The Take (6 page)

‘
Spitting Image
masks,’ she said. ‘Reagan, Thatcher, the Queen, Madonna, but no Donald Duck.’

Her eyes left Stapleton and he stepped aside to give her a better view. She stared at the screen for a long moment before Stapleton hit the pause button again and the action recommenced. Addison was coming downstairs.

‘Shit.’ Dawn glanced towards the door. ‘No wonder he stays in most nights.’

Winter met Pete Lamb for a drink in Old Portsmouth – Pete’s suggestion. He was down there already sorting out some charts at the Sailing Club and he’d be happy to talk about Hennessey. Booze was cheap at the club but the bar didn’t open until eight, so they walked across to the Still and West, a pub at the very tip of Point, a finger of land curling in from the harbour mouth.

‘He’s gone missing,’ Pete said at once, ‘which is where I come in.’

They were sitting at a table outside, the sun still hot. Ferries churned in and out through the harbour narrows, and across the mouth of the Camber Dock, a couple of hundred metres away, there was a perfect view of the construction site that would soon become Gunwharf Quays.

Pete was talking about the new apartments.

‘
How
much?’

‘Half a million. That’s top whack, of course, for the penthouse suites on top.’

Winter turned to peer at the forest of cranes. Hard to imagine anyone paying half a million quid for a stake in that chaos.

‘Have you seen the plans?’

‘You’re joking. I live in a bungalow. In Bedhampton.’

‘Then you should. I’ll get you a brochure. Suit you down to the ground.’

He explained briefly about his deal with Mal Garrett, picking up the odd day here and there, background inquiries, relieved that Winter didn’t bother with the usual health warning. Of course it was dodgy taking work while suspended, but in a way it wasn’t the money at all. More the chance to keep his hand in.

‘And Cath?’

‘Won’t touch me with a bargepole. Thinks I’m potty.’

‘Potty, bollocks. She wouldn’t have suggested this if that’s what she thought.’

Pete hid a smile, not pursuing the point. They were here to talk about Hennessey. Where did Winter want him to start?

Winter told him what had happened at the Marriott. What was Pete’s interest?

‘He’s skipped the deadline on three of those flats. We’re talking way over a million and the management want Mal to find him before they foreclose on the option. That’s not the half of it, of course.’ He paused, looking at Winter. ‘You’re telling me you don’t know about this guy?’

Winter shook his head. ‘Should I?’ he grunted.

Pete held his gaze a moment longer, checking for the wind-up, then disappeared into the pub for refills. Back with another couple of pints, he settled down again.

Hennessey was a gynaecological surgeon. His speciality was hysterectomies and he had a reputation for whipping out middle-aged wombs quicker than anyone else in the business. He had a private practice in Harley Street and also did work for the National Health Service. In the eighties and nineties, he’d done very nicely for himself. Hence his interest in the real estate.

‘So what’s the story?’

‘You’re really telling me you haven’t heard of this guy?’

Winter shook his head again. Just the mention of the word ‘surgeon’ brought the blood pulsing to his head again and he took a deep pull at his glass to steady himself. He should have given the consultant a seeing-to while he still had the chance. There were some kinds of hurt that only violence could sort out.

‘So what happened? What did this guy do?’

Pete was warming up now. Hennessey had been in the papers only recently. Dozens and dozens of operations had gone disastrously wrong. According to the experts, hysterectomy wasn’t rocket science, yet Hennessey seemed to have been crap at it, cutting the wrong tubes, leaving damaged tissues unstitched, causing all kinds of post-operative mayhem in his race to get through the patient list. Perfectly healthy wombs had been chopped out after misdiagnoses. Women had been left incontinent for life. One or two had nearly died. And all because this butcher kidded them he knew what he was doing.

Winter nodded grimly. Bastard medics.

‘He’s up before the GMC for clinical malpractice and the victims are suing. Loads of them. Lots of individual actions.’

‘He’ll carry insurance,’ Winter said at once. ‘They won’t hurt him personally.’

‘You’re right, but he won’t work again, not after that kind of publicity. The guy’s history as far as cash flow is concerned. Which may explain why he’s trying to lay hands on three of these flats.’

