The Take (8 page)

‘And what does she say?’

There was a silence. Dawn and Stapleton exchanged glances. Then Dawn frowned.

‘She’s the bit that doesn’t add up,’ she said. ‘At least, not to me. She’s not telling us something. And I think she’s frightened, too.’

‘Of him?’

‘I don’t know. She might be. He’s pretty sorted, you know, pretty cold. I don’t think we’ve shaken him once.’

Faraday scowled, then reached for a pen. It was hard not to share their sense of disappointment, but from where he sat there were still, in Hartigan’s favourite phrase, pathways forward. Time to sort this man out. Time for a battle plan.

‘He’ll have a perv bag stashed somewhere,’ he said. ‘He’ll keep everything in it: the mask, gloves, tracksuit, trainers, the full kit. It’ll be in a lock-up. A friend’s place. Boot of his car, maybe.’

‘We checked the car. Nothing.’

‘Find keys at all when you searched?’

‘Nothing he can’t explain.’

‘Address book?’

‘We’re going through it now.’

‘OK,’ he said, ‘then here’s what else we do. Number one, get on to the Paedophile Squad at Netley. Some of the Vice boys are still there. Check out the position on the tapes. They’ll know what we can do him for. He might have history, too. It’ll be on their database.’ He paused. ‘Have you talked to the college?’

‘Not yet. Normally they don’t want to know.’

‘Granted, but there may have been complaints about him earlier. That gives us leverage. Use it.’ Faraday was thinking about the cassettes. ‘Our Albanian friend. You’ve got an address?’

Stapleton consulted his notebook.

‘Pristina.’

‘Excellent. Talk to the Foreign Office. Those blokes from Major Crimes over in Kosovo. The least they can do is check her out.’

Stapleton scribbled a note to himself, smiling. A couple of CID from the Major Crimes Suite at Fratton had been abstracted to help out with the big forensic operation over in Kosovo. He’d been tapped up himself, but the prospect of disinterring all those dead bodies had turned him off. A year underground did terrible things to human flesh and a night or two chatting up a porn queen might be just what the Major Crimes blokes needed.

‘OK.’ Faraday was gazing out of the window. ‘How thorough was the search you did? This guy’s premises?’

‘Not bad. There’s a bit of garden at the back, and a little shed thing. We had a nose round that, too.’

‘Do it again. Properly. And make sure he knows.’

‘We’re seeing him at eleven with his solicitor. We’ll take them with us.’

Dawn and Stapleton made their way towards the door. Faraday called them back.

‘Another thing,’ he said. ‘Those tapes.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Tell Joyce to sort me out a player. I’ll make a start on a couple of boxes.’

Winter was looking at an e-mail from one of the PNC operators when Cathy Lamb appeared in the CID room. He’d been right about Hennessey. According to the entry on the Police National Computer, the Mercedes in the hotel car park was registered in the surgeon’s name.

Cathy, he knew at once, was having a bad day.

‘So what happened?’ she grunted. ‘At the Marriott.’

Winter told her about the video. There’d been a fight in the room. The other guy had marched Hennessey away.

‘Abduction,’ he said, ‘at the very least.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Where’s the evidence?’

Winter began to describe the trail of surgical mistakes Hennessey had left in his wake. There were people who were angry about the man. Very angry. Angry enough to make a physical point or two. Cathy wasn’t having it.

‘That’s hypothesis,’ she said. ‘I asked you about evidence.’

‘Blood. All over the bathroom.’

‘Get a SOCO in. Close it down.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not? I thought you told me the manager had sealed the room.’

‘He had. Then he unsealed it.’

‘Why?’

‘Pressure on bookings. They needed the room. You know how it is, Cath. Big business, bottom line. These guys have to meet performance targets like you wouldn’t believe.’

Winter was at his most plausible when he was lying, and Cathy knew it. Short of phoning the manager herself, though, there was little she could do.

‘You’re telling me the room’s been cleaned?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So there’s no forensic at all?’

