The Dark Winter

CHAPTER 23

The snow that fell in Grimsby earlier in the week has melted away. Somehow, it has endeavoured to clean the streets with its departure, and the town has a scrubbed appearance that puts McAvoy in mind of a dog emerging, blinking and bewildered, from a bath it has unwillingly taken.

The evening air is infused with the kind of subtle rain that can soak a man to the skin before he’s even realised he should put on a coat.

McAvoy didn’t expect to be back here so soon. Not back on the street where so recently he wrestled with a killer, and saved a life.

Perhaps to spare him the sight of that bloody and painful struggle, or perhaps just to tuck her beloved vehicle away somewhere slightly better protected, Pharaoh parks the sports car several streets away from the Bear.

‘Cheer up,’ she says, opening the door and filling the car with a gust of chilly, greasy air. ‘We’re on expenses.’

McAvoy pulls his collar up as he extricates himself with difficulty from the compact two-seater. His head is reeling.

Suddenly, as he wanted all along, the investigation is being done the right way.

He focuses on the barrage of new information that Pharaoh has poured into his ear on the half-hour journey from Hull.

‘They speak bloody good English,’ she says, impressed. ‘Very respectful people. Actually wanted to help. Very refreshing.’

She is suddenly a fan of the Icelandic State Police, having spent a pleasant fifteen minutes charming the pants off a couple of young detectives in a rural station — massaging their egos and explaining that their information could help catch a serial killer.

They were only too happy to help. And the information they divulged was going to make Colin Ray very unhappy.

One of the containers on the cargo ship which had been chartered for Fred Stein’s documentary had indeed been tampered with. When the vessel docked, and the missing man was reported, two officers from a small-town police station had interviewed the captain and first mate. They had taken photographs of Fred Stein’s cabin. They had interviewed the TV crew and requested copies of their film. And they had taken a brief look around the cargo bay. Even to their somewhat inexpert eyes, it was clear that one of the containers at the bottom of the stack was not in the same condition as the scores of others that towered above and around it. A ragged hole, perhaps four feet by three, had been carved into the metal door. A torchlit examination of the interior showed it to be empty, save for a dirty sleeping bag and three empty bottles of water. They questioned the captain again. Asked what could have caused the damage. Whether it looked to him, as it did to them, as if had been made using with an oxyacetylene torch. He had shrugged. Said that stowaways were a problem. There was a serial number on the side of the container that Tom Spink had managed to trace to a haulage company based in Southampton. The woman who answered the haulier’s phone was the same person who had, a little over a week before, taken the initial freight order that booked the container’s passage.

‘Sometimes it’s just joining the dots,’ says Pharaoh, as they begin walking up Freeman Street, pressed close enough together to be mistaken for a mismatched couple. ‘Sometimes you just get lucky. Sometimes, it really is that bloody easy.’

The woman at the haulage company remembered the booking. It had been made by a man she knew well. Used to drive the cherry-picker that loaded the containers onto the cargo ships at Southampton docks. Lost his arm when a stack toppled over in high winds and crushed him under enough cargo to kill most people. Had moved up north, last she heard. Was nice to hear from him again. Apparently, he was working as a stevedore up on the Humber somewhere. They’d been asked for a reference and been happy to oblige, and he sounded pretty well when he said his hellos and booked passage for the container which, bizarrely, he had insisted be stowed towards the bottom of the stack. She put it down to a peculiarity caused by his accident. Perhaps she’d misheard what he’d said. It was sometimes difficult, due to the thick Russian accent …

Pharaoh nods at the open front doors of a dark-painted, old-fashioned bar that takes up the space of three shops in a small arcade that faces onto the main street.

A bouncer, mug of tea in his hand and earpiece trailing down a thick bullish neck, lounges against the brick front wall. He glances at Pharaoh’s breasts, impressively visible despite her leather jacket, and then gives McAvoy his attention. He appears to straighten slightly, as if suddenly realising that, for the first time in a long time, he is looking at a bigger man.

‘Evening,’ he says. ‘Last orders in fifteen minutes so you better sup quick.’

Pharaoh reaches into her cleavage and pulls out her warrant card.

‘Oh fuck,’ says the bouncer with a sigh.

