Borrowed Light (7 page)

Winter was studying his hands. He hadn’t been so effortlessly kippered for years. Lizzie was a class act.

‘So who’s the Beauty?’ he enquired

‘Kinder, of course.’

‘I’ll tell him that.’

‘Who?’

‘The Beast.’ Winter pushed his stool back and stepped away from the breakfast bar. ‘So where’s young Jimmy?’

‘You asked me that before.’

‘I know I did. I’m asking you again.’

‘Same answer. No comment.’

‘Shame.’ He stooped to give her a kiss. ‘But thanks for the hospitality.’

She saw him to the door, said goodnight, promised to remember him to Jimmy when he got back. Only when Winter was back in
his car did he scribble down the number he’d clocked beside her phone.

01983 prefix. The Isle of Wight.

Je suis à Salisbury, chéri. Avec la petite. Gros bisous. G.
Faraday was back in his room, rechecking Gabrielle’s text. She was evidently in Salisbury.
La petite
, the little one, had to be Leila. Somehow she’d secured the funding and flown the broken little doll he’d glimpsed at El
Arish to the UK. He knew nothing about the Burns Unit – what it entailed, where he might find it – but for the time being
that didn’t matter. More important was the fact that Gabrielle was still intact, still in touch. The word
bisous
flooded him with a deep sense of relief.
Gros bisous
meant ‘Lots of kisses.’

Twice he’d tried to phone her back but both times she was on divert. Now, almost light-headed, he checked his watch. It was
gone nine and he hadn’t eaten since a snatched sandwich in the police station at Newport. He knew that Suttle had joined a
bunch of detectives at a pasta place on Ryde High Street. He’d been nice enough to leave directions in case Faraday fancied
it, but the thought of an evening of Job-talk filled him with gloom. Thanks to Gabrielle, he seemed to have regained a little
of the ground he’d lost since the accident. He didn’t know how much faith to place in this welcome moment of sanity but he
knew he didn’t want to squander it. On the point of wandering out on his own to find somewhere quiet, he had another thought.
He’d stored Meg Stanley’s mobile number. No, she hadn’t eaten yet. And yes, she’d like to join him for a curry.

They found a restaurant in Union Street, the Ryde Tandoori. Midwinter, with flurries of rain still blowing in off the Solent,
the place was empty. They chose a table beside the Calor gas heater and ordered drinks. Cobra for Faraday. Orange juice for
Meg.

‘Strange being here …’ She was gazing out at the street.

‘Why’s that?’

‘I went to school up the road. Five of the worst years of my life.’

It had been a boarding school, she said. Her father worked in the oil business, a geologist prospecting all over the world,
and most of the time he took his wife with him. As a result, Meg had been dumped in a series of boarding schools. Yuk.

‘How bad was it?’

‘On a scale of ten? Probably four or five, but that doesn’t count at the time because all you’ve got to go on are the people
around you. I was an only child. I never had a problem with that. Not until I was chucked in with hundreds of others.’

The experience, she said, had been the steepest of learning curves, and the known limit of the real world had been here in
Ryde.

‘We used to get leave out once a month, always a Sunday. There was a bus you could catch to get down to Ryde. I used to stand
on the end of the pier and watch those huge oil tankers sail past. Oil was something I knew about. It paid the fees, for one
thing, so I blamed it for banging me up. I hated the place, loathed it.’

‘You said learning curve.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did you learn?’

‘Serious question?’

‘Serious question.’

‘I learned how to be alone. To be properly alone. Back home it was easy. Just little me. In a school with a couple of hundred
other gals, it’s trickier. Still …’ she ducked her head ‘… like I say, you learn.’

‘And now?’

‘Still alone.’

‘And happy?’

‘Very.’

‘Excellent.’ Faraday raised his glass. ‘Here’s to solitude.’

They talked about the Job for a while but without much passion. She’d never dreamed of ending up in the police, but a postgraduate
degree in forensic science had given her a taste for putting all her knowledge to the test and in the end she’d won herself
a post as a Crime Scene Investigator in the Devon and Cornwall force.

‘Exeter,’ she said. ‘Lovely city.’

