One or two he’d taken himself, using Janna’s camera in the hope that some of her magic might just rub off. All the pictures were of birds, and collectively they bridged the years that stretched backwards to his marriage.

In a solitary life, under siege from the demands of an impossible job, these images never failed to offer Faraday a certain kind of consolation. In these frozen moments – a turnstone rooting for lugworm, a skua caught against the sun – he’d always found warmth and solace. Until now.

The weekend with Marta, Valerie and J-J had opened his eyes, and Ruth’s abrupt appearance, so typically unexpected, had simply confirmed a deep-down suspicion that the time had come for a change. There was, after all, a place for laughter in this life of his. It was, to his faint surprise, perfectly safe to let whole days unfold without plans or preparations, holding nothing but the promise of gossip and good company. There was, in J-J’s phrase, no need to be afraid.

The image of Ruth’s face at the door came back to him. She was disappointed because he hadn’t fitted in with whatever expectations she had of him. She’d walked away because he’d dared to wriggle off this hook of hers and head for warmer waters. He sat back, eyeing a favourite shot of J-J’s, a gannet plunging into the boiling waves off Bempton Cliffs. Ruth belonged in this museum of moments. She’d been important to him, but her reclusiveness, her self-regard, her carefully preserved sense of mystery had, in the end, been no more than a taunt. He could chase her all his life, but that would be as far as he’d ever get because the take, if it ever happened, would satisfy nothing more than a momentary hunger.

Ruth knew this. That’s why she rationed herself so carefully. That’s why she stayed so eternally beyond reach. She’d found a lifetime’s perch in a certain kind of detachment, and the games she played were, in the end, strictly for her own amusement. In return for her company, Ruth exacted certain dues, and in his heart Faraday knew that he was no longer prepared to pay them. She really was beyond his grasp, and after this weekend he wasn’t going to chase her any more.

The thought of Marta enveloped him again, close, intimate, overwhelming. Here was a woman without fear, without scruple, without shame. A woman who spoke the direct physical language of appetite and pleasure. Who knew how to loosen his knots and sort through his baggage. She was direct. She was stylish. She was funny. And the games she played were games for two.

He got up and left the room, turning off the light as he did so.

Later that night, back at his bungalow in Bedhampton, Winter got a call on his mobile. It was Faraday, wanting to know about tomorrow. What was the situation with Joannie? Was he joining the Hennessey squad or not?

Winter wondered whether he’d been talking to Cathy, but decided that he hadn’t. No way would Cathy be helping Faraday out just now. Not in her current mood.

‘One way or another, we have to stitch this job up,’ Faraday was saying. ‘The last thing we want is an upgrade to Major Crimes. Willard’s onside at the moment, but it may not last.’

Winter, barely two ringers into a bottle of Bell’s, smiled to himself. It was the same old story: Faraday desperate to square off a bit of decent crime in between all the other crap they had to deal with. CID work, increasingly, was like panning for gold. Upstream, the guys on the Major Crimes Suite had first dip. Downstream, the blokes on division were left with the tailings. Just what kind of hero spent his life hunting down serial cycle thieves?

‘Well?’ Faraday sounded unusually impatient.

Winter was contemplating the bottle.

‘Difficult,’ he said. ‘I’m back at the hospital first thing, but maybe later.’

‘Hospital?’

He definitely hadn’t been talking to Cathy.

‘Joannie’s had a bit of a …’ Winter frowned. ‘Relapse.’

‘She’s OK?’

‘More or less.’

‘Shit, I’m sorry.’

‘That’s OK, boss.’ Winter reached for his glass. ‘Phone you in the morning?’

Twenty

Monday, 26 June, 0600

Winter hadn’t slept so well for what felt like weeks. He awoke to the alarm, washed and shaved, and remembered to collect the scribbled address from the pad by the phone before he headed for the door. Last night’s vehicle check through the PNC had yielded all the information he needed. By seven o’clock, with the city barely awake, he’d even found himself a parking spot with a perfect line of sight to her front door.

