Cut to Black

Chapter three

WEDNESDAY, 19 MARCH 2OO3, O9.41

Winter loathed hospitals. Ever since he'd been a kid, they'd represented authority. People who'd tell you what to do. People who'd strip you half naked and take the most amazing liberties. People who'd hurt you. A couple of years back, he'd lost his wife to the men in white coats. More recently, after a vehicle pursuit that had gone badly wrong, he'd spent a couple of painful days under NHS care, fantasising about Bell's whisky and the possibility of a decently-cooked spud. Show Paul Winter a hospital, and he'd be looking for the door.

The A 8c E Department, for a Wednesday morning, was already busy.

Winter showed his warrant card to the woman manning the reception desk.

"It's about last night," he said. "Girl called Trudy Gallagher."

"What about her?"

"She was brought in by ambulance. Three, half three, this morning something like that. Bit of an incident."

"And?"

"I need to talk to her."

The woman tapped a command into her keyboard. The other side of the waiting area, Jimmy Suttle was sorting out small change for the coffee machine.

"As far as I can tell, she went." It was the receptionist again, still gazing at the screen of her PC.

"Went? We talking the same girl?"

"Here." The woman turned the screen towards Winter. Trudy Gallagher had been booked in at 03.48. She'd complained of a headache and period pains, and the duty streaming nurse had marked her low priority. The pre-midnight rush had thinned, but with half a dozen patients ahead of her in the queue that still meant a wait of a couple of hours. At least. r. Here and here." Winter touched his ribcage. "She'd been tied up half the night, terrified out of her head. She was in shock. You're telling me she just walked out?"

"We can only go on what we're told. It's her body, not ours."

"Yeah, but…" Winter shook his head. Last night he'd known he should have ridden up to the QA with Trudy but, looking at her, he'd concluded there was no point. She was past talking, past saying anything remotely useful. They'd keep her in at the hospital, bound to. Next morning would be better. Then she'd have something to say.

"Here…" It was Suttle with the coffees. Winter ignored him.

"So where did she go?"

"No idea."

"She give you an address?"

"Yes." The woman was peering at a box on the screen.

"And?"

"No chance." She gave Winter a withering look. "You blokes ever bother with data protection?"

Winter obliged her with a smile.

"Never," he said.

He leaned across the counter, trying to check out the screen, but she turned it away. Finally, he gave up.

"So that's it?" He pocketed his notebook. "She arrives in an ambulance? She sits here for an hour? Then legs it?"

"That's the way it looks."

"What about the people who dealt with her? The streaming nurse you mentioned. Where do I find her?"

"At home, Mr. Winter." The woman was already clearing her screen for the next patient. "Asleep."

Winter phoned Cathy Lamb from the car park. Back from her head-to-head with Secretan, she'd sent him a text message. Secretan was looking for an action plan, some clue to where the inquiry might be headed next, and the DI wanted to know about Trudy Gallagher.

"It's fine, boss. Favour?"

"What does "fine" mean?"

"We're setting up to take a statement. Could you do a CIS check for me? Dave Pullen?"

"What about him?"

"I need a current address." '93 Bystock Road." There were limits to Cathy's patience. "You were there last night."

"That's his rental property. He lives somewhere else. Has to."

There was a pause while Lamb accessed the Criminal Intelligence System.

Simple checks like these took less than a minute.

"They're giving 183 Ashburton Road, Southsea," she said at last.

"Flat 11."

Driving back into the city, Winter couldn't rid himself of the image of Trudy Gallagher crouched in the bare bedroom minutes after Suttle had taken his penknife to the plastic cable ties. Last time he'd seen her, a couple of years back, she'd been a dumpy little schoolgirl with a passion for Big Macs and anything featuring Leonardo di Caprio. Her mum, with more money than sense, had given her a big, fat allowance and let nature take its path.

