Hail and Farewell (The Lakeland Murders) (15 page)

‘Aye, I was going that way, like. It’s outside the town, and they’ve got pretty high fences. Dogs too, by the looks.’

‘All right, dad, you leave it alone now, you hear me? But thanks for letting me know. I’ll ask the beat bobby to drop in and see Sam and take a statement from him.’

When Iredale was off the phone he ordered his bar tape and then logged back into the police system. He emailed the community copper for Allonby and asked her to drop in on old Sam, and then he sent an email to HQ, asking for a company records check on Environmental Solutions of Cockermouth. He knew that other people didn’t react to fly-tipping in the same way that he did, because it felt almost like a personal insult to him, but his actions had been proportionate, he was sure of it. Then he put his bait box into his back-pack and got back to work. Matt Hayton’s timeline for Good Friday was taking them nowhere, because he and Ian Mann had spent over a shift proving nothing more than that what Hayton had said in his statement was true. He’d spent the morning in bed, had been at the taxi office in the afternoon, and had been drinking before the game. Big bloody deal.

By four o’clock Hall’s knee was starting to hurt, and by six the pain killers didn’t seem to be doing much at all. The chair in the office he’d borrowed was hurting his back too. He started to hope that Jane would pack it in for the night and take him back to the hotel, and maybe out for something to eat after. He was just thinking about emailing her, even though her office was just two doors down, when she knocked at the door. Mann was with her. Hall had been reviewing every document, every enquiry and every note as it had hit the system that day, so he knew that there’d been no meaningful progress since the morning. Over eighty man hours had been burned in that shift, for no useful outcome, and he knew that it was exactly the sort of thing that Val Gorham would notice. The woman was like a human adding machine. But he could handle the ACC, at least for now. But he was worried, and he could feel a slight knotting in his stomach. The investigation was just starting to feel becalmed, and in Hall’s experience that was never good.

So Hall smiled as widely as he could, and beckoned Jane and Mann in.

‘Is that knee hurting?’ asked Jane, as she came in. ‘You’re looking very strange. I need to get you out of here.’

‘In a bit’ said Hall, mildly. ‘Let’s talk this through, just the three of us. We need to decide how to kick on with this in the morning. Because I can’t see anything on Matt Hayton that takes us an inch forwards, can you, Ian?’

‘No, I can’t, worse luck. His timeline for Friday isn’t helpful, because there are no holes, and no inconsistencies with his statement.’

‘His electronic records are clean too’ said Jane. ‘Of course he’s been using one or more burners to make his calls on, and even if we got a warrant we wouldn’t find any now. He’ll have disposed of whatever he was using last week long since, I’d bet my life on it. Like we were saying in the car, Andy, someone has got the likes of Matt pretty well educated. I’m not saying that we can’t find anything, but I am saying that we’d have to do a lot more digging.’

‘Exactly,’ said Hall, ‘and that’s what they’re banking on. That’ll we just run out of resources. So I wanted to suggest a change of tack. It’s because of the way that George Hayton was when was we met. I’m convinced that he’s worried about something, because we all saw how aggressive he was. And we all know which side of the flight or fight instinct he’ll tend towards when he feels threatened.’

‘All right,’ said Mann, ‘I’d be up for a new tack. We’re losing momentum here, Andy, and the team is feeling it too.’

‘We’ve all worked together too long’ said Hall, ‘because I agree with that comment completely. So how about we concentrate everything on the burglary of Baker’s hotel room, and especially on trying to find out who was in that car on Tuesday night?’

Jane nodded. ‘You’re thinking it was Matt Hayton?’

‘Why not? If his uncle trusts him enough to put the hurt on Tony Gambles, if that was what he was trying to do during the game, then maybe he also got him to take part in the burglary.’

‘OK, Andy’ said Jane, ‘but isn’t it just as likely that he mugged Alex Baker? That would feel like more his speed, looking at his record.’

‘I agree’ said Mann. ‘From memory he doesn’t have a single B&E on his CV, does he?’

‘That’s true’ said Hall, ‘but if we looked at him for Tuesday evening we could cover off both options.’

