tissues, she sensed again that she was putting together something unique. The interviews were extraordinarily powerful. Add footage like this plus shots of Daniel shooting up, and she could already write the headlines.
Excited now, she dug in her bag for her mobile. Her ex-husband Doug had recently been nice enough to enquire how the project was going. Not only had he leased her these offices but he'd negotiated by far the largest of the private donations which had enabled her to seek match-funding. She'd still no idea where the 7000 had come from but she was deeply grateful. The least she owed Doug was a call.
While she dialled his number, she tried to calculate how quickly she could come up with a rough cut. She could make a decent start tonight.
Tomorrow, she was committed to shooting more demo footage in London. A mass protest had been widely advertised and the Guardian was anticipating at least 100,000 on the streets. With luck, though, she could be back by early evening.
Doug answered the moment the call rang through. It seemed he was on a friend's yacht. The wind was crap and it was starting to rain. Eadie got to her feet and peeked out through the window. Doug was right. Big fat drops were darkening the flagstones below.
'Listen,' she said. 'What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?' 'Why?'
'I'll have something to show you.' She grinned in anticipation. 'Knock your socks off.'
It was nearly five by the time Faraday got to Whale Island. To his surprise, he found Prebble still at his desk. As far as he could gather, the accountant never left later than four. Rush-hour trains back to London were a nightmare.
'Hi.' Prebble didn't look up from his laptop. 'Maybe you should have a look at this.'
'What is it?'
'Little present for Mr. W. He wants the easy-read version for Monday.'
'Version of what?'
'Here.'
Prebble sat back for a moment, gesturing at the screen. A small mountain of documents covered the rest of the desk, some of them decorated with coffee stains. Conveyancing forms. Property leases.
Trustee deeds. Invoices from motor auctions. Photocopied financial information mainly stock market prices torn from newspapers, certain stocks highlighted in yellow.
Faraday turned his attention to the screen. Under 'European Properties', Mackenzie evidently owned or had an interest in a farmhouse in Northern Cyprus, an apartment block in Marbella, a vineyard in the Lot valley, and miscellaneous premises in Gibraltar.
'This is for when?'
'Monday.'
'Ah…' Faraday permitted himself a smile.
Prebble began to scroll down but an incoming call took Faraday away.
Apologising for the interruption, he stepped across the office towards the open door that led to Joyce's precious archive.
'Gotcha.' It was Eadie.
'Good to hear you.'
'You, too. Listen. What time are you back tonight? Only ' 'I wasn't coming back. Not early.'
'No?'
'No. I thought we might go to the movies.'
'The movies? Is this Joe Faraday I'm hearing?'
'There's an Afghani film on. A woman director and subtitles. Thought it might appeal. Then maybe something to eat afterwards.'
'Joe, that's sweet
'But you can't make it?'
'Afraid not. Listen, there's a guy coming round to the flat to sort the boiler. I fixed for seven. Another cold bath and I'll fucking die.'
'Where's J-J?'
'Next door. Working his arse off.'
Wearily, Faraday agreed that he'd try and deal with the engineer.
Across the office, in some haste, Prebble was packing up. By the time he'd reached for his coat and shouldered the laptop, Eadie had gone.
Faraday watched Prebble heading for the door, wondering vaguely what other bits of Europe Mackenzie had bought.
The silence was broken by a stir of movement from the archive. It was Joyce.
'Couldn't help overhearing.' She grinned at him. 'Me? I just love all that Afghani feminist shit.'
Chapter seventeen
FRIDAY, 21 MARCH 2003, 18.50
Dusk was falling by the time Winter made it to Gunwharf. He left his Subaru in the underground car park and took the escalator to the plaza at the centre of the shopping complex. From here it was a five-minute walk across the central basin to the residential side of the new development. He'd been up to the harbour side apartment on a number of other occasions, sometimes social, mostly not, and had always been amused by how easy it was for a looker like Misty Gallagher to land on her feet. Screw the right men in this city, he thought, and you end up with a state-of-the-art kitchen and a 700,000 view.
A public footpath skirted the waterfront edges of Arethusa House.
Winter paused by the rail, gazing out. He'd heard newcomers to the city prattling on about other great views. Portsmouth Harbour, they told each other, was like Hong Kong, San Francisco full of mystery and romance and the promise of exotic foreign landfalls. Half close your eyes, they said, and you might already be at sea. To Winter, this was tosh, the kind of drivel you might expect from estate agents or the tourist board. Pompey Harbour was what it had always been: busy, purposeful, a working space. Warships eased away from their dockyard berths and disappeared to sea. Ferries came and went. Fishing boats butted out against the tide. And, a couple of times a month, yachts ghosted in to one or other of the commercial marinas, laden with drugs.
Legal or otherwise, this was where Pompey made a living.
Winter turned, looking up at the carefully stepped face of Arethusa House. Misty's apartment was at the top, a penthouse that Bazza had snapped up before it even got on the market. The curtains were partly drawn against the gathering dusk but the lights were on and from time to time Winter caught a shadowed movement inside. He'd been careful not to phone ahead and he knew she might have company, but there was a reasonable chance, this time of night, that she'd be up there alone.
She answered the buzzer on the entry phone at the second ring.
'Mist? It's Paul…'
'What do you want? I'm busy.'
'Just a chat, love. You got any Scotch?'
A moment or two later, Winter heard the door release engage. A lift from the lobby took him up to the top floor. The way the lift opened directly into Misty's apartment never failed to impress him.
She was standing in the big lounge surrounded by cardboard boxes, and Winter didn't need the half-empty bottle of Bacardi on the glass-fronted cabinet to tell him that she was drunk again. Her eyes were swimming and when she tried to move she had trouble staying upright.
'See?' The gesture took in the entire room. 'You didn't believe me, did you?'
'Believe you how, Mist?'
'Chucking us out. Two weeks he's giving us. Two weeks last…' She frowned, trying to remember.
Winter stepped into the room. The nearest cardboard box, bigger than the rest, had become a refuge for Misty's collection of stuffed animals. Winter counted two panda bears, a chimpanzee, a wallaby, and a sorry-looking tiger with a tear across its ribcage.