Pete explained about the other two proxy names. Like Mal Garrett, he’d tried to raise both Cape Town numbers and failed. Inquiries lodged with the South African telephone authorities had not yet been answered, but Pete had already concluded that all three would, in reality, belong to Hennessey. On a rising market, he could put down a ten per cent deposit on each apartment and sell on before they were even completed. Alternatively, if he could raise the capital, he could complete on all three and earn himself a hefty capital gain once Gunwharf Quays was a truly prestigious address. Either way, he’d be looking at a five-figure profit – easy money if you could afford to be in at the start.

‘So you don’t think he’s done a runner?’

‘Can’t see why he would. The publicity’s over until he has to appear before the GMC. He knows he won’t be working as a surgeon again, not in this country anyway. But he’d stick around for long enough to make a killing, wouldn’t he?’

Winter’s gaze returned to the Gunwharf site. Pete was right. Make a killing. Dead right. Of course he’d stay. Anyone would.

‘Do you have any pics?’

‘I’ve got cuttings.
Guardian, Independent, Telegraph
. There are mug shots in all of them. Take photocopies if you want.’

‘Anything else?’

‘A couple of addresses. Apparently he lives in some huge pile in Beaconsfield, but he’s baled out for the time being and taken a rented place in the New Forest.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He fancied the bird at the sales office. Tried to get her over for dinner. Here.’ He took an envelope from inside his leather jacket. ‘Address and phone number. I’ve been trying all day, but no joy.’

Winter was thinking fast. Finding Hennessey would be a pleasure, one small act of vengeance. He’d do it for Joannie’s sake. For her.

Pete was examining the bottom of his empty glass.

‘So how will you get all this past the management?’ he enquired.

‘Management?’

‘Cathy. How will you justify the time and effort? Given that the guy hasn’t actually done anything.’

It was a good question. Winter sat back, watching one of the big cross-Channel ferries nosing out through the harbourmouth. In his experience, the best investigations started off like this, with coppers like him chasing shadows. You had to feel it in your bones. You had to sense opportunities, temptations, and know with absolute conviction that some bastard would be trying to square them away. That’s how the world worked. That’s what kept the country moving. People like Hennessey, backs against the wall, reaching for a big fat apple on someone else’s tree.

‘I think he’s probably dead,’ he said slowly, ‘though don’t ask me why.’

Winter was back home by half-eight, his footsteps lightened by another couple of pints after Pete Lamb had left. His wife was in the lounge, curled up on the sofa in her dressing gown watching
Peak Practice
. There was a bowl of tomato soup, half-finished, in her lap and a small circle of crumbs on the carpet beneath her feet.

Winter stood by the door. It was still sunny outside, a thin strip of light between the drawn curtains, but already the room felt like a tomb. On the TV, two GPs were arguing the toss about an X-ray of someone’s knee.

‘Leave it out, Joannie,’ he said softly. ‘Not more bloody medics.’

She looked up at him, the unvoiced question all too obvious.
Where have you been
?

‘Work,’ he explained simply. ‘Never stops.’

After the third glass of Rioja, Faraday felt better about screwing up the chilli con carne. For once he hadn’t followed the recipe. He’d chopped up onions and garlic extra fine and sweated them in oil. He’d stirred in a spoonful of tomato purée and a daub or two of Marmite. He’d added the mincemeat, with plenty of pepper and salt. And only at the end, with Ruth at the table in the kitchen, had he realised that he’d forgotten to buy fresh chilli. Shielding the stove with his body, he’d made do with cayenne pepper, but that wasn’t the point. Chilli con carne without chilli? What kind of cook was he turning into?

It was the third time this month Ruth had come over for dinner. After the loss of her husband and son, way back last year, he’d let a decent interval pass before trying to convert a strictly professional relationship into something slightly cosier, but to his surprise the transition had been painless.

She’d slipped into his bed as easily as she’d slipped into his life. Sleeping together hadn’t been altogether successful – far from it – but they seemed to have settled on a relationship flexible and forgiving enough to make room for a sexual disappointment that had been obvious from the start. Faraday hadn’t been with a woman since the death of his wife, and nearly twenty-two years of bringing up his deaf son had done nothing to rid him of memories of the relationship which had shaped his life. As Ruth herself had put it, sleeping with Faraday was like a
ménage à quatre:
Joe, herself, J-J and the ghost of the long-dead Janna. Was it any kind of surprise that she no longer stayed over?