From there, she’d won promotion to the West Midlands as a
Crime Scene Manager, before heading south to her current desk with Scientific Services at the Training HQ at Netley.

‘So how does all this stuff sit with a BA in theology?’

‘Rather well, since you ask. I’ve always regarded God as the biggest mystery, totally unsolvable. Forensic science gives a
girl like me a bit of hope.’

Faraday laughed.
‘Do you use that line at parties?’

‘I don’t go to parties.’

‘Never?’

‘Not if I can avoid them.’

‘So, where are you living?’

‘Lock’s Heath. I bought a horrible little newbuild. It’s a tent. It’ll meet my needs for a while. Then I’ll move on.’ She
smiled at him. ‘How about you?’

The question took Faraday by surprise. He was glad not to be talking about charred bodies but there was a directness about
Meg Stanley that left him nowhere to go.

‘Me?’ He frowned. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Are you married? Kids?’

‘Partnered. One child.’

‘Yours? Plural?’

‘Mine. His name’s J-J. Joe Junior. He’s in his thirties now.’

‘And his mum?’

‘She died way back. Her name was Janna. Cancer.’ He touched his chest.

‘How old was J-J?’

‘When she died? Two months.’

‘So who brought him up?’

‘I did.’

She registered neither surprise nor admiration. She wanted to know more.

Faraday studied her a moment, then shrugged. If he wanted solid ground under his feet after weeks of near-drowning then here
it was.

‘We were lucky. Janna was American. Her parents had a bit of money and that paid for a house in Pompey. I still live there.
It’s down by the water beside Langstone Harbour. It gave me a base for everything.’

He warmed to the memories, bending into the conversation, totally at ease now. How he’d begun to notice how odd, how out of
touch, his infant son could be. How he’d taken the child for tests. And what had happened when the specialist announced the
diagnosis. J-J was deaf. In a clamorous world he couldn’t hear a thing.

‘Christ.’ At last, a reaction. ‘So what did you do?’

‘I had to find a way of talking to him, a way of getting through. You try all kinds of stuff. Sign’s important, of course
it is, but I knew I had to build a stronger bridge. In the end I met someone in exactly the same situation and I did what
they’d done.’

‘Which was?’

‘Go birdwatching.’

‘
Birdwatching?
’

‘Yeah. Think about it. It’s a visual thing. They catch the eye. It gets you out. They come in all shapes and sizes. You learn
about the weather, about migration patterns, about the tides, about feeding habits, about the pecking order, about family
life in the wild.’ He smiled at her. ‘And that’s just me. J-J loved it. He was a gawky kid. He’d flap around, pretend to be
a stork, a heron, an egret, whatever. We were the Odd Couple. No question about it.’

‘And you were a copper by now?’

‘Yeah. I joined to pay the bills. The money from Janna’s parents stretched to an au pair but the rest was down to me. Pretty
soon I crossed to CID and …’ he shrugged ‘… here I am.’

‘Impressive.’

‘D/I at fifty-two? I don’t think so.’

‘I meant the child. The lad. J-J.’

‘Yeah?’

Faraday sat back. If he was honest with himself, those early days with J-J had been the best. These last few years, by contrast,
had been difficult. His boy got on with Gabrielle, no problem, but father and son rarely saw eye to eye. Like his mother,
J-J had made a bit of a name for himself in the world of art photography. He’d also got involved with a series of women who’d
frequently taken advantage. One of them, a French social worker, had nearly broken his heart. Another, a rich Russian, much
older, had used him for recreational weekends. On every occasion Faraday had done his best to mark his card, but at thirty-two,
even with word-perfect signing, J-J didn’t want to listen.

‘The boy’s like his father,’ Faraday heard himself murmur. ‘He piles all his money on one card and trusts the roll of the
dice.’

‘And that works?’

‘For him? I guess it must do.’

‘And for you?’

Faraday smiled at her, reached for the menu.

‘We should eat,’ he said. ‘Before they throw us out.’

Faraday finally got through to Gabrielle early the next morning.

‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Joe?’

‘Where are you?’ he repeated.

