Death on Account (The Lakeland Murders) (7 page)

‘Can you make sure we get all the CCTV off the gates? At the very least we might be able to show it to an eye witness.’

‘Why, have you got one?’ asked Sheridan, turning back to Hall.

‘Possibly, it’s still early days. I wouldn’t ignore the possibility anyway.’

Billy Cafferty was every bit as well dressed as Sheridan had promised, and if Hall hadn’t already seen a photo he wouldn’t have been able to guess which of the two men in the room was the gang boss, and which was the five hundred quid an hour lawyer. But when they spoke it was easy enough to tell.

‘I do hope that this won’t take long’ said the lawyer smoothly. ‘My client is a very busy man.’

‘Yeah, I’ve got a welcome home party to organise.’ Cafferty’s voice had a gruff, hard edge, as if he was used to having to talk over the noise of machinery.

‘Nothing’s decided yet, Billy.’

‘Tom was fitted up. We both know it. Now, what do you want this time? Tax disc on the Bentley expired or something?’

‘I wanted to introduce you to a colleague from Cumbria, DI Andy Hall, and ask you a few questions.’

To Hall’s surprise Cafferty got up and offered his hand. They all heard Hall’s knuckles crack under the pressure. But nothing in Cafferty’s expression said it was deliberate. Sheridan laughed out loud.

‘Be nice now, Billy. Sorry Andy, he’s always like this with new people. Anyway, Billy, let’s start with the easy ones first, shall we. Where were you yesterday, between mid-morning and late afternoon?’

‘That is an easy one. I was with the architect at our new shop site here in town in the morning, and I was with Mr. Carter here in the afternoon. I was there when we heard that someone had got Williams in fact.’

‘I can confirm that’ said Carter. ‘Mr. Cafferty arrived at my office at 2pm, and was with me and a number of colleagues until after 4pm. I can certainly provide their names if required.’

‘Don’t bother’ said Sheridan. ‘So Billy, what can you tell us about the death of Neil Williams?’

‘Nothing.’

‘So you’re saying that you weren’t involved in any way?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But you wanted to see him dead?’

‘What my client wishes for, in his private moments, is no business of yours Inspector. Your only concern is what my client has done, and he’s already told you that he had no involvement in this regrettable turn of events.’

‘Billy?’

‘What he said.’

‘But you do stand to benefit from Williams’ death?’

‘My brother is innocent. He would have been released anyway. So it made no odds to me.’ Cafferty sat back, and his expensive suit shifted to accommodate his broad shoulders. ‘Can your mate actually talk then, Tony? He’s come a long way just to sit there.’

Sheridan smiled and sat back in his chair. Hall took his time before he said anything.

‘Do you know why Williams decided to inform on your brother? On you too in a way.’

‘He was a lying bastard. He was just in it for the money from you lot.’

‘A rented house and a couple of hundred pounds a week? And a life spent looking over his shoulder. I don’t think so, Mr. Cafferty. Williams told the truth about your brother for one reason, and one reason only. It was because you aren’t scary enough any more. You’re losing your grip, and your brother knew it too. That’s why he killed those two dealers. Five years ago they wouldn’t have dared to turn up on your turf, but now it’s open season on the Caffertys, isn’t that right?’

‘Inspector, I don’t know how you conduct interviews in’, the lawyer looked down at his notes, ‘Kendal, but here we tend to try to stick to specific questions, relating to matters of fact. Do you have such a question for my client?’

‘I don’t. I just wanted to let him know that his ship is sinking, and that it won’t be long before another rat swims our way. You’ve been informed on before Mr. Cafferty, and it will happen again.’

‘Now let me tell you something’ said Cafferty, holding up his hand to stop his lawyer speaking. ‘I haven’t got the faintest idea what you’re talking about, but two things I do know. One is that Neil Williams is dead, so someone must have grassed him up, because he would have been too shit scared to ever give it away himself, I promise you that. Someone from your side of the table I expect it was, Inspector. Greedy bastards, coppers are. Maybe it was you, I don’t know. And the second thing I know is that you’d never speak to me like that anywhere else, not outside this room. You haven’t got the guts. I know who you are Inspector Hall, I know everything about you.’

