Winter took a taxi to Southsea. The driver dropped him halfway down Sandown Road, scribbling a phone number for the return fare. Across the street, a substantial two-storey house was bathed in a lurid shade of green, an effect which gave the place a strangely unearthly look, as if it had just touched down from another planet. If you wanted to announce your arrival in this quietly prosperous enclave, thought Winter, then this was definitely the way to do it.
The driver shot Winter a look and then handed him the receipt.
'You should come by here on Mondays,' he said. 'Pink's even worse.'
Winter watched the taxi disappear down the street. The house was protected by a sturdy brick wall, well over head height, with a timber trellis on top. Sliding steel gates barred a drive-in entrance, and there was another access door further down the street. The door, which was locked, looked new.
Winter fingered the button on the entry phone buzzed twice.
'Who is it?' A woman's voice.
'Paul Winter.'
'Wait a moment.'
There was a longish silence. Through the entry phone from somewhere in the depths of the house, a dog began to bark.
'He says to come in.'
The door opened automatically, swinging inwards with a soft, electronic whine. For a moment Winter was tempted to applaud, then he spotted the CCTV camera, mounted on a pole beside the brick path that led towards the house. The floodlights with their green gels were set in tiny traps, recessed into the surrounding lawn, and Winter began to feel slightly nauseous. At first he put it down to the third glass of Laphroaig but a glance at the backs of his hands flesh the colour of putty told him otherwise. A couple of minutes out here, and you'd think you'd strayed into the fun fair. The Chamber of Horrors, maybe.
Or the Ghost Train.
The camera tracked Winter as he headed down the path. The front door opened, and Winter found himself face to face with Mackenzie's wife.
'How was Chichester?' he said pleasantly. 'Buy anything nice?'
Marie stepped aside to let him in, saying nothing. She was wearing a dressing gown belted at the waist. Barefoot, she smelled of the shower.
The interior of the house had been recently gutted, walls torn down to create an enormous open space. A glass conservatory had been added, deepening the living area, and the linen blinds glowed aquarium-green against the wash of the lights outside. A crescent of leather sofa faced a wide screen TV. The TV was tuned to a news channel, shots of heavy armour churning through the desert. A plate of salad on the low table beside the sofa had barely been touched.
'He's in the den. Said to go through. Second on the left.'
Marie nodded at a door in the far corner of the room. The door was heavy, new again, and swung closed the moment Winter stepped through. A carpeted hall was flanked with more doors. After the yawning emptiness of the living area, it felt suddenly intimate. Decent watercolours harbour scenes on the walls. A golf putter and half a dozen yellow balls littering the long run of carpet.
'In here.' The summons came from an open door on the left. Winter stepped into a softly-lit room dominated by a big, antique desk. Tiny television monitors were racked on the wall beside the desk and Winter recognised the path to the front gate on one of them.
'Expecting company, Baz?'
Mackenzie ignored the dig. He'd bought the latest motion-sensitive software. Anything that moved in the garden, he'd be the first to know. At two grand off the internet, he regarded this latest toy as a steal.
'You should be here when we get a bit of wind in the trees.' He nodded at the monitor screens. 'Whole lot goes bonkers.'
Winter unbuttoned his coat and sank into one of the two armchairs. The last time he'd seen Bazza Mackenzie was a couple of years back at aCID boxing do on South Parade pier. They'd shared a bottle of champagne while two young prospects from Leigh Park belted each other senseless.
'Lost a bit of weight, Baz. Working out?'
'Stress, mate, and too many bloody salads. Marie started going to a health farm last year. Worst three grand I ever spent. You know why we moved here?'
'Tell me.'
'It's at least a mile to the nearest decent chippy. She measured it in the Merc then phoned me up and told me to put the deposit down. You'd think it would be views, wouldn't you? And the beach? And all these posh neighbours? Forget it. We live in a chip-free zone. Welcome to paradise.'
Winter laughed. Unlike many other detectives, he'd always had a sneaking regard for Bazza Mackenzie. The man had a lightness of touch, a wit, an alertness, that went some way to explaining his astonishing commercial success. You could see it in his face, in his eyes. He watched you, watched everything, ready with a quip or an offer or a put-down, restless, voracious, easily bored.
In the wrong mood, as dozens could testify, Bazza Mackenzie could be genuinely terrifying. Nothing daunted him, least of all the prospect of physical injury, and Winter had seen the photographic evidence of the damage he could do to men twice his size. But catch him in the right mood and you couldn't have a nicer conversation. Bazza, as Winter had recently told Suttle, had a heart the size of a planet.
Whatever he did, for whatever reason, he was in there one thousand per cent, total commitment.
'What's this, then? New chums?'
Winter was inspecting a gaudy mess of colour snaps pinned to a cork wallboard, one image overlapping with the next, briefly-caught moments in the cheerful chaos of Mackenzie's social life. One of the latest photos featured four middle-aged men posing on a putting green. They all looked pleased with themselves but it was Mackenzie who was holding the flag.
'Austen Bridger, isn't it?' Winter was peering at a bulky, scarlet-faced figure in slacks and a Pringle sweater.
'That's right. Plays off seven. Unbeatable on his day. Look at this, though. Here…' Mackenzie dug around in a drawer, then produced a scorecard and insisted Winter take a look. 'Three birdies and an eagle. Cost him dinner at Mon Plaisir, that did. Foie gras, turbot, Chablis, the lot. Marie gave me serious grief for weeks after.'
He retrieved the scorecard and gazed at it while Winter's eyes returned to the cork board. Austen Bridger was a solicitor with a booming out-of-town practice in a new suite of offices in Port Solent. He specialised in property and development deals, high-end stuff, and had the executive toys to prove it. Away from the golf course, he sailed a 350,000 racing yacht which regularly featured in the columns of the News. Another winner.
Mackenzie was on his feet now, ash-grey track-suit and ne wish-looking Reeboks. He began to poke through the photos on the cork board, hunting for a particular shot.
'Here.' He unpinned it. 'Dubai at Christmas. Can't do too much for you out there. Marie loved it. See that ramp thing in the background?'
Winter was looking at a beach shot. Mackenzie and his wife were posed against the brilliant blue of the sea. Marie was an inch or two taller than her husband and for a middle-aged woman, bikini-clad, she was in remarkable nick.
'What ramp thing?'
'There. Look.' Mackenzie tapped the photograph. 'It's for water skiing. Day one you get to stand up. Day two you go tearing off round the bay. Day three they tell you about jumping and ramps and stuff, and day four you get to cack yourself. Amazing experience. You ever done it?'
'Never.'
'Brilliant. Some blokes do it backwards. Backwards, can you believe that? Can't wait, mate. Still on the Scotch, are you?'
Without waiting for an answer, he went across to a filing cabinet and produced a bottle of Glenfiddich from the top drawer. A glass came from a table in the corner. It was down to Winter to pour.
'You?' Winter was looking at the single glass.
'Not for me.'
'Why not?'
