Cut to Black

Chapter twenty-three

MONDAY, 24 MARCH 2003, 09.35

Faraday was late getting to Kingston Crescent, delayed by an accident in Milton. Knocking at Willard's door, he stepped into the Det-Supt's office to find Brian Imber and Martin Prebble already sitting at the conference table. With Willard still at his desk, locked into a particularly difficult phone call, Joyce was busy in the adjacent kitchen.

"Sheriff?" She'd stolen up behind him.

Faraday made way for the tray of coffees and sat down at the table.

Imber wanted to know what was going on. All three of them had been denied entry at the Whale Island guardhouse. More alarming still, they'd had to surrender their security passes.

"All in good time, Brian." Willard had joined them at last. He took the seat at the head of the table and winced when he tasted the coffee.

Joyce rarely used less than two spoonfuls of instant.

Imber was still looking at Faraday. Already Faraday could sense the suspicions shaping behind the tight smile. The collapse of Tumbril, he thought, had wreaked havoc. And one of the casualties might well be his friendship with this man.

Willard opened the meeting with a surprisingly chaotic account of the way they'd tried to sting Mackenzie. Faraday couldn't work out whether it was embarrassment or simple exhaustion, but it was only slowly that the real shape of the entrapment swam into focus. With Willard's preamble complete, it was Imber inevitably who sought clarification.

"Mackenzie was after the fort?"

"Indeed."

"Which was or wasn't for sale?"

"Was, as far as he was concerned."

"But for real, later? Because of the woman's circumstances?"

"That's correct."

"So what happened?"

This time, Willard was brisk. The meet had been set up for yesterday lunchtime. Minimum back-up kept the operation details tight. Wallace and Mackenzie met in the bar, then went through to the restaurant. The subsequent conversation was monitored and recorded. Half an hour into the meal, it became obvious that Wallace was blown. Not just Wallace, but Tumbril itself. Game, set and match to Mr. Mackenzie.

"I've just been talking to the CPS." Willard nodded towards the phone on his desk. "They want the operation discontinued. From here on in, they regard Tumbril as tainted."

"Tainted?" Faraday had never seen Imber so angry. "Is that why we were turned away this morning? Because you guys fucked up the covert?"

"Steady on, Brian." It was Willard. "This isn't easy for any of us."

"I'm sure it isn't, sir. I'm just curious, that's all. We arrive at work. We're denied access. The guy on the gate says the office has been sealed, guards posted, locks changed, the whole nine yards. That makes it a crime scene, doesn't it?"

"Yes." Willard nodded. "It does."

"Brilliant. I go home Friday night thinking we're getting somewhere at last. I've seen the stuff that Martin's prepared for you, the asset statement, and to me it's starting to look good so good I took my boys to London yesterday and never gave Tumbril a moment's thought. That's rare, believe me. Then this morning comes along, and I find the whole thing's collapsed. Bang, nothing left, year zero. Not only that but we're all under suspicion for blowing a sting about which we know absolutely nothing."

"What makes you think that?"

"Forgive me, sir, but I don't think you've thought this through. Our records will be seized, our e-mails, our phone logs, everything. Are you telling me this is some kind of exercise?"

"Not at all. Damage limitation might be closer."

"Damage to what? To whom?"

"To Tumbril. To us all. To the force in general. I repeat: Mackenzie knows everything. That means someone must have told him. And that means we have to find out who."

Imber fell silent for a moment. He was far too experienced a policeman to doubt for a moment the course of the next few weeks. With this much egg on Tumbril's face, someone had to start the cleanup.

"Are we suspended?" he asked at last. "Only it might be nice to know."

"No." Willard shook his head. "Mr. Alcott and I considered it but for the moment we don't believe there's a need."

"So who heads the inquiry?" Imber was looking at Faraday.

"Don't ask me, Brian." Faraday felt helpless. "I'm as much in the frame as you are."