‘Well you certainly rattled his cage’ said Sheridan, when Cafferty and the lawyer had gone.

‘It might help shake his confidence a bit, get him to do something daft.’

‘Nice try, but you don’t know Billy Cafferty. Anyway, do you want to go and see this burnt out Beemer?’

Hall followed Sheridan’s Vauxhall out to the area of waste ground where what was left of the X5 had been found. As soon as he saw it Hall knew that they’d get nothing from the car, and the SOCO soon confirmed it.

‘Very nice job, and this one wasn’t short of a bob or two neither.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘They used a good two or three gallons of petrol, and that’s not cheap these days. They did the inside thoroughly, the boot, the tyres, even under the bonnet. And they opened the filler cap to make sure the tank went up too. Like I say, a very nice job.’

‘OK, thanks mate’ said Sheridan. ‘So we’ll have to track the vehicle instead. We’ll pick it up coming back into the city on the ANPR, and we should be able to cross-reference back to CCTV as well no problem, but I reckon our bird has flown, long since too.’

‘So you’re thinking he was going to the airport? How far away is it?’

‘About a mile or two. Look, can you can see them taking off over there.’

‘So did our man walk or get a lift? If he doused the car in petrol himself he must have been really careful.’ Hall called out to the SOCO. ‘Did you find the container that was used to carry the petrol?’

‘No. We’re still looking for any signs that it was left in the car.’

‘How about overalls, anything like that?’

‘We may never know. We could find out, but I don’t think we’ll have the lab time on this one.’

The SOCO looked across at Sheridan, who shrugged. ‘You know how it is, Andy, cutbacks, all that shit. But why are you asking?’

‘Just trying to get a picture. It might help us establish if our man torched the car himself, or if someone else did it for him, and then maybe drove him to the airport. Later on, we might be able to follow up on all the drop-offs at about the right time if our man got a lift.’

‘Do we know when this happened?’

‘Probably yesterday’ said the SOCO, ‘the steel on the floorpan is still a degree or two above ambient. So let’s say anywhere between late afternoon and midnight.’

‘Thanks’ said Hall. ‘Any chance of witnesses?’

Sheridan just laughed. ‘But we’ll do what we can to see the car on the way here, and then see if we can pick up our man at the airport as well. OK?’

Hall made some calls as he drove back. The evening rush hour had started, so he had plenty of time.

It was nearly seven before Hall reached the station. Someone he didn’t recognise was sitting at Ian Mann’s desk, and Jane Francis wasn’t at hers. Hall wondered if she’d gone home. He didn’t wonder for long, because Jane and Charlie Coward walked back in to the office a minute or two later. Jane had a coffee for him.

‘You were spotted arriving’ said Jane, by way of explanation.

They’d spoken on the phone forty-five minutes before, so Hall was pretty sure that he was up to speed, but something about the look on Jane’s face told him he was wrong.

‘We know where the X5 was parked. It was down a side road, just where Charlie guessed. A two minute walk to Gooseholme, tops. We’ve got two witnesses who saw it, both reliable.’

‘But they didn’t see the driver?’

‘No, and there’s no CCTV coverage there either. The driver could have walked from the car back on to Gooseholme, killed Williams and walked back to the car without being picked up once.’