‘
Dans une chambre d’hôte à Salisbury.’

A bed and breakfast in Salisbury. She sounded flustered, defensive, and Faraday was aware of a steeliness in his own voice
that he normally reserved for the interview suite. He couldn’t help it though. He had to know what was happening.

‘I’m having my breakfast,
chéri.
What’s the matter?’

What’s the matter?
Faraday wondered where to start. Ten days without a whisper of contact? A dozen or so calls unanswered? Nearly a fortnight
without a shred of interest in what might be going on back home? In his own life?
What’s the matter?

Faraday fought to still the clamour in his head. One thing at a time.

‘How’s Leila?’

‘Still bad. She’s in hospital here. The Burns Unit. I go to be with her every day.’

‘So what are they doing for her?’

‘To begin with, they take skin and make …’ she hesitated ‘…
des greffes
?’

Grafts. He tried to picture the little bundle of bandages he’d last glimpsed in the high-dependency ward at El Arish. Was
she still critical? Were they still fighting to save her life?

Gabrielle was doing her best to explain. The doctors in Egypt had done a good job. They’d made her well enough to fly. Just.
Now, here in Salisbury, they’d taken off all her old dressings and put new grafts on the burns. Some of the burns were infected.
This morning they’d have to change the bandages again. That would be bad, very bad. They’d take the child to the operating
theatre and put her under
anesthésie
because of the pain. Gabrielle had bought her new toys yesterday, and some colouring books.

‘But how is she?’

‘I told you,
chéri
. Bad. Sick.
Malade
.’

‘I mean in herself?’

‘
Comment ca?
’

‘Is she …’ Faraday found himself hunting for the right word ‘… talking?’

‘She talks only Arabic.’

‘Then how do you communicate?’

‘We have a translator. Riham. She speaks French, English.’

‘And she comes in every day?’

‘She stays with the child. She sleeps with her. She has a bed in the room.’

Faraday scribbled the name on the pad next to the phone. Dimly, in a conversation way back, he remembered mention about flying
a translator over from Egypt.

‘Riham?’ he repeated.

‘She’s Palestinian, like Leila. She lives in El Arish.’

‘Is she some kind of relative?’

‘Leila has no relatives. She’s here alone. That’s the whole point,
chéri.
My little girl has no one.
Tu ne comprends pas ca?
’

The line went dead. Faraday stared at the mobile, at the grey rectangle of screen.
Tu ne comprends pas ca?
Don’t you understand? He hit redial. The number rang a few times, then he was listening to the Orange messaging service.
His eyes closed. He took a deep breath. He could leave a
billet doux
for Gabrielle if the mood took him. He could tell her what a relief it had been to hear her voice, to know that she was in
one piece, that the child was in good hands, that all would be well. God knows how, but he could offer to find time to get
back to the mainland and drive up to Salisbury and give her a hug and a kiss and a bit of support. He knew that’s what he
should be doing. He knew he should be bigger than the sum of all his troubles. But he knew as well that it was utterly beyond
him.

He sat on the edge of the bed, still clutching the mobile, trying to ignore the hot waves of anger flooding through his body.
He’d spent most of the night in the sweet anticipation of making contact again, real contact, but for some reason it had led
to this. He didn’t understand why, and worse still he hadn’t the faintest idea what to do next. No wonder she stayed out of
reach. No wonder she didn’t answer his calls. No wonder she’d hit the red button and slipped the mobile back into her bag.
In her situation
he’d probably do exactly the same.

He got to his feet and went across to the window. A glimpse of the Solent would have been nice; instead he found himself looking
at
the back of a tenement. A woman was standing in the kitchen on the second floor. She was wearing a black T-shirt. She was
filling a kettle at the sink. The moment she saw Faraday she reached forward, a brisk decisive movement. Faintly, he heard
the clatter of the venetian blind. For a moment or two longer he stared at the pale slatted oblong of light. Then came a knock
at his door.

It was Jimmy Suttle. He apologised for the early hour but he’d just taken a call.

‘Who was it?’

‘Winter, boss. He’s after a meet.’

