No Lovelier Death (3 page)

Parsons was gazing at the house across the road. Another dozen partygoers were being escorted towards a waiting minibus. One of them stumbled and fell. Heavily gelled, he was wearing Adidas track bottoms and a Henri Lloyd top. Face down, he lay sprawled on the pavement. Seconds later he began to throw up. None of the other kids, stepping carefully round the spreading pool of vomit, stopped to help him.

Faraday glanced back at Parsons. She looked exhausted.

‘What’s the story on the party?’

‘Too early to tell. Word obviously got round. This city can be rough. Nice Craneswater kids? Loads of booze on the premises? Easy pickings? Who knows …’

Faraday, watching the kids again, knew she was right. In a city as claustrophobic and tightly packed as Portsmouth, the script would write itself. The invite would have spread from estate to estate. Nowhere was more than a couple of miles from anywhere else. Who fancies a trip down to leafy Craneswater? All those posh kids? Be a laugh, wouldn’t it?

‘Spot of social revenge, then? Is that what we’re thinking? Booze? Drugs? Chance of a decent ruck?’

Parsons didn’t answer. Instead, she spelled out the way she wanted to handle the coming days. Over the weekend the duty Detective Superintendent would babysit the operation, with Parsons acting as his deputy until Martin Barrie, in charge of the Major Crime Team, returned from leave. Jerry Proctor, as Crime Scene Coordinator, would be steering the forensic operation. D/S Glen Thatcher would supervise Outside Enquiries, with acting D/S Jimmy Suttle in charge of the Intelligence Cell. Jenny Cutler would doubtless be pushing for a Sunday morning slot at Winchester for the post-mortems and forensic teams would be starting on the multiple crime scenes after daybreak. The investigation already had a codename. Operation
Mandolin.

‘What about the kids upstairs?’ Faraday was looking at the house again.

‘The FSU lads have scoped a rear entry. As soon as we’ve shipped the rest out, they don’t anticipate a problem.’

Faraday nodded. At close quarters, a confrontation with the Force Support Unit could be a terrifying experience. They worked in shield pairs, moving from room to room, cornering the stroppiest customers, lots of noise, lots of verbal, lots of aggression, a slap or two if needed before the cuffs went on. On special occasions, like tonight, they might even put a dog or two in. They called them ‘land sharks’.

Parsons was scribbling herself a note. Faraday watched two uniforms handcuff the youth on the pavement then manhandle him into the minibus. White faces stared out as the boy tried to wipe his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. The door slammed shut and the minibus growled away towards the seafront.

‘And what do you want me to do, boss?’

‘Sort out the interviews, Joe. We’re talking God knows how many custody centres. Thames Valley. West Sussex. Dorset. You name it. We need a strategy. We need command and control. We need a grip on the witness statements as they become available. We need to jigsaw all this stuff together, put it alongside the forensic and the intelligence and whatever else, recreate the party, establish a timeline, sort out what exactly happened. We might get lucky. We might even get a cough by lunchtime. But we’d be crazy to plan for that. This thing’s a monster already.’ She looked up from her notepad. ‘So we need to get on top of it, Joe. And that’s not going to be easy. I gather the duty Det-Supt will probably be handing over to me, by the way, if this thing goes into next week. If that happens, you’ll be Deputy SIO. Did I mention that?’

Faraday studied her a moment. Then, unaccountably, he was back in bed, the warmth of Gabrielle beside him, wondering who’d be phoning at half one in the morning.

‘Thanks …’ he said drily. ‘Piece of piss.’

SUNDAY, 12 AUGUST 2007.
04.23

Winter resisted the temptation to go back to bed. Instead, he headed for the seafront, curious to know what remained of the evening’s festivities. A riot and two bodies sounded extremely promising. There’d be a call for the full chorus line: Scenes of Crime, uniforms, plus a small army of detectives. A year ago, and he’d already have been totting up the overtime.

In the cold half-light of dawn the seafront was deserted. A highish tide nibbled at the bank of shingle that passed for a beach and when he slowed on the approach to the pier he could just make out the figure of a lone fisherman at the seaward end, silhouetted against the blush of pink away to the east.