‘It’s nothing heavy,’ she says, putting her hand on his arm. ‘I need to talk to somebody who drinks in here. And I think you would like to help me. A big chap like you has “protector” written all over him. And I know you want to spare me the bother of walking the streets on a night like this.’

The bouncer gives a scowl, but it’s a token gesture. He still seems keen to be in Pharaoh’s good graces.

‘Who?’

‘Russian chap,’ she says, moving close enough to him that McAvoy has no doubt his nostrils are filled with her scent, and the warmth from her body will be permeating his jacket and resolve. ‘One arm.’

The bouncer raises his eyes. ‘Zorro, you mean?’

‘Eh?’

‘He went on a fishing trip with some of the lads,’ he says, by way of explanation. ‘When he was casting a line the wind caught his rod. It was like he was carving a load of letter Zs in the air. Like Zorro. Y’know?’

‘So? Where might I find him on a cold winter evening on Freeman Street?’

‘He was in earlier,’ says the bouncer with a shrug. ‘Left around eightish with a couple of the lads. Heading into Top Town, I think.’

‘And where would you suggest I start looking?’

The bouncer eyes her again. Weighs up his options, and decides he’s not doing his acquaintance that much of a disservice by exchanging a small piece of information for the affections of this nicely rounded and very sexy older woman.

‘Lives over the tanning salon down by Riby Square,’ he says, nodding in the direction from which the police officers have just come. ‘Won’t be back until late, I wouldn’t have thought.’

‘And if I wanted him now?’

The bouncer smiles and Pharaoh holds his gaze.

‘I could phone him for you.’

Pharaoh smiles, reaches up and gives him a kiss on the cheek, as though he is a good boy who has just done a really lifelike drawing of a dog. He gives a grin in return that is more childlike than lustful, and appears to correct himself by giving a leer.

‘People can be so friendly,’ she says to McAvoy, and then threads her arm through his. ‘Come on. You can buy me a drink.’

Pharaoh is almost at the bottom of her second round of vodka and Diet Cokes.

They are sitting at a round, mahogany-coloured table. To McAvoy, the pub is grotesque; a pastiche of better. A broken mirror gleams grubbily from behind a long dog-leg of a bar stocked with own-label spirits and cheap beer.

‘You take me to the most glamorous places,’ says Pharaoh, draining her glass. Then adds: ‘We’re on.’

McAvoy looks up and sees the bouncer pointing them out to a tall, wiry man with flat, clearly Eastern European features and an empty sleeve in his leather jacket. He approaches, looking less than delighted.

‘Algirdas?’ asks Pharaoh. ‘Lads call you “Zorro”?’

‘Yes,’ he says, and turns his attention to McAvoy. ‘I see you before?’

McAvoy nods. ‘After the business over the road. You came to talk to me.’

The Russian narrows his eyes as if trying to remember.

‘You the copper my friends hurt?’ he throws back his head and gives a bark of laughter. ‘They fuck up, yes?’

‘Yes,’ says McAvoy.

‘Was terrible,’ says Algirdas, shaking his head. ‘I know Angie. Nice lady. Lonely lady, I think. Was my friend.’

‘She’s not dead,’ says McAvoy, before Pharaoh can speak.

‘No, no. Not the same though, eh?’

They consider this for a moment. Wonder what sort of person will emerge from the hospital. How many years Angie will live in fear of another man finishing the job, before the booze and cigarettes pitch her into blessed release.

Pharaoh takes over. She fixes him with soft eyes and taps the back of his hand as it sits, blotchy, pale, and inked with something indecipherable across the fingers and knobbly knuckles.

‘I hope you appreciate us coming over like this,’ she says, smiling. ‘We had a lot of things we could be doing tonight, but when my sergeant here told me about you, I dropped them all in an instant.’

Algirdas closes one eye, as if trying to focus better, then swings his head in McAvoy’s direction.

‘Chandler?’ he asks, and withdraws his hand from the table to start kneading at the place beneath his jacket where his arm ends in a stump.

Pharaoh nods. McAvoy sits motionless.

‘You know him?’

Algirdas looks around again, and Pharaoh marches to the bar. She has a swift discussion with the barman — leaving him in no uncertain terms that the last orders bell has not yet rung — and returns with a pint of bitter and a double vodka for the Russian, another pint for McAvoy, and a packet of pork scratchings for herself.

