Deadlight (8 page)

Faraday shut the office door with his foot and returned to his desk, dealing with the fusillade of questions one by one. The good news was that HOLMES was up and
running. The indexers had finished with the first pile of Personal Description Forms from yesterday’s house-to-house, and were now waiting for more PDFs. The Outside Enquiries DS had laid hands on a mug shot of Coughlin and organised half a dozen DCs to start on the likeliest city pubs. The machine Coughlin had used to withdraw cash was down in Southsea, and the guys were working outwards from the ATM.

‘What about the computer?’

‘It’s over in Netley. They started work on it last night. They—’

Faraday broke off, listening to Willard speculating on the likely importance of what they might find. First off, the guys had to clone Coughlin’s hard drive, a process that could take eight hours.

‘My money’s on chat rooms,’ Willard concluded. ‘The guy’s a perve. I bet he talked dirty to half the world. What about the PM?’

‘Jerry Proctor’s due any moment. We’ve got a management meet at ten.’

‘Scenes of Crime?’

‘Jerry’s got the details.’

‘Good. Keep me briefed, will you?’ There was a pause on the line, and a snatch of conversation. Then Willard was back again, one last question. ‘Davidson?’

At Yates’s suggestion, they talked in the conservatory. Davidson had put on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt from a Brixton gym. Curled in a wicker chair, nursing his third cup of coffee, he went over his movements all over again.

‘You’re asking me whether I was in Pompey Monday night, yeah? No question. You’re asking me who I was with. I’ve told you. You want to know what we were up to. I’ve even told you fucking that. And now you’re telling me I went round to that cunt’s house and gave him a kicking.’

‘He’s dead,’ Corbett pointed out, ‘and you don’t seem too bothered.’

‘Bothered?
Bothered?
I’m fucking over the moon. I am so fucking grade A
pleased
about it I might even go along to the funeral. Just to make sure it’s true.’ He paused, eyeballing Corbett. ‘You got any photos? Video? All that stuff your guys shoot? Only I’ll have the full set. Save it up for Christmas. Give myself a treat.’ He shook his head, looking away, then launched off again. ‘Lots of blood, was there? Bits of him all over the walls? Man I’m telling you, that Coughlin was evil. I haven’t a clue what happened to him but he deserved it all. I hope he was conscious for every fucking second. I hope he rots in hell. Good fucking riddance.’

Yates did his best to mask a smile. Anger this righteous, this gleeful, sent a message of its own.

‘You didn’t like him?’ he suggested mildly.

‘And I wouldn’t, would I? Don’t you guys listen? Don’t you have any idea what it’s like? Banged up for something you never did? With an animal like that making it worse?’

He broke off, gazing down at his coffee, brooding. Already, in graphic detail, he’d tallied the ways Coughlin had made his life a misery. The incoming letters he intercepted. The rumours he spread. The derision he heaped on Davidson’s endless protestations of innocence. His talent for making access to a lawyer, or even a phone card, so difficult that the temptation was to give up. Even Davidson’s vegetarianism became a weapon in this ongoing war. Days when Coughlin was on the wing, Davidson would find half-chewed bits of meat nesting under his spaghetti.

Now, under Corbett’s watchful gaze, he added to the charge sheet.

‘There was a young guy, not too bright, not too clever. Coughlin frightened him shitless and that just made it worse. He’d be at him all the time, sneaky stuff, little
digs. Guy had a girlfriend, used to come and see him sometimes on a visit. Nothing special, you know, but she meant the world to Gary. Anyway, Coughlin started up about the car she came in. Sports car. Bloke used to leave it in the visitors’ car park. Big bloke. Black. Nice gear. Expensive. Showing her a good time. Coughlin would go on about this geezer, how tasty he was, and it drove Gary nuts. Some nights he bawled his eyes out and Coughlin would be on the landing outside his cell having a good laugh, cunt that he was.’

Yates stirred. Davidson could certainly hold your attention.

‘And the black guy?’

‘Didn’t exist. I had my mum check it out after one of her visits. The girl went home on the bus.’ He nodded. ‘What kind of arsehole does that?’

Corbett, unimpressed, wanted to know more about Davidson’s movements.

‘I just told you.’

‘I meant here. You’ve been out for three weeks nearly.’

‘And?’

‘What have you been up to?’

‘Is that your business?’