"More, sir, with respect. You were there yesterday. Presumably you were in on the setting-up."

Willard stirred. "And so was I, Brian, if that's any consolation. This is getting us nowhere."

"Mr. Willard?" Prebble had raised a hand. "I know I'm not really in the loop here but it's not clear to me where this leaves the operation."

"Nowhere. I just told you. The CPS have knocked it on the head."

"So…" He was frowning, trying to follow the logic. "We never move against Mackenzie?"

"That's right."

"Or his solicitors? Accountants? All those nominees?"

"Right again. Unless the CPS have second thoughts."

"That's mad. More than a year's graft? That's insane."

"I agree."

Prebble looked sideways at Imber, a mute appeal for support, but Imber appeared to be in shock. His face, always lean, seemed to have caved in on itself. Here was a man, Faraday thought, who's just seen his life's work demolished in less time than it took him to shave in the morning. Nailing Mackenzie, in Imber's own words, was the closest he'd ever got to ripping up this evil by the roots. Now, Tumbril's prime target was beyond reach.

Willard was mapping the road ahead. Given the potential fallout from Tumbril, the Chief had instructed the Professional Standards Department to conduct a thorough investigation. Every member of the Tumbril team, including Willard himself, would in due course be required to make themselves available for interview. In the meantime, everyone with the exception of Prebble would be reassigned to other duties.

This time it was Joyce who raised a hand.

"I vote for a wake." She was looking at Faraday. "That's the least Tumbril owes us."

With the meeting over, Faraday was last to leave the table. At the door, Willard called him back. He was standing at his desk, firing up his laptop. At length, he keyed a file.

"Prebble e-mailed me this late last night. There's something you ought to look at."

Faraday recognised the asset analysis Prebble had been compiling on Friday afternoon. But for the accountant's abrupt departure for the train, he'd have read it earlier.

"Here." Willard had scrolled through to the final page. Under "Miscellaneous Assets' Prebble had listed a 7000 payment from Bellux Ltd to a local company called Ambrym. Faraday felt the blood begin to ice in his veins. Bellux Ltd was the most active of Mackenzie's many companies, the engine he used to power his commercial empire. An explanatory note explained that the money was a one-off contribution to a health education video.

"Ambrym?" Willard looked up at Faraday.

"Eadie's company."

"And the video?"

"That's the one J-J's been working on."

"About what, exactly?"

"Heroin."

"Co-funded by the guy who's been running drugs most of his life? If this wasn't Monday, I'd say we were looking at a piss-take here. What the fuck's going on?"

"I've no idea, sir." Faraday couldn't take his eyes off the screen.

Ambrym Productions. November 5, Z002. 7000. Grip, he thought.

Willard stepped away from the desk. Yesterday had left its mark on him: eyes shadowed by fatigue, a fold of skin bloodied under his chin where he'd been careless with the razor.

"We shouldn't be having this conversation, Joe, but let me remind you of the obvious. Investigating officers look for motive. You live with this woman. You want the best for her. You want her to succeed. 7000 isn't a lot of motive but it's a start. You get my drift?"

Faraday nodded. There was nothing to say. Dimly, he heard Willard telling him to sort out a list of Whale Island staff who might have had access to the Tumbril offices: cleaners, caterers, photocopier engineers. He wanted full details on his desk by tomorrow morning.

"OK?"

"Yes, sir." Faraday was back beside the door. "Cathy Lamb's little job…" he began.

"Tonight, you mean? Mike Valentine? The P amp;O ferry?" Willard looked at Faraday for a long moment, then shook his head. "The last thing she needs is help from us, Joe. I've told her to sort it from her end."

It was mid morning before Cathy Lamb was summoned to Secretan's office.

The Chief Supt had received a full brief on the forthcoming operation aboard The Pride of Portsmouth, and had indicated his approval. While he understood that the operation was purely speculative, based on thinnish evidence, he badly needed a headline or two of his own in the rapidly developing media war. Twice last week, the News had led its main evening edition with drug-related stories involving generous helpings of extreme violence. The city might have survived the Blitz, he told Cathy, but at this rate half the population would be thinking hard about evacuation.

