Professional Standards Department would probably be tasked to piece together the debris that was Tumbril, and deduce who, exactly, had lit the fuse. But that exercise, in itself, was fraught with fresh problems. Rumours of Tumbril's existence had already ruffled feathers, CID especially, and confirmation of this ultra-covert operation would further sour those who already regarded themselves as pariahs, un trusted by senior management.
Tumbril's post-mortem would probably last for months. People would start talking. A corporate itch would become an open sore. How come these guys get half a million to squirrel themselves away when we have problems with a night's overtime? And how come such clever fuckers let everything turn to rat shit? Faraday could imagine the gleeful, embittered exchanges in divisional CID offices across the force. Even fellow DIs, foot soldiers in the war against volume crime, would probably have a dig.
The prospect, all too likely, filled Faraday with gloom, and as the light drained from the Solent, he paused in the lengthening shadows of the fun fair to take stock. To date, his contribution to Tumbril had been less than distinguished. Maybe now, he thought, was the time for some serious detective work.
Fort Nelson straddled the crest of Portsdown Hill, one of a series of low, red-brick fortifications that ringed the great Victorian arsenal of Portsmouth dockyard. From up here on top of the hill, the geographical facts that had shaped Pompey's turbulent past were easy to grasp. The busy spread of the city below was mapped in a thousand street lights and the southward jut of the island was defined by the blackness of the encroaching sea. Getting out of his car and gazing out, Winter could visualise the three offshore forts that had sealed Spithead and the harbour approaches from the threat of French invasion.
If you ever needed an explanation for Pompey's insularity, for the city's determination to turn its back on the world, then here it was. A place apart, thought Winter. The perfect excuse for a lifetime on the piss and centuries of recreational inbreeding.
He found Harry Wayte inside the Artillery Hall, a cavernous showcase for hundreds of years of military hardware. The DI was standing beside an impressive-looking field piece, deep in conversation with an elderly man in a Barbour jacket. The hardwood of the cannon and its limber was inlaid with decorative brass. Winter was still reading the accompanying panel when Harry at last stepped over.
'Souvenir from the Sikh Wars.' He nodded at the gun. 'Where would we be without India?'
'Still eating crap food.' Winter extended a hand. 'Why haven't I been here before?'
'You tell me. There's a little tour after the play. I'd take it if I were you.'
A modest audience was already seated at the far end of the hall. Harry Wayte showed Winter to a reserved row of seats at the front. It was chilly in the hall and Winter was wondering about nipping back to the car park for his coat when a young actor stepped onto the semicircle of scuffed boards that served as a makeshift stage. Dressed in knee breeches and a collarless shirt, he sank into a solitary chair, gazed round, and then produced a letter.
'Where's the rest of them?' Winter had beckoned Harry closer.
'It's a monologue. Just him.'
'He's talking to himself?'
'That's right.' Harry smiled. 'Ring any bells?'
The piece lasted about half an hour. Winter, whose appetite for drama rarely extended beyond repeats of Heartbeat, found himself curiously sucked in. It was 1870. The lad was part of Fort Nelson's garrison, a clerk at a Southsea bank and a part-time volunteer soldier. Three weeks in high summer found him up here on guard duty, protecting Portsmouth against a French threat that was fast disappearing under the fury of a Prussian invasion.
News of this sudden conflagration had reached Fort Nelson through the pages of the Illustrated London News, and young Trooper Press had read the battlefield dispatches with immense envy. The French, he wrote to his fiancee, were defending the motherland with their usual vim, pressing home counter-attack after counter-attack with cavalry, the sabre and the bayonet. The Prussians, it had to be said, were doing rather well in their grey, methodical way but the whole world applauded the fearless French cuirassiers with their dash and their madcap courage. Better this style of warfare, he concluded, than living like a mole for weeks on end, poking your nose out occasionally to check whether any spare Froggies had made it over the Channel.
