Death in Dark Waters (23 page)

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Authors: Patricia Hall

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural

BOOK: Death in Dark Waters
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“I've put their mother on the missing persons' list,” Thackeray said. “Mother and babies, as it goes. And asked
social security to find out if she's picking up her child benefit and if so, where. Jack Longley would go spare if he knew how I was wasting police time but I still think there's something deeply suspicious there. But no one I've mentioned it to has come up with anything concrete. She just went, without a word, and no one seems to think it even slightly odd.”
“You don't sound very hopeful of finding them.”
“I'm not really. I've never underestimated Barry Foreman's intelligence. What I got wrong was the ease with which he could take other people in, whether it's Karen's mum or the local establishment. He's going to end up running this town if someone doesn't stop him buying friends and influencing people.”
Laura ran her fingers through Thackeray's hair gently.
“Don't you think you're maybe getting a bit obsessive about Foreman,” she said carefully. “You've got enough problems without taking on the whole of Bradfield's great and good. You say he's a bastard, so perhaps his girlfriend just got fed up and bunked off with her twins. If he's as bad as you say, she'll have taken care he won't be able to find her, maybe.”
“I thought this sort of thing was meat and drink to journalists,” Thackeray teased her, although his heart was not in it.
“If he's getting involved in the regeneration scheme I think that's interesting. I'd dearly like to find out what Councillor Spencer and the rest of that committee are getting out of this project. They've even got Ted Grant on board now, and the only reason I can think of for inviting him in is to make sure the Gazette doesn't ask too many questions when the contracts are handed out.”
“Jack Longley goes to those meetings too,” Thackeray said gloomily. “He doesn't seem to have picked up anything dodgy and he's got a nose like a ferret.”
“Well, I expect they'd make sure they kept anything dubious away from him. I get the feeling that some of that committee are in the know and others are there as window-dressing.”
“Or could it just be that this is a pot and kettle job?” Thackeray asked. “You don't like Spencer any more than I like Foreman. Maybe we're both letting our emotions cloud our judgement.”
“Maybe,” Laura said, getting to her feet and stretching lazily. “Anyway, with the Beck about to flood the town and your murder case, plus the mayhem on the Heights, a little bit of council corruption'll have to go on the back burner for now, won't it? It's getting to the stage where Ted's going to have us in the office twenty-four-seven. I'm going to bed. I'm whacked.”
A short time later, when Thackeray slipped into bed beside, as he thought, a sleeping Laura, she turned towards him and slid her arms around him, running her hands down to his hips and pressing her body into his, with predictable effects.
“Don't let all this stuff get between us,” she murmured.
“It'd be difficult just now,” he said, kissing her neck and ears. “I just want to keep you safe. You know that.”
“Life's an unsafe enterprise, or else it's very, very dull.”
“Keep Joyce here where we can keep an eye on her is all I'm saying,” he said, cupping her left breast so that he could kiss that next. “And let's hope she sleeps soundly because this bloody bed creaks.”
It only became clear the next day, after fire officers and police had begun to work their way through the smouldering rubble, and Bradfield Infirmary had patched up half a dozen young men sufficiently to allow detectives to talk to them, that the fire which gutted the Carib Club was the cause and not the result of the Chapel Street riot. Laura Ackroyd and Bob Baker arrived together at the scene of the previous night's disturbance, in unlikely partnership at the insistence of their editor who for once seemed almost overwhelmed by the pace of events. The irony of one section of the town threatened with inundation and another burning was not lost on Laura who gazed in dismay at the still smouldering ruin of the club, a couple of wrecked and gutted cars and a fire-engine, like a beached whale, with its tyres slashed.
“Didn't they have a lovely time?” Bill Baker said.
“It was an arson waiting to happen,” Laura said, stepping cautiously over broken glass and half bricks scattered across the roadway where Jeremy Adams had been run down. “The last time I was here someone set a fire against the door. Leaving the place empty for a week or so was asking for trouble.”
“Licensing a club like this so close to Aysgarth Lane was asking for trouble, actually,” Baker said.
“You'd accept a no-go area, would you? Here? Or on the Heights, maybe? That's exactly what the drug gangs want,” Laura said, but she did not wait for a response. On the other side of the police cordon she saw a dishevelled looking Darryl Redmond, one hand bandaged, being helped out of the remains of the entrance by Dizzy B Sanderson. Behind them she could see fire officers sifting through the blackened interior of the club.