Craneswater lay inland beyond the Rose Garden and the tennis courts. Winter brought the Lexus to a halt, glad of the chance to stretch his legs. A couple of swans were on patrol amongst the pedalos on Canoe Lake and he paused for a moment or two, poking at a waste-paper bin in a search of bread. His eye was caught by a sandwich container and he extracted the remains of a BLT. Were swans allergic to curls of cold bacon and a smear or two of mayo? He hadn’t a clue.

The water in the lake was slime green, the colour of a heavy cold, and Winter gazed at it for a moment, waiting for the swans to show some interest. In one sense the news that Bazza had been arrested was no surprise. Winter himself knew that the girl next door was planning to throw some kind of party. Marie had mentioned it only the other day, confiding to Winter that she thought it was a bad idea. Bazza and the judge - a relative newcomer to Sandown Road - had become the best of mates, and Baz had promised to keep an eye on things while Peter and Belle were away. Quite how he’d square this assurance with a riot and a sus double murder was anyone’s guess but Winter knew that Baz would have got stuck in if the situation called for it, especially if he thought the girl was under any kind of threat.

Was that the way it had been? Had Bazza done his neighbourly best to defend his new mate’s daughter, his new mate’s house? And maybe gone too far in the process?

Somehow Winter doubted it. A year of working for Bazza Mackenzie had taught him how much the man had calmed down. He’d always been bright, clever even, but now that cleverness was tempered with something close to maturity. His days of seizing life by the throat had gone. He seldom did anything without good cause and a bit of a think.

Not that Bazza was any stranger to violence. On the contrary, his years of front-line service with the 6.57, Pompey’s marauding army of football hooligans, had given him a city-wide reputation as a top face. On one occasion, totally fearless, he’d taken on half a dozen Millwall fans practically single-handed. The ruck had kicked off in south London, the 6.57 trapped in a clever ambush, but Bazza had hospitalised three of them before being knocked unconscious himself. In certain Pompey pubs the following weekend he’d drunk his body weight in free Stella, and even coppers on the force had given him a passing nod. Not bad for a bloke your size, they’d said.

Done with the swans, Winter zipped up his new leather jacket against the early chill and stepped out of the park. Sandown Road was within sight and already he could see the uniform in his hi-vis jacket, standing guard at the end of the avenue. Anticipating another rebuff, he decided against a conversation. He’d walk past, give the bloke a nod, see what was on offer, draw his own conclusions.

In the event, the P/C looked barely young enough to be up so late. No way would he have a clue who ex-D/C Winter was.

‘What’s all this, then? Mind if I ask?’

‘Not at all, sir. Bit of an incident.’

Winter nodded. In twenty years he’d rarely seen so many vehicles at a single scene. Traffic cars. CID Skodas. Ninja vans. Minibuses. An ambulance. The fancy bespoke Transit used by the imaging people from Scenes of Crime. Peugeot vans full of more forensic gear.

‘What happened, then?’

‘Afraid I can’t say, sir.’

‘Kids, was it? Party? Things got a bit out of hand?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Lot of fuss, though. Can’t be just that alcopop shit they drink.’

‘No, sir.’

Winter, bored with getting nowhere, was about to ask about rumoured deaths when the early-morning quiet was shattered by a roar of voices and the distant thunder of stamping feet. Winter guessed it was coming from the judge’s house beyond Bazza’s place. He was right. Seconds later, a tight knot of blokes in full riot gear emerged from the rear of the property, dragging two youths. Handcuffed, they disappeared into the back of one of the waiting Transits. Then came the noise again, louder if anything, and three more youths - one of them covered in blood - made an equally brief appearance. The biggest, still full of fight, swung a leg at a nearby WPC. Winter heard the crack of an ASP, then a yelp of pain and a string of oaths before he too was bundled into the Transit.

‘I thought this was a nice area? Quiet? Peaceful?’ Winter was frowning. ‘And on a Sunday too?’

‘Yes, sir. On your way now. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.’

Dismissed by an infant, Winter thought. He gave the P/C a nod, lingered for a final look down the road, then strolled on. Some distance ahead, on the pavement across the road beside the pitch and putt, he spotted a pedestrian walking his dog. Quickening his pace, Winter crossed the road, recognising another of Bazza’s neighbours, an old guy in polished brogues with an equally ancient Scottie. In these situations a handshake always helped.