‘Yes, that would work’ said Jane, ‘and we could look at all the mobile calls made in the area of the hotel and where Baker was jumped, because they’ll both be on the same mast. Sure, we’ll probably only find their burners, if we’re lucky, but we could cross reference those calls against known numbers for George Hayton and all his associates and business premises. It’s a long shot, but someone might have been lazy.’

‘Good’ said Hall. ‘Let’s call it a night then, shall we? Ian, are you heading back down the road for the weekend? You’re due off, aren’t you?’

‘Aye, and you’re off sick, but you’re still here, aren’t you? No, I’ll be staying.’

‘Great, thanks. In that case, dinner is on me.’

‘Blimey, Andy’ said Mann, ‘those painkillers you’re taking must be right powerful. I’ve never heard you say that before.’

Saturday, 26th April

Keith Iredale was first into the office, and the old sergeant on the front desk had looked at his watch when he’d come in, and asked Keith if he couldn’t sleep. Iredale had smiled, and commented on the untidy state of the front office. ‘And I’ve heard the Chief is dropping in later, Brian’ he’d said, as he swiped his card on the reader for the door to the office. He was, he realised, in an especially cheerful mood. For the first time since he’d joined CID he really felt part of the team, like he always had in uniform, and for the first time he was aware of how much he’d missed that feeling.

When he’d booted up his computer and made a brew he flicked through the log of the previous night’s reports and arrests, and it looked like a pretty typical pay-day Friday night. As his dad always said, for some people there was just too much month for the money, so the Super always rostered on a few extra coppers for the last weekend of the month. And it looked like they’d all been kept busy, not just in Workington but in Whitehaven and Maryport too.

But there was nothing to interest Iredale, so he moved on to his email. As he was scanning through them a new one popped into his mailbox, from the traffic supervisor over in Carlisle. A car had just been found, burnt out, in a lay-by near Dalston, and it was a dark grey Renault Megane, like the one used for the burglary. The traffic inspector had left a couple of bobbies with the car, because he knew that it would be of interest to the Chris Brown suspicious death team, and he was asking how they wanted to proceed.

Iredale had never typed an email so fast, and five minutes later he was pulling out of the station car park in a marked Astra. By the time he’d driven five miles he remembered what patrol cars were like, and why this one was the only one available. He called SOCO in Penrith, got voice-mail, so he tried Sandy Smith on her personal number.

‘This had better be a matter of fucking life and death’ she said, before he’d even said who it was. Iredale wondered if she spoke any differently to the ACC than she did to a humble DC like him, and he doubted it. He explained why he’d called, and Sandy sounded mollified.

‘Tell those bloody traffic numpties to keep their big boots off my locus, will you? I’ll see you there in half an hour. I expect you’ll be bloody running there or something, won’t you?’

Iredale laughed, and rang off. He was surprised, and slightly flattered, that she even remembered who he was.

Jane Francis called him about five minutes later. She sounded half asleep.

‘Can you manage on your own, Keith?’

‘I’m sure I can. The hardest part will be stopping Sandy from assaulting some poor bobby, won’t it?’

Jane laughed. ‘You’re a fast learner, Keith. Take my tip and buy her a coffee and a bun from somewhere before you see her. She takes four sugars and three shots of coffee. I find she’s marginally less likely to attack when she’s on a caffeine and sugar high.’

‘But what about when she comes down?’

‘That’s not your problem though, is it? You’ll be half way back here by then.’

The two traffic cops were pleased to see Iredale, and couldn’t wait to get away. Iredale guessed that they’d had dealings with Sandy before. Five minutes later Sandy Smith arrived in her van, and she accepted the coffee and cake as if a tribute had been expected.

‘Now, let the dog see the rabbit’ she said, when she’d finished. ‘I do enjoy a nice barbecue, don’t you, son?’

An hour later Iredale was wondering if it was time to go for more coffee and cakes. A couple more of the SOCO team had turned up, and now the frequency, volume and intensity of Sandy’s sweary outbursts was definitely increasing.

‘You can push off back to the wild west’ she said, when she walked over to him. ‘There’s nothing to see here, I’m afraid.’

‘Nothing?’

‘For fuck’s sake, sonny. When I say we’ve got nothing, we’ve got nothing. The vehicle was properly torched, they knew what they doing did these lads, and there’s nothing of interest in the area around the car. When it’s uplifted we’ll check underneath, but don’t get your hopes up. Still, there’s always ANPR and traffic cameras. You might get something from then. At least you know where it ended up now, don’t you?’