Now, a stone thinner, a couple of inches taller, young Trudy had stepped into womanhood in the dodgiest company imaginable. First, according to a trusted local source, had come a live-in relationship with a Farlington car dealer twice her age. Then, for reasons the source didn't begin to understand, Trudy had picked up with Dave Pullen. Share a bed with that kind of arse-wipe, thought Winter, and you shouldn't be surprised by the consequences.

Last night in Bystock Road, the neighbour had come in with a couple of blankets while Trudy had huddled in the corner of the bedroom, white-faced, her whole body shuddering with cold. When Winter asked her what had happened, she said she didn't want to talk about it.

Nobody had hurt her. Nobody had sexually molested her. It had all been a joke and the last thing she needed was an examination by a police surgeon. In the end, once Suttle had found her clothes, she'd agreed to let the ambulance men take her to hospital for a check-up, but what she really wanted was everyone to go away and leave her alone.

"You saw her, son. She was wrecked, wasn't she?"

"Yeah, right state." Suttle was at the wheel, nudging eighty on the long curve of motorway that fed traffic into the city.

Winter was still brooding, still working out how he'd managed to abandon a key witness in favour of rescuing a couple of hours' kip.

"Observation, at least. Isn't that what we thought? Couple of days tucked up in some ward or other? Amazing." He shook his head, staring across the harbour at the pale spread of Portchester Castle. "Just goes to show, eh?"

"You're thinking she conned us?"

"I'm thinking my arse is on the line." He reached for the packet of Werthers Originals on the dashboard. "Again."

Suttle grinned. As a young DC, barely twenty-four, he was new to Portsmouth. He'd grown up in the New Forest, one of a huge family of country kids, and to date his police service had taken him to postings in Andover and Alton, neither of which had prepared him for the likes of Paul Winter. Their month together, to his delight, had been the steepest of learning curves and he was still trying to disentangle truth from legend.

"It was DI Lamb before, wasn't it? When you totalled the Skoda?"

"It was, yes."

"Good job you've got me to drive you round, then, eh?"

Winter shot him a look. While it was true he'd lost his taste for driving, he'd still emerged from the Skoda incident with his licence intact. Better still, with Traffic finally choosing not to charge him with reckless driving, he'd even won reinstatement to CID. Two long months in uniform, waiting for their decision, had been the pits.

Nothing, he'd recently told Suttle, could prepare a man for the excitements of the community foot patrol on a wet winter day in deepest Fratton. One more nicked bicycle, one more rogue pit bull, and he'd have been fit for the locked ward at St. James.

Suttle checked his mirror, easing into the middle lane to let a motorcyclist through.

"What do you think, then?" He glanced sideways at Winter. "About the girl?"

"I think we find her."

"And then what?" The grin again. "We tie her down?"

Ashburton Road was one of a series of streets which led north from the commercial heart of Southsea. Back in the nineteenth century these imposing three-storey terraced properties would have housed naval families and wealthy businessmen, the social foundations of fashionable seaside living, but successive tides had washed over the city since, and the results were all too obvious. There wasn't a house in this street that hadn't been overwhelmed by multi-occupation. Properties spared by the Luftwaffe had surrendered to three generations of Pompey landlords.

Dave Pullen lived at the top of a house towards the end of the street.

When two attempts to raise him through the speakerphone failed, Winter sent Suttle up the fire escape at the back. Seconds later, he was leaning over the rusting balustrade.

"There's a note," he yelled. "He'll be back in half an hour."

"Who's it to?"

"Doesn't say."

They waited in the car, parked on a double yellow at the end of the road. As curious as ever, Suttle wanted to know about Pullen, and about Bazza Mackenzie.

"Pullen's a knobber," Winter said at once. "Complete waste of space.

Could have made a decent foot baller once but pissed it up against the wall."

"You're into football?" This was news to Suttle, who was a Saints fan.

"God forbid, son, but it helps to pretend in this city. Those with a brain aren't a problem but all the rest think about is bloody football.

Sad but true."

"So how good was this bloke?"

"Pullen? Half decent, certainly. Used to turn out for Waterlooville before they merged with Havant."