‘Unlikely. He’s saying he’ll talk to housekeeping about cleaning rags, just in case, but’ – he shrugged – ‘I wouldn’t put money on it.’

‘So what have we got, then? Evidentially?’

Winter stared up at her, recognising the challenge. He’d seen Pete Lamb’s press cuttings by now and he was word-perfect on Hennessey’s body count.

‘Let’s start with motive,’ he said. ‘This guy’s been mutilating women for longer than you can imagine. People trust doctors. They assume they know what they’re doing. They assume they care. They assume they’re honest. This guy wasn’t any of those things and it took years for anyone to twig. By that time, dozens and dozens of women had got themselves screwed because of him. Screwed’s exactly right. They might just as well have laid on their backs with their legs open, and you know what? Most of them did precisely that. They let him in and he fucked them up.’

‘What’s this got to do with the Marriott?’

‘Everything. In my book you’re looking at a revenge killing. You’re married to one of these women. Or you’re her brother, or her lover, and you’ve gone through all the right channels, written all the letters, gone to your MP, done every fucking thing to try and get this bastard banged up. But nothing happens, nothing that gives you any satisfaction. OK, the guy might go in front of some committee or other, might get his wrist slapped, might even get struck off. But what kind of justice is that? Your missus is incontinent. She’ll smell like a fish for the rest of her life. Because of him. So what do you do?’ Winter spread his hands wide, his case made.

Cathy let him calm down a moment.

‘You need time off, Paul,’ she said quietly. ‘You need to be at home with Joan. Not here, cooking up some fantasy about a hotel guest.’

Winter was staring at her. It was all there. Right in front of her nose. And she still didn’t get it.

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘I believe you’re in a state. Anyone would be. You should be at home. Looking after your wife.’

Winter shook his head.

‘I don’t want to be at home. I’m a detective, Cath. This is what blokes like me do.’

‘Listen, Paul.’ She paused, picking her words carefully. ‘I’ve got a stack of jobs up to here.’ She raised her hand to her head. ‘And it would be really really helpful if you could see your way to helping shift them. I know you’ve seen Pete. I know he’s wound you up. But we’re not here to run errands for estate agents.’ She stared at him, pale with anger. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘And you’ll stoop to doing something half-useful?’

‘Of course I will.’

‘Good. We’ll have a meet this afternoon, try and sort everything out.’

Winter waited until she’d left the office before he phoned Faraday. They’d left on good terms last night, sharing a great deal more than a bottle of Bell’s. At three in the morning, Winter had been perfectly happy to take his chances at the wheel, but it was Faraday who’d insisted on calling a cab. Nothing bonded guys quicker, Winter concluded, than talking about the bad times.

‘It’s me, boss. I’ve been having a think about that offer of yours.’

‘About what?’

‘Compassionate leave.’ Winter was still looking at the door. ‘I just want to say you’re right. I ought to be at home. For Joannie’s sake.’

Six

Tuesday, 20 June, early afternoon

Addison and his solicitor watched while Dawn Ellis and Rick Stapleton searched the house again. The morning’s attempt to re-interview him had come to nothing. Addison had simply repeated last night’s story, blank-faced, cold-eyed, refusing to rise to any of Stapleton’s carefully phrased suggestions. No, he’d never had a relationship with
any
of his female students. No, hours of watching porno rushes had done nothing for his libido. And no, he’d never had the urge to extend role-play to a Donald Duck mask and an audience of total strangers.

Afterwards, snatching a cup of coffee with Dawn before they both drove Addison back to his house, Stapleton blamed the solicitor for the lack of progress, but Dawn wasn’t so sure. While it was true that his brief, an ambitious young Oxford graduate, had a reputation for making the going as tough as possible, Dawn had been watching Addison carefully and had drawn a very different impression. Here was a guy who was used to making up his own mind. The brief, able as she might be, was there as a legal backstop.

