the open camera box. 'I think J-J should go back to the flat again. After I've made a call.'
J-J returned to Old Portsmouth within the hour. He didn't have to bother with the entry phone because Daniel was up in the window of his flat, watching the street below. J-J felt the lock give under his fingers and pushed in through the big front door. Daniel was waiting for him upstairs, pale and fretful. His palm was moist when he shook J-J's outstretched hand.
'Sarah phoned,' he said at once. 'And the answer's yes.' J-J reached out to pat him on the shoulder, a congratulatory gesture that made Daniel retreat at once into the safety of the flat. J-J watched his hands, the way they crabbed up and down his bare arms. The insides of both elbows were livid with bruises.
Daniel had something else to say, something important. He fixed J-J with his big yellow eyes. He spoke very slowly, exaggerated lip movements, spelling it out.
'I need a favour.'
J-J cocked an eyebrow. What?
'I have to make a phone call but the number won't answer.' He stumbled through a clumsy mime. 'You understand me?'
Another nod from J-J, more guarded this time.
'I've got an address. I'll call a cab. All you have to do is knock on the door and ask for Terry. Give Terry my name. Tell him Daniel from Old Portsmouth. That's all you have to say. Terry. Daniel from Old Portsmouth. Then we can do the interview. OK?'
J-J glanced down and found himself looking at a fifty-pound note.
'Difficult,' he signed.
'What?'
'Hard.'
'I don't understand.' Daniel plunged his hand into his pocket. Two more notes, twenties this time.
'Please…' J-J tried to fend him off.
'Just take the money. Go on, take it. Terry. Daniel from Old Portsmouth. Then we can do the interview. Is that too much to ask?'
He produced a mobile. J-J guessed he was phoning for the taxi.
Daniel folded the phone into his pocket. Patches of sweat darkened his shirt.
'Why don't you wait in the street?' He tapped his watch and held up five fingers. 'The cab'll be here in no time.'
Chapter five
WEDNESDAY, 19 MARCH 2003, 14.00
Faraday's third meeting with Willard took place in mid afternoon. One of the management assistants from the Major Crimes Team had raised Faraday on his mobile, telling him that the Det Supt would be parked in Grand Parade for a brief get-together at 3.15. There didn't seem much room for negotiation.
Grand Parade was a recently refurbished square in Old Portsmouth and once the bustling centre of garrison life. Lottery money had paid for stylish seating and a brand new ramp, quickly adopted by local skateboarders. The ramp led up to the Saluting Base, an area on top of the fortification walls that overlooked the harbour narrows.
Faraday arrived early, his anorak zipped up against a bitter wind, and spent a minute or two gazing down at the churning tide. A lone cormorant sped past, barely feet above the water, and he watched it until the tiny black speck was swallowed up by the enveloping greyness.
Cormorants had always been one of J-J's favourite birds. He'd drawn them since he was a kid, page after page of weird, prehistoric shapes, and he'd often pestered his dad for expeditions to watch the real thing. The way the birds bobbed around on the ocean, abruptly submerging in search of food, had always fascinated the boy, and one of the first times Faraday had recognised J-J's strange cackle as a laugh was when the hungry cormorant resurfaced, seventy metres down-current, with an impatient little shake of its head. He doesn't understand, J-J would sign. He's down there in the dark and he can't see a thing. Too right, thought Faraday, pulling up the hood of his anorak against the first chill drops of rain.
Willard took him by surprise, arriving in a brand new Jaguar S-type.
Faraday got in beside him, curious to know why they were meeting here.
There was a perfectly good suite of offices at Kingston Crescent. What was so wrong with central heating and a constant supply of coffee?
Willard ignored the question. He'd spent most of lunchtime with Dave Michaels out at Fort Cumberland. The DS had got his house-to-house team working through the neighbouring estate and the preliminary reports were beginning to inch the Nick Hayder inquiry forward. Several households especially young mums with kids had talked of after-dark comings and goings on the single road that led towards the Hayling ferry. Some of the cars that pulled off the tarmac and onto the scrubland that stretched out towards the beach were there for sex. You knew they were at it because afterwards they chucked their debris out of the car window, littering the place with used condoms, but recently there'd been other visitors, even less welcome.
According to the mums, some of the older kids on the estate were talking openly about scoring cheap drugs off dealers who'd driven in from elsewhere in the city. For less than a tenner, you could evidently take your pick anything from ecstasy to smack and the trade had become so brazen that the kids had taken to calling one of the dealers Mr. Whippy. All he needed, said one harassed single mother, was one of those recorded chimes and a nice little fridge for the younger kids who might fancy a choc ice with their 10 wrap.
Faraday was watching the bridge and funnel of a passing warship, visible above the nearby battlements. No point resisting the obvious.
'You're thinking Mackenzie?'
'No way. Mackenzie uses dealers, of course he does, always has, but they're mostly local. More to the point, he doesn't deal smack any more.'
'And this lot?'
'Out of town. Definitely. And they'll sell you anything.'
'Who says?'
'It's what the kids tell their mums. One said he'd bought a snowball, smack and crack cocaine. Another thought they all sounded like Steve Gerrard. That says Merseyside to me. Scousers.'
One night last week, enraged by what was going on under their noses, a couple of the mums had decided to intervene. They'd marched into the darkness, determined to have it out with the intruders, but the dealers had had a dog in the car, big bastard, really vicious, because the next thing they knew they were trying to fend the bloody animal off. Only a prompt retreat had saved them from a serious mauling, and when the dealers had called the dog off and driven away, they'd made a point of winding down the car window and laughing in their faces.
'They get a number at all?' Faraday could picture the scene.
'M reg. XB something. And maybe a seven.'
'Make?'
'Cavalier.'
'They report it?'
'Yeah. Highland Road sent a couple of DCs round next morning. Took statements and left a number to ring. Last night one of the same women swears blind the same car was back again, couple of young blokes inside.'
'She get a good look at them?'
'Yes.'
'Why didn't she phone in, then? After it all kicked off?'
'She won't say but Dave's guess is her own boy's been at it, maybe last night.'
'Buying?'
'Yeah. Dave's got a list of repeat visits for when the kids come out of school. That's the ones who can be arsed to turn up, of course.'
'At home?'
'At school.'