It was barely eight o’clock when Winter rapped on Colin Leyman’s door. The tiny house was in Eastney, a stone’s throw from
Jimmy Suttle’s place. There was no front garden for the brimming wheelie bin, and when Winter took a peek inside he could
see nothing but pizza home delivery boxes and grease-stained bags from McD’s.

Finally, the door opened. Leyman was a dumpling of a man. He was way over six feet and his sheer bulk spilled over the camouflage
army surplus bottoms he must just have dragged on. His hair was a mess and he’d obviously given up on shaving. For a man in
his late forties, thought Winter, he could do with a week or two off the burgers.

‘Bloody hell, you.’ Leyman’s lopsided grin told Winter he was welcome. He pumped the offered hand and waited for Leyman to
shuffle inside before joining him in the narrow hall. For a moment he thought Leyman might get stuck. Then, seconds later,
they were in the kitchen together.

‘Long fucking time, no fucking see. Yeah?’

Winter was looking round. The kitchen was tiny, everything within reach. There was a powerful smell of cat piss.

‘How’s your mum?’

‘Died last year, Mr W. Miss her like you wouldn’t believe. Still –’ he gestured round ‘– she left me the house.’

He retrieved a soiled T-shirt from a pile of laundry by the oven and dragged it over the huge wobble of his belly. Then, to
Winter’s amusement, he had second thoughts and swapped it for a Pompey top in the same pile. The last time they’d met, three
years ago, Leyman had been pondering Winter’s invitation to become an informant. In the end it had never happened, not least
because Winter’s days in CID had come to an end, but that, in a way, was irrelevant. Leyman’s MO was written all over his
big moon face. He could never make his mind up.

‘So how’s tricks? What’s keeping you out of mischief?’

At first Winter thought Leyman must have gone deaf. He didn’t
seem to have heard the question. Then his big meaty paw seized Winter by the hand and led him towards the door. He’d always
been childlike this way, the gentle giant who couldn’t wait to be your friend.

‘You wanna see something, Mr W? Come with me.’

They were back in the hall. The living room was off to the left. It was bigger than Winter had expected, but there wasn’t
a stick of furniture in the room. Instead, spread across the floor, was a carefully painted model landscape, complete with
rising hillocks, tiny clumps of trees and a scatter of buildings. There were primitive roads too, criss-crossing this beautifully
reconstructed stretch of countryside. Winter stood in the open door, shaking his head in admiration. Papier mâché, had to
be. Days of work. Weeks. Months.

‘You did this, Col?’

‘Yeah.’ The grin again. Simple pride.

‘Where’s it supposed to be?’

‘Guess, Mr W. You’re an educated bloke.’

Winter took another look. For the first time, in the shadows beneath the window, he saw the lines of tiny painted soldiers.
Officers on horseback. Infantry carrying muskets. A troop of cavalry frozen in mid-canter beside the skirting board.

‘Abroad,’ Winter said.

‘Spot on.’

‘France?’

‘Close.’

‘Spain?’

‘Try the other way.’

‘Germany?’

‘Didn’t exist.’

‘Fuck.’ Winter’s grip on history was woeful. ‘I give up.’

‘Flanders, Mr W. What we call Belgium today. You know what you’re looking at? You’ve got it. The Battle of Waterloo. See here?’
He reached for a billiard cue propped against the wall and pointed at a tiny collection of buildings, every detail perfect.
‘That’s Hougoumont. That’s where we held the French. Come back tonight and I’ll show you how.’

‘That’s kind of you, Col. I’m impressed. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

They returned to the kitchen. Winter found himself a space on the two-seat sofa beside a pile of war-game magazines, remembering
vaguely that Leyman’s earlier passion had been for the Royal Flying Corps. Go upstairs to the loo, and you had to make your
way through squadrons of immaculately painted biplanes suspended from the Artex ceiling.

Leyman wanted to know whether Winter was still doing the biz with Mr M.

‘Young Bazza?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You know about him and me? Still keep your ear to the ground?’

‘Yeah, too right. Best time of my life, back then. You’d be amazed who I still run into.’ He tallied a list of names, counting
them on his fingers, frowning with the effort the way a child might.

