Abattoir Blues: The 22nd DCI Banks Mystery (Inspector Banks 22)

by Peter Robinson

  ‘Swearing won’t help, Mr Beddoes,’ said Cassandra Wakefield.

  Banks looked at his notes. ‘According to our preliminary analysis of recent activity on your laptop computer, you had just completed a number of large financial transactions, money transfers, in fact, to offshore bank accounts in the British Virgin Islands.’

  ‘So what? They’re legitimate accounts. I pay my taxes.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, Mr Beddoes, but don’t you think it’s a bit soon for another holiday? I mean, you’ve just got back from Mexico. Think of all that ultraviolet radiation.’

  ‘What business of yours is it where and when we go for our holidays?’

  ‘You also had a lot of luggage. How long were you planning on being away for?’

  ‘I don’t know. A while.’

  ‘Don’t you think it looks a bit suspicious? Just after I visit you and let you know I’ve talked to Malcolm Hackett, an old business associate of yours, and that we’ve found Michael Lane, a witness to the murder of Morgan Spencer, you and your wife make a run for it.’

  ‘We weren’t “making a run for it”.’

  ‘It looks like that to me,’ said Banks. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Gerry?’

  ‘Certainly would, sir. I mean, it’s not everyone takes a fragile vase off the mantelpiece on holiday with them, or a pair of antique silver sugar tongs.’

  ‘That vase happens to be a valuable antique, too. And given what occurred last time we were away, I’d say we were more than justified in taking a few valuables with us.’

  ‘Really, Chief Inspector,’ said Cassandra Wakefield, fingering her pearls, ‘it does seem a remarkably thin context for detaining my client and interfering with his basic freedom of movement.’

  ‘Morgan Spencer stole your tractor, didn’t he?’ Banks said to Beddoes.

  ‘Did he? I can’t say it surprises me.’

  ‘You know Morgan Spencer, then? Earlier you said you had no idea who he was.’

  ‘I didn’t know him well. Not personally. Only that he was a mate of the Lane boy. I’ve seen him around. Thick as thieves. Look, you know all this. Why am I here?’

  ‘You’re here because we believe you’re one of the men running a lucrative international criminal activity dealing in stolen farm equipment and livestock. Your partner Malcolm Hackett, aka Montague Havers, who is currently being questioned by my colleagues in London, took care of the export side, and you supplied the raw materials from the North Yorkshire region. That is tractors, combines, Range Rovers, lambs, whatever. You employed a number of people at various levels, including Ronald Tanner, Carl Utley, Kenneth Atherton, aka Kieran Welles, Caleb Ross and Morgan Spencer. Your wife, Patricia, may be involved. Police have also picked up Mr Havers’ chief operators in Lincolnshire and Cumbria. More arrests are expected to follow. Plenty of people are talking.’

  ‘Really?’ said Beddoes. ‘Where’s your proof of all this?’

  That was a thorny issue for Banks. He didn’t really have any proof. A deeper dig into Beddoes’ finances would probably turn up anomalies, but that would take time. Michael Lane’s word alone wasn’t good enough, but it was a place to start.

  ‘We also believe,’ Banks went on, ‘that Morgan Spencer was murdered partly because he stole your tractor, and partly because his colleagues, especially Atherton, had got fed up with him. He talked big, wanted a bigger role, more money, and he thought he was demonstrating his ability to get creative and play with the big boys by stealing an expensive tractor. Unfortunately, it turned out to be yours.’

  ‘So someone steals my tractor and I’m the criminal?’

  ‘Kenneth Atherton killed Morgan Spencer with a bolt pistol he stole from Stirwall’s Abattoir around the time he was fired nearly two years ago. He has also committed an earlier murder with the same weapon. We have matching prints from the weapon.’

  ‘This is fascinating,’ said Beddoes, ‘and nothing you can tell me about Spencer surprises me, but it has nothing to do with me, apart from the fact that the little creep stole my tractor.’

  ‘Why did you do it, John?’ Banks asked. ‘Why did you get into the business in the first place? Surely you had everything going for you. The life you always dreamed of. Enough money not to have to struggle like real farmers. Was it just the money? You weren’t that badly off, surely? Did Havers make you an offer you couldn’t refuse? Did he have something on you from the old days? Insider trading?’

  Beddoes laughed.

  Cassandra Wakefield shot Banks a puzzled glance. ‘Are you going to charge my client with insider trading in the eighties? I fear that may be even more difficult a case to bring than the one you’re struggling for at the moment. Go ahead, though. I’m sure the trial would be a lot of fun.’

  ‘Someone heard Atherton say to Spencer, “You went too far. You stole the boss’s fucking tractor” just before he killed him. What do you make of that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Beddoes. ‘I was probably somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean at the time.’

  ‘But why would he say it? It’s an odd thing to say just before you kill someone, isn’t it? “You stole the boss’s fucking tractor.” Now, neither Morgan Spencer nor Michael Lane, who overheard this, and whose return had you packing your bags and running for the British Virgin Islands, knew who this boss was until they heard that, of course. After all, it was your tractor Atherton was referring to, and Lane had an inkling that Spencer might try to nick it to prove himself to his masters. The problem was, Spencer didn’t know you were his master. You were too high and mighty to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi. Your orders went through Tanner.’