“Look,” she said to Baker. “I'll talk to the owner again, as
I've already interviewed him. Why don't you see what you can get from the fire service and the cops. There's Val Ridley over there looking as if she's not keen to get her hands dirty. You know Ted wanted a definitive piece for the front page an hour ago.” And before Baker could object to this allocation of responsibilities, which she knew he would if he could think of a reason quickly enough, she waved at Redmond and Sanderson and picked her way across the rubble strewn street to meet them.
“I'm sorry,” she said to the club owner. “What a mess.”
“Ah, miz reporter,” Redmond said. “I told you last time we needed more protection here from those mad Pakis raving on about girls in mini-skirts and satanic music. You'd think Asian kids never went to clubs or sold drugs, the way they talk. But the police don' seem to have paid any mind to me. They couldn't even get a fire engine close enough to make a difference. They might as well 'a'bin pissing on the fire for all the good they did.” He waved an angry hand at the crippled appliance further down the street.
“By the time they got hose pipes up and running the fire was out of control,” Sanderson said. “The little bastards pelted the first crew with stones and bottles. They couldn't get near. The place is a write-off.”
“Six years of my life up in smoke,” Redmond said gloomily.
“Weren't you insured?” Laura asked, and then wished she hadn't. Redmond looked at her pityingly.
“What good's that?” he said. “The building is ‘structurally unsound', according to the firemen. It'll have to come down - so you lose the kids for months, p'raps years, while you put the place together again and expect them to come back when you reopen? No way. No chance. The Carib's dead, which is what the men in pyjamas wanted anyway. I reckon they were inciting the kids to cause trouble here.”
Laura glanced at the blackened wall facing the street and at the only windows, gaping holes in the brickwork now, at second story level above them.
“It was a petrol bomb, was it?” she asked. “It must have been someone with ambitions to play cricket for Yorkshire to get one through those windows.”
Redmond shrugged again.
“They got different theories,” he said. Laura glanced at Dizzy B, for further explanation.
“I had a talk with one of the fire service investigators,” he said. “It doesn't look as if it was a petrol bomb at all. The seat of the fire's at the back of the building.”
“You mean it could have been an accident?” Laura asked, surprised. “An electrical fault or something?”
“Oh, no, not an accident,” Dizzy B said. “But maybe not kids on the rampage either. One of the emergency doors at the back had been forced and some sort of accelerant chucked about, petrol probably. This was arson all right, but by someone who really intended to gut the place.”
“I should have sold out when the developers made me an offer,” Redmond said. “I'd have been laughin' then, floggin' a goin' concern over the odds. It won't be worth more than the value of the site now.”
“I didn't know you'd had an offer to buy,” Dizzy B said. “Who from, for God's sake?”
“Some development firm Barry Foreman knew about. Wanted to convert into flats with shops underneath—like they done further up the street. They probably won't be interested now.”
“What's the company called?”
“City Properties? City Ventures? Somethin' like that. Barry said they were the people who are going to redevelop the Heights.”
“Are they?” Laura said thoughtfully and saw the flicker of interest in Dizzy B's eyes.
“You thinking what I'm thinking,” he asked. “Maybe someone wanting to force a sale they couldn't get any other way?” Darryl Redmond shrugged.
“What difference does it make now? Come with me down
the police station, Dizzy, to make this statement they want,” the club owner said, his face weary under the scattering of ash which clung to his dark skin and hair like mould. “If I ain't careful I'll find myself banged up for firin' the place myself.”
“Right,” Sanderson said. “Though I don't think I'm persona grata down there. But Laura, let's get together, can we? I think we need to talk.”
“Call me when you're free,” Laura said. “You've got my mobile number.” She watched the two men pick their way up the street to Sanderson's car and waited until Bob Baker emerged from the ruined building where he had been deep in conversation with Val Ridley.
“OK?” Laura asked.
“Right, I think I've got the gist,” Baker said airily. “The usual stuff, Asian and black lads in a skirmish outside the club. The place gets a petrol bomb and most of them turn on the fire engine and police cars when they arrive. Small riot, not many hurt, one Caribbean club down the tubes. No tears in Little Asia.”
“Right,” Laura said demurely, knowing that Baker had got it wrong in one crucial respect. But she would wait to contradict him, she thought happily, until they were reporting back to Ted Grant in the office. She owed him that.
 
