wheel of his Jaguar watching Faraday demolish an egg and cress baguette.
They were parked on Clarence Parade seventy metres from the Solent Palace Hotel. Behind them, the big green expanse of Southsea Common was hosting a spring fly-me festival, dozens of kites bobbing and soaring against the blue of the sky. Screw up your eyes, thought Faraday, and those shapes dancing in the wind could be exotic species of bird life, intruders from some far-flung continent briefly tethered to the grass below. One in particular had caught his eye. The way it danced up and down, trailing a long, black tail, reminded him of choughs he'd seen in Spain, rising on the hot columns of air bubbling out of the narrow mountain gorges.
'He's late.' Willard was looking at his watch. 'Wallace should be here by now.'
McNaughton, Wallace's Special Ops handler, was sitting in his Golf three bays further along Clarence Parade, buried in a copy of the Mail on Sunday. Minutes earlier, he'd slipped into the Jaguar's back seat, briefing them on the little Nagra receiver recorder pre-tuned to Wallace's wavelength. No need to hit record until Wallace and Mackenzie met inside the hotel.
Faraday was back with the kites again, wondering whether Willard welcomed this brief return to front-line service. It was rare for a Det-Supt to involve himself quite so intimately with a covert operation, though under the circumstances Faraday agreed he had little choice. One clue to the difficulties of an investigation like Tumbril was the degree of paranoia it brought with it. The day when you couldn't trust word leaking beyond an inner circle of just four people Faraday, McNaughton, Wallace and Willard himself was the day when policing was in trouble.
Faraday put his baguette to one side and wiped his fingers on a tissue from Willard's glove box Gisela Mendel's situation still bothered him.
A suspicion that she might lose the buyer she'd secured for Spit Bank, he suggested, might breach the walls they'd built round Tumbril.
Willard disagreed. 'I talked to her last night. Sorted a couple of things out.'
'Like what?'
'Like where today might lead.'
'You told her?'
'Not at all. I just said our friend might be off the plot for a while.'
'So you did tell her.'
'No, I simply said there was every chance he'd be looking for pastures new. As far as she's concerned, we're chasing him out of town.'
'So no sale on the fort.'
'Exactly, not to Mackenzie, anyway. I said, you know, we'd give her every practical assistance finding a replacement buyer but it wouldn't be him.'
'How did she react?'
'No problem. She's a good girl, totally on side very sensible, very sound…' He let the sentence trail away, nodding to himself.
Faraday was wondering which direction Wallace might appear from.
According to McNaughton, he'd be driving the trademark Porsche Carrera.
Lucky bastard.
'How come the divorce?' Faraday mused.
'Haven't a clue, Joe. What makes you think I'd know?'
'No idea, sir. Just thought you might have talked, that's all.'
Faraday caught a glimpse of something low and silver peeling off a distant roundabout. Half a minute later, a Toyota MR.2 roared past, a middle-aged woman at the wheel.
Faraday glanced across at Willard. For once, he was looking glum.
'Do you mind me asking you something personal, sir?'
'About Gisela?'
'About the job. About Tumbril.'
'Not at all.' Willard permitted himself a small, mirthless smile. 'Do I think it's been a bastard? Yes. Do I think it's been worth it? Ask me again in half an hour and I'll tell you.' He shot Faraday a look.
'Does that cover it?'
'Pretty much. Except I still can't get a handle on locking ourselves away like this.' He gazed out at the Edwardian bulk of the hotel across the road. 'Rock and a hard place? Would that be fair?'
'Rocks, plural.' Willard's bark of laughter took Faraday by surprise.
'And places so bloody hard you'd never go that way again. Not if you had a brain in your head. Have you been up to see Nick Hayder recently?'
'No.'
'He's starting to sort out the last couple of months. He's still clueless about Tuesday and probably always will be but Tumbril's come back with a vengeance and you know what he said to me? 'Thank Christ for hospitals.' Do you believe that? From Nick? That man's not a quitter, never has been. Neither, thank God, are you. But stuff like this…' He shook his head. 'You don't know who to trust.'
'Does that make Mackenzie clever?'
'Not at all. But the guy's got reach, pull. We've known that for years. That's what drugs buys you. Set up an operation on his scale and you can put anyone in your pocket. But that's the irony, isn't it?
If he wasn't that powerful, we wouldn't be here. But because he is that powerful, the job's close to impossible. If this falls through..
' He left the thought unvoiced.
There was a long silence. From the kite flyers on the Common, a whoop of delight.
'What about headquarters?' Faraday queried at last.
'Always dubious. I don't blame them in a way. The Home Office don't want policing, not the way we used to understand it, they want miracles. Here's half a pound of marge. Here's a couple of thousand loaves of sliced white. See what you can do.' He fingered the leather steering wheel. 'Tumbril's living on borrowed time. Has been for a while.'
'But you think…?'
'I think nothing, Joe. I'm a copper, a detective. Show me Mackenzie, tell me to take him down, and that's what I'll do.'
'But I thought it was your idea? Your initiative?'
'Wrong. It was Nick's. And look what happened to him.'
Abruptly, there came a crackle from the Nagra and then the sound of Wallace's voice. He was half a mile down the road, putting in a test call to McNaughton. McNaughton confirmed reception and wished him good luck. When Faraday checked along the line of parked cars, McNaughton was still buried in his paper, acknowledging Faraday's glance with a barely perceptible nod.
Willard's finger had found the window controls.
'Hot in here,' he muttered.
Winter sat in Cathy Lamb's office at Kingston Crescent, trying to work out how much a man like Mike Valentine would need to start a new life.
'Say he clears two hundred grand on his house after the mortgage. And say he cashes in the business for another 200,000. Make it half a million including all the other bits and pieces. It's still not enough, is it? Not if you like a bit of style in your life.'
'Where's he going?'
'No idea. Except Le Havre's first stop.'
'Positive. I got it from the travel agent he's using. How did you make out with P amp;O?'
'I'm waiting on a call back. They've promised me something by this afternoon.' She paused. 'You're really telling me he's taking the cocaine with him? Why would he take the risk?'
'What risk? He's going against the flow, Cath. He's swimming upstream. How many people re-export the stuff? The last thing French customs expect is a load of charlie off the Pompey boat. And once he's through Le Havre, he's home free. The kind of weight he's probably carrying, he could set himself up anywhere. It's what they always say, Cath. The best scams are the simplest.'
Cathy smiled. She'd come straight from her allotment in Alverstoke: patched jeans, sweat-stained T-shirt, and dirt under her nails from a morning's weeding. She'd also brought a bag of assorted veg in case Winter fancied