"That's the Doc Martens League." Suttle was impressed. "What position?"

"Come again?"

"Where did he play? On the field?"

"Ah…" Winter frowned. "Up front, I suppose. I know he was forever scoring. That's how he got his nickname. Or partly, anyway."

"Pull 'em?"

"Exactly. On the field, he just blew up. Too many fags. Too many bevvies. Too much stuff up his nose. With women, though, it stuck.

Dave Pullen. Screwing for England. Young Trudy should have known better."

"Maybe he talks a good shag."

"Doubt it. I don't know about the rest of him but there's fuck all between his ears. Not that Trude's any intellectual, but then at eighteen you wouldn't be, would you?"

Suttle was watching a man of uncertain age weaving towards them along the pavement. He had a Londis bag in one hand and a can of Special Brew in the other. Scarlet-faced, glassy-eyed, he paused beside the car, raising the can in a peaceable salute when Suttle told him to fuck off.

"About this Bazza, then." He'd closed the window.

"Bazza…?" Winter glanced across at him, then settled back in the passenger seat, a smile on his face, the pose of a man savouring the meal of his dreams. "Bazza Mackenzie is the business," he said softly.

"Bazza Mackenzie is the closest this city gets to proper crime. It's blokes like Bazza make getting up in the morning a real pleasure. How many people could you say that about? Hand on heart?"

"He comes from round here?"

"Home grown, through and through. The authentic Pompey mush."

"You ever nick him?"

"Twice, in the early days." Winter nodded. "D and D both times, once on the se afront broad daylight, necked too many lagers on the pier.

The other time late at night, club in Palmerston Road, well shan tied on Stella and bourbon. Bazza couldn't see a fight without getting stuck in. If we were involved, so much the better."

"Lots of bottle, then?"

"Lunatic. Complete lunatic. I knew the woman he married pretty girl, bright too and she couldn't believe what she'd taken on. Total head case, she used to tell me. Knows absolutely no fear."

"Big guy? Physically?"

"Small' Winter shook his head 'small and up for it. But that's always the way, isn't it? You ever notice that, looking at a crowd of them, itching to take you on? It's always the small ones you have to watch.

Maybe they've got more to prove. Christ knows."

Suttle had his eyes on the rear-view mirror. The drunk was rounding the corner, swaying gently as he debated whether to cross the road at the end.

"And Pullen and this Bazza are big mates?"

"Mates, certainly. They go back forever. But then that's the way it works in the city. Same school, same pubs, same women. They ran with the 6.57, both of them. That was Bazza's major career move, took him to the big time."

The 6.57 had been a bunch of hooligans, Pompey's finest, taking the first train out every other Saturday and exporting a very special brand of football violence to rival grounds all over the country. According to Winter, it was the 6.57 who'd pioneered the major import of serious drugs into the city.

' '89' He grinned. "Summer of love. These guys had been kicking the shit out of each other for Christ knows how long, then suddenly they're blowing kisses and dancing together in the nightclubs and we're wondering what the fuck's going on."

"What was going on?"

"Ecstasy. They were bringing it in by the truckload, scoring from the rival firms in London. Some of the raves they organised that summer were awesome. Thousands of kids, out of their skulls. Law and order-wise, we never had a prayer. Made you proud, though, just being there. The girl he married was right. Blokes like Bazza, completely fucking reckless, really put the city on the map."

"Nice."

"Yeah. Didn't last, though. They took to cocaine after that and it all got ugly again."

"He stuck to cocaine? No smack?"

"Cocaine and rave drugs, plus amphetamine if you fancied it. Bazza had the odd dabble with heroin but much less than we thought at the time.

Wrong image. Smack's for losers."

Suttle was still watching the mirror. He touched Winter lightly on the arm.

"Tall bloke? Skinny?"

Winter glanced over his shoulder, then nodded.

"Let him get to the front door," he murmured, 'then we'll say hello."