Twice during the performance, Winter stole a look at Harry Wayte. The DI seemed entranced by this little drama, nodding his head from time to time as if in agreement. A lengthy aside about the relentless advance of the Prussian Guard at St-Privat brought a particular smile to his ravaged face. 'The Prussian is trained to be a little shoo ted as he goes forward,' mused Trooper Press. 'He develops a keen appreciation for bullet music' 'Bullet music?' The performance was over and Winter was on his feet, stamping the warmth back into his legs.
'Contemporary reference,' Harry explained, 'lifted straight from dispatches. St-Privat was curtains for the French. The Krauts were in Paris within weeks.'
Winter, surprised, admitted his ignorance. As far as he was aware, the Germans had stayed put until 1914.
'Wrong, mate. 1870 was the dress rehearsal. The French got a seeing-to, and forty-odd years later the pickle heads were on the march again. Trooper Press was lucky to be on the right side of the Channel.
His kind of attitude, he'd have been a sitting duck for the Prussians.
Times change, Paul.' He gestured towards a nearby World War One howitzer. 'The technology moved on and we all dug in. You want to have a look at the rest of the fort?' He indicated a group of guests mustering by the door. 'Only I could do with a couple of minutes with my mates before we find a pub.'
With some reluctance, Winter agreed to join the tour. A couple of dozen members of the audience trooped after a guide, crisscrossing the fort, filing through narrow subterranean tunnels, pausing to step into a magazine while the guide explained the importance of guarding against accidental explosions. A single stray spark, he said, and the whole place could go up. With tons and tons of gunpowder in these roomy, brick-lined vaults, there'd be bits of Trooper Press all over the city.
Thoughtful now, Winter followed the tour upwards until they emerged into the cold night air. Minutes later, they paused on the ramparts.
The guide wanted to know whether anyone had any questions.
Winter raised his hand. He could see the bulky shapes of cannon nearby.
'Why do all these guns point north?' he enquired.
'Because that's where the threat might come from. You have to guard against landings further up the coast. A couple of days' march and the city's there for the taking.' The guide smiled, tapping his nose.
'That's the funny thing about Pompey. It's threats from the mainland we have to worry about.'
Winter was staring into the windy darkness, at last beginning to understand.
'Too fucking right,' he murmured.
Faraday sat at the back of the cathedral, letting the bare, unaccompanied plainchant wash over him. Sung in Estonian, he hadn't got a clue about the liturgical significance of what he was hearing, whether the world was heading for heaven or hell, but just now it didn't seem to matter. Better, he thought grimly, to keep his options wide open and discount absolutely nothing.
Earlier, in conversation with Willard, he'd drawn a ring around the five names that were privy to Tumbril's inner secret. Four of them were coppers Willard, Wallace, McNaughton and Faraday himself and it was an index of just how sloppy he'd become that his attention had automatically been drawn to the outsider.
Gisela Mendel, it was true, had every reason for cementing a relationship with Mackenzie. The latter's eagerness to buy the fort was, Faraday assumed, genuine, and if Gisela had realised that Wallace was simply a plant, there to entrap her one and only buyer, then she'd have been sorely tempted to mark Mackenzie's card. Willard, on the other hand, would have been mad not to have anticipated and countered — this development. So what, exactly, was the real nature of his relationship with the woman? Was he as dotty about her as Faraday's first glimpse of them together had suggested? Had Willard, indeed, been the cue for her marriage to collapse?
This line of inquiry, Faraday knew, led to some very deep waters indeed. At best, Willard was guilty of letting Gisela get too close to the bid to entrap Mackenzie. That would argue for naivety on his part and calculating self- interest on hers. At worst, unthinkably, Willard might himself be tied into Mackenzie through Gisela Mendel. Mackenzie would presumably pay a sizeable premium not only to secure the fort but also buy his own escape from the attentions of Operation Tumbril. What sweeter bung than, say, 100,000 into the back pocket of his chief tormentor?
Faraday smiled at the thought, easing his position on the hard cathedral seating, sensing already that this
