Authors: Graham Hurley
‘Brave fucking move,’ Morgan conceded. ‘Must prove he’s a nutter.’
‘But you’re saying he’s in the same business? Ships heroin in from abroad?’
‘That’s the word.’
‘And you believe it?’
‘I … I don’t know. If there’s money to be made – and there is – he probably couldn’t resist it. But hand on heart? Pass.’
Faraday was spooling backwards through this afternoon’s exchanges with Pelly, trying to remember what else he needed to check out before he got to the meat of this interview. Barber cut in.
‘Chris Unwin …’ She was looking at Morgan. ‘You told DC Webster there was some kind of row at the home, back in October.’
‘There was.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Lajla told me. She was the one who overheard what was going down. He’s got some kind of office in there. The door was open. The two of them were yelling at each other. She caught Unwin’s gran’s name, assumed it was all about her.’
‘And threats?’
‘Pelly promised to do him. That’s not a threat, not coming from Pelly it isn’t.’
‘Do him?’
‘Kill him.’
‘Over Unwin’s
granny
? Are you serious?’
‘Doesn’t have to be just her.’ Morgan was on the defensive now. ‘Maybe there’s other stuff between
them, stuff we don’t know about. Unwin’s not from round here. He’s a Pompey boy. Could be up to anything.’
‘Like what?’
‘No idea. But there’s got to be someone to ship all those blokes over to the mainland when the work dries up, hasn’t there?’
‘That’s a supposition, Mr Morgan,’ Faraday pointed out. ‘Pelly says this row never happened. No confrontation. No shouting. No threats. Nothing.’
‘Well he would, wouldn’t he? Why don’t you talk to Lajla? She’s the one who knows.’
‘We will.’
Faraday eyed Morgan in the rear-view mirror. There was something about the timeline here that disturbed him. At length, he put it into words.
‘You got in touch with the Intelligence DS at Shanklin on Friday. Is that right?’
‘Yeah. There or thereabouts.’
‘And a couple of days earlier the media carried details of a headless body under the cliffs on Tennyson Down. White male. Maybe Unwin’s age. It was on TV on Tuesday night.’
‘That’s right. That’s where I saw it.’
‘Which is why you made the call in the first place. Putting two and two together …’
‘Exactly.’ Morgan sounded pleased with himself, the good citizen doing his bit for law and order.
There was a long silence. Barber had her head back on the seat, her eyes closed, a smile on her face. Finally Faraday shifted his weight in the front, peered round at Morgan. He was choosing his words carefully.
‘Would it be silly of me to wonder why it took you three days to pick up the phone?’
‘I was busy,’ Morgan said at once. ‘It never occurred to me.’
‘Never occurred to you to do what?’
‘To associate Unwin with this body they were going on about.’
‘It didn’t? You hadn’t been looking in the mirror, every day since Pelly roughed you up? Hadn’t been wondering how you could –’ Faraday shrugged ‘– repay the favour?’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Yes, you are. It may not explain everything, it may not even be relevant, but I’m just wondering how many birds you knocked down with that one call. Get Pelly off the plot, maybe scare him off the island, and it’s suddenly looking good, isn’t it? You and the lovely Lajla? No one to worry about when you walk her home?’ Faraday reached for the ignition key and stirred the engine into life. ‘Just a thought, my friend, that’s all.’
Winter awoke in darkness. For a second or two he hadn’t a clue where he was. There was a sharp scent of lemons, underscored with something muskier. A strip of light on the wall opposite suggested a window and he could hear the soft nudge of blinds against the frame. He rolled over, mystified, and reached out. Nothing. Except four green digits on a bedside clock. 19.17. Impossible.
‘What happened to the rest of the day?’
He’d walked into Maddox’s lounge. She was sprawled on the floor, still in her jeans and pullover, absorbed in a movie. Winter watched it for a moment or two.
The Bridges of Madison County
. He’d seen it four times.
He rubbed his eyes. His headache, by some miracle,
had gone. He could even read the label on the leather coat she’d left draped over the back of the sofa. Monsoon.
‘So what happened?’
‘You don’t remember?’ Maddox was looking up at him. Her face, if anything, looked worse, the blacks and blues beginning to acquire a faint tint of yellow.
‘Nothing. I threw up in that nice bathroom of yours, made a real mess of it, then …’ Winter shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘That’s a good sign. I did some reiki.’