They started at the top of the house, working their way methodically from room to room, pulling out drawers, opening cupboards, sifting through shelf after shelf of carefully labelled box files. Addison was almost obsessively organised – separate drawers for underwear and socks – and Dawn tidied up after Stapleton, aware of Addison monitoring their every move. Once again, this wasn’t the behaviour of a guilty man. On the contrary, his interest seemed to be purely domestic. He’d made a habit of filing his life away, and he wanted everything back exactly where it belonged.

The house wasn’t big, and an hour was enough to have drawn a comprehensive blank. Their knowledge of Addison now extended to trekking holidays in Nepal and a passion for certain kinds of modern jazz, but they’d found absolutely nothing that could conceivably link him to the Donald Duck incidents.

With the kitchen back in one piece, it was Addison himself who suggested they take another look at the garden. Stapleton looked at him in some irritation.

‘Why so keen?’

‘I just want this thing cleared up. Once and for all. Is that a problem?’

They went out into the little yard at the back. The sun blazed down on the tiny patch of grass and Dawn could see where the depth of Addison’s tan had come from. The garden was walled on three sides, trelliswork woven with honeysuckle and wild roses, and the borders at the foot of the brickwork were a mass of carefully chosen shrubs. There wasn’t a corner of Addison’s life that hadn’t been thought out, and this sun trap must have offered the perfect escape between the frustrations of teaching and the prospect of yet another evening in front of the edit machines, splicing one heaving body against another.

There was access to an alley at the rear of the property through a newly painted wooden door. Beside the door, tucked into a corner of the garden, was the shed Dawn and Stapleton had searched the previous day. They did it again, this time hauling out the sunlounger and electric mower to search behind shelves neatly stacked with weedkiller, plant nutrients and tins of gloss paint. Again, nothing.

Emerging into the sunshine, Dawn and Stapleton exchanged glances. Then Dawn’s eye caught one of the larger shrubs on the other side of the door to the alley at the back. There was something tucked behind it, something shiny. She beckoned to the solicitor, pointing it out, then bent to retrieve it. Her fingers brushed through the thick-bladed leaves. She could feel the shape of a face, some kind of nose, and then, at the back, a twangy length of elastic. She pulled it clear, stepping back. Addison was staring at her. Stapleton had raised an eyebrow.

A Donald Duck mask. In mint condition.

Joannie was in the kitchen, buttering a slice of toast, by the time Winter finally made it home. She looked up at him in some surprise. She’d slept well last night, asleep long before Winter had returned from Faraday’s place, and she’d still been dozing when he’d left for work. According to the note he’d left beside the kettle, he’d be busy all day. Yet here he was, reaching for a couple of slices of wholemeal and feeding them into the toaster.

‘Where’s the car?’ She hadn’t heard him drive in.

‘Outside. In the street.’ Winter was trying to find the raspberry jam. ‘How’s tricks?’

‘Fine. I feel fine.’

‘Great.’ He unscrewed the jam jar, waiting for the toast to pop up. ‘Lovely day.’

‘I know. I’ve been out in the garden. Shall I get the other chair out?’

‘No.’ Winter shook his head. ‘I thought we might take a little drive.’

‘
Drive?
’ Joannie looked startled. ‘Together, you mean?’

‘Yeah. Just you and me.’ He glanced up at her, as if struck by a sudden thought. ‘How about the New Forest?’

Faraday had just put the phone down on Rick Stapleton when Joyce finally appeared with a video machine. He looked up, smiling, as she wheeled the trolley into the office.

‘Result,’ he muttered. ‘On the Donald Duck job.’

Joyce, unbidden, was sorting out the Venetian blinds. A hot morning had developed into a flawless afternoon, and the office was flooded with sunshine.

‘Young lad came up from Traffic this morning,’ she murmured. ‘I left you a note.’

‘Did you?’

Faraday was looking at the chaos of his desk, paperwork stacked everywhere. Instinctively, he began to sift through the biggest pile.

‘It’s on top,’ Joyce said drily, ‘where I left it.’