Winter smiled. The cast list was perfect. This was going to work out, he knew it.

‘Seen Bazza yourself at all?’

‘Not for years, Mr W. He was stuck at the traffic lights the other day, them lights in Albert Road. He was in the Bentley
with that Marie of his.’

‘And?’

‘I just walks past. Bentleys? Posh crumpet?’ He wiped his nose on the back of his hand and then inspected the results. ‘He’s
got a big place in Craneswater, ain’t he? Fair play to him. He was always the one with the brains.’

Winter leaned forward, gave Leyman’s knee a pat. His flirtation with the 6.57 had lasted less than a season. The kind of faces
Mackenzie ran with didn’t have much time for simpletons, but they tolerated Leyman because of his sheer size, and for a while,
in the depths of winter, he became a kind of mascot. Once, for an away fixture at West Brom, they dressed him up in a bear
suit and got him to dance in front of the rival crew as an aperitif to the usual ruck. The local A & E department weren’t
used to eighteen-stone grizzlies with blood all over their fur, but Leyman seemed to regard his injuries as a badge of honour.
Shortly afterwards, according to Baz, he hung up his bear suit and called it a day.

‘Baz’d love to see you. Maybe up at the hotel. Want me to sort something out?’

A look of alarm darkened Leyman’s face. He shook his head.

‘Like I say, I gets to see some of the old faces, but no thanks, mush.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yeah. All that stuff, it ain’t me – know what I mean?’

‘All what stuff, Col?’

‘Fancy places. Big cars. I does all right. Don’t get me wrong. But no –’ he shook his head again ‘– thanks all the same.’

Winter waited for the huge head to come up. Leyman radiated enormous heat. You could feel it.

‘Skint are you, Col?’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah. Only I could maybe help there.’

‘Why? How?’

‘By giving you a little job. By asking a favour, if you like.’

‘Does this come from him? Baz? Is this him talking?’

‘Not at all. In fact I’d prefer you kept shtum about this conversation.’

‘Right.’ He seemed relieved. ‘Right. So what would you want me to do?’

Winter took his time. He wanted to frame this as a joint effort. That way Leyman might view it as friendship rather than a
simple bung.

‘You remember Johnny Holman?’

‘Yeah. Who fucking wouldn’t?’

‘He’s dead, Col.’

‘I know. That place of his on the island, the one that burned down. It was in the paper.’ The big face was like a concertina
when he frowned. ‘So what’s that got to do with anything?’

‘I’m not sure, Col. What we need to do is talk to friends of Johnny’s. You know them better than me. Maybe you could have
a conversation or two.’

‘What about?’

‘Well …’ Winter tried to hold his gaze ‘… we need to know what Johnny’s been up to this last year or so. Who he’s
been seeing. Who’s gone across to the island. What might explain a fire that killed four people.’

‘You mean—’

‘I mean some tosser might have killed them all. Fires like that don’t happen by accident, right, Col?’

‘Right, Mr W.’ Leyman appeared to agree. ‘And this is urgent, yeah?’

‘Very.’

‘Like tonight?’

‘Today, Col.’

‘
Today?
’ Not alarm this time. Something closer to panic.
‘I’ve got a mate coming round. We’re going to fight the whole of the first day. June the eighteenth. Right up to sunset.’

‘I’m not with you, Col.’

‘Waterloo, Mr W. It’s tricky, that first day.’

‘So Johnny Holman …?’ Winter sat back, his hands spread wide, a gesture of matey disappointment. I understand, he was
saying. Better some poxy long-ago battle than helping out a mate.

Leyman wavered. He wanted to look anywhere but at Winter. Winter inched a bit closer, got his wallet out, laid five twenty-pound
notes in Leyman’s lap.

‘This is drinking money, Col.’

‘Bazza’s?’ Leyman was staring at the notes.

‘Mine.’

‘A hundred quid?’

‘Yeah. With more to come if you fancy it.’

‘Fancy what, Mr W?’

‘Helping Johnny out.’ He gave Leyman’s thigh a little squeeze, then got to his feet. ‘By tonight, eh? I’ll give you a ring.’