At lunchtime he was hosting a state visit from the Chief Constable and two carloads of assorted worthies. Portsmouth had been chosen as a prime example of a well-run BCU making serious inroads into the Home Office crime target figures. Before the Chief's party arrived, it might be nice to get the latest body count.

Cathy liked Secretan. He radiated exactly the kind of quiet exasperation she herself had turned into a way of life. There was no point, she decided, giving him anything but the truth.

"Good news first, sir. You remember the Scouse lad we picked up at the station? The one we tied to Nick Hayder with the DNA hit? The accident analysis guys think Hayder must have been dragged along for a bit before being thrown off. Then the lad at the wheel went back and ran him over."

"Nice." Secretan was staring out of the window. "You've charged him?"

"Last night, sir. He's still in hospital under guard. He's got no alibi for the Tuesday night. Says he was out of the city but can't remember where."

"Motive?"

"Hard to say. My guess is that Nick came across him by chance when he was out running, put two and two together, and challenged him. The rest we know."

"I thought there were two of them?"

"There probably were. We've been trying to nail down the other one for days now, spot of modest entrapment, but it came to nothing. If you're asking me, I'd say the Scousers have buggered off."

"Why?"

"Pastures new, sir. Plus the Yardies have arrived. As you know."

Secretan was looking glum. After months of harassment by a specialist Met unit, Jamaican dealers were spilling out of London and looking for profits elsewhere. Operation Trident might have been a high-profile success, tackling black-on-black gun crime, but in Secre-tan's view the problem had been displaced rather than cured. Every Chief Supt's waking nightmare featured Yardie gangs, and in Pompey's case the nightmare was in danger of coming true.

Secretan pushed his chair back from the desk and got to his feet. On a clear day, his office window offered a distant glimpse of the line of forts on top of Portsdown Hill. He stood there for a moment, deep in thought, then turned back to Cathy Lamb.

"Crack houses?" he suggested bleakly. "Machetes? Glocks? Where does all this bloody end?"

Faraday got to Hampshire Terrace in mid afternoon. He found J-J at the PC, sorting through video rushes from Al Jazeera. On screen, some wary-looking US troops, taken prisoner by the Iraqis, were being paraded for the benefit of the world's press. Watching their faces, Faraday realised just how helpless both armies had become in the face of political decisions taken half a world away. These men were barely out of their teens. For all their hi-tech body armour and helmet-mounted gizmos, they understood nothing of the people they'd been dispatched to liberate. Now, as prisoners of war, they were clearly expecting the worst.

Faraday laid his hand on his son's shoulder, making J-J jump.

"We need a world without politicians," he signed. "Can you get that in your video?"

J-J thought about the challenge for a moment or two. Then, to Faraday's immense relief, he grinned.

"Eadie's been looking for you," he signed back. "I think she's gone home."

"Home?"

"The flat."

Faraday spotted Eadie's battered Suzuki parked on the se afront opposite the converted hotel that housed her apartment. He slipped the Mondeo into an adjoining space and sat behind the wheel for a moment or two, wondering quite how to handle what would inevitably follow.

Willard had made it absolutely plain that Faraday himself was implicated by Ambrym's acceptance of Mackenzie's money. Any investigating senior officer any court would view the tie-up with profound suspicion. On the other hand, the last few days had shaken Faraday to the core, and in ways that surprised him he realised how much he missed this woman's company. Eadie being Eadie, she was probably unaware of any sense of crisis between them but that, in a way, was the point. Eadie was one of the world's great optimists. She had boundless faith in her own abilities and the guts to see a challenge through. The rest, as she so often pointed out, was conversation.