Faraday found the note. Mark Barrington, the motorcycle patrolman who’d been first on the scene at Larkrise Avenue, had paid a visit.

‘What did he want?’

‘You, poppet.’

Faraday stared up at her.
Poppet?
Joyce ignored him.

‘It’s to do with that pile of junk Vanessa was driving. The Fiesta.’

‘It was her mother’s, not hers.’

‘Sure. Point is, Accident Investigation and the mechanic who went over it got their heads together and they figure no way was she to blame. The Fiesta had all but stopped. The brakes weren’t brilliant, but they did what they were supposed to do.’

‘And Prentice?’

‘Prentice was a no-no.’

‘A what?’

‘A no-no. He wasn’t about to tell me
anything
about Prentice. Guy says he needs to talk to you. Hence my little note.’

She did a little curtsy, and left the office. Moments later she was back with two boxes full of video tapes, her chin resting uncertainly on the top.

‘This may take a while,’ she said. ‘We ought to be thinking comfort here.’

Out she went again, this time returning with a portable air fan. Plugging it in, she cleared a corner of Faraday’s desk and switched it on.

‘Health and safety,’ she explained, bending to insert the first of the cassettes. ‘Remote’s in the out-tray. Second button down starts the action. Enjoy.’

She left the office for the last time, closing the door behind her, and Faraday was left wondering whether she’d meant the fan as a joke, realising that he simply didn’t know.

Winter and his wife drove west, towards the New Forest. The traffic was light for midsummer, but in a rare concession Winter kept his speed below eighty, modest enough for Joannie to be able to enjoy her favourite cassette. Winter had never really fathomed the appeal of Celine Dion, but the last thing he wanted was a squabble about their choice of music. If she wanted to listen to
The Reason
three times on the trot, so be it.

North of Southampton, Winter stopped for fuel, returning to the car with a bagful of sweets. The sight of the Werther’s Originals brought a smile to Joannie’s face.

‘Must be Christmas,’ she murmured, tucking them into the glove box. ‘I should be ill more often.’

Heading west again, she began to talk about what lay ahead, practical steps they might have to take, decisions about diet and sleeping arrangements, and maybe a good look at their respective wills.

‘Sleeping arrangements?’ Winter wouldn’t take his eyes off the road.

‘It’ll get difficult, Paul. I was reading this article. You don’t want to be awake all night, running round after me. You know what you’re like if you don’t get your full ration.’

‘We’re talking sleep here?’

Winter risked a grin, slowing down even more as a huge truck thundered past, not sure that the joke was altogether appropriate. The grin turned into a smile as her hand found his thigh. He glanced across at her.

‘You look all right to me,’ he said. ‘In fact, you look bloody fit, losing a bit of weight like that.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I mean it. Doctors can be wrong, you know. They’re not always the bloody experts they claim to be. Maybe we should get a second opinion.’

‘He is a second opinion. The GP was the first. The consultant’s the end of the line. It’s pointless going any further. I’m there now. And it’s not as hard as you think it is.’

‘Dying?’

‘Accepting it.’

Winter shook his head, lost for words, and moved into the outside lane again. A second opinion was a good idea. He’d do something about it. Except a second medic might be as fallible and useless as the first.

Joannie was musing again, this time about a move to a hospice. Winter was appalled.

‘
Hospice?
What’s wrong with home?’

‘Nothing. I’m not talking about this week, or next. It’s nothing desperate. But there’ll come a time, love, there really will.’

Her hand still lay on his thigh. He wanted to reach down for it, to cover it with his own, but he didn’t.

‘I’ll look after you,’ he said automatically.

‘No you won’t. You say you will and I’m sure you mean it, but we both know you won’t. Not when the time comes. Not when I need you.’

Winter heard the rustle of sweet papers as she retrieved the Werther’s from the glove box. When she’d unwrapped a couple he opened his mouth to let her pop one in.

‘You’re pissed off with me, aren’t you?’

‘Not at all. You only get fed up with people who let you down.’

‘I let you down. All the time I let you down.’

