Authors: Graham Hurley
‘He sounds lucky to me. Most dads …’ She shrugged. ‘Not that I’d know.’
‘That’s kind of you but it’s not that simple. Never was, as a matter of fact.’ Faraday got up and glanced at his watch, trying to mask the sudden flood of emotion. ‘Twenty past,’ he said briskly. ‘We ought to be off.’
Monday, 23 February 2004
The Boniface Nursing Home lay in a quiet cul-de-sac a mile or so inland from the sea. This was where Shanklin began to peter out, the muddle of streets and houses giving away to a mosaic of scruffy fields and meadowland before the long green swell of St Boniface Down.
Faraday parked the Mondeo and accompanied Barber up the steep gravel path to the front door. The house seemed to sprawl in all directions. At its heart lay a sturdy red-brick villa, neatly proportioned, with big sash windows on the ground floor and a white-painted wooden balcony running the width of the floor above, but various additions had given the place an air of over-hasty ambition. To Faraday’s eye it looked like the kind of structure a bored child might put together on the sitting-room carpet, paying little attention to whether the various bits really fitted.
On the square of paved patio beside the door an elderly woman sat huddled in a wheelchair in the chill sunshine. She answered Barber’s smile with a blank stare, her hands stirring beneath the thick folds of plaid blanket. Faraday rang the doorbell. They had no appointment with Pelly, just the earlier assurance that he’d probably be in.
After a while the door opened. It was a young girl,
pretty, no more than eleven. She was wearing jeans and a Busted T-shirt. Her feet were bare.
She peered out at them.
‘Yeah?’
‘Mr Pelly in?’
‘Yeah.’
The girl turned away, leaving them trying to make conversation with the woman in the wheelchair. Tracy was still talking about the weather when a man rounded the corner of the house and strode towards them. He was tall, thin-faced, fit-looking, with a mop of greying hair gathered into a longish pony tail. The paint-splashed jogging bottoms had seen better days and the rest of his wardrobe seemed to have come from an army surplus store, but he had a very definite sense of presence. This wasn’t the bloated lush Faraday had been led to expect. Far from it.
‘Mr Pelly?’
‘That’s me.’
‘DI Faraday. This is DC Barber. We’d appreciate a word if we may.’
Pelly had stationed himself between Faraday and the front door. He ignored the proffered warrant card.
‘Why?’ he queried. ‘What’s this about?’
‘I’d prefer to explain inside if you don’t mind.’ Faraday nodded towards the bent old figure in the wheelchair. ‘Somewhere a bit more private.’
‘This one? She’s lost it.’ Pelly stepped towards the wheelchair and gave the woman’s thin shoulder an affectionate squeeze. ‘Sweet old thing but mad as a coot. Tell her the time of day and she’ll ask you for two sugars. Won’t you, dear?’ He looked down at the face in the wheelchair a moment longer, then turned back to Faraday and shrugged. ‘OK, then. Better be quick, mind. Time’s money.’
Faraday followed Pelly into the house. Even with the lights on, the hall was gloomy. Handrails and other aids had robbed the interior of whatever style it might once have possessed, and as they picked their way through the maze of corridors the smells got ever stronger: rancid cooking oil with a thin top dressing of urine and bleach.
Pelly’s office lay at the back of the house. Invoices and other paperwork spilled from a wire basket on the cluttered desk and a big marker board occupied most of the wall. The board was sectioned into days of the week, each day subdivided into shifts, and a scribbled list of names occupied each of the squares. Judging by the crossings-out, Pelly had a big problem with absentees.
‘So?’ Pelly had made himself comfortable behind the desk. His eyes, more grey than blue, never left Faraday’s face.
Faraday began to sketch out the reason for their visit. He had grounds to believe that Pelly knew a young van driver from Portsmouth, Chris Unwin, who came over to the island from time to time to see his aged gran. True or false?
For a long moment Pelly didn’t answer. Faraday had noticed the blue tattoo on his forearm, a tiny winged dagger. SAS, he thought. No wonder he keeps himself together.
‘Who told you that?’ Pelly muttered at last.
‘Can’t say, I’m afraid.’
Pelly watched him for a moment longer, then leaned forward over the desk. The colour seemed to have drained from his face.
‘Gary, wasn’t it? Little tosser. Go on, deny it. Gary fucking Morgan.’
Faraday refused to rise to the bait. Through the
window behind Pelly he could see a child’s swing at the end of a length of threadbare lawn. Beside the swing was some kind of hole that might once have been a sandpit. Beyond, in a carefully dug flower garden, the first daffodils of spring.