But Pullen didn't go to the front door. Instead, he walked straight past the car and began to climb the first flight of steps on the fire escape. Winter watched him for a moment or two, wondering about the limp, then got out of the car. By the time Pullen realised he was being followed, he was nearly at the top.

"Dave. Long time." Winter was out of breath. "This is DC Suttle.

We'd appreciate a word."

"Sure. Why not?" Pullen tried to head down again. Winter blocked his way.

"Upstairs," he said. "In your place."

"Why not here? Or down there?"

"Because I'd prefer a bit of privacy. And because I'm bloody knackered."

Pullen looked suddenly haunted. He had a narrow, bony face, thinning hair that badly needed a trim, yellowing teeth. His sunken eyes were bloodshot and when he made a big show of checking his watch he had trouble keeping his hand steady. If this guy was an advert for the drugs biz, thought Suttle, then there must be better ways of earning a living. Give him a year or two, and a can of Special Brew, and he'd be just another item of street furniture.

"Well, old son…?" Winter was still playing the jovial cop.

"No way." Pullen shook his head. "You ain't got the right."

"No? You'd prefer I popped round the corner for a warrant? Left Jimmy here to keep an eye on you?"

"You can't do that."

"Try me."

"What do you want to know?"

"I want to know about Trudy Gallagher. And about what happened last night. Dave, you know the score. Easiest says we get it over with."

He nodded up towards Pullen's peeling front door. "Half an hour max and we're gone."

Pullen was doing his best to figure something out. A late night and untold helpings of unlawful substances clearly didn't help. At length, another shake of the head. Winter reached forward, brushing the dandruff off the shoulders of his jacket. Humiliation always talked louder than threats.

"Nice leather, Dave." He nodded towards the door again. "After you?"

The flat was three rooms with a tiny kitchen jigsawed into the back of the lounge. Potentially, the place had a lot of potential south-facing, a hint of a view but Dave Pullen clearly preferred living in the dark.

Winter wanted to pull the curtains back and throw open the windows. He wanted to invest a bob or two in a nice air freshener and a bunch of flowers. Instead, he sank into the only armchair, wondering how many roll-ups it took to recreate the authentic stink of prison life. Maybe this flat was an exercise in nostalgia. Maybe Pullen couldn't survive without the memory of B Wing.

"So where is she? That nice Trudy?"

"Ain't got a clue."

"You're lying, Dave. She was in that doss house of yours, well fucking kippered. You'd have known about that. They'd have told you."

"Who says?"

"Me. These Scouse kids are in the wind-up business. They send little messages. That's what she was, Dave: a message."

Avoiding Winter's gaze, Pullen limped across to the kitchen and opened a drawer. Two fat tablets needed half a glass of water from the tap.

"Headache?"

"Migraine."

"Same thing." Winter paused while Pullen swallowed the tablets. "So tell me about the Scousers. They weren't gentle, you know. Or has she told you that already?"

Pullen didn't answer. Suttle was over in the shadows, inspecting a headline Sellotaped to the wall. The back page had been ripped from The News, the city's daily paper.

"Super Blues?" Suttle queried.

Pullen turned on him, a spectral presence in the gloom.

"You got a problem with that?"

"Yeah."

"Like what?"

"Like Pompey are shit. Half the fucking team are on a bus pass."

Watching from the armchair, Winter started to laugh. He loved this boy, loved him. There was a kind of madness in so much of what he did.

Like Winter himself, he pushed and pushed until something snapped.

"Shit?" Pullen was outraged. "Top of the Nationwide? Top all fucking season? How does that work, then?"

"You'll find out, mate. If you ever get to the Premiership."

"So what are you, then?"

"Saints."

"Scummer?" Pullen started to laugh. "Well, fuck me. No wonder you end up in the Filth."

Winter struggled to his feet. There was a pile of twenty-four-can slabs of Stella wedged against the open door, doubtless trophies from a Cherbourg booze run. Stepping carefully round the tinnies, he disappeared for a moment or two. Seconds later, he was back with something black and boxy in his hand. When he switched on the overhead light, Suttle recognised it as a car radio.

