the corner of the bedroom, white-faced, her whole body shuddering with cold. When Winter asked her what had happened, she said she didn't want to talk about it.
Nobody had hurt her. Nobody had sexually molested her. It had all been a joke and the last thing she needed was an examination by a police surgeon. In the end, once Suttle had found her clothes, she'd agreed to let the ambulance men take her to hospital for a check-up, but what she really wanted was everyone to go away and leave her alone.
'You saw her, son. She was wrecked, wasn't she?'
'Yeah, right state.' Suttle was at the wheel, nudging eighty on the long curve of motorway that fed traffic into the city.
Winter was still brooding, still working out how he'd managed to abandon a key witness in favour of rescuing a couple of hours' kip.
'Observation, at least. Isn't that what we thought? Couple of days tucked up in some ward or other? Amazing.' He shook his head, staring across the harbour at the pale spread of Portchester Castle. 'Just goes to show, eh?'
'You're thinking she conned us?'
'I'm thinking my arse is on the line.' He reached for the packet of Werthers Originals on the dashboard. 'Again.'
Suttle grinned. As a young DC, barely twenty-four, he was new to Portsmouth. He'd grown up in the New Forest, one of a huge family of country kids, and to date his police service had taken him to postings in Andover and Alton, neither of which had prepared him for the likes of Paul Winter. Their month together, to his delight, had been the steepest of learning curves and he was still trying to disentangle truth from legend.
'It was DI Lamb before, wasn't it? When you totalled the Skoda?'
'It was, yes.'
'Good job you've got me to drive you round, then, eh?'
Winter shot him a look. While it was true he'd lost his taste for driving, he'd still emerged from the Skoda incident with his licence intact. Better still, with Traffic finally choosing not to charge him with reckless driving, he'd even won reinstatement to CID. Two long months in uniform, waiting for their decision, had been the pits.
Nothing, he'd recently told Suttle, could prepare a man for the excitements of the community foot patrol on a wet winter day in deepest Fratton. One more nicked bicycle, one more rogue pit bull, and he'd have been fit for the locked ward at St. James.
Suttle checked his mirror, easing into the middle lane to let a motorcyclist through.
'What do you think, then?' He glanced sideways at Winter. 'About the girl?'
'I think we find her.'
'And then what?' The grin again. 'We tie her down?'
Ashburton Road was one of a series of streets which led north from the commercial heart of Southsea. Back in the nineteenth century these imposing three-storey terraced properties would have housed naval families and wealthy businessmen, the social foundations of fashionable seaside living, but successive tides had washed over the city since, and the results were all too obvious. There wasn't a house in this street that hadn't been overwhelmed by multi-occupation. Properties spared by the Luftwaffe had surrendered to three generations of Pompey landlords.
Dave Pullen lived at the top of a house towards the end of the street.
When two attempts to raise him through the speakerphone failed, Winter sent Suttle up the fire escape at the back. Seconds later, he was leaning over the rusting balustrade.
'There's a note,' he yelled. 'He'll be back in half an hour.'
'Who's it to?'
'Doesn't say.'
They waited in the car, parked on a double yellow at the end of the road. As curious as ever, Suttle wanted to know about Pullen, and about Bazza Mackenzie.
'Pullen's a knobber,' Winter said at once. 'Complete waste of space.
Could have made a decent foot baller once but pissed it up against the wall.'
'You're into football?' This was news to Suttle, who was a Saints fan.
'God forbid, son, but it helps to pretend in this city. Those with a brain aren't a problem but all the rest think about is bloody football.
Sad but true.'
'So how good was this bloke?'
'Pullen? Half decent, certainly. Used to turn out for Waterlooville before they merged with Havant.'
'That's the Doc Martens League.' Suttle was impressed. 'What position?'
'Come again?'
'Where did he play? On the field?'
'Ah…' Winter frowned. 'Up front, I suppose. I know he was forever scoring. That's how he got his nickname. Or partly, anyway.'
'Pull 'em?'
'Exactly. On the field, he just blew up. Too many fags. Too many bevvies. Too much stuff up his nose. With women, though, it stuck.
Dave Pullen. Screwing for England. Young Trudy should have known better.'
'Maybe he talks a good shag.'
'Doubt it. I don't know about the rest of him but there's fuck all between his ears. Not that Trude's any intellectual, but then at eighteen you wouldn't be, would you?'
Suttle was watching a man of uncertain age weaving towards them along the pavement. He had a Londis bag in one hand and a can of Special Brew in the other. Scarlet-faced, glassy-eyed, he paused beside the car, raising the can in a peaceable salute when Suttle told him to fuck off.
'About this Bazza, then.' He'd closed the window.
'Bazza…?' Winter glanced across at him, then settled back in the passenger seat, a smile on his face, the pose of a man savouring the meal of his dreams. 'Bazza Mackenzie is the business,' he said softly.
'Bazza Mackenzie is the closest this city gets to proper crime. It's blokes like Bazza make getting up in the morning a real pleasure. How many people could you say that about? Hand on heart?'
'He comes from round here?'
'Home grown, through and through. The authentic Pompey mush.'
'You ever nick him?'
'Twice, in the early days.' Winter nodded. 'D and D both times, once on the se afront broad daylight, necked too many lagers on the pier.
The other time late at night, club in Palmerston Road, well shan tied on Stella and bourbon. Bazza couldn't see a fight without getting stuck in. If we were involved, so much the better.'
'Lots of bottle, then?'
'Lunatic. Complete lunatic. I knew the woman he married pretty girl, bright too and she couldn't believe what she'd taken on. Total head case, she used to tell me. Knows absolutely no fear.'
'Big guy? Physically?'
'Small' Winter shook his head 'small and up for it. But that's always the way, isn't it? You ever notice that, looking at a crowd of them, itching to take you on? It's always the small ones you have to watch.
Maybe they've got more to prove. Christ knows.'
Suttle had his eyes on the rear-view mirror. The drunk was rounding the corner, swaying gently as he debated whether to cross the road at the end.
'And Pullen and this Bazza are big mates?'
'Mates, certainly. They go back forever. But then that's the way it works in the city. Same school, same pubs, same women. They ran with the 6.57, both of them. That was Bazza's major career move, took him to the big time.'
The 6.57 had been a bunch of hooligans, Pompey's finest, taking the first train out every other Saturday and exporting a very special brand of football violence to rival grounds all over the country. According to Winter, it was the 6.57 who'd pioneered the major import of serious drugs into the city.