Hall sat back and thought. He made a coupe of notes, something he always did when he’d had an idea. ‘Well done, both of you. Nice guessing too Charlie, unless you’re our man with the knotted cord, in which case you’re under arrest. But a couple of thoughts occur. First, that if he parked and walked back, with Williams out of sight for a couple of minutes at least, can we safely assume that our killer already knew where Williams was going, and why?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that’ said Coward. ‘And I don’t think we can. I think it’s possible that he saw Williams start to head across Gooseholme, realised that he couldn’t follow in the car, so parked as soon as he could, then followed on foot. He would have been delighted to spot Williams sitting on the bench if that’s the case. And one thing that supports that idea is that one of our wits says that the reason they noticed the X5 was because it was badly parked, with one big fat wheel up on the kerb.’

‘Typical BMW driver’ added Jane, smiling at Hall.

‘All right, let’s not stereotype’ he said, smiling back. ‘We’ve all been on the course. OK, so let’s work from Charlie’s premise. It’s possible that our killer knew exactly where Williams was headed, but it’s also possible that he didn’t, and was improvising. So did anyone see a man running from where the car was parked towards Gooseholme?’

‘Shall I pass that on to the press office to get out with the next public appeal?’ asked Jane.

‘Yes, but has Tonto come back with anything on those impressions? We can add that in if so.’

‘He has. Our man wore a size ten shoe and weighed about 85 kilos. They think he is likely to be either side of six feet in height, and probably between 20 and 40. Nothing distinctive about the shoes though, Tonto doesn’t even know what they are.’

‘But not trainers?’

‘No, normal shoes with a heel.’

‘I didn’t know that anyone under 40 still wore those’ said Coward. ‘So we’re looking for a man in full evening dress by the sounds of it.’

‘With spats’ added Hall, and Coward laughed and nodded. ‘But look, even if we don’t know for certain whether our killer knew exactly where Williams was going we do know that our man was in a car, not on foot. So what does that tell us? Anything? And where had he followed him from, his house or somewhere else? Jane, how long before I found the body did the killer arrive in Kendal?’

‘We’ve got him coming in to town from the M6 sixty five minutes before you found Williams.’ Jane didn’t need to check her notes, and Hall grinned.

‘You sure?’

‘Quite sure, Andy.’

‘OK, so let’s say he was dead five minutes before I got to him, tops. That leaves him sixty minutes. Let’s also assume that he knew exactly where Williams was living, how long would it have taken him to get there? Charlie?’

‘At that time of day, ten minutes from the time he came off the by-pass.’

‘OK, and how long to drive from Williams’ place back into town, assuming that Williams was on foot, so our man would have been going slowly.’

‘Fifteen minutes I’d say’ said Coward. ‘That’s at pensioner speed mind.’

‘And how long to park up, and get to Williams and do the job?’

‘Five more, tops.’

‘OK, so where was our killer for that missing half an hour? Was Williams at home the whole time do we know?’

‘Yes, we think so’ said Jane. ‘We have one witness who saw him leaving the house around half an hour before he died, and then we get him on CCTV walking in to town. So we know he came straight from the house.’

‘But we’ve got no-one who saw that X5 parked up near the house?’

‘No’ said Coward, ‘but when we see the X5 going in to town he’s coming from the direction of Burneside Road. So that fits the theory that the killer knew where Williams lived all right.’

‘And do we see the X5 stop on the way, or going very slowly? If we do that would support Charlie’s idea that our killer was following Williams, and didn’t know exactly where he was going.’

‘Me and Ray haven’t checked that’ said Jane, ‘I’ll get onto it now.’

‘No you won’t’ said Hall, ‘do it in the morning, we’ve all had a long day. Let’s make sure we all stay fresh, OK. But you do both see why it matters whether the killer had Williams’ address or not, don’t you?’

‘Because if our killer didn’t know where Williams was going it makes it much less likely that Ian Mann, or anyone else on our side of the fence, is the leak?’ said Jane.

‘Exactly. Everything we’ve got so far suggests that our killer had Williams’ address, and was probably just sussing the place out when Williams came out. From then on our man just improvised, and when Williams sat down on that bench the killer took his chance, even though the risks were high.’

‘Suggesting that he was under instructions to do the job at the first opportunity?’ said Jane.