He found her upstairs, perched on a stool by the phone. The moment Faraday appeared, she blew him a kiss and pointed at the kettle. She wanted needed tea. Faraday busied himself with the Earl Grey and managed to find a packet of ginger snaps in the tin she used for biscuits.

The conversation on the phone was becoming heated. No, she had absolutely no intention of making money on this deal. The movie was going into schools at cost price. Given any kind of demand, she could dupe VHS cassettes at fifty pence. Even with postage and packing there couldn't be a school in the country that couldn't afford a couple of quid for a glimpse of the truth. When the voice at the other end started to argue again, she cut him off.

"I don't care a fuck what you think," she said. "If it's that important, I'll send you a cheque." She put the phone down, shaking her head. "Arsehole."

"Who was that?"

"Guy called Mackenzie. Turns out he backed my movie. Now he's asking fifty per cent of the profits. Profits? How gross is that?"

"What else did he say?"

"He said he wanted to see it. I told him my pleasure. Then he started up with all this nonsense about marketing and copyright and selling the arse off the thing."

"Was that his phrase or yours?"

"Please, Joe? Does that sound like me?"

"In some moods, yes."

"Really? Am I that horrible?"

"Tell me more." Faraday nodded at the phone.

"That's about it." Eadie helped herself to a biscuit. "Doug had obviously sold him the video on the phone and he couldn't wait to turn it into a big fat royalty cheque. So I told him to bugger off. You probably heard."

Faraday nodded. He'd only met Doug Hughes once. Eadie had spotted him in a pub they sometimes used and had insisted on doing the introductions. Hughes had been with a striking-looking blonde, and on the evidence of five minutes conversation Faraday had rather liked him.

"How does Doug know Mackenzie?"

"Haven't a clue. The man must be seriously wealthy. Doug's silly around that kind of money, always has been. He can't help himself.

Moth to the flame."

"Have you any idea what Mackenzie does for a living?"

"None. Apart from ripping off Aussie producers."

"He's a drug dealer." Faraday saw no point in keeping secrets any more.

"Mackenzie? You're serious?"

"Very. You're really telling me you didn't know?"

"Hadn't a clue. All I saw was the cheque. Without the seven grand, none of this would ever have happened." She stared at him a moment.

"You want to see the final cut?"

She had a VHS of the video in her day sack. While Faraday poured the tea, she knelt in front of the player and turned on the television.

Moments later, Faraday turned to find himself looking at a close-up of a needle probing for a vein. Eadie sat back on the carpet, totally absorbed. When Faraday joined her with the tea, she leant back into him for support.

"The next bit's incredible," she murmured. "Just you watch."

Winter had spent most of the day calculating exactly when he'd phone Mackenzie. Too early, and he might have time to make inquiries of his own. Too late, and he'd miss the boat.

The ferry left at 11.00 p.m. According to Jimmy Suttle, Trudy, her mum, and Mike Valentine were having an early farewell supper at a restaurant they both liked over in Chichester. After that, they'd be running Trude back to Buriton. One last visit to pick up some things from the house in Waterlooville, then they'd be heading down the A3 to the Continental Ferry port.

Around six, Winter had decided, would be perfect. Now, with news of another British squaddie killed in action on the car radio, Winter made the call. Mackenzie answered at once. He must have keyed the number into his directory.

"Mr. Winter." He was laughing. "That's twice in less than a week."

"We need to meet."

"Why?"

"There's something I need to get off my chest. Informal would be better, if you know what I mean. Where are you?"

"In the office."

"Kent Road?"

"That's right."

"Stay there. I'll be ten minutes."

Winter didn't hang on for confirmation. Across the road, he could see the big gated mansion that Mackenzie had turned into his corporate headquarters. Since his last visit, the walls of adjacent properties had attracted yet more graffiti. On Bazza's smoothly plastered battlements, still nothing.

Half expecting Bazza to leave, Winter listened to the news before making his way across the road. Mackenzie answered the door in person.