She tears open the bag and starts shovelling the snacks in her mouth, never taking her eyes off Algirdas as he takes the top off his pint. He downs the vodka in one, then presses his sleeve to his mouth and breathes in through it.

Pharaoh gives McAvoy a sly look, as if asking what he’s doing.

‘It accentuates the hit,’ says McAvoy. ‘Russian thing.’

‘Fuck you,’ says Algirdas, conversationally. ‘I’m Lithuanian.’

‘Fuck you, sunshine. I’m a policeman.’

They sit quietly for a moment, eyes fixed on one another.

‘Are you aware that Russ Chandler has been questioned in connection with two murders?’ asks Pharaoh over the noise of the barman chucking empty bottles into a plastic bin. ‘Probably charged by now.’

Algirdas sits back in his chair as if he’s been pushed in the chest. He’s bolt upright, suddenly, hand squeezing at his stump in a manner that looks almost invasively painful.

‘Murder? Who murder?’

‘A young girl called Daphne Cotton,’ says McAvoy quietly. ‘And a man called Trevor Jefferson. Those names mean anything to you?’

Algirdas takes a large pull of his pint. Taps his pockets and withdraws a pouch of tobacco and papers. Skilfully, with his one hand, he begins rolling a succession of cigarettes. He places one in his mouth.

‘No smoking indoors these days,’ says McAvoy, and, with a suddenness that surprises himself, reaches across the table and plucks the roll-up from the other man’s mouth.

‘Chandler,’ he says again.

Algirdas looks to Pharaoh. He seems to lose his temper. ‘Barry. Bouncer. He tell me police want to see me, I come. He says nice lady, big tits. I say no problem. I come here. I talk to you. I think it Angie. I think, maybe witness statement, yes? Not Chandler. Not murder.’

‘You were the one who mentioned his name to me,’ says McAvoy, slowly dismantling the cigarette and returning it to its component parts on the wet, sticky table top. ‘You heard me on the phone. You heard me say his name. And you asked me about him. That’s why we’re here.’

Algirdas sucks at his lips. Starts biting his lower one. He reaches inside his shirt and pulls out a dull metal pendant on a chain. He puts it in his mouth like a pacifier.

‘Your saint?’

Algirdas snorts. ‘Change from my first English pint,’ he says. ‘Two pence. Nine years ago. In a bar like this one.’

‘Touching,’ says McAvoy, and takes the sudden moment of pressure against his leg as a sign from Pharaoh that he should step off.

Algirdas finishes his drink. He looks to Pharaoh. He appears to be wrestling with something, then gives a little growl of acceptance. ‘I not illegal,’ he says. ‘I have papers. I have right to be in Grimsby.’

Pharaoh pops the last pork scratching in her mouth. ‘I couldn’t give a damn about all that, matey. Anybody who wants to be in Grimsby must be fleeing something bloody terrible. You’re welcome as far as I’m concerned.’

Algirdas nods, as if having come to a decision.

‘I meet Chandler in bar like this. Southampton, yes? Five years? Six? We drink. We talk. He listen my story. He writer. Great writer. He tell me.’

‘He going to write your story, was he? Make you famous?’

Algirdas hits the table again, and it’s hard to tell if he is angry or excited. ‘In Lithuania, I singer. I make record. Big hit. Not just my country.’

Pharaoh seems to be trying not to laugh. ‘You on Lithuanian Top of the Pops, were you?’

‘I on TV. Radio. Posters on bedroom wall. Big star.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes. I good.’

‘What went wrong?’

‘Fucking politics. I want more money. They not pay. I think I star. They not. I walk out. Wait for phone to ring. Take real job. Pay bills until all get better. Never got better. Real job become real life.’ He stares at the table top with eyes that contain bitterness and regret.

‘And Chandler …?’

‘He love story. Say there could be book. Say could be hit. Tell my story. How pop singer become dock worker in Southampton. Then I hurt my arm. Chandler visit me. Says it make book more real. More human, he says. Says he call. Arrange interview. Speak to publisher.’

‘And he called?’

Algirdas looks away. ‘He start writing other book. Always writing. Always working. Sometimes drinking, yes. Likes the drinking.’

‘So what brought you up to Grimsby?’

‘I come for work. I have friend here. Offer me job. Not many choices for onearmed man.’