‘Some what?’
‘Reiki. It’s energy healing. You were out of it really, flat on your back in the spare bedroom.’
‘You mean unconscious?’
‘That’s what it looked like.’
‘You didn’t think –’ Winter was trying to visualise the scene ‘– to call an ambulance? Get a doctor?’
‘No, reiki’s better. You also came to at one point and asked for tablets. I happened to have some arnica. Double-dosed you.’
‘Really?’ She might have been describing a week or two in some foreign country, a remote Spanish village he’d never heard of. ‘Arnica?’
‘It’s homeopathic. You feel any better?’
‘Heaps.’
‘Well then … ’ She pulled down a couple of extra cushions from the sofa and made room for him on the carpet. ‘This bit’s where they get it on in the kitchen. Meryl Streep’s unbelievable.’
The movie over, she made him some scrambled eggs. Given the prospect of what awaited him at home in the bungalow at Bedhampton – an empty fridge, the ticking of the kitchen clock – Winter was only too
happy to prop himself against the sofa, balance the plate on his knees and settle in for the evening. He hadn’t the first idea what Maddox wanted but if it boiled down to company then it very definitely suited his immediate plans. Already, she seemed to be viewing him like some kind of elder brother. Being with her felt the easiest thing in the world.
‘What will you do with all those punters of yours?’ The eggs were delicious. ‘Now that Camber Court’s off the plot?’
She said she didn’t know, and what’s more she didn’t care. After last night nothing mattered except putting Maurice Wishart back in his box. She never wanted to see him again and if that drew a line under her career as a call girl, then so be it.
‘Eight hundred quid a trick?’ Winter couldn’t believe it. ‘Where else are you going to find that kind of money?’
‘You think I should just pick up somewhere else?’
‘Of course. Otherwise you’ll end up in some bar or other. Four fifty an hour serving infant drunks all night. No contest, is it?’
‘You’re right …’ She mopped her plate with a crust of bread. ‘But it’s not that simple. If it was just the sex I could hire a room somewhere, go to a decent hotel, but Camber Court was about all kinds of stuff. Classy food, the right wines, nice civilised vibe, good conversation. The guys used it like a kind of gentlemen’s club and that worked for me, too. So whatever happened, I’d still need a Steve Richardson.’ She glanced sideways at him. ‘Are you offering?’
‘I’m a crap cook. Plus I’m not gay.’
‘Would that matter?’
‘It might. Got any more of this?’
She fetched the saucepan from the kitchen and
spooned the remains onto Winter’s plate. She’d put something extra in it, a smokiness he couldn’t explain.
‘Nam pla.’ She licked a finger. ‘Thai fish sauce.’
She got to her feet and began to sort through a box of DVDs. She wanted to show him a French movie she’d just bought.
‘Has it got subtitles?’
‘If you need them.’
‘I need them.’
‘Why don’t I translate for you? Might be more fun.’
‘OK.’ Winter shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
She found the DVD, then hunted for the remote control. The TV was brand new, a monster Panasonic with surround sound, and Winter caught himself working out how many hours she’d have to spend hosing down her clients with Chantilly cream to afford it. Maybe she was right. Maybe she was just like every other lifestyle professional, an expensive physio with no hang-ups about turning other people’s fantasies into the real thing.
The movie began. Two scruffy French kids were walking down a country road, having a laugh.
‘Do you enjoy it? Seriously?’
Maddox was trying to keep pace with the dialogue. She broke off in mid-sentence.
‘Enjoy what?’
‘The sex. Getting it on with punters like Wishart?’
‘Yes, I do. It helps not to think too hard … but yes. The answer’s yes.’
‘But he’s horrible.’
‘No, he’s not. Not until last night, anyway. He’s just a guy I shag. I please him. He gives me money. He makes a fool of himself. He thinks he’s in control. That makes me laugh sometimes, the expression on these
guys’ faces. It’s not just Maurice, it’s all of them. They’re all naked in ways they’ll never understand.’
‘You’ve got a favourite?’
‘Yes. But I’m not telling.’
‘What makes him a favourite?’
‘Not what you think.’
‘What, then?’
‘You really want to know?’ Winter nodded. ‘It’s his sense of humour. He sees through it all. Inherited money. Makes all the difference.’
‘You’re serious?’