Oddly enough, from where Faraday sat, it didn’t really matter. Ruth was as centred and fathomless as the day he’d first met her, doggedly pursuing his own conviction that an admirer of hers had been murdered, and nothing that had happened since had stripped her of any of the fascination she held for him. Mystery came as naturally to her as the clothes she wore – Indian cotton prints, baggy pantaloons – and she brought to his life a deep sense of challenge that he was quite unable to define.

That’s maybe why it didn’t work in bed. The truly inner Ruth lay beyond the simple physical questions. Whichever key opened her lock, he was never quite able to find it, and as a consequence they’d slipped into a comfortable companionship, freed from either obligation or routine. Sometimes, like now, they’d see quite a lot of each other. Other months, when Faraday was even more preoccupied than usual, they might have time for no more than a phone call. When people asked him whether there was anyone special in his life, Faraday would answer yes. When they asked him if he was involved with anyone, he would, with some regret, shake his head.

They were clearing away the plates when Faraday heard a squeal of brakes outside. He glanced at his watch. Nearly half-past ten. Ruth raised an eyebrow but he shrugged, making his way to the front door. A bulky figure in a grey suit was standing outside in the half light. Faraday thought he recognised him, but he couldn’t be sure.

‘Boss?’

He was right. It was Paul Winter. Faraday stepped aside, inviting him in. It was obvious at once that Winter had been drinking.

‘D’you mind?’

‘Not at all. Something that can’t wait?’

Winter laughed, a thin, mirthless chuckle.

‘Yeah. Sort of.’

Ruth was still in the kitchen. Faraday did the introductions, but it was obvious that Winter wanted a private word. Faraday frowned. Years of history between the two men offered not the slightest clue for Winter’s visit. Was it work-related? Or had Winter something else in mind?

Ruth was already hunting for her house keys. When Faraday offered to open another bottle, she shook her head.

‘I ought to be off,’ she said, ‘leave you two to it.’

With Ruth gone, Faraday took Winter into the big sitting room. The last time Winter had been here was the night they’d been trying to crack Charlie Oomes. Winter had gone at him hammer and tongs in the interview room at the Bridewell, going over his story time and time again, bringing a fresh brain to the tissue of lies the man had woven around himself. Yet when the clock finally stopped, and Oomes was still running rings round them all, it was Winter who’d found an alternative resolution for the age-old tension between crime and punishment. It might not have been orthodox, and it certainly wasn’t legal, but the knowledge that Charlie Oomes had taken a beating in the showers on the remand wing at Winchester nick brought Faraday a small warm feeling of satisfaction. Winter’s way wasn’t Faraday’s way. But, with every other option exhausted, it had worked.

Langstone Harbour lay in the darkness outside. The big sliding doors to the lounge were still open and the night wind spiked the room with the scent of seaweed and newly cut grass. Ruth had promised to keep an eye out for a decent mower. Something motorised. Something Faraday wouldn’t have to push.

Winter was sitting on the sofa with a big glass of Scotch, talking about the incident at the Marriott hotel. How the guy had checked in under a false name. The mess he’d made of the room. The blood around the hand basin next door. Faraday knew him in these moods. He was setting the scene, baiting a trap.

‘So what’s it worth?’ he said at last.

‘You tell me, boss. On the face of it, fuck all. But you get an instinct, don’t you?’

‘And what does that tell you?’

‘It tells me the guy was attacked.’

‘Do you have a name?’

‘Hennessey. He was a surgeon.’

‘Was?’

‘Yeah, and I can think of several thousand women who’d gladly see him dead.’

Faraday reached for the bottle and splashed more Scotch into Winter’s empty glass. The name Hennessey rang bells.

‘Gynae surgeon? Cocked up lots of operations?’

‘That’s right. You’d have seen him in the papers.’

‘So what’s the evidence? At the Marriott?’

Winter was staring at the photos on the wall. The photos were Janna’s work, Faraday’s dead wife. She’d had a talent as mysterious as Ruth’s, only in her case it revealed rather than hid itself. He’d kept the photos ever since she’d died, in exactly the same place on exactly the same walls, part of the geography of his life, and he must have mentioned them to Winter the last time he’d been here because he seemed to recognise them. He was pointing to a shot of Puget Sound during a snowstorm. Seattle had been Janna’s home town.