It was five past nine in the morning. Half a dozen officers, uniformed and CID, had gathered in the empty social club for the daily update, but Faraday wasn’t interested in warehouse burglaries and a particularly violent affray outside a Southsea nightclub. ‘Port Solent,’ he said. ‘Muscovy Drive....
Already the bulk of Constantine’s D/Cs had been redeployed on other inquiries and a text from Houghton instructed Suttle to vacate their temporary office and return to MCIT’s permanent base in Exeter. The message was plain. In the absence of hard evidence, Constantine was effectively over. An adm...
‘You’ve had problems?’ ‘One or two.’ ‘That cat? You think he might have…’ Mark was looking at me. I nodded glumly. I’d buried Pinot in the one corner of the back garden that Gilbert’s windows didn’t overlook. God knows how I was going to explain any of this to Nikki but it...
Kingdom had phoned the Accident and Emergency Department from the Incident Room and had arranged to meet the Junior Registrar at eleven. With luck, she said, she’d be free for coffee. They could talk in the staff room. Now, Kingdom stirred sugar into his coffee and waited while the young doctor d...
10.31 Nearly an hour later Faraday was summoned to Martin Barrie’s office. He knew already that Willard had driven down from Winchester and was aware that DCI Parsons had called a management review meeting for midday. As the Danny Cooper murder appeared to be folding neatly into Mandolin, he wond...
She’d been dreaming about James. He was kneeling by some kind of pond or pool. It was very hot. The water was a strange colour, almost green, and he kept dipping his hands in it, cupping the liquid, offering it to her the way he’d sometimes come into the kitchen as a child, carrying trophies from...
One of the three Coroner’s Officers was a bulky curmudgeon called Bill Prosper. Prosper was an ex-policeman, and an old enemy of Winter’s. They’d been on the same relief together way back and as a direct consequence Prosper viewed Winter as a permanent stain on the force’s reputation. If he’d fou...
One of the secretaries had let him in, a sodden figure, sleepless, bad-tempered, pushing into the hall and up the stairs without a backward glance. Finding the office empty, he’d hung his raincoat on the back of one of Friedland’s antique chairs, watching the drips pooling on the pale grey Wilton...
Looking down from the bay window, he recognised the car at the kerbside and the greying cap of tightly curled hair at the door. Faraday. How did he find me? he thought. How did he know where to come looking? ‘You get this address from Cathy?’ ‘Your mum. Her number’s on file. I said I was a friend...
21.45 Winter was asleep when the buzzer rang. He struggled upright on the sofa, gazed at the television, fumbled for the remote to mute the volume. He’d had a bath earlier and the belt on Maddox’s dressing gown had somehow loosened. Parcelling himself up again, he padded into the hall, peering a...
07.03 Faraday finally got through to Gabrielle early the next morning. ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘Joe?’ ‘Where are you?’ he repeated. ‘Dans une chambre d’hôte à Salisbury.’ A bed and breakfast in Salisbury. She sounded flust...
He rolled over, felt blindly on the floor, tried to focus on the clock beside the bed. Quarter to eight. More or less. ‘Who is it?’ ‘Jimmy. Listen. Ewart’s car.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Ewart. Karl Ewart … Paul?’ Winter had struggled out of bed. Groping his way into the bathroom, he was just in time to throw up ...
The Home Office pathologist had taken prints from all ten fingers. The prints had gone straight to the force fingerprint department at Netley for checks against the newly installed NAAFIS system, software programmed with prints from every individual with a criminal record, and within hours they w...
20.12 Winter took a cab to the Bargemaster’s House. Knowing Faraday’s affection for decent wine, he’d lingered long enough in Thresher’s to take advice on a choice of bottle. A 2003 Rioja, fingers crossed, should do the trick. The moment Faraday opened the front door, Winter knew he was in with a...
It was half past eleven at night and the place was quite empty. ‘Devlin,’ I said, when he answered. It took him a second or two to sort himself out. For half past four in the morning, I didn’t blame him. ‘What?’ ‘Devlin. Peter Devlin.’ ‘What about him?’ ‘He’s out here. In Dallas. He’s working wit...
It was five past four in the afternoon. Lizzie and Grace were round at Lizzie’s mum’s in North End and the game had just started. Yesterday’s Premiership results had confirmed certain relegation for Pompey, but today’s semi-final in the Wembley sunshine gave them a chance to salvage a little prid...
It was lunchtime and civil servants from the Foreign Office and the Treasury were striding along the newly swept paths, some alone, some in company, one or two in track-suits and running shoes, tucking in a circuit or two of the park before returning to their desks. Ellis got up, cursing himself ...