‘And you are … ?’ The man was looking confused.

‘The name’s Paul Winter. I’m a friend of the Mackenzies. You’ll have seen me around.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah …’ Winter gestured back towards Sandown Road. ‘So what’s been going on?’

The old man looked briefly troubled. He didn’t know quite what to make of this stranger. Then he asked exactly what connection Winter had with the Mackenzies.

‘I’m a business partner, really. Ex-copper, if that helps.’

‘Policeman?’

‘Detective. CID. Twenty-plus years, man and boy.’

‘Ah …’ The man smiled, plainly relieved, then said he’d been up most of the night with his wife, up in the top bedroom, watching events unfold. His wife wasn’t too well. They’d moved to Craneswater from Gunwharf for a quieter life. He’d tucked her up in bed an hour ago and decided to take the dog for an early stroll.

‘I’m in Gunwharf,’ Winter volunteered. ‘And I couldn’t agree more. Let the riff-raff in, and you have to put up with all kinds of aggravation. ’

‘You find that?’

‘Definitely. It’s the tenant situation. Half the apartments are let-tings, and say what you like but people don’t know how to behave any more. And the younger they are the worse it gets.’

‘You really think that’s true?’

‘I do, I do.’ Winter nodded. One of the lessons he’d learned over the past year was just how many people had come to the same conclusion. In the Job he’d always been aware of what the management called ‘low-level disorder’ but out on his own he’d quickly sussed what a pain inner-city life could be. It was like a kind of collective toothache, he’d decided. Now matter how hard you tried to ignore them, no matter how thick your front door, the scrotes were always in your face.

‘So how’s it been?’ He nodded again towards Sandown Road.

‘Dreadful. The noise. The music. Just unbearable.’

The trouble, he said, had started around ten. Everyone in the road knew that the Aults were away, and no blame attached to young Rachel for taking advantage, but no one in their right mind would have invited so many people to a party.

‘How many are we talking?’

‘It seemed like hundreds. We weren’t counting, of course, but they just came and came.’

‘What sort of kids?’

‘All sorts, and some of them young too, really young, thirteen, fourteen years old, swarms of them.’

‘On foot?’

‘Yes. And lots of them …’ he offered Winter a weary smile ‘… obviously the worse for wear.’

The music, he said, had started soon afterwards. Quite decent stuff to begin with, melodic, bit of a tune, but then coarser, much uglier, much
louder.

‘I think it must be the frequency they play this stuff in. It’s totally unreasonable. It gets to you. It shakes you up. So in the end we decided to phone the police.’

He frowned, jerking the lead to extract the Scottie from a scatter of broken glass. Winter caught sight of the label on the neck of the bottle. Cheap vodka. Co-op’s own brand.

‘And what did the police say?’

‘They said they’d call by. They asked us if it was more than just the noise. We said no.’

It was an hour before a patrol car arrived. Two officers, he said, knocked on the Aults’ front door. One of them was a woman. There was a short conversation, then they drove away.

‘And the music?’

‘It made no difference. For a minute or two, to be fair, it was a bit quieter. But then they just turned it up again, louder if anything.’

A neighbour, braver than most, had lost his rag and crossed the road. When he finally got someone to open the Aults’ front door, the place was evidently on the way to being wrecked. The youths on the doorstep told him to fuck off back to bed. Just like that. Fuck off back to bed. They were rough, he said. Really rough. Another call to the police.

‘What happened this time?’

‘They said they’d come back.’

‘Your neighbour mentioned the damage?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what happened?’

‘Nothing. Not for half an hour or so. Then the Mackenzies turned up. My wife recognised the Range Rover. I must say we were relieved. Mackenzie might have a reputation but at least he speaks these people’s language. Unlike us poor souls.’

The Range Rover, he said, stopped outside Mackenzie’s house. The pair of them got out and stood in the road for a minute or so. Then Mackenzie went and rapped on the door. In the end someone opened it and Mackenzie disappeared inside. For a while his wife waited for him on the pavement. Then he reappeared.

‘He had blood all over his shirt. It was on his face too.’