Free Angels Passing by Graham Hurley

quotation was for my wife.’
    ‘It’s a love poem then?’
    ‘Of course, if you read it that way.’
    ‘So why give it to Helen?’
    ‘I didn’t,’ he said stonily. ‘She stole it.’
    Back at Southsea nick, half an hour later, Yates and Ellis found Faraday working through a mass of emails in his office. He’d started a Policy Book on Helen Bassam’s death, a running log listing every new decision on the inquiry together with a brief rationale, and it lay open on the desk beside the computer. Half an hour earlier, according to Faraday’s scrawl, Scenes of Crime had phoned to confirm that the blood patterning on the pavement around the dead girl’s body was consistent with a fall from height.
    ‘Rocket science,’ Faraday murmured, aware of Yates’s interest. ‘What about our Afghan friend?’
    Yates described the conversation in the café. In his view, Niamat Tabibi was talking a load of bollocks. Odds-on he was shagging the girl though he appeared to have a solid alibi for last night. Ellis said nothing. The open email on the screen had come from the Superintendent in charge of Community Safety at force headquarters in Winchester. He wanted Faraday’s thoughts on a rumoured sighting of a pied billed grebe in the bird reserve at Farlington Marshes, and so far Faraday’s reply had stretched to three paragraphs.
    ‘I’ve had the headmaster on from St Peter’s,’ Faraday was saying. ‘The girl was at school there. Her grades have been going from bad to worse and lately she hasn’t been turning up at all. They’re setting up a case conference with the welfare but there’s obviously no point any more. The head’s got a stack of pupils wanting to attend the funeral. It seems she had lots of friends.’
    Ellis turned away. This morning’s developments were now public knowledge. Helen’s name had been released to the media, featuring in news reports on local radio. Whether Helen Bassam was popular or not was beside the point. Nothing caught the adolescent imagination more than the prospect of a good funeral, preferably in the rain.
    ‘I don’t see it the way Bev does,’ she said quietly. ‘I think the Afghan guy’s kosher.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘Meaning they were just friends. That wasn’t what she wanted but that’s all she got. The rest was fantasy. She made him up.’
    ‘Wasn’t the mother convinced they were screwing?’ Yates enquired. ‘Or am I imagining things?’
    ‘The mother’s loonier than her daughter. The husband’s gone, that’s the clue. Break a marriage like that and you’re left with a bloody great hole. Niamat filled it, don’t ask me how, but he did. That’s not breaking the law, not so far anyway.’
    Faraday smiled and turned back to his computer, putting the finishing touches to his email. It turned out he’d seen the grebe himself, only a couple of days ago. The bird had blown in from America, an orphan borne east on the ever-deepening frontal troughs.
    Yates read the email over Faraday’s shoulder, rolling his eyes when he realised what it was about. He’d never understood Faraday’s passion for birdwatching, least of all when the jobs were piling up like this. Finally, he took Dawn Ellis’s elbow and steered her towards the open door. Only when they were in the corridor outside did Faraday call after them.
    ‘There’s an overtime job on tonight,’ he said, ‘Brennan’s.’
    Winter had the details in the CID office. Hartigan was authorising a scaled-down stake-out at the DIY superstore, five uniforms and three CID. Cathy Lamb was working out the details and the briefing would be over at Fratton at six sharp. Winter’s money was on a bust around midnight. Allow a couple of hours afterwards for the paperwork and they’d all be in bed by three at the latest.
    He sat back in his chair, hands clasped behind his neck, beaming up at Bev Yates. Dawn Ellis, who was mates with Cathy Lamb, wanted to know what had swung it with Hartigan. According to Cathy, the Ops