‘Thanks anyway, Sandy’ said Iredale. ‘I’ll get on to that today, but pound to a penny they brought this heap over in the dark.’

‘Can’t say I blame them’ said Sandy cheerfully. ‘I’ve got a Renault myself, and I’m often tempted to set fire to the bloody thing, like.’

Normally DCI Hall took a masochistic pleasure in mornings like this, with an investigation becalmed and a real effort of will, and of imagination, required from him to get it moving again. But this morning was different. He had slept badly, his knee was hurting, and it was more of an effort to stay positive. The news about the car didn’t help his mood, even though it wasn’t unexpected. Jane and Ian Mann seemed to be feeling much the same, because neither of them seemed keen to get the discussion started when they met in Hall’s borrowed office.

Hall knew what they expected of him. And it wasn’t just sound leadership and solid decision making. Because any decent officer should be able to manage those things. What they were looking for from him was new investigative ideas that they could believe in. And as the three of them sat there, sipping their tea, he knew that he really didn’t have any.

‘So where are we at?’ he said, ‘and what are we worried about?’ He looked at Jane.

‘We’re still looking for the car from the time it was nicked, at about nine on Monday evening, until the time of the burglary. And we’re looking at Hayton’s timeline for Tuesday as well. Nothing much to report so far on either front. And it’s a really big assumption that Matt Hayton was even in that car.’

‘I know that, Jane. It’s a shame that Sandy couldn’t get anything from the shell, but that was too much to hope for really. So let’s think about my other question. What are we worried about?’

‘The risk that the ACC Crime pulls the bloody plug on us before we get any further forward’ said Mann. ‘I could see us having to go into a 28-day review on this one, Andy, and soon. Because if Chris Brown was murdered, or was the victim of a mistaken identity manslaughter, the problem is that we’ve got no real evidence. Hayton is a viable suspect, but no more than that. What we need is an informant, something like that. A real game-changer of some kind.’

‘That doesn’t seem very likely’ said Jane. ‘One way or another George Hayton seems to run a pretty tight ship.’

‘Agreed’ said Hall, ‘and I think that Ian is right too. I’ll come under pressure to scale this right back very soon now, and you know what that means.’

‘Case closed’ said Mann.

‘Exactly. There’ll be an open verdict at the inquest if we don’t come forward with evidence of foul play, no pun intended.’ Neither Jane nor Mann laughed. ‘So how do we avoid that from happening? What can we do? I know I always say that we shouldn’t try to game the system, but in this case I’m not so sure.’

‘You said that Gorham was interested in the gang aspect?’ said Jane.

‘Absolutely. She senses the possibility of a career-defining result here, and even if it’s an outside bet she’s happy to take it on. That’s the sense I get, anyway. Because if we brought down a major criminal enterprise as a result of all this she’d walk into a Chief’s job, and at a big force too.’

‘So maybe we look to show progress on that’ said Jane.

‘Yes,’ said Hall, ‘that’s good.’ He had the faintest beginning of an idea, flickering on the edge of his consciousness, like a memory of childhood. ‘And if we could connect possible police corruption to conspiracy, then that could be a double-whammy, couldn’t it?’

‘Are you serious about that, Andy?’ said Mann, gloomily. Like all profoundly loyal people he hated a traitor more than anything, and even thinking about one made him feel strangely uncomfortable. ‘It’s a right can of worms, is that.’

Hall nodded. ‘I share your concerns, mate. Do I think that this investigation has been damaged by corruption, to date at least? Probably not. In fact, the opposite is more likely. Because if Baker’s hotel did get turned over because of a leak from in here then it didn’t exactly have the desired effect, did it? On the other hand we do know that there are two well-established criminal enterprises in this area, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that one, and possibly both, have or had some form of ongoing contact with serving officers.’

‘In which case….’ said Jane, hoping that Hall was going somewhere.

He smiled. ‘In which case, even some evidence of historic corruption would be useful to us, even if it had no direct bearing on Chris Brown’s death.’

Mann groaned. He didn’t like where this was going. Not one bit. He was trying to think of something that sounded worse than a can of worms, but Hall held up his hand.