‘It might be.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I hear things, Ainsley. Things that tell me you’re keeping company again.’

‘
Again
?’

‘Yeah, like last time.’

Yates glanced across at him. He was finding this line of questioning as bewildering as Davidson. Just what was he driving at?

Davidson shook his head, more pity than anger this time. He didn’t like Corbett and he didn’t bother to hide it.

‘You got something to say, man, just say it. Otherwise, get the fuck out and leave me alone.’

‘Let’s talk about Portsmouth again. Monday night. You say you were with Marie.’

‘Not say, man. Not say. I
was
with Marie. That’s why I went down there in the first place. You think I’d spend a minute more than I had to in that shithole?’

‘So why didn’t she come up here?’

‘Because she works for a living.’

‘So what’s she doing upstairs?’

‘She’s got a couple of days off.’

‘Then why not wait for that?’

Even Yates admitted it was a fair question. Davidson thought otherwise.

‘You ever been in love, man? Head-over-heels, knock-your-socks-off, let’s-get-down-to-it love? Eh? Ever been there? Ever felt any of that shit?’

Corbett’s eyes were stony. He asked the question again but Davidson brushed it aside. He’d first met Marie in Gosport nick. She taught remedial English. He’d volunteered for her classes and within weeks she’d got to parts of his brain that no teacher ever thought existed. He’d started writing stories, poems. He’d found out about foreign authors, French stuff mainly. He’d even wondered about tackling André Gide in the
original
. Did Corbett have any notion where an adventure like that might take you?

Corbett was unimpressed.

‘You fancied her.’

‘I fell in love with her.’

Corbett gazed at him, amused.

‘Trophy fuck?’

‘Wash your mouth out, man.’

‘I meant you.’ The smile widened. ‘You’re the trophy fuck.’

For a moment, Yates thought Davidson had lost it. The tiny muscles around his jaw tightened. His mouth became a thin, dark line in his face. Small or otherwise,
you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever might happen next.

Corbett hadn’t moved. He was back with Monday night. Davidson had got to Marie’s place around half eight, nine. What happened next?

‘We drank two bottles of wine.’ Davidson was still seething.

‘And then what?’

‘We fucked on the sofa.’

‘How long?’

‘Hours, man. Longer than you’d ever dream about.’

‘So when did you leave the house?’

‘Next day. Yesterday.’

‘And drove up here?’

‘Yeah … taking our time, though. You familiar with that road at all, that A3? All them woods around Hindhead? Sweetest fuck imaginable. Just us and the skylarks.’

Yates turned away. Davidson was taking the piss now. Any more of this line of questioning and they’d be selling the film rights. There was a movement in the hall. Davidson’s eyes went at once to the kitchen. A woman in her thirties was standing by the open door, staring down at them. She was tall and pale, with a fall of jet-black hair. The dressing gown probably belonged to Davidson because it barely reached her knees.

Barefoot, she stepped down into the conservatory. She was looking at Davidson.

‘I heard voices. What’s going on?’

‘The Filth.’ Davidson waved a hand. ‘Never fucking know when to stop.’

Corbett had his warrant card out. He hadn’t bothered to get up.

‘Marie?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What’s your second name, love?’

Yates winced. She very obviously took exception to the
question, especially the way Corbett called her ‘love’. This was a woman used to taking classes, used to standing up in front of rooms full of hardened criminals. She most definitely didn’t respond to ‘love’.

‘My name’s Elliott,’ she said at last. ‘Marie Elliott.’

‘And you’re with … ?’ Corbett nodded towards Davidson.

‘His name’s Ainsley.’

‘Where were you on Monday night? Do you mind me asking?’

‘Not at all. Ask away.’

‘I just did.’

‘OK.’ She shrugged. ‘I was at home in Portsmouth. Eastney, actually. Adair Road. Number 101.’

‘Anyone with you?’

‘Yes, Ainsley.’ She didn’t, for one second, take her eyes off Corbett.

‘Between when and when?’

‘Dunno.’ She frowned, trying to remember. ‘Mid-evening? Eight maybe? Then right through to next morning.’

‘Anyone else in the house?’

‘I live alone.’

‘No one I can talk to, then?’

‘No, except me. What is this?’

Corbett didn’t answer. He was good at masking his emotions but Yates detected the merest hint of disappointment in his face. He’d expected, at the very least, the odd dropped stitch. Instead, this woman was the model of composure.