‘Shall I tell you something about Mr Morgan?’ It was Pelly again. ‘Put yourself around a bit, and you get to realise there are people in this world you don’t cross. I happen to be one of them. Did twatface take the least bit of notice? Of course he didn’t. So what do you think that made him? Apart from stupid?’
‘You’re telling me you and Morgan had a run-in?’
‘A tiff, yes.’ Pelly barked with laughter. ‘Run-in’s a bit strong.’
‘What happened?’
‘That’s my business. But next time you see Mr Morgan just pass him a message, eh? Tell him he was fucking lucky. Tell him next time round I might mean it. Now, if that’s all you’ve come about, I’ll say goodbye. In this game there’s never an end to it.’
‘An end to what, Mr Pelly?’
‘Work.’ He nodded towards the open door. ‘Painting, maintenance, fire equipment, escape routes, seagull shit all over the patio – you name it. I wake up every morning with a list of jobs you wouldn’t believe – and you know why? Because we get inspected to death. They come knocking at my door, these clowns. They’ve got their little clipboards and their fancy IDs, and I bet none of them have done an honest day’s work in their lives.’ He shook his head at the injustice of it all. ‘You know what the last one told me? He’d gone around and done a headcount, got to eighteen bodies, refused to believe I could make a place like this pay on those kinds of numbers. So you know what he said? He said you’ve got a couple stuffed away
somewhere, haven’t you? Couple of old biddies you never declared. Not to the taxman. Not to the VAT. Just readies, cash in hand, ghost income. Christ, I just wish it was that simple. You know what I did? I gave him a wrecking bar and a hammer, told him to lift a floorboard or two,
any
fucking floorboard, check the place out properly. Phantom grannies …’ He turned to stare out of the window. ‘My arse …’
‘This lad Unwin …’ Faraday began. ‘Do you know anyone of that name?’
‘Unwin …’ Pelly put his head back and closed his eyes, muttering the name to himself. Faraday noticed a scar that ran from the hinge of his jaw to the point of his chin, a tiny raised line of tissue. ‘Young Mary.’ Pelly turned back towards Faraday. ‘She’s an Unwin.’
‘She lives here?’
‘Has done for years. Eighty-seven last birthday. Grand old dame. Ideas above her station but I suppose you can blame that on her condition. It’s people like her take the edge off Alzheimer’s. Catch her on the right day and she’s almost sane.’
‘Does she have next of kin?’
‘Everyone has next of kin.’
‘Do you have her records?’
‘Of course I do. I’m in charge of her. I’m her keeper.’
‘May I see them?’
Pelly didn’t answer, not at once. Then he threw back his head and laughed again, a deeply private joke that was lost on Faraday.
‘You people kill me.’ A wave of his hand encompassed them both. ‘You come in here, put your little questions, lots of pleases and thank yous, very polite, bit of respect, and yet you and I know it’s all a game, don’t we? Of course I’ve got fucking records. But just say I refuse to part with them. Just say I cop a moody
because all that stuff’s confidential and tell you to get the fuck out of here. You’d be back, wouldn’t you? You’d be back with your search warrant and your mates and you’d probably tear the fucking place apart.’
‘Why would we want to do that?’ It was Barber.
‘Because that’s the way you are, love. Because that’s the way it works in this khazi of a country. On the surface, sweet reason. Underneath, all kinds of vileness.’ He switched his attention to Faraday. ‘Listen, my friend. I could take you to places in this world that are truly horrible, places not two hours in a plane from here, but you know something? You get to know these shitholes and one thing hits you in the face. No one’s pretending it’s anything but evil. They all own up. Here? Us? We want it both ways. You believe all that Merrie England crap? Merrie England, my arse.’
He got to his feet and bent to an ancient filing cabinet. A couple of seconds in the middle drawer and he’d located the folder he wanted. He tossed it across the desk. Mrs Mary Belinda Unwin.
Faraday reached for his pocketbook. Webster, after all, hadn’t got it wrong. This man was a ticking bomb, primed to explode at the least hint of offence. Faraday opened the folder, aware of Pelly watching him.
‘You want a pen?’ He opened a drawer and slid a biro across the desk, a giveaway from Dinosaurland.
Faraday produced a pen of his own. Mary Unwin’s last address was in south-east London. Her next of kin also lived at 14 Havelock Road.