‘No you don’t.’

‘You mean that?’

‘Yes. To know a man, you stick with him.’ Her hand was back again. ‘I stuck with you.’ She squeezed his thigh.

‘But you needn’t have.’

‘You’re right. But I did, surprise, surprise.’

‘And you don’t regret it? Now? When this happens? All the other stuff you could have done with your life, and you stayed with me? You don’t regret that?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I love you.’ She glanced across at him. ‘And I have no expectations.’

Winter drove on in silence, poleaxed by this simplest of confessions. No flannelling around. No dressing it up. No fancy-fancy. Just the way she felt. Close to tears, he swallowed hard and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

A big blue sign swam into view. The Lyndhurst exit. He signalled left. Slowing for the roundabout, he glanced across at Joannie. She seemed lost in her thoughts.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘Little place I need to look at.’

‘Why?’

‘Just a job I’m on.’

Joannie nodded, permitting herself the ghost of a smile.

‘See what I mean?’ she said at last.

Faraday watched the videos for the best part of an hour, an endless sequence of couplings, nothing bestial, nothing harrowing, every variation of a twosome or a threesome or, just once, a fivesome covered from every conceivable angle. In time, slowly, he got to recognise the shape that Addison had imposed on the videos, the way he’d used his editing skills to tease and taunt, to delay or speed up the action, just the way that women, in real life, took subtle charge of a relationship.

There were echoes here of Ruth. Nothing obvious. Nothing to do with technique, or endurance, or the very vocal delight a woman might take in being pleasured by a particularly dextrous lover. But something buried much deeper in the rhythm of each individual piece, in the way that a sudden, unexpected change of angle would confound every expectation. Ruth was like that. Not in bed, necessarily, but in her everyday life. He’d think he’d got close to her. He’d think he’d touched her in small but important ways. And on the basis of these shared moments he’d make certain assumptions: that she cared about him, that they were embarked on roughly the same journey. But then something else would happen and his little file of scrupulously gathered evidence would be suddenly worthless, thanks to a chance remark, or the ghost of a smile so secret, so opaque, that he knew they could never be truly close. Ruth didn’t do close. Not the kind of sturdy, ongoing, day-by-day close he really needed. No, she did something else, and one of the reasons the relationship survived at all was the challenge of trying to define what that something was.

Once, in an unguarded moment, he’d described her as every detective’s wet dream. Far from taking offence, she’d asked him to explain, and as he fumbled his way towards some kind of rationale he’d realised exactly what it was that fuelled this strange compulsion of his to keep chasing her. Everyone, he said, was a series of dots. Connect the dots in the right order and the person was revealed. It happened time and again in his professional life – with colleagues, with witnesses, with suspects. It had happened, over the course of a single wet afternoon in Seattle, with Janna. It had happened, over twenty-two long years, with his son, J-J. But never with Ruth. She was every detective’s wet dream because her case was so obviously worth cracking. Yet the harder he tried, the more he became aware of his own inadequacies. She was, in her own phrase, beyond reach.

Faraday shook his head, slotting yet another video into the machine, forcing himself to concentrate on the job in hand. Whatever parallels he might concoct between all this naked flesh and his feelings for the elusive Ruth were irrelevant. What mattered – what always mattered – were the links you began to detect as the trawl for evidence produced more and more material. That’s what these videos were – more dots to be connected – and the longer he watched, the more obvious the emerging pattern became.

The love-making, after protracted foreplay, would gather speed. The woman, often straddling the man, would be seconds away from her climax. And then, quite suddenly, she’d ease herself away, busy hands stroking and fondling, tongue dipping, mouth opening, while all the time her eyes never left the man’s face, and instead of a climax, instead of the graphic ‘money shots’ they peddled in the sex shops down Fratton Road, there’d come a long moment of stillness before the love-making dissolved to something totally unrelated: a shadowed dawn in the mountains, the fall of water over moss-green rocks, a flight of swan-like birds with the misty outlines of a marsh beneath.