Riddled on the Sands (The Lakeland Murders) (13 page)

‘Really? Have you got reason to believe that there’s a drug’s connection? I haven’t seen anything to suggest that, but perhaps I’m missing something.’

Gorham’s expression did not suggest that she regarded this as a serious possibility. But Hall had expected this response, and he was prepared.

‘The presence of one and possibly two shooters with automatic weapons suggests that we’re looking at high level, possibly international, organised crime. Now that doesn’t have to be drugs of course, people smuggling whether for sexual exploitation or other purposes is obviously another possibility, but I’m not convinced by those alternatives.’

‘Why so?’

‘Yesterday we extended the door to door to surrounding villages, anywhere where a vehicle could get off the Bay, and we’ve found plenty of dog walkers and the like going about until very late. Insomnia really is a fantastic aid to detection. Anyway, none of these midnight ramblers saw any vehicles, people coming ashore, anything like that. We’ve checked the local taxi firms, and they’ve seen nothing like it either.’

‘Hardly conclusive though, is it, Andy?’ said Gorham, doubtfully.

‘Granted, but I did see a report from intelligence at HQ from last year, looking at importation through Cumbrian ports of entry. So I had another look at that earlier.’

Gorham smiled. ‘Did you now? And what did you discover?’

‘That our people’s view was that while there was no evidence of importation through any of the main ports and marinas, despite covert surveillance overt the last eighteen months, yet even so we’ve been seeing significant increase of supply of relatively unadulterated Class As in the county, suggesting a fairly local point of entry. And that could be consistent with them landing the gear out on Morecambe Bay, don’t you think?’’

Gorham smiled again. Hall wasn’t at all used to this. ‘All right, Andy, you win. I’ll want a copy of the report mind. But I reckon that this is just a fantastic example of you playing me, and the system, to get what you want.’

Hall did his best to look innocent, surprised, and just a little hurt.

‘I bet you’ve got a CI tucked away who’s given you a tip’ Gorham went on, ‘and you’re looking for some kind of evidential cover, isn’t that it?’ But it must have been a rhetorical question, because Gorham spoke again before Hall could reply. ‘No, don’t bother, you’ll get your wish. Because the DNA on that slug does confirm that poor Jack Bell is indeed dead, not that we were in any doubt about that. But you keep me fully informed on this drugs angle. Don’t even think about keeping any information back from me, for any reason whatsoever.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am.’

Val Gorham had long since given up trying to read Hall’s poker-face, but she still looked at him shrewdly as he was leaving. When she’d first taken over at Kendal she’d wondered why Hall, who was a few years older than her, hadn’t risen further up the ranks, and why he wasn’t a DCS at the Met, or even on attachment to the intelligence services. He seemed just the type.

But now she was starting to understand why that was. There was no doubt about his ability, and his reputation as the most able detective in the Constabulary was entirely justified, she’d decided, but there was something annoying about him, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He was always respectful, and his paperwork was invariably up-to-date, if a little on the terse side sometimes, but she just had the feeling that, if push came to shove, DI Andy Hall might be more inclined to follow his own instincts than the rule book. As he closed the door behind him she shook her head a couple of times, but she still found herself smiling as she went back to her work. He had got a lead on the Jack Bell case from somewhere, she was absolutely certain of it.

Ray Dixon was watching for Hall when he came back to the open CID office, and followed him straight towards his office.

‘Is it urgent, Ray? I need to speak to Ian. Give me five minutes, would you?’

‘Aye, sure. Just wanted to say that I’ve got nothing new on Capstick. He’s probably got fish guts on his hands, but not human blood as far as I can see.’

‘OK, stay with it. The Super has agreed to give us a couple of techies to help you out on all the emails, and bank accounts and stuff.’

‘Ta. So long as their acne doesn’t end up all over my paperwork.’

‘Be nice, Ray. I’m helping you out here.’

Hall closed his office door, sat at his desk, and picked up the phone.