‘Is Ellie Unwin Mary’s daughter?’
‘Haven’t a clue. Could be.’
Faraday wrote down the address and phone number. Then he looked up.
‘And Chris Unwin? Would he be Ellie’s son?’
Pelly shrugged; didn’t bother to answer. From nowhere he’d produced a string of worry beads, and now he began to slip them between his fingers, first one way, then the other.
‘Where’s all this going?’ he asked at last. ‘Why the interest in Unwin?’
‘Because we need to talk to him.’
‘But why? What’s he done?’
‘Is that anything to do with you?’
‘Yes, if it brings you here.’
It was a fair point. Tracy Barber edged Pelly back on track.
‘How well do you know this Chris Unwin?’ she asked.
‘Who’s saying I know him? You?’
‘OK.’ Barber rephrased the question. ‘
Do
you know Chris Unwin?’
‘As it happens, yes.’
‘So how well do you know him?’
‘So-so. He comes here sometimes, visits his gran.’
‘And what does he do for a living, Unwin?’
‘He drives a van.’
‘He owns the van?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘What does he do with the van?’
‘Fuck knows. Deliveries? House clearances? Removals? Weddings and funerals? How am I supposed to know? What it boils down to is this, love. The guy drops by. His granny asks us who he is. They have a cup of tea together. He gives her a kiss, tells her he loves her, and fucks off back to the ferry. That’s how families work in this country – and I’m the one to know because it’s people like me who look after the cast-offs. These old dears are scrap, they’re gash, they’re surplus to requirements. One day we’ll put
them in bins on the seafront. For the time being they still come to us.’
‘Does that upset you?’
‘Not me, love, not me personally. It’s a living; it’s what I do. But on their behalf? Of course it fucking does. I love ’em to death, the old dears, anyone half decent would.’ Pelly shifted in his chair. ‘You know what I think about Alzheimer’s,
really
think? I think it’s self-inflicted. My old ladies have seen what people are really like, their own bloody kith and kin for God’s sake, and they’ve decided to pull the blanket over their head. Alzheimer’s is a way out. It wipes the slate clean. And from their point of view, not before bloody time.’
‘You’re telling me Chris Unwin comes regularly?’
‘Came. He’s stopped lately.’
‘Why’s that?’ It was Faraday.
‘God knows. Maybe he’s got better things to do. Maybe Pompey in the Premiership has gone to his head. Maybe he’s fallen in love, got a puncture, signed up with Al-Qaeda – how am I supposed to know?’
Faraday was gazing at a snap Blu-tacked to a corner of the marker board, waiting for Pelly to calm down. The photo showed a sleek-looking motor launch, bright yellow, tied to a buoy. Some kind of cabin up front, a big expanse of open deck at the back.
Pelly followed his eyeline.
‘You into fishing at all?’ he enquired. ‘Only I can do you a deal. Couple of hundred quid and I can take you to sea the whole day. That’s cheap, believe me. Bait and rods supplied. Bring half a dozen mates and you’ll have a ball. This time of year, I can guarantee cod, maybe even a knackered old bass. You know how many fish the last lot came home with?’
Faraday ignored the question. Barber asked Pelly where he kept the boat.
‘Bembridge,’ he said. ‘It’s on a mooring. Costs an arm and a leg. That’s why I do the charters. Best to make your hobbies pay, eh?’
Barber scribbled herself a note. Pelly turned back to Faraday.
‘You want to know about Unwin? I’ll tell you. The bloke’s a waste of space. He’s an idiot. He’s one of those people you know right off he’s got a screw loose. But fair play to the lad, he’s been over here to see his old granny, and there aren’t many people who do that, believe me.’
‘I thought you just told me no one cares?’
‘They don’t, by and large, but at least Unwin had a stab at it; went through the motions.’
‘So when did you last see him?’
‘Can’t remember.’ Pelly was back with the worry beads. ‘Where are we now? February? Must have been way before Christmas, maybe October, maybe earlier. That’s the thing about this game. Close your eyes, count to ten, and there’s another year gone.’
‘Did you ever have a row with the man?’
‘A row? About what?’
‘I don’t know.’ Faraday paused, choosing his words carefully. ‘Was there ever a time when you were together in here? Having a bit of a shout?’
‘Who says?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘It does to me, my friend. And you know why? Because it’s not true.’ He paused a moment, staring at Faraday. ‘Is that why you’ve come? To check out some piece of gossip about Unwin? Me and him having a ding-dong? Is that it?’