Turnstone by Graham Hurley

The board was covered in black squiggles, crime after crime that was still awaiting attention, and gazing at it Faraday felt a sudden weariness. Would they be chasing shadows for ever, their pitiful resources divided between an ever-growing army of shoplifters, burglars, con men and car thieves? Or might there, one day, be a chance to take the initiative? To turn this depressing game of catch-up into something altogether more bold?
    Dawn Ellis was still waiting for a reply.
    ‘Eleven o’clock tomorrow,’ Faraday grunted. ‘You, me and a woman called Nelly Tseng.’
    An hour and a half later, on the point of going home, Dawn Ellis took a call from Paul Winter. She liked Winter. He was old-style, and shameless, and didn’t much care who knew it. Plump and balding, he ambled around in his car coat, winding everyone else up with his boasts about all the quality criminals he’d nicked. Anyone who wore aftershave that awful deserved her admiration.
    Just now, typically, he seemed to be in a pub. She could hear conversation and the clink of glasses.
    ‘Dawn, love? I’m after a favour.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Come here and I’ll tell you. Don’t be long, though. There’s snooker on the telly tonight.’
    She found him deep in conversation with the barmaid at a pub beside the level crossing. He ordered Dawn a Bacardi breezer and another pint of Kronenberg for himself.
    In the corner beneath the telly he explained what he was after.
    ‘The lad we talked to on Saturday, Scottie.’ He beckoned her closer. ‘I took a look round that shit-heap of his up in Paulsgrove. All those trips to London, he must have made a bob or two.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘I found eight hundred quid stashed in his bedroom and I seized it. It’s been in the nick safe all weekend, but I gave him six hundred back yesterday morning. Guvnor’s orders.’
    ‘Where did the money come from?’
    ‘Harrison. Must have.’
    ‘In person?’
    ‘Probably. He doesn’t trust anyone else.’
    ‘Then it’s evidence, isn’t it, the money?’ Dawn frowned. ‘Didn’t anyone mention this to forensic? Shouldn’t we be looking for prints here?’
    ‘I told you, love. I had to give it back.’
    ‘
Had
to?’
    ‘Yeah, guvnor’s orders.’ He spread his hands wide. ‘You tell me.’
    ‘What about the rest?’
    ‘He gets that now. I just need a witness.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because Mr Faraday thinks I need watching.’ He leaned across the table and patted her arm. ‘This job used to be fun once. Remember?’
    He drove her to Anson Avenue in his car. Someone had been at work with the spray can again, turning ‘Scum’ into ‘Scummer’. Scummer was a local term of abuse for anyone born in Southampton. Round here, genuine Scummers had a life expectancy measured in minutes.
    Winter knocked a couple of times and then stepped back, looking up at the top windows. ‘Someone’s in,’ he said. ‘I can hear them.’
    He tried again, harder this time, and a moment later the door was pulled open by a thin, pale-faced man in his mid-twenties. He was wearing jeans and a leather waistcoat, and his throat was necklaced with a daisy-chain tattoo.
    ‘Scott around?’
    The man shook his head and flicked the remains of a roach past Winter’s left shoulder. Then he looked at Dawn.
    ‘You that desperate for company, missis?’
    ‘No, unless you’re offering.’
    He laughed, exposing a mouthful of blackened teeth. Winter ignored him. He wanted to know about Scott. Where was he? When was he expected back?
    ‘Why’s that then? You got something for him?’
    Dawn Ellis glanced at Winter. This was a conversation they shouldn’t be having. Not in front of a total stranger. Winter had his hand in his coat pocket. He began to pull out an envelope and then had second thoughts. The man on the doorstep was watching his every move.
    ‘Wanna leave it, do you?’ He nodded at Winter’s pocket and then leered at Dawn again. ‘Only I’m bound to see him later. Me and a few