‘Ian, can you talk? I’ve got a bit of news. Gorham has OK’d me to get a couple of the drugs intelligence team involved. I wanted to run a name past you. How about DS Skinner?’

‘Rachel, yes, she’d be fine. Bright kid, works hard too.’

‘Straight?’

‘As a die. She’d never get mixed up with those bastards. She’s been around long enough to know that there’s no nice way out for any officer who does. And anyway, she won’t know what we know, will she?’

‘Absolutely not. Just you and me. All right, leave it with me.  I’ll clear it with her bosses. That shouldn’t be an issue. If she’s on duty tomorrow I’ll ask her to meet me here, and we’ll maybe see you down at Flookburgh later in the day. Maybe in the afternoon?’

Saturday, June 22nd

DS Rachel Skinner had arranged to spend a couple of hours reviewing the Jack Bell case before Andy Hall arrived at the station.

‘So what do you think, Rachel?

‘It’s certainly an unusual one, boss.’

‘Andy is fine. Just don’t use first names when the Super is around, because she’s got an obsession with it. She says it undermines the chain of command and encourages lax behaviour, whatever that is.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I think it doesn’t really matter. Within reason I don’t care what people call me. I’ll answer to most things.’ This wasn’t entirely true, and Hall wasn’t quite sure why he’d said it. He frowned slightly at the realisation. ‘Anyway, how about a possible drugs angle to all this? Ring any bells, does it?’

‘Not really, to be honest. I agree that it looks like a reasonable bet, and I can see why it’s attractive as a line of enquiry. Top end traffickers, heavily armed, are bringing the gear ashore, probably in bulk, and then transferring to a vehicle of some kind way out on the Bay at low tide. All very clever. No-one to see them, and anyone there is would be visible from miles away. There’s literally nowhere to hide out there, is there?’

‘Exactly. But what? I sense a ‘but’ coming.’

Rachel smiled. ‘Not so much a ‘but’ as a bit of a shrug, I suppose. We don’t have any intel on all this at all, not even a whisper, and as for gunning down witnesses, if that’s what Bell was, especially with military weaponry...well, that’s a bit of a different league for us, to be honest.’

‘I see, thanks for being so frank. So anything you want to ask me before we head for Flookburgh?’

‘I just wanted you to fill me in on a couple of things that aren’t in the files.’

Hall smiled. He agreed. It was what wasn’t there, the space between information and ideas, the place where human greed and irrationality meets logical and predictable decision-making, that made detective work fascinating. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Well, at present the investigation is neutral on Bell’s role in what happened, but I suspect that you’re not.’

‘That’s right. Bell was a witness, with no connection whatsoever to whomever it was who opened up on him out there. He saw something that he was intrigued by, maybe a drugs drop like you said, and he went to try to see what it was. I think it happened when he was at his own nets, quite close to shore. Because I’ve looked out from there, towards some of our vehicles out at the locus, and in decent daylight you can see them pretty well, easily in fact. But I don’t think he could have made much out. I certainly couldn’t. So I reckon he climbed onto his tractor and set off towards whatever it was. His curiosity is what got him killed, and that’s all there is to it.’

‘That means he wasn’t overly suspicious though, doesn’t it? When he set off, I mean.’

Hall smiled. ‘Exactly. So whatever he saw probably wasn’t completely outside his normal experience, yes, that’s right. But it was just odd enough to make him drive right out there, even though there was no catch to be had in that area.’

‘So what are you thinking?’

‘Nothing specific yet. But you’re right about how we’re approaching Jack. I have to deploy my very limited resources as effectively as I can, so as of day two or three Jack Bell ceased to be anything other than a victim, and, to be honest, a piece of forensic evidence that I’m eager to recover.’

‘But I heard your Super is a bit of a stickler for doing it all by the book. Isn’t that right? She certainly was when she was at HQ. They used to call her the Grammar Police because she’d send reports back if they had any typos in them.’