"State of the art, Dave." Winter examined the back. "And security marked."

"It's legit."

"I'm sure it is. What about the rest?" Winter caught Suttle's eye and nodded towards the door. "Only we've been having this problem with vehicle breaks. Figures have gone through the roof. You wouldn't believe the grief it's giving our Performance Manager."

Suttle was back with a cardboard box. After the first five car radios, he gave up counting.

"Worth a bit, eh Dave?" It was Winter again. "No wonder you never invited us in."

"She hasn't been here."

"I don't believe you."

"It's true. Not since a couple of days back."

"Then where is she?"

"Fuck knows."

"You've got a mobile number?"

"She never answers."

"You had a row or something? Bit of a tiff?"

Silence.

Winter consulted his watch, then settled back in the armchair, steepled his fingers over the swell of his belly, and closed his eyes.

Pullen stirred.

"Her fucking fault," he muttered. "Little slag."

"What did she do to you, Dave?" Winter's eyes were still closed. "Ask for a decent conversation?"

"Bollocks to that," Pullen said hotly. "She can talk her fucking gob off when she wants to. Doesn't take much. Couple of Smirnoffs in Forty Below and you can help your fucking self."

Forty Below was a cafe-bar and nightclub complex in Gunwharf Quays, immensely popular for chilling out.

"Was that the way they did it?"

"Who?"

"Your Scouser friends? Tenner across the bar and a car ride when she's up for it? Pop round to Dave's place? Listen to some music? Is that what happened?"

"Haven't a clue."

"Not worried? Not the least concerned? They're taking the piss, Dave.

They're telling you you're not up to it any more. Whatever's yours, they're helping themselves. And if you think it begins and ends with young Trudy then you're even more stupid than you look."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bollocks you don't. It's not about fanny, you know it's not. It's business, Dave, and we're not talking nicked fucking car radios. I don't know how much charlie Bazza trusts you with these days but something tells me your dealing days might be over. Trudy was a redundancy notice, Dave. These kids are telling you you're past it.

You with me? Or am I going too fast?"

"You're off your head."

"Am I?" Winter got to his feet again. He beckoned Pullen closer. "We paid these kids a visit last night, Dave. I won't bore you with the details but we came away with more Stanley knives than you'd ever believe. You know all those rumours about local dealers getting slapped around? Kidnapped? Cut? All true, Dave."

Pullen retreated towards the kitchen. He didn't want to hear any of this. Winter, warming up now, pinned him in a corner.

"You've got a choice, Dave, you and your mates. My boss wants these kids out of the city. I dare say Bazza does, too. We can either go the official route, in which case you'll be giving me a statement, telling me everything you know. Or you can sort something out on your own behalf. Either way, me and Jimmy here are having these." Winter picked up one of the radios. "We've got a whole squad on vehicle break-ins. Operation Cobra. You might have seen it in the paper.

Shall I spread the good word? Tell my mates you've got the beers in?"

Winter let the message register, then told Suttle to repack all the radios in the cardboard box. A visit to the tip that Pullen used as a bedroom produced more booty, enough to fill a pillowslip. On his way out of the flat, back in the sunshine at the top of the fire escape, Winter made Pullen write out Trudy Gallagher's mobile number. He studied it a moment, then folded it into his pocket.

"Best to Bazza, eh?" He gave Pullen a little punch on the shoulder, picked up the pillowslip, and followed Suttle down towards the street.

Mid morning, the conference with Willard over, Faraday followed Brian Imber's Volvo estate out of the parking lot at the back of the Kingston Crescent police station. At the start of the motorway, Imber indicated left, leaving the roundabout for the Continental Ferry Port. North of the port complex lay a cluster of naval establishments known locally as Whale Island. At the far end of the causeway connecting the island to the mainland, Imber coasted to a halt at the red and white barrier. A squaddie approached both cars, an assault rifle slung from his neck.

