had been working on the vehicle only recently because there was dirty oil in a plastic bowl between the front wheels. The tyres were new, too, tiny whiskers of rubber curling up from the tread. Curious, Winter peered inside. The BMW's documentation lay pouched in a plastic wallet on the dashboard.
On the passenger seat, was a new-looking Michelin European road map.
Winter returned to the front of the vehicle, making a mental note of the registration, then he noticed the tiny black triangles of black tape patched carefully onto the headlights. They, too, looked new.
Preparations for a trip abroad, he thought.
He heard a door bang, then footsteps. Turning round, Winter found himself looking at a small, thin figure in stained green overalls. The face, for a second, looked familiar: receding hair, bony skull, small deeply recessed eyes. He'd seen this man recently, maybe in one of the Custody Suite photos that decorated the cork board in the CID squad office at Highland Road.
'What's this, then?' The man was wiping his hands on a tangle of oily rag. A good night's sleep would do wonders for his complexion.
Winter explained about the blue convertible, wanted more details. The mechanic told him the car was a dog.
'Got shunted up the arse in a motorway pile-up. Twisted chassis. Fuck all we can do about it.'
'Shame.' Winter nodded back towards the showroom. 'What about the rest of them?'
'Couple of decent motors. The series 7 is a steal. That kind of price, you could clean up if you had the patience. Private sale after, ad in the paper, fifteen grand easy.'
'So what are you asking?'
'Eleven three. And it's gone, in case you're wondering.'
Winter nodded, plunging his hands in his pockets. He could detect bitterness in seconds and this man had plenty.
'How come everything goes so fast?' he enquired.
'Always has done. Pile 'em high, sell 'em for fuck all. Shift enough motors, do it quick, and no one has time to spot how it's done. Same with them magicians, ain't it?' He made a shuffling motion with his hands, invisible cards in some pavement scam, then cleared his throat and turned his head to spit into the gloom.
'No motors left, then? Except the bent Beemer?'
'That's right, mate, all gone.'
'So when should I come back?'
'Wouldn't bother if I were you. He's selling up.'
'Who's selling up?'
'My boss. Selling up and shipping out. Couple of weeks, this place'll be doing bathrooms. Great, if you fancy selling fucking khazis for the rest of your life.'
The Solent Palace Hotel occupied a prime site on the se afront Look one way, and the long line of Ladies Mile tracked across the Common towards Southsea Castle. Look the other, and the sweep of the promenade took the eye west towards the busy mouth of Portsmouth Harbour. From the upper floors, on a clear day, you could see fifteen miles across the Isle of Wight to the low, blue hump of Tennyson Down.
Faraday, who'd once spent half a morning in a top-floor bedroom trying to get to the bottom of an alleged rape, remembered being transfixed by the view. Tennyson Down was the landscape of his youth, miles and miles of close-cropped turf that still spoke to him across the years.
Just now, he could think of nothing sweeter than to be back there, perched on the cliff top, listening to a skylark belting its head off, invisible against the sun.
The hotel restaurant on the first floor was a long, sunny room with tall picture windows over-curtained in heavy brocade. At a couple of minutes before noon, it was virtually empty. An elderly couple at a nearby table were puzzling over the Daily Telegraph crossword. In a far corner, a waiter was polishing glasses.
Faraday found himself a table by the window. He could feel the sun through the glass and he swapped chairs so the thin warmth bathed his face. He closed his eyes a moment, forcing himself to relax. There was something about the feel of this place that reminded him of a convalescent home. Its very emptiness should have been peopled with casualties, he thought, and amongst those broken bodies he was tempted to number himself. He felt exhausted, physically knocked-about, a front-line survivor evacuated from some far-flung war, and when he opened his eyes again he half expected a nurse to turn up with a wheelchair, ready to give him a breath or two of fresh air.
'What can I get you, sir?' It was the waiter.
Faraday looked at him, vaguely surprised.
'Lunch?'
'The menu's there, sir. I'll be back in two ticks.'
Faraday studied the menu, presented again with the impossibility of making any kind of choice. Lightly poached salmon on a bed of watercress? Breast of chicken, Italian-style? He hadn't a clue.
He put the menu to one side and gazed out of the window. Tomorrow's business, he'd decided, could pretty much look after itself. If Willard was really determined to keep this latest episode in the Tumbril story so tight even Brian Imber didn't know then there was precious little that Faraday could make in the way of prior arrangements. He'd already acquired RIPA authority for the operation, which would protect the covertly gathered evidence in court. Tomorrow, God willing, Wallace and Mackenzie would turn up, and Mackenzie would make a choice of table. Faraday and Willard, meanwhile, would be parked across the road, eagerly tuned in to whatever followed. Faraday got to his feet and took a precautionary peek round the curtain, confirming that even now, on a busy Saturday, there were still parking spaces across the road. Tomorrow, McNaughton, Wallace's handler, would grab another of them, and the rest was down to the miracle of radio waves.
Faraday resumed his seat, wondering just how much political capital Willard had invested in tomorrow's outcome. The other night, in hospital, Nick Hayder had described the Det-Supt as a key ally, vital protection against marauding predators from higher up the force food chain. Faraday knew this was true, and was grateful for the knowledge that Willard's fierce loyalty would be unwavering if it came to resisting boarders. Nonetheless, Faraday had been less than comfortable to find himself in the crossfire at Secretan's council of war, and the more he thought about the drugs issue, the less certain he became of his own position.
Did Harry Wayte have a point when he banged the table about wholesale legalisation? Was Eadie Sykes right to break every rule in the book in the battle for hearts and minds? Would J-J his own son, for God's sake become an unwitting victim in the ongoing war? To each of these questions, Faraday had no answer, and in policing terms he knew that made him next to useless.
The likes of Willard and Brian Imber didn't have a moment's self-doubt when it came to Tumbril. Bazza Mackenzie had grown fat and all too visible, thanks to his dealings in the cocaine trade, and in their view he'd deserve everything that a judge and jury, convinced by hard-won evidence, could throw at him. The fact that other men, almost certainly outsiders, would fill his boots within weeks was irrelevant.
Justice, he could hear Willard saying, was best served by taking on the bad guys and putting them away.
So far, so good. But what of the Brixton Yardies queuing up at Pompey's door, just itching for a crack at the market? What of the Scouse lunatics, with their Stanley knives and their cut-price wraps?
And what, rather closer to home, of the envy and resentments that rumours of a covert operation like Tumbril were inevitably stirring up amongst other coppers? Brian Imber had already warned him about the old-stagers, seasoned detectives like Harry Wayte. But how would Imber himself feel once he realised that he too had been kept in the dark about tomorrow's little adventure?
'Have you made a choice, sir?' The waiter had returned, pad in hand.
'Yes.' Faraday was still gazing out at the sunshine. 'I think I'll have a large Scotch.'
A call to the PNC clerk at Kingston Crescent had given Winter all the details he needed on the BMW in Valentine's workshop, Unsurprisingly, DVLA at Swansea was giving Valentine himself as the vehicle's owner, a fact that might indicate a temporary transfer of ownership ahead of commercial sale. On the other hand, the Beemer had been registered in Valentine's name for more than a year, which suggested to Winter that it might be his personal set of wheels.
A second call, this time to the force control room, supplied phone numbers and addresses for three Valentines in the Waterlooville area.