Playfair Road was on the borders of Southsea and Somerstown, one of a series of streets that fed into a warren of council housing, gaunt high-rise blocks shadowing the graffiti and litter beneath. There were still survivors from the blitz years in these terraces of little bay-fronted houses, bent old couples you might catch tottering down to the community centre around the corner, but recent years had seen tides of students, together with huge, colourful Bangladeshi families, turning the houses into multi-occupation. To Winter, who drew many of his informers from hereabouts, the area had a slightly post-war feel, as if armies of displaced persons were forever moving through, leaving nothing but chaos in their wake.

Tara Gough, according to the records at DVLC, lived at number 4. Her blue Peugeot was parked outside and the curtains in the upstairs window were still closed. Behind the Peugeot stood a silver BMW Z series sports car, a fashion statement wholly out of place in a street like this. Just parking for the night was a reckless act of faith, and the fact that it seemed intact was truly remarkable. In this area, Winter had come across Transit vans, L reg. for God’s sake, chocked up on bricks after a hard night’s recreational theft.

He put a call through to the PNC operator in Fratton control room, and read him the number plate on the Beamer. Within a minute, he had a name and a London address. Richard Savage, Aubrey Rise, London N5. Winter scribbled it down, then gazed up at the windows. Odds on, Savage was tucked up with Tara Gough. He’d put money on it.

He settled down again, tuning the ancient Blaupunkt to Radio Two. Whatever anyone else told you about forensics and multi-disciplinary teamwork, the key to nicking people was motivation. You had to understand what it would take for a man or a woman to kill or rape or thieve, or embark on a thousand other misdemeanours that might end in serious grief. Normally, to his surprise, it was pretty straightforward: they were either jealous, greedy, desperate or simply pissed off to the point where there seemed no other sensible option but to bury an axe in someone’s head. They were the easy cases. Other times, though, you’d come across something so devious, so maniacally clever, that it took a real understanding of the darker side of the human psyche to get any kind of result. That’s where Hennessey belonged. He’d felt it from the start, and now, after last night, he was all the more certain.

At one minute to eight, just after the weather forecast, a man in a suit appeared at the door of number 4, pulled it shut behind him, and climbed into the little silver sports car. He had an executive haircut and nice shoes. Winter judged him to be in his early thirties.

Five minutes later, Winter was at the door of number 4. Tara Gough opened it within seconds of his first knock. Judging by the milk carton in her hand, she must have been in the kitchen. She was wearing a long blue T-shirt and not a lot else. When she saw it wasn’t the postman, she tried to close the door.

‘The name’s Winter. You’ve seen the warrant card already.’

With enormous reluctance, she let him in. Despite the weather, the house smelled of damp, and Winter could hear someone else moving about in the kitchen at the back.

‘My son,’ Tara explained. ‘He’s late for school already.’

A tall youth had appeared in the hall. He was eating a slice of toast in one hand and trying to tuck a white shirt into dark trousers with the other. Winter nodded at him.

‘I thought you had a daughter?’

‘I do. She’s still upstairs.’

‘Cosy.’

‘We think so. I suppose it’s all right to get dressed, is it?’

Winter watched her climbing the stairs. Nice legs. No knickers. The youth had beaten a retreat to the kitchen, drowning the silence in a blast of music from Ocean FM.

The two downstairs rooms had been knocked into one, but the separate carpets were still in place and bits of plasterwork remained to be finished. An ironing board had been set up with a good view of the big widescreen TV, and the pile of shirts was topped with a black basque and a collection of thongs. Beside the back window, a cheap DIY bookcase was brimming with copies of
Vanity Fair
and
Cosmopolitan
, and there was a cardboard box on the floor full of rubber work gloves.

The front half of the room was empty except for the long curve of a four-seat sofa, and Winter sank into the dimpled leather, waiting for Tara to return. She was dressed for work when she appeared again, a smart-looking blouse over a full cotton skirt.

‘Been here long?’ Winter didn’t bother to get up.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Just asking.’