Michael Thackeray listened to DI Ray Walter silently although his face was grim. He and the drug squad inspector were gathered in Jack Longley's office and the superintendent was watching the two younger men warily as Walter outlined his night's work with evident satisfaction.
“Even though the catch was a bit disappointing, the whole exercise keeps the bastards jumpy. They never know where we're going to hit them next. And that's half the battle,” Walter said.
“So how many searches did you make?” Thackeray asked.
“Six altogether. All on information from the lad I've got undercover up there.”
“And how much illicit material did you find?”
Walter glanced at Longley as if for assistance but none was forthcoming. Longley appeared to be waiting with as much anticipation as Thackeray for Walter's answer.
“Not a lot,” Walter admitted. “We've a couple of lads down Eckersley police station looking at charges of intent to supply. But what I'm hoping is that they can be persuaded to tell me who their supplier is, the next one up the chain. That's what we're really after, and we're not there yet.”
“Sounds like a lot of resources for a small result,” Longley said. “All that overtime. Uniform won't be happy.”
“They can live with it,” Walter said. “And from their point of view it keeps the neighbourhood happy if they think we're picking some of the dealers up. But when I've talked to the two we nicked last night, plus the people at the computer project we arrested the other day, I reckon we'll be getting a lot closer to the main man.”
“Donna Maitland's dead,” Thackeray objected mildly enough, although inwardly he seethed at Walter's casual certainty.
“And what does that tell you?” Walter asked. “Couldn't face the music, could she? Anyway, never mind her. The so-called DJ Sanderson's up to his neck in the supply chain, I reckon.”
“But he's only been in the town two minutes,” Thackeray objected.
“So he says,” Walter shot back. “In any case, London's not so far away these days. This is an international trade we're talking about, not some local scam run from a back room. It's big business. Run by big businessmen. You've got to work your way up the chain to find the top dog. We'll get there. I've got my man well in up there. He's not come up with a lot yet but I'm optimistic.”
“I'm glad someone is,” Thackeray muttered but said no more as Jack Longley flashed him a warning glance.
“What really bugs me is that your man Mower's been up
there for weeks as well without a word to anyone,” Walter said pointedly to Longley. “He must have picked up some intelligence that was worth reporting back with. Didn't you know he was there, for God's sake?”
“Not until you made arrests at the Project,” Thackeray cut in. “He's on leave. He's had a rough time.”
“He's a bloody loose cannon if you ask me,” Walter said to Longley. “Gone native, I shouldn't wonder. Any road, keep him out of my hair from now on, would you, sir?”
“He'll be told,” Longley said, glancing at Thackeray.
“Jack here tells me you think I can help you with something?” Walter turned to Thackeray without any sign of eagerness to assist his colleague. “What's all that about?”
“Stanley Wilson,” Thackeray said. “Have you any indication that he was involved in the drugs scene? He was seen up on the Heights regularly chatting to some of the lads for no very good reason that I can discover.”
“This is the gay bloke found with his knickers in a twist, is it?” Walter said. “I've not heard the name, but I'll have a word with the team. He may have cropped up in some report or other. But surely his boyfriend has to be prime suspect, doesn' t he?”
“Well, he's certainly on the list,” Thackeray said. “But Wilson seems to have had a finger in more than one bit of unpleasantness so it's not impossible that he was into drugs as well. He worked for Barry Foreman.” Thackeray dropped the name into the conversation without meeting Longley's eye, but he got no reaction from the drug squad officer.
“If I hear anything I'll let you know soonest,” Walter said. “In the meantime keep me in touch with anything you come across that might be relevant. I'd like to know who torched the Carib Club, for instance. Could well be drug inspired, that. Sanderson was involved down there as well.”
“As a DJ,” Thackeray said.
“Did you source the Ecstasy the grammar school kids had
taken the night of the accident?” Walter asked. “Are you sure they didn't get it at the Carib?”
“We haven't sourced it anywhere,” Thackeray said. “The parents have drafted in some big legal guns and the kids have conveniently forgotten all about where they got their pills.”
“Do you want me to have a go at them?” Walter asked. “I know it's your case, but I'd dearly like to pin Sanderson and his mates down, even if they're not part of the main scene.”
Thackeray glanced at Longley who shook his head imperceptibly.
“Thanks but no thanks,” Thackeray said. “Leave it with me. I'll let you know if anything of interest emerges, but I'm not hopeful. Chasing sources of Ecstasy's a bit like asking five year olds where they got their jelly babies, isn't it? They've had so many they don't remember.”
“Don't let the Chief hear you talking like that,” Walter said getting to his feet. “According to him the war on drugs is winnable, so don't you go spreading negative messages if you want to make superintendent.”
“And is it?” Thackeray asked. Walter shrugged.
“It pays the mortgage,” he said.
When he had gone Thackeray flung himself into Jack Longley's most comfortable chair and ran his hands through his unruly dark hair.
“As your crime manager I have to tell you that half the crime in this town would disappear overnight if there was no black market in drugs,” he said.
“Noted,” Longley said. “Now, let's get back to the real world. Do you have any evidence that the Adams lad got his pills at the Carib?”

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