McAvoy pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘He contacted you again, though, yes? Recently.’

Algirdas nods. ‘He call, maybe month ago. Find my number. Say he has book in mind. Not forgotten me. Wants to meet.’ He closes his mouth, unsure if he should continue. McAvoy soundlessly pushes his only drink across the table and the Lithuanian takes it hungrily.

‘But first …’

‘He need favour for friend. Friend moving Iceland. Need booking on container ship. Asks can I arrange it …’

‘And you could?’

Algirdas shrugs. ‘Docks busy places. I got friends. Know system.’

‘And Chandler knew that?’

‘He must remember. I tell him. Tell him how easy to get people in and out. How police, how security, no fucking point. People come and go as they please.’

Pharaoh turns to McAvoy, but he doesn’t look at her. Keeps staring at the man who, any moment now, is going to tell him how Fred Stein ended up dead in a lifeboat.

‘And you said yes?’

‘Chandler tell my story. Show people who I used to be.’

McAvoy understands this overwhelming need to be appreciated, how a miserable little scribbler like Russ Chandler could pour honey in the ear of stronger, more capable men.

‘What were you asked to do?’

‘Chandler’s friend call me. Say he need container to stay shut. Need on bottom deck. No inspection. No sealed behind other. No top of stack. I book for him.’

‘You spoke to him?’

‘Short call. Two minutes. Matter-of-fact. You know this phrase? He to the point. I think talking hurt for him. Voice sound like he being strangled …’

McAvoy closes his eyes. He can smell blood and snow.

‘I wait for Chandler to ring …’

‘Has the phone rung?’

‘No,’ he says quietly, and then suddenly raises his head. ‘But he in jail, you say. He not ring me. How he write book now? Chandler not killer. He small man. One leg. Drunk. How he kill anyone?’

McAvoy’s temper flares. ‘He didn’t, you stupid gullible bastard. And he’s never written a book. Not a proper one. He’s a miserable little failure who’s just got his hands on a bloody best-seller!’

Running his hands through his hair, McAvoy stands up, knocking his chair over and bumping the glasses. Suddenly standing at his full height, Algirdas looks up at him as if he is a giant. His mouth opens and closes like he’s a dying fish. Pharaoh reaches up to put a hand on her sergeant’s arm, but he shakes her away and storms from the pub, oblivious to the stares and the meaningless words of the bouncer.

The cool air hits him like a slap.

He hears Pharaoh’s heels clatter on the wet pavement. Realises she’ll have to sprint to catch him, so slows his pace to allow her to talk him out of storming off.

‘McAvoy!’ she shouts. ‘Hector.’

He turns, face flushed, hair damp, sweat pooling in the well at the base of his neck.

‘McAvoy, I don’t understand …’

‘No,’ he snaps. ‘You don’t.’

‘But it all points to Chandler, doesn’t it? I mean, it looks like he’s guilty …’

‘Oh, he’s guilty,’ he says, tipping his head back to stare up at a sky utterly devoid of stars. ‘Guilty of playing games with people. Guilty of preying on people’s conceits and fears. Guilty of a huge amount of anger. But pulling the trigger? Stowing away on a bloody boat with a welding torch and a lifeboat? Hacking up Daphne in a crowded church? Putting me down twice? No, that’s not his style.’

He feels Pharaoh’s hand on his forearm and this time he doesn’t shake her off.

‘So what is his style? Tell me.’

McAvoy breathes out. Looks down the deserted main road with its random constellations of blinking neon lights and broken shop-signs.

‘He can tell you himself,’ he says angrily. ‘We’re going to see him.’

Pharaoh looks up at him. Her breasts are heaving with the exertion of running, and her smell is ripe in the small pocket of air that seems to contain them both.

He pulls back.

Looks at his feet, and then fills himself with Daphne Cotton.

With Fred Stein.

With Angie Martindale.

Even Trevor fucking Jefferson.

He finds himself suddenly aware that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are not the same things as ‘right’ and wrong’.

And he knows that the reason he has to catch the right man, has to reset the scales by flinging the right murderer into the right cell, is the same reason he will not let himself kiss this sexy, passionate, powerful woman.

It’s because somebody has to give a damn about the rules.

And because nobody else really gives a fuck.