Faraday wound down his window. Imber had already given him a pass but Faraday had yet to open the envelope. When he did so, he found himself looking at a recent head and shoulders shot taken for an out-of-county inquiry. It showed a grizzled white male in his mid forties with a mop of greying curly hair. The expression on his face, at first glance, gave nothing away but the few people who knew him well would have wondered about the little creases around the eyes. This was a man trying to gauge exactly what awaited him next. Small wonder.

The squaddie glanced at the pass, checked the image, and then waved Faraday through.

Imber was in the nearby car park. Faraday brought the Mondeo to a halt beside him, pocketing the pass. Imber nodded towards a low, brick-built structure a couple of hundred metres away. Beyond lay the harbour and the naval dockyard.

"Welcome to Tumbril." Imber was enjoying this. "It's a bit cramped, I'm afraid, but we've done our best."

The building belonged to the Regulating School, the establishment charged with training the navy's police force. A temporary arrangement with the Admiralty, financed from the Tumbril budget, paid for an open-plan office on the south side of the building which was normally used as a lecture theatre. Attached to this was a smaller interview room, which now housed the inquiry's ever-growing archive. Carefully labelled files crowded a wall full of shelves. There were also three battered filing cabinets, all fitted with heavy-duty locks.

Imber was explaining about the rest of the security arrangements. There were double locks on the main door, accessible by code and swipe card, plus the eight-foot barbed-wire fence that surrounded the entire site.

At Nick Hayder's insistence, the office was regularly swept for bugs, the cleaner had been security-checked, and every member of the five-strong team had signed a binding undertaking never to discuss the operation with anyone else. In terms of paranoia, thought Faraday, this operation was in a class of its own.

"You think we've gone over the top?" Imber was watching him carefully.

"Just a bit."

"You saw Nick this morning? Unconscious? Legs a mess? Crushed pelvis?"

"You're telling me that was related?"

"I'm telling you we took every conceivable precaution and someone still managed to switch his lights out. Whether that's just coincidence, who can say? All we've tried to do is give ourselves a bit of privacy."

From the adjoining office came the sound of a door opening, and then the bustle of heavy footsteps. Moments later, Faraday found himself looking at a familiar figure: low-cut dress, huge bosoms, thick gloss lipstick, long purple nails flecked with glitter, and beneath the mountainous body a pair of shapely legs that had never failed to take him by surprise.

"Joyce."

"Sheriff."

"You're part of this?" Faraday gestured round.

"Too right I am. Archivist, doughnut supplier, hangover cures and light maintenance. Plus I deal with the ruder phone calls. Unless you're nice to me, you get a spanking." She grinned at him. "Did I hear yes to coffee?"

Without waiting for an answer, she stepped back into the office. Imber rolled his eyes.

"You two know each other?"

"Very well. Joyce took over at Highland Road a couple of years back when Vanessa got killed."

"And you survived?"

"More than. Joyce was priceless. Has she still got the agency for Beanie Babes?"

"I'm afraid so."

"And German porn?"

"In spades, big Jiffy bag from Hamburg every fortnight. We get the trainee reggies queueing at the door. They think she's something else."

"They're right. She is."

Through the open door, Faraday could hear her singing as she sorted out mugs for the coffee. Peggy Lee had always been a favourite; regret stitched through with a silky courage.

While Imber fielded a phone call, Faraday perched himself on the edge of a nearby desk. Joyce had disappeared from Highland Road after a cancer scare. Faraday had phoned her a couple of times, checking on the progress of the radiotherapy, but she'd always trivialised the whole thing the way you might dismiss a headache. Sure there was a little lump. Everyone got them. No big deal.

Faraday had never been quite sure whether this optimism of hers was uniquely American or whether she was simply being brave, but either way to his eternal shame Joyce had dropped out of his life, forgotten beneath the daily torrent of volume crime that surged through Highland Road.

"You made it then?"

"Sure. Zapped the little bastards."

"Bastards? Plural?"

"Breast, lymph nodes, couple in the neck." The purple nails traced the progress of the tumours. "Got real interesting when they started talking mastectomy."