He was wearing nicely cut jeans and a plain white T-shirt. The laughter had gone.

"This better be important," he said. "I've cancelled a meeting because of you."

"Upstairs, then?"

Winter walked past him and began to mount the staircase. At the top, Mackenzie pushed past him. The lights were on in the office at the end of the corridor. Winter didn't wait for an invitation before he sat down.

"You've pissed me off," he said softly. "Big time."

"Yeah? Why's that, then?"

"What happened to Suttle."

"He was out of order."

"Wrong. Baz. You were out of order. The guy could have got badly hurt."

"Shame he wasn't. Chris told me he went down like a squinny. What's the problem these days? Can't recruit the right kind of blokes?

Listen, if this is all you've come to say then you'd better fuck off now. What happened on Saturday was down to that mate of yours. Or maybe even you."

"Me? How does that work?"

"Didn't I warn you? Didn't I tell you about my Trude?"

"Your Trude?" It was Winter's turn to laugh.

"Yeah, my Trude. Got a problem with that?"

"Not at all." Winter sat back, then glanced at his watch. "I see Mike Valentine's off."

"That's right. Tonight's ferry. Fuengirola, lucky bastard."

"What's lucky about that? The place is full of low life, the way I hear it. Dealers. Expats. Men with too much money and no taste."

"Yeah? Money get up your nose, does it? No fucking surprise, the pittance you guys pull. No, Mike'll be nicely set up. Even speaks Spanish. Can you believe that? Pompey boy?"

"Still be in touch, will you?"

"Definitely."

"Business? Or old times' sake?"

"Both. Mike's a natural. Bloke's got class. You can see it. He treats people right. He charms them. He can make money just by the way he smiles."

"You're right. And not just money." Winter produced a carefully folded A4 sheet and tossed it onto Mackenzie's desk. "Read that."

"What is it?"

"Have a look and you'll find out."

Wary now, Mackenzie reached for the document. Winter watched him flatten it on the desk. The top line gave him the clue. Halfway down the page, he looked up.

"Where did you get this?"

"Mist's place."

"She gave it to you?"

"I lifted it." Winter smiled at him.

"You're talking bollocks. She's been there all week."

"Not on Saturday she wasn't."

"You're winding me up."

"Not at all. The Lanesborough up in town. Lift the phone. Here's the number. Suite fourteen. Booked in the name of Mr. and Mrs.

Valentine."

"Mike?" He still didn't believe it.

"The very same."

"Cunt." His voice was barely audible. He'd gone back to the paternity certificate. Finally he looked up, a strange gleam in his eyes. "This better be some kind of joke, mush, else…" He nodded towards the door, dismissing Winter, then reached for the phone.

Eadie and Faraday had spent the best part of two hours discussing the video. Faraday had watched it twice; he wanted to make sure his first impressions were correct. The original material had been powerful enough images he'd found genuinely shocking but Eadie's editing had shaped these pictures in such a way that their cumulative impact was irresistible.

The sheer momentum of the thing was, to Faraday, beyond rational explanation. It had a passion, and a pulse, that seized you by the throat and never once let go. By the end he was, in turns, saddened, angered, and determined to do something positive. Sharing Daniel Kelly's story with the widest possible audience would be a very good start. Bang on doors. Spread the message. Force kids to the video machine. Whatever.

"I don't know how you did that," he told her. "It's totally beyond me."

"You think it's OK? Hits the mark?"

"I think it's horrible. And I think it definitely hits the mark."

"So all those rules I broke…?"

"Pain in the arse. Definitely."

"And Mackenzie?"

"You blagged seven grand of his money. Congratulations."

"Friends again, then?" She got up from the sofa and kissed him on the mouth. Then she paused. "What's the name of that boss of yours?"

"Willard."

"No." She shook her head. "The uniformed guy."

"Secretan. He's a Chief Superintendent."

"First name?"

"Andy." He gazed at her. "Why?"