‘She’s much the same here, but we have come to a kind of understanding. I’ve had a couple of half-decent results lately, and rightly or wrongly she seems to trust my judgement. So as long as I can demonstrate that I am following procedures she turns a blind eye if an officer who’s still booked as looking at Bell’s background is actually on something else.’

‘What if you’re wrong, and Bell was in on this all along? It could have been some kind of falling-out that got him killed, couldn’t it?’

‘Don’t remind me. I’d be doing people for littering and dog-fouling for the rest of my career. And yes, you’re right of course, it is possible, but I don’t see it as likely. We know that Jack was an intelligent man, and a deeply principled one. Loved his community, loved the job he did.  Big family man too, by all accounts. Generally all very stable; a man at peace with his world. No money worries, and never had any. I could go on, but you get my drift. He doesn’t fit the profile, not in any way. Throw in the fact that he went fishing every day, when the tides and the weather allowed, and what you’ve got is the pattern of a proper working bloke, not someone using fishing as a cover of some kind.’

‘So you think it might be one of the part-timers? Maybe even Pete Capstick?’

‘If a fisherman was involved, and that’s far from certain, then that does seem more likely. But it would have to be someone with really good knowledge of the Bay, and I’ll tell you why. I’ve checked, and if someone tried to simply drive in a straight line from where we found Jack’s tractor back across the Bay to any of the three nearest roads off then they’d never have made it. They’d have bogged down in any wheeled vehicle, even one of the fisherman’s tractors.’

‘Yes, I saw that in the file. So you must fancy this Capstick for it, then?’

‘Maybe, but show me the money, as they say. You know what working criminals are like. They start off with the best of intentions, that they won’t touch the money, won’t give anything away to us. But then they buy a little car for their old mum, maybe the odd decent holiday, and then we’re all over them like a cheap suit. But Capstick seems to be clean. We’re still looking, as you’ll have seen, but I bet you we’re not going to find a penny piece. And he’s pretty skint usually, remember. Irregular income, drinking too much, so if he’s got big money stashed away I can’t believe he wouldn’t have just topped himself up a bit. But Ian Mann said that the empty bottles in his bin were all of the rocket-fuel variety.’

‘Maybe he likes it, Andy, some of them do. Look at the shit the addicts are willing to pay for. But I take your point. So where does that leave you, if Capstick’s clean?’

‘I didn’t say that. Not at all. He’s far from in the clear as far as I’m concerned. Because there are reasons why he might not have touched the money.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like what if there isn’t any? Not a penny.’

Rachel laughed again. ‘You’re not serious? Why else would anyone get involved in heavy-duty drugs smuggling? He’d have to be an idiot to get mixed up in that, unless he had a very good reason.’

Hall sat back. ‘I don’t know, but here are a few possibilities. What if this was the first job he’d done, and he was due to be paid after? What if it’s not, but his masters are holding the cash for him? On account, as it were. He couldn’t exactly phone up and ask for a tenner every time he wanted a new bottle of fire-water. And maybe he’s got other motives than money anyway, at least in part.’

‘Like what?’

‘Excitement, revenge, I don’t know. But even if we don’t find a cent we’ll be keeping a close eye on Pete Capstick.’

‘And this is where Geoff Atkinson comes in?’

‘Yes, partly, although he’s useful in other ways too.’

‘Wasn’t he a bit of a risk? You know, bringing in an ex-copper. You know what they can be like when they’re off the leash.’

‘Geoff’s only just ex, he’s barely been out of the job five minutes. And what makes you say that, anything specific about him?’

‘No, just a feeling, that’s all. It’s probably nothing. Ignore me.’

But Hall had no intention of ignoring DS Skinner, because he recognised that some other officers also had instincts that sometimes led an investigation in a new and telling direction. So he thought about what she’d said for much of the journey to Flookburgh.

But by the time they stopped in Grange for a vanilla slice and a coffee Hall had stopped thinking about both the case and his calorie intake, at least for a little while.