She didn’t answer for a moment. She was trying to ready herself for work, gripping half a dozen hairclips between her teeth while those busy, elegant fingers combed through the long blonde hair. Finally, she checked her efforts in the mirror on the chimney breast.

‘Since Christmas,’ she muttered, ‘give or take.’

‘And before that?’

‘Before that, we were somewhere else.’

‘Where?’

She was losing patience fast. Winter sensed she wanted to shout, to have a real go, but couldn’t because of the kids.

‘Why don’t you just tell me what this is about?’

‘It’s about Hennessey,’ he said peaceably. ‘I thought I’d explained all that.’

‘But what’s that got to do with me?’

Winter didn’t answer. Footsteps down the hall were followed by the crash of the front door being pulled shut. Through the net curtains at the front, Winter watched the youth in the kitchen set off down the road. He was still eating.

‘I asked you a question.’

‘I know.’ Winter frowned, plucking at the crease in his trousers. ‘Who’s Richard Savage?’

The name brought the blood flooding to Tara’s face. Winter watched it rise and spread.

‘You’ve been watching us.’ A statement, not a question.

‘Since seven o’clock,’ Winter confirmed. ‘Who is he?’

‘You’ve no right to ask that. It’s none of your business.’

‘Is it Parrish’s business?’

‘He knows already.’

‘And you leaving? Does he know about that too?’

Tara stared at him, trying to work out how seriously to take this new threat, then, abruptly, she shut the door and sank onto the other end of the sofa.

‘Richard’s one of the site engineers at Gunwharf. We’re’ – she shrugged – ‘together.’

‘Does he live here full time?’

‘No. He’s got a place in London.’

‘And your husband? Partner?’ Winter’s gesture took in most of the house.

‘He’s long gone. We divorced years ago.’

Winter nodded, arranging the pieces in his mind. The sleek young engineer with the BMW. The recent move to Playfair Road. The fact that the Gunwharf people used to decamp to the Weather Gage at lunchtimes.

‘You met him in the pub,’ Winter suggested. ‘When you were still serving half-decent food.’ Tara didn’t say a word. ‘You met him in the pub and you began some kind of affair, and that led to this.’ He bent forward, his hands on his knees. ‘You could help me on this but it doesn’t matter if you don’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there’s nothing illegal in screwing around.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘Because I think your friend Hennessey’s been murdered.’ Winter smiled. ‘And that’s not legal at all.’

For the first time, he had her full attention. The antagonism, the anger, had gone. She wanted to know what he meant. Winter paid her the courtesy of being frank. He explained about the damage to the room at the Marriott, about the bloodshed in the bathroom, and then he offered her a date.

‘Sunday the eighteenth of June,’ he said. ‘Do you keep a diary?’

She did. She used it to keep a tally of the hours she worked. She went upstairs to fetch it.

‘I was on that night,’ she said when she returned.

‘Alone?’

‘Not to begin with. Rob was there until ten, maybe even closing time.’

‘And then?’

‘He went out somewhere.’

‘Do you happen to know where?’

She hesitated a moment, the diary still open on her lap. Then she shook her head.

‘There’s something you ought to know,’ she said. ‘Rob and I used to live together. There are rooms over the pub. The kids were up there with us too, of course, but that wasn’t the reason we split up. He would have been just as impossible without the kids. I know he would.’

Winter still wanted to know about Sunday the eighteenth. Had she been there when Parrish returned?

‘No, I don’t hang around after closing time. But that’s exactly it, you see. What he does, where he goes, that’s down to him. He makes a point of not telling me. It’s a game he plays. He must see it as revenge or something. It’s nothing of the kind, of course, but that’s the kind of animal he is. He has to win. He has to be in the driving seat. Losing’s not an option.’

Winter gazed at her, struck by something else.

‘You’re telling me he lost you to Savage?’

‘No, though that’s what he’d think. He lost me because he was a miserable self-centred bastard who thought he was God’s gift. Men are strange that way. Buy them a bottle of blond rinse and one of those bracelets and they think the battle’s over. The guy’s nearly fifty, for Chrissakes. Thank God I got out.’

Winter wanted to get back to Hennessey. He and Parrish had been buddies. Yes?