‘Absolutely. The problem with people like Wishart is they’ve come from nowhere, or nowhere very special. They’ve had to fight for what they’ve got. They have to believe in themselves, be aware of themselves, and that can limit conversation, take my word for it. These people have no sense of perspective, no hinterland. They’re forever banged up with their own bloody self-importance. Me, me, me. And another thing –’ she’d abandoned the film completely ‘– they know the price of everything and the value of nothing. It’s all numbers to them. Let a guy like Maurice screw you three times in a session and he’s very, very happy.’
‘And this other bloke, whoever he is?’
‘He thinks it’s all a huge joke. He’s not an idiot, far from it; in fact he’s exceptionally bright. With him I learn things and one of the reasons I learn things is that he makes it easy for me to listen. Often we don’t make love at all, not properly.’
‘Really?’ Winter tried to visualise eight hundred quid’s worth of quality conversation but couldn’t. The two urchins on screen were in a wood now. Cutaways to a truckload of German troops suggested something nasty in the offing. Winter turned back to Maddox, still wanting answers.
‘So how come you’re so bloody sure of yourself?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘All this stuff about self-made men. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I just want to know how you’ve sussed these people.’
‘My family have a huge estate in Wiltshire.’ She tried to soften the news with a lopsided smile. ‘Inherited money, I’m afraid. So maybe that makes me an expert.’
Winter was vague about the ways of the aristocracy. Titled families were thin on the ground in Pompey but the thought of Maddox as a duchess brought an added sparkle to the evening. He put his empty plate to one side.
‘Do they know what you’re up to? Mummy and Daddy?’
‘Christ no, but I’m not sure they’d care, even if they did. The last time I saw my mother was six years ago. She met me off the train at Templecombe station. She was so pissed I had to try all the cars in the car park until one fitted her key. Turned out to be a Metro she’d borrowed from one of the gardeners. There’s a little glove pocket on the driver’s side that’s perfect for those quarter-litre bottles of vodka. Getting home was a problem, too. It was dark and she couldn’t remember the way. Ever ended up in Gillingham? Don’t bother …’
Winter fought the impulse to applaud. Not only had she cured his headache. She also made him laugh.
‘So where’s Daddy in all this?’
‘He lives in Paris with a Russian princess, a descendant of the Romanovs. They’ve got this huge apartment near the Bois de Boulogne. That’s where I learned my French.’
‘You still see him?’
‘Once in a while. He’s a gorgeous man but he was the one who disinherited me so it can get quite tricky.’
‘We’re talking serious money?’
‘More than a million.’
‘Shit. How did you upset him?’
‘By coming here.’
‘Pompey cost you a million quid?’ Winter thought that sounded harsh.
‘It wasn’t the city, it was the company I was keeping. Daddy had a friend. This guy had been a para colonel in Algeria during the emergency and he joined the plot against de Gaulle. Daddy thought that was shameful and told Philippe so, warned him he’d be opening the door to the communists. They had a gigantic falling-out, which was a shame because a couple of years ago I came along and fell in love with the man. He’s more than twice my age, quite a lot more, but he’s an angel in every way. Men are like furniture. You shouldn’t look at anything less than sixty years old.’
Winter did the sums. Fifteen years to go, he thought.
‘You brought this guy here?’
‘I did. I’d just started the PhD and I wanted to find out about the place. We had a little flat off Albert Road.
Mon père
had cut me out by then so I was teaching a bit of French at the university to help out with the groceries. I’m afraid Philippe didn’t survive Portsmouth. Or maybe it was me he couldn’t stand. Either way, he was back in Paris by Christmas, ringing my dad up and telling him what a mess I was making of my life, so I expect they’re best buddies again now.’
‘And the money?’
‘The Russian princess has been doing her best, she’s a sweet old thing, but my pa is one of those people who dig themselves in. Point of honour. Never change
your mind. Sad really, isn’t it?
Desheritée. Définitivement pour toujours
.’ She rolled over, her face inches from Winter’s. ‘So what’s your secret?’ she whispered. ‘How come you passed out in my bathroom?’
Winter said he didn’t know. He’d been getting pains. He saw bubbles everywhere. Sometimes he spewed.
‘Have you seen anyone about it?’
‘The doctor. I’m on some kind of list. One day they’ll put me in front of a consultant. Then they’ll cart me off to the knacker’s yard.’