The Dark Winter

…’

‘Ready for her close-up, is she?’

McAvoy says nothing. The polite thing to do is to make a small laughing noise, so as not to upset the senior officer. But he just insulted Trish Pharaoh, and McAvoy is taking it to heart.

‘Was there something you wanted, sir?’

Colin Ray’s voice changes. Becomes aggressive. ‘Yeah, there is, son. You can tell her that me and Shaz are bringing somebody in. Neville the Racist. Drinks in Kingston. He’s agreed to a chat, so don’t be worrying about issuing a press release. Just going to let him have a look at an interview room and see if it jogs his memory.’

McAvoy’s heart is racing. He stands up, too quickly, and drags the phone off his desk. ‘What’s the link?’ he stammers.

‘He don’t like the foreigners, our Neville,’ says Ray. ‘Hates the buggers, truth be told. And he’s got a nasty temper. Your teacher lady got me thinking. I reckon our Neville wanted to teach one of them a lesson so figured he’d bump one off and pin it on another. Make it look like unfinished business from Africa or wherever. It’s a hundred yards from Kingston to Holy Trinity and Terry the barman reckons Nev was missing for a good hour on Saturday afternoon. That’s not his normal routine at all. Normally stays for the duration. Neville reckons he went to buy a present for his granddaughter, but …’

‘Granddaughter?’ Incredulity creeps into McAvoy’s tone. ‘How old is he?’

‘Late fifties. Fit as an ox, mind.’

‘Chief Inspector, I saw this man. He was in good shape. Fast. I don’t think-’

‘Just tell Pharaoh when she finishes preening.’

The line goes dead.

McAvoy rests his forehead on his hand. He hears blood rushing in his head. Could it be that easy? Could it be a simple race hate crime? An old bigot venting his frustrations? McAvoy wonders what such a result would mean. Whether his own contribution, however peremptory, would be noted. Whether Colin Ray would leapfrog Trish Pharaoh in the chain of command.

He looks up. There’s a hard breeze shaking the bare branches of the charcoal-sketch trees beyond the dusty glass. There’s a storm coming. When the snow falls, it will be a blizzard.

McAvoy’s phone rings again.

‘McAvoy,’ he says dejectedly.

‘Sergeant? Hello, this is Caroline Wills. From Wagtail Productions? I’ve just got clear. What can I do for you?’

McAvoy drags his notepad closer to himself and pulls the top off his biro with his teeth.

Focuses on Fred Stein.

‘Thanks for returning my call, Miss Wills. It’s regarding Fred Stein.’

‘Really?’ She sounds disappointed. ‘I had rather hoped it might be the Daphne Cotton case.’

McAvoy places his pen between his teeth, as some kind of physical reminder to watch what he says.

‘You’re aware of the ongoing murder investigation?’

‘Just what I’ve heard,’ she says breezily. ‘Horrible business, isn’t it? Poor girl.’

‘Indeed. Anyway, Fred Stein.’

‘Yes, yes, sad stuff. Nice old boy. We were getting on well. You’re Hull CID though, aren’t you? What’s the connection?’

‘Mr Stein’s sister lives in this part of the world. She simply has some concerns about the facts regarding his death and I said I would do what I can to fill in the gaps.’

‘Wife of the Chief Constable, is she?’ She laughs again; a high, pleasant sound. She sounds middle-class. Definitely Southern. He has her pegged as early thirties and savvy.

McAvoy decides to play along.

‘Member of the Police Authority, actually. Tipped to be chairman before he’s sixty.’

‘Ah. All makes sense now.’

‘So, what can you tell me?’

‘Well, I gave a statement to the Icelandic authorities and am due to provide one for the coroner when he opens the inquest, but I know so little about what happened it’s not going to be a killer to go over it again. Basically, I run a little TV company specialising in documentaries. We’ve been involved in some stuff for terrestrial TV but largely you’ll find our work on the documentary channels. About five years ago I did a programme on the sinking of the Dunbar. Spent some time in Hull. My goodness, what a place.’

McAvoy hears himself laughing. ‘That’s one way of describing it.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Down to earth. Proper Northern, if that doesn’t sound too silly.’

‘Oh yes. A whippet down each trouser leg and a bag of chips on their shoulder.’

‘You know what I mean,’ she giggles.

‘What was the interest in the Dunbar?’

The vessel in question was a brand-new supertrawler that sank in the late seventies during a ferocious storm off the coast of Norway. For years, the fishing community in Hull had voiced their doubts about its loss. There was talk of it being a spy ship, sailing into Russian waters to photograph enemy vessels during the Cold War. The gossip mongers reckoned the crew were all still alive, holed in some Russian gulag. Even when the local fishing industry went belly up, the rumours about the Dunbar persisted until, eventually, a city MP had to make good on a pre-election promise and lobby for a public inquiry. When it came, the results were inconclusive. The Dunbar had indeed sunk to the bottom of the Barents Sea. Bodies were indeed found on board. But were there spies among their number? Nobody could say. It was tabloid and conspiracy theorist heaven.

‘The Yanks love anything that reminds them of the Cold War. We pitched the idea to a channel in the US. You know the kind of thing; were these plucky Yorkshiremen really spies against the Soviets? Were they silenced by the Reds? I think they miss the good old days. Anyway, they went for it and I attended the last few days of the inquiry. Good crowd. One chap, Tony something-or-other, smelled like an ashtray. As it happened the programme never saw the light of day. We still got paid for it but there was no room in the schedules.

‘So. Last year I was going through some old footage. Things that never aired. I was watching the Dunbar programme and realised what an interesting little story it was. Not the Cold War nonsense. Just the people involved. Their lives. Their stories. Long story short, I did some research and realised it was coming up for forty years since the Black Winter. Four trawlers in a few days. Terrible stuff. I went through the old contacts book and tried to get in touch with some of the old hacks I met during the inquiry. Well, you know how these things are. People move on. But after a bit of graft I found Russ Chandler. More of a writer than a journalist but knows his stuff. Certainly knows the fishing industry. He told me all about Fred Stein. The one who got away. It seemed tailor-made for what we wanted. A programme about the Black Winter with a modern twist. When we heard Fred had never spoken about what happened to him, we got the chequebook out. Set Russ the job of tracking him down. Made the offer, did the deal and bish-bash-bosh — next thing we’re trying to find a container ship we can hitch a ride with to Iceland.’

McAvoy nods. He’s stopped making notes. He finds himself liking the way this lady talks.

‘So, that was that. We sent transport. Made the arrangements. Met him at the gangplank, or whatever you call them. Real nice old boy. Full of stories. Real charmer. We planned to do a series of interviews during the journey and then he was going to lay a wreath over the spot where it happened. Would have made a wonderful closing scene. But after what should have been the last interview he got really emotional. Went to get a breath of fresh air and didn’t come back. Two days later, while we were going bloody frantic, we heard over the radio his body had been found in a lifeboat. Died of exposure and injuries to his ribs …’

She pauses.

‘Emotional, you said. Emotional enough to kill himself?’

‘I wouldn’t have said so. But if he brought his own lifeboat he must have planned it from the start. I don’t remember seeing him unload it, and I’ve checked with the taxi firm that brought him to the dock and they don’t remember him having it with him, but people make mistakes and forget the silliest things. Apparently, with this style of lifeboat, before you inflate it it’s not much bigger than a medium-sized suitcase. You just flip open the switches, pull the lever and it inflates. Got a rigid mid-section, so it’s possible that the impact on that is what did his ribs in. Hard to say. I’ve got to be honest, the captain was never really keen on us even being there and most of