‘Yes, definitely, though I don’t think Rob knows what the word “buddy” means. He’s not into friendship or any of that drivel. As far as he’s concerned, people are there to be used. Once you’ve sussed the way he does it, it’s quite blatant. Believe me. I’m an expert.’

‘You’re telling me that’s the way it’s been with Hennessey?’

‘I’m telling you he uses everybody. He and Hennessey seemed to be close, really close. You’d watch them talking, and you’d swear they’d been mates for ever, but I know they hadn’t. He only met the bloke when I did, a couple of months back. He just smothered him. Puppy love. He does it with everybody. He did it with me.’

‘Until he got what he wanted?’

‘Yes. And then you realise what a bastard the man really is. My kids saw it, they saw it straight off. They couldn’t get over what a mistake I was making. They hated him.’

The door opened and a girl of about fourteen appeared. She was wearing a a school uniform, blue top, grey skirt.

‘In the fridge, Becca.’ Tara barely spared her a glance. ‘Pull the door to when you leave.’

Winter heard the girl returning to the kitchen. He wanted to know about Hennessey again.

‘He was a nice bloke actually. Old school, you know. Bit of a bullshitter, but at least you could have a laugh. I think he wanted company more than anything else. Like I said last night, I almost felt sorry for him.’

‘Bullshitter?’

‘He’s South African, still got the accent. He used to tell me all these stories about the girls he’d had when he was at medical school over there. They were all incredibly rich and incredibly beautiful and, you know, just queuing up for him, and he was forever trying to work it out so they never bumped into each other.’

‘You believed him?’

For the first time, she laughed. It warmed her whole face.

‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Total fantasy.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Just by looking at him. You meet men like that all the time. What they’re really trying to do is ask you out but they haven’t got the bottle. So they make it all up instead.’

‘You think he fancied you?’

‘I think he’d fancy any woman. Not that he’d ever do anything about it.’

Winter sat back a moment, staring up at the ceiling. Nikki McIntyre, he thought, every encounter wrapped in heavy doses of anaesthetic. Maybe this woman was right. Maybe Hennessey was just a pathetic old bluffer who couldn’t get it up.

‘You say he told you he was a surgeon?’

‘Yes.’ Tara frowned. ‘Heart transplants or something, wasn’t it? No wonder he had so much money.’

Dawn Ellis attended the 0900 squad briefing in the CID office at Cosham nick in the north of the city. The overhang of jobs from the weekend included a B&E at a cattery in Drayton, an episode which had resulted in the theft of an Abyssinian moggie called Jason along with nine dozen tins of salmon Whiskas. Dawn was still trying to work out whether the pet food was worth more than the cat when Cathy took her aside. She wanted to know whether Dawn was happy to work single-crewed. Squad numbers were now so depleted that the normal practice of working in pairs would effectively halve the hit rate.

‘No problem,’ Dawn told her. ‘I’ll do whatever.’

‘Any unfinished business?’

‘Only Donald Duck. The rest I left with Faraday.’

Cathy frowned. The arrest and charging last week of Paul Addison, the lecturer, had been the subject of several crowing e-mails from Southsea CID room.

‘I thought you lot had put that to bed?’

‘So did I.’

Dawn quickly outlined the case against Addison. The guy made porno movies in his spare time. The dad of one of the students was alleging harassment of his daughter. The guy had no real alibi for any of the Donald Duck dates. And they’d found a mask in his garden.

Cathy was lost.

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘I don’t think he did it.’

‘And Faraday?’

‘I’m not sure he’s bothered.’

Cathy gazed at her for a moment, then smiled.

‘How much longer would you need?’

‘Not long.’

‘Do you want to spend a little more time on it then?’

‘But we’re snowed under, skip. You just told me. You just told us all. We’ve got volume crime coming out of our ears and no bloody time to sort any of it out.’

Cathy touched her lightly on the shoulder, a gesture of reassurance.

‘It’s all about priorities, my love.’ Dawn thought she was going to get a kiss. ‘Keep me briefed?’