Faraday stared at her. Her breasts looked real enough to him.

"So what happened?"

"I told them no way. They could try anything else, didn't matter what, but we'd all go down together. Worked real good. Chemotherapy you wouldn't believe. Couple of weeks of that shit and the little bastards came out with their hands up. Bang, bang, bang. Full military funeral but theirs not mine." She glanced up. "Still take sugar?"

Faraday nodded. For the first time, he noticed the display of photos on the far wall. Imber was still deep in conversation.

"Here." Joyce handed him a mug of coffee. "Let me give you the tour."

Faraday followed her across the office. The biggest of the photos was an aerial shot of a sizeable property, red-tiled roof, big double bays, tall sash windows. There was a Mercedes convertible and an SUV on the patterned brick drive in front of the double garage, and a ne wish-looking swimming pool occupied part of the garden at the front.

Certain features security cameras, intruder-resistant thorn bushes, remotely operated double gates had been identified and labelled, and there was a circle around a small wooden hut tucked beside a child's swing.

"That's a kennel. The guy just loves his dogs." Joyce was demolishing her second chocolate biscuit. "Two ridge backs Clancy and Spud."

"This is Mackenzie's?"

"Sure. 13 Sandown Road. Now isn't that cute? And don't you just want to ask how they ever gave him planning permission? Nice area like that?"

Faraday followed her pointing finger. Above the first-floor bedrooms, a huge balconette had been built into the roof. A skirt of chromium and smoked glass hid the balconette from view but the angle of the photograph revealed four sun loungers with a couple of tables in between. Faraday nodded. Sandown Road lay in the heart of Craneswater Park. Craneswater was as select as Southsea got, street after street of generously proportioned Edwardian villas with plenty of garden and views across the Solent. People who'd made it to this middle class enclave guarded their heritage with a fierce passion. Joyce was right, Faraday thought. How come Bazza Mackenzie had been allowed this sudden splash of Florida?

"And here, look, the ASU boys have done us proud." Joyce was indicating an object in the garden. "You know what that is?"

Faraday stepped closer.

"Some kind of floodlight?"

"Gold star for the sheriff!" Joyce was beaming. "He's got five of them.

Evenings you get the full works, and believe me we're talking serious gels. Mondays it's mauve, Tuesdays puke green, and Wednesdays… my favourite…"

"Purple?"

"Cerise. We'll end up with a charge sheet long as your arm but good taste won't figure."

Imber, his phone call over, had joined them. Faraday nodded at the house.

"You've paid him a visit?"

"Not yet." Imber shook his head. "That photo's in case we have to at short notice, but the ASU have promised an update if we give them enough warning."

"Where does the documentation come from?" Faraday glanced back towards the smaller room that housed the files.

"Production Orders. We're using the DTA. So far we've concentrated on property deals and transactions in and out of Gibraltar. Going back ten years, that's a lot of paper."

The Drug Trafficking Act offered an investigation like this the power to raise Production Orders from a judge sitting in chambers. These, in turn, would have enabled Hayder to seize a huge range of documentation, from bank records to mortgage deeds. In theory, the target should remain ignorant of this ever-widening trawl. Fat chance.

"He'll know… won't he?"

"Of course he will. His accountant will have told him. His bank. His brief. Being Bazza, he's probably flattered. There's not much we can do to shake him. Not yet."

"Why didn't Nick go for supply?"

"Because Mackenzie's arm's length now, doesn't let the stuff anywhere near him. If we wanted to make a supply charge stick, we should have been doing this years ago."

"But he still controls it all?"

"Of course he does. That's the way business works. He bankrolls supply and helps himself to a fat percentage. The richer you get, the more the other blokes do all the running around. Arm's length, he's laughing."

Faraday was looking at the other photos. One showed Mackenzie getting out of the sleek convertible, a small, stocky, eager-looking figure with a broad grin on his face. Another showed a good-sized motor cruiser nosing into a marina berth. Both bore the imprint of a surveillance operation, the photographer working from a distance at the end of a powerful telephoto lens.

