A left wards pan on the camera provoked another diatribe from the shift leader. If Suttle cared to come back on Friday night, any Friday night, he could watch infants like this screwing themselves stupid on the beach across from the clubs on South Parade. The pair of them couldn't be a day over fourteen. It was his taxes paying for all these bloody handouts. What kind of society encouraged schoolgirls to fall pregnant?
'Over here.'
Winter dragged Suttle towards a smaller desk by the door. Beside the mugs of coffee were three video cassettes. Winter consulted a map showing the locations of each of the city's CCTV cameras, then slipped the first of the cassettes into a replay machine. Toggling the pictures forward, he hooked a chair towards him with his foot and told Suttle to sit down. Finally, the stream of images slowed, then stopped.
'See?'
Suttle bent forward, peering at the screen. In the interests of keeping the tape budget under control, recorded video coverage was restricted to single frames grabbed every two seconds. At 02.31.47, the camera across from the town station had caught the arrival of a white Transit van. As Winter inched the sequence forward, the van did a U-turn on the approach road, and then backed towards the side entrance that led onto the station concourse. On the panel of the van, plainly visible, was the name of a local building firm.
'Mates of Bazza's,' Winter grunted. 'Bloke that runs it still turns out for his football team. Not bad for forty- three.'
'We're talking Blue Army?'
'More grey than blue but yeah.' He toggled forward again. 'Same bunch of blokes.'
A heavy-set man, jeans, leather jacket, had suddenly appeared from the passenger seat. Several frames later, with the aid of a slighter figure, he was hauling someone out of the back. Then, abruptly, they'd gone.
'This one I got from the Transport Police.'
The screen went blank as Winter loaded a second cassette. Spooling through, he kept his eye on the digital time code The picture showed the station concourse, grey and empty, a row of shops on the far side barred and shuttered. At 02.32.35, the same two men appeared, jumping forward frame by frame. Supported between them, his feet trailing behind, came the limp body of the youth in the back of the van. As he passed the camera, his face was plainly visible.
'What's that?' Suttle touched the screen. On the monochrome image, blotches of black masked the lower half of the youth's face.
'Blood. The big fella is Chris Talbot. Did a couple of stretches for GBH in his 6.57 days. The other one is new to me. Way too young for the 6.57.'
'More mates of Bazza's?'
'Talbot definitely. Same school, same class probably. He's been around Bazza forever. Famous scrapper. Bazza used to use him for muscle when he couldn't be arsed to do the business himself. Nice bloke once you take the wrapping off. Bright, too. Never lost a pub quiz in his life.'
Suttle was watching the sequence unfold. Once they'd got to the ticket barrier, both men let the youth slump to the concourse. While the younger of the two wiped his hands on his jeans and wandered across to a vending machine, Talbot dug in his pocket and produced a pillowslip.
Bending low, he mopped the youth's face, then hauled him into a sitting position. Semi-conscious, the youth began to struggle. Two seconds later, his head had flopped sideways, the rest of his body propped against the barrier. By the time the men turned to leave, the wreckage of his face had disappeared inside the pillowslip.
'That's just in case his mates don't get it.' Winter had zoomed the picture until the ghostly white outlines of the youth's head filled the screen. 'Remember the way we found young Tracy? Bazza's returning the compliment.'
'But the Scousers didn't do it. Isn't that the story? Tracy wasn't down to them.'
'Exactly. Which might make things tricky. These kids know no fear.
Getting whacked for something they didn't do won't amuse them in the least.'
Winter got to his feet, handing control of the toggle to Suttle. While Winter bent to the map again, scribbling camera designations in his notebook, Suttle played the rest of the sequence.
'Look…' Suttle was laughing.
Winter glanced up. On his way out of the station, Chris Talbot had paused beneath the camera, staring straight up at the lens. After a graceful bow came the raised middle finger. Then the big face split into a gap- toothed grin. Three frames later, both men had gone.
'You want to go back to the van? See what happened?'
'No.' Winter was already heading for the shift supervisor. 'This is a bit of a punt but let's see where it takes us.'
The supervisor dug around in the cupboard where he stored the recorded tapes. Last night's were on the bottom shelf, yet to be rewound. He sorted through them, checking against Winter's list, then extracted four.
'Edinburgh Road first.'
Edinburgh Road was a stone's throw from the station. Winter spooled back the tape until the time code read 02.31.00, then jabbed a finger at the screen. As the images hop scotched backwards, Suttle watched the same white van reverse towards a set of traffic lights.
'Where next?'
'My money's on Portsea.' Winter was already loading the next tape.
'The Scouse kid may have been there last night on business and gone on to Gunwharf afterwards with a wad of cash. Talbot drinks at Forty Below. Maybe they clocked him there, followed him back to a car. He'd have parked locally. No way would he pay Gunwharf prices.'
Portsea was a couple of square miles of council flats and Victorian terraced housing that lapped against the walls of the new Gunwharf development. The area scored heavily on every major index of deprivation, and offered drug dealers rich pickings.
The first of the three new tapes tracked the white van halfway down Queen Street, the spine of Portsea's bony cadaver. On the second tape, the white van disappeared into the maze of streets that stretched west towards the harbour. Winter toggled back and forth, getting his bearings. Finally, he rewound the tape, ejected it, and stood up.
Suttle had learned to interpret Winter's many smiles. This one spoke of immense satisfaction.
'Southampton Row or Kent Street.' He glanced at his watch. 'Ten quid says we'll find his motor.'
It was nearly 10.15 by the time Eadie Sykes made it to the Ambrym offices. Amongst the messages waiting for her on the answer phone was a brief call from a DC Rick Stapleton. He was working out of the CID office at Southsea police station and he'd appreciate it if she could get in touch as soon as possible. He left two numbers, one a mobile, one a landline. Eadie scribbled down the numbers and then replayed the message. Stapleton sounded friendly enough, even apologetic, but a year with Faraday had taught Eadie a great deal about the CID mindset.
The master tapes from last night were still in her day sack. She turned on the editing suite she used for making copies and sorted out a couple of brand new cassettes. By the time she returned from the tiny kitchen along the corridor with a mug of coffee, the first tape had been playing for nearly five minutes.
She settled in the swivel chair she used for editing, fascinated yet again by the way she'd managed to coax a bizarre kind of truth from Daniel Kelly. She'd been lucky to find him in such a state. She knew that. Circumstances had delivered him on a plate, desperate to trade anything for that one sweet moment of oblivion, yet there was an anger and a righteousness in his defence of what he'd made of his life. He really did believe that smack was his one and only friend, his sole source of comfort in a bitterly hostile world, yet the physical results of that friendship were impossible to miss. The wildness in his eyes.
The sudden fever-like shuddering he fought so hard to control. The constant itch that passed for a life. He had a rare talent for shaping a phrase but body language like this gave the lie to all his passionate rationales. Add the sequences that followed and in Eadie's view there wasn't a child on earth who wouldn't draw the obvious conclusion: surrender to smack and you'll end up wrecked.
The interview over, Eadie slipped in the second tape and reached for the phone. While the number rang, she watched Daniel in his kitchen preparing his fix. The desperation had eased. His lover had returned.
He was back on home territory, back in a world he understood, locked into those moments of foreplay that guaranteed the pain would go away.
