'Since when did scroats like these worry about the state of their motor?' He glanced up at Suttle. 'Makes you wonder, doesn't it?'
Eadie Sykes was on the phone to the mortuary when Rick Stapleton knocked at her office door. She glanced at the proffered warrant card and waved him in, nodding towards a vacant chair while she finished her conversation. The mortuary technician's name was Jake. She'd talked to him already that morning, establishing the time lag between the blood tests and the imminent post-mortem, and now she wanted to be sure she could gain access to the mortuary at least half an hour before the first cut.
'To do what, exactly?'
'To shoot video.'
'You can't do that.'
'With permissions I can.'
'Like whose?'
'Like the next of kin. And the coroner.'
'Doesn't happen.' Eadie could picture the wag of the head. 'Not in my experience. First off, you've got to ' 'I'm afraid I've got someone here.' Eadie cut him off. 'Do you mind if I ask you one quick question? How long from start to finish? It's a question of tape, really. Hate to miss anything.'
'Home Office job, you're talking hours. This is local as far as I know. Forty-five minutes, max.'
Eadie thanked him and pocketed the phone before scribbling herself a note. Then she glanced up. Rick Stapleton was wearing a black polo neck sweater under a gorgeous leather jacket. He carried a hint of expensive aftershave and looked a great deal fitter and less careworn than other detectives she'd met. He returned her smile with interest.
She liked him on sight.
'So what's Ambrym?'
'It's an island in the New Hebrides. I was born there.'
'But you're Australian, right?'
'Fraid so. My dad was in the government service. He taught English on the island. We stayed there until I was eleven.'
'And that's it?' Stapleton was on his feet now, inspecting a dog-eared poster Eadie had carted halfway round the world: a deep-blue lagoon framed by palm trees and shell-bursts of frangipani with a tumble of tropical clouds overhead. 'Looks good.'
'God's acre. Paradise. I wept for days when we finally bailed out.'
'And here? Southsea?'
'Paradise lost. You want coffee? My life story? Or is there some other way I can help you?'
Stapleton said no to coffee and produced a pocketbook. In the end he'd take a formal statement but first he had a couple of questions.
'You make videos. Is that right?'
'Yes.'
'And you were with a young man last night? Daniel Kelly?'
'Correct.'
'What time was that? Approximately?'
'Around half five. We were there a couple of hours max. He is was a junkie. We were ' 'Was?'
'I understand he's dead.'
'How do you know?'
'A friend of his, Sarah. She phoned me this morning. She was the one who gave us the initial introduction. We did an interview with him last night. About his habit.'
'How was he?'
'Brilliant. You want me to show you?'
Without waiting for an answer, Eadie leaned across and pressed the play button on the video machine. By now she was word-perfect on Daniel's attempts to get his life into some kind of focus.
'This guy was a gift.' She boosted the volume on the video. 'Just listen.'
Stapleton turned to watch but his attention soon flagged.
'The guy's strung out.' He smothered a yawn. 'What else did you tape?'
'After the interview, he shot up.'
'And you taped that?'
'Of course we did.'
'Then what?'
'He went to bed.'
'And died.'
'That was later. After we'd gone.'
'Can you prove that?'
Eadie stared at him, indignant, still aware of the murmur of Daniel's voice from the video.
'Prove it?'
'Yes.' Stapleton held her gaze. 'We're looking at a suspicious death here. You may have been the last to see the guy. I need to know where you went. And at what time.'
Eadie finally looked away, telling herself that this man was simply doing his job. The post-mortem would presumably establish a time of death. After leaving the flat in Old Portsmouth, she'd returned to the office to view the rushes and plan the rest of the movie.
'I was here from around eight to gone midnight.' She gestured at the pile of video cassettes beside the PC. 'I made four or five calls on my landline. They'd all show up on the billing.'
'And after that?'
'I went home.'
Stapleton nodded and made a note in his pocketbook. Then he looked up again.
'Was it smack he was using?'
'Yes.'
'How do you know?'
'I've seen it before. Plus he told me.. She nodded at the screen.
Stapleton paused a moment, listening to Daniel describing his days in Australia, then returned to Eadie. He wanted to know where the heroin had come from. When Eadie told him about the delivery, he pressed her for more detail.
'I haven't got any. One minute we were sitting in front of the camera, the next he was off down the stairs to sort himself out. Then he was back again. End of story.'
'Yeah.' Stapleton scribbled another note. 'End of story.' He looked up. 'The lad fixing… That's on this tape?'
'No. There's another one.'
'I'm afraid I'll have to seize them both. You'll get a receipt, of course, and the coroner's officer will return the tapes once the inquest is over.' He paused, eyes straying back to the screen. 'You said 'we', earlier.'
'That's right. Me and the cameraman.'
'He's got a name?'
'J-J-'
'J-J- What sort of name's that?'
'Dunno. You'll have to ask his father. The boy's deaf.' Mention of deafness brought Stapleton's head round. The smile was chillier this time.
'And his surname?' he said softly. 'This boy of yours?'
J-J rode to the top of Portsdown Hill. He'd acquired the bike only recently, his first-ever, and after a week of wobbling around the city he and the travel-worn old Ridgeback had become inseparable. He loved the freedom and reach the bike gave him. He loved the way he could thread a path through the longest rush-hour traffic jams. And most of all, as he mustered the confidence to tackle the big fold of chalk to the north of the city, he loved the way his body somehow found the strength to keep pumping up the long, long hill. The closer to the top he got, the more aware he became of the thunder of his own pulse. He could feel it in every corner of his thin frame. He could hear it