‘We’re investigating a suspicious death,’ he said slowly. ‘Someone you may well know.’

‘Really? Who might that be?’

‘Sean Coughlin.’

‘
Coughlin?
From the prison?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you’re telling me he’s dead?’ She looked at Davidson.

Davidson grinned back, raising a thumb.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘and you know what? These guys think I kicked him to death. Can you believe that? Get myself hooked up with all this shit again?’ He shook his head. ‘Why would I ever do that?’

The first of the
Merriott
management meetings lasted nearly an hour. Faraday chaired it in Willard’s office, seating his core team around the long conference table.

After Faraday’s brief introduction, Jerry Proctor brought news from the post-mortem. Coughlin had received a number of heavy blows to his face, neck, upper body and groin area. There were no penetration wounds and the damage could equally have been inflicted by boots, fists, or some kind of weapon. Coughlin had three broken ribs and a ruptured spleen but the immediate cause of death, in the view of the Home Office pathologist, had been inhalation of vomit. At some undetermined point, he’d started to throw up and the stuff had been sucked back into his lungs, effectively suffocating him.

‘This was after the beating?’ Faraday wanted to know about the exact sequence of events.

‘Almost definitely.’

‘You think he might have been alone by then? Only there could be legal implications here.’

‘Manslaughter?’ Proctor shook his head. ‘We’re talking specific intent, aren’t we? Whoever whacked him did so for a purpose. And the whacking led to his death. That says homicide to me.’

‘But you’re telling me he threw up because he got whacked?’

‘Impossible to judge. The pathologist’s talking lots of alcohol. Tox won’t be back for a couple of days but there was an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker on the floor and his gut still stank of booze.’

‘So what are we saying? He was pissed out of his head?
He got whacked? He threw up, swallowed it, and choked to death?’

‘Something like that. But it’s intent again. Without the whacking’ … Proctor shrugged … ‘who knows?’

‘OK.’ Faraday scribbled himself a note then paused, struck by another thought.

‘Had he eaten at all? Earlier?’

‘Kebab. There were bits of meat and shredded lettuce in the vomit.’

‘Fresh? Recent?’

‘Couple of hours. Maybe a bit longer.’

‘Did he bring the take-out back with him?’

‘I’d say not. We’ve been through the waste bin in the kitchen, and the dustbin outside, too.’

‘What about the kebab houses, then?’ Faraday addressed the question to a sturdy-looking figure down the far end of the table. Paul Ingham was the DS in charge of Outside Enquiries, a no-nonsense Yorkshire-man highly rated by Willard. It was Ingham’s job to turn queries like this into individual actions, tasking his two-man teams of DCs.

‘This afternoon, boss. They’ve all got copies of the mug shot but most of these places don’t get going until two.’

Faraday turned back to Proctor. ‘Let’s stay with Coughlin. Any signs of resistance? Did he put up a fight?’

‘Seems not. Nothing under his fingernails, nothing we could DNA, and very little blood. That pissed, he’d have been helpless. Time of death was around one in the morning, maybe a tad later. It might all have been over in a couple of minutes. We just don’t know.’

‘Great.’ Faraday looked at Dave Michaels. ‘How are we doing with a time-line?’

Michaels consulted an A4 pad at his elbow. Coughlin had definitely made a cash withdrawal in the early evening. The ATM receipt in the pocket of his trousers put him in Southsea’s Osborne Road at 18.46.

‘We’ve got CCTV on that?’

‘Yes, sir. Guys are down at the suite at the moment. Definitely Coughlin. Definitely Osborne Road.’

‘And he went where? After getting the money?’

‘Thresher’s. It’s just along the street, same camera. We’re checking on the till records but he definitely walked out with a bag.’

‘With the Scotch?’

‘Tenner says yes.’

‘Receipt?’

It was Proctor who shook his head. The lads at 7a Niton Road had been through Coughlin’s clothes and found nothing.

‘Must have binned it,’ Michaels grunted.

‘OK.’ Faraday closed his eyes a moment, trying to get a fix on the sequence of events. ‘Let’s say the Scotch
was
from Thresher’s. Are we suggesting he drank it all?’

He opened one eye. Michaels was shaking his head.

‘I think we’re talking company. No forced entry, remember.’

‘We’re sure about that? Jerry?’