"These are his?"

"In reality, yes. He hides everything behind nominee names because he's not stupid, but yes. These are what keep us going. We've got loads more in the drawer. Properties abroad, local businesses, you name it. Joyce rings the changes every Monday. Just in case we lose motivation."

"That's envy, isn't it?"

"Of course. And frustration, too. If you'd been banged up here all year you'd pretty much feel the same way."

"So who does the legwork, figures-wise?"

"Bloke called Martin Prebble. He's a forensic accountant. Costs us a fortune but he's shit-hot. Give him three million documents and he'll know the ones to sling out. Without him around, we'd still be at base camp."

"So where is he?"

"London. He works for one of the big City firms. We get him two days a week." He glanced round. Joyce had returned to her desk. Imber bent towards Faraday. "I know what you're thinking, Joe, but believe me this is the only way. We've tried everything else the covert, surveillance, informants, plotting the supply chain but like I say, Mackenzie's beyond all that. He's clever, brighter than you might think. He's well advised and he's listened to that advice. The guy's walled himself off from the sharp end. All we're left with is the money. But that's where we can hurt him. By following the money."

Faraday was trying to reconcile this little outburst with something that had stuck in his mind from Willard. Mackenzie's programmed to break the law, he'd said. That's what he does. And that's why we'll have him.

"You really think it's all down to the paperwork?"

"I do."

"No point trying to set him up?"

"None. Like I said, he's too well protected. This way we at least have a fighting chance. As long as we all keep the faith."

"Who's "we"?"

"Who do you think? It's means and ends, Joe. And, to be fair, we've had our share of resources."

"You're telling me there's pressure for a result?"

"Of course there is. There's always pressure for a result. That's why Nick was close to blowing up. A job like this takes time, years and years. We've never thought like that before but then we've never had to. What it boils down to is blokes like Bazza. The man's a billboard. He's up there in lights. He's telling every kid in this city there's no point going to school, no point keeping this side of the law, no point getting your head down and trying to lead a half-decent life. Leave Bazza alone, put him in the Too Difficult basket, chuck in the towel, and we might as well call it a day."

Faraday nodded. He'd heard this from Imber before, almost word for word. For reasons the DS had never revealed, he'd won himself a reputation as a crusader when it came to the drugs issue. Since the mid-eighties, he'd been warning about the impending apocalypse, not simply because of his worries about his own kids, but because his intelligence work had taught him very early on that Class A narcotics would one day fuel an entire economy. Ignore the drugs issue, he'd said, and the consequences would be catastrophic.

Imber's bosses at every level, besieged by the pressures of volume crime, had paid lip service to this relentless lobbying. They read the reports he put together. They even circulated his more measured assessments of developments to come. But it had taken a figure like Bazza Mackenzie to persuade them to give Imber his head. Why? Because Mackenzie's wealth was beginning to taint every corner of the city. And that, in Willard's phrase, was a cop-out too far.

Faraday watched Imber pour himself a glass of juice from the fridge.

Marathon training evidently forbade him any form of caffeine. Finally, he looked up.

"Willard's stuck his neck out," Imber said. "And I admire him for that."

"Easy sell?"

"You're joking. It's not just the resources, it's other coppers. Every one thinks you're trespassing in this game."

"You're supposed to be invisible."

"I know. And thanks to Nick we largely are. But blokes know something's up and they get extremely pissed off."

"Like who?"

"Doesn't matter. I'd give you a list of names but there's no point.

I'm just telling you this thing isn't easy. We're out here on our own and we've got a bloody great mountain to climb. Take on someone like Bazza and you'd be amazed the people you upset."

"Does that bother you?"

"Not in the least. As long as we get a result."

Faraday studied him a moment, aware that Joyce had stopped typing.

"And you think we will get a result?" he said at last.

"I think we have to."

"Despite all the' Faraday frowned 'aggravation?"

"Of course." Imber gave him a long, searching look. "You are up for this, aren't you?"