  ‘Lane’s a lying little bastard, always has been,’ said Beddoes. ‘He had every bit as much to do with . . .’ He trailed off.

  ‘To do with what, John? Your business enterprise? As much as Morgan Spencer?

  ‘Spencer was a pushy little half-caste. He—’

  Cassandra Wakefield tapped her client on the shoulder and whispered in his ear.

  ‘They’re trying to pin a murder on me,’ Beddoes protested, turning red. ‘I’m no killer. All right, I’m no saint, either, but if Atherton killed Spencer, it was because he was getting too big for his boots. And Atherton is a fucking psycho. It was a private vendetta, nothing to do with me.’

  ‘The boss’s tractor, John?’

  ‘He must have misheard. Lane. He’s had it in for me ever since I moved to the farm. His father wanted the land, but I outbid him.’

  ‘I can see that might give Frank Lane a motive for killing you, but he hasn’t. Why would Michael care? He was just a kid then.’

  ‘I don’t know. Some kids are born evil. You can tell. All I ever did was give him a clip round the earhole.’

  ‘If Spencer didn’t know you were the boss, then Lane probably didn’t, either. The problem was that he knew who the tractor belonged to. Spencer had told him he was going to steal it while you were away in Mexico. Lane just put two and two together. What it added up to scared him, and he made off.’

  ‘This is nothing but speculation,’ said Cassandra Wakefield.

  ‘We’ve got a witness statement from Michael Lane.’

  ‘Not enough.’

  ‘They never accepted me,’ said Beddoes.

  Cassandra Wakefield narrowed her eyes. Banks and Gerry looked at him quizzically.

  ‘What?’ Beddoes said. ‘Why are you looking at me like that? You’re just the same. You’re just like the other bloody farmers. They laughed at me behind my back, called me a “weekend” farmer, made fun of me. I was better than the lot of them put together. I was a Master of the Universe.’

  ‘That was a long time ago, John,’ said Banks.

  ‘I’m saying they didn’t respect me. My own neighbours. And I’d grown up on a farm. It was in my blood.’

  ‘Is that why you did it? Went into business with Havers.’

  ‘I knew I’d show them somehow.’

  ‘By stealing their livestock and equipment?’

  ‘It’s all
they bloody care about.’

  Cassandra Wakefield dropped her pencil on the table. ‘Enough,’ she said. ‘I think we should end this interview right now.’

  ‘Getting a bit too close to the bone for you, is it?’ Banks said.

  ‘My client needs a break. He’s been under a lot of stress lately. PACE regulations call for—’

  Banks raised his hand. ‘Fine. Fine,’ he said. ‘Interview suspended at nine twenty-seven p.m. To be continued.’ He called to the uniformed constable at the door. ‘Take him back to his cell, Nobby.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The constable took Beddoes by the arm. He stood up and went without resisting.

  Cassandra Wakefield looked at her watch. ‘You’ve got another nineteen hours or so to come up with some real evidence, otherwise my client walks.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Banks. ‘He’s already admitted to theft of farm equipment.’

  Cassandra Wakefield snorted, then she followed Beddoes and the constable out of the room.

  Gerry let out a long breath. Banks smiled. ‘Get used to it,’ he said. ‘It’s the way of the world.’

  One of the female PCs stuck her head around the door. ‘Phone call, guv,’ she said. ‘A Detective Chief Superintendent Burgess.’

  ‘I’ll take it in my office.’

  Banks told Gerry to hang on back in the squad room and walked down the hall to his office. He picked up the phone and engaged the line.

  ‘Hello, Banksy,’ said the familiar voice. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘We’re getting there. Unfortunately we had Cassandra Wakefield representing Beddoes.’

  ‘She gets around, doesn’t she? Mind you, I’d hardly call that bad luck. Have you seen the tits on her? Nipples like chapel hat-pegs. What I’d—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I can imagine what you’d do,’ said Banks. ‘But she happens to be a bloody good solicitor.’

  ‘Nobody’s perfect. Anyway, it’s your lucky day. I’ve got news’ll make the hairs on your arse stand on end.’

  ‘Go on. I can hardly wait.’

  ‘Havers coughed. The lot.’

  Banks gripped the receiver tightly. His palm was sweating. ‘He what?’

  ‘He cracked. Easy-peasy.’

  ‘What did you do, bring out the rubber hosepipes?’

  ‘Didn’t need them. He did it to save his own skin and to protect his overseas bosses. He’s more scared of them than he is of us. Basically, you could say he fell on his sword. He knew the northern operation was fucked. They knew it, too. Word came down. They were cut off. Finished. They’re falling over each other to avoid a murder charge. They’ll take tax evasion, handling stolen goods, you name it, but not the murder. Havers wasn’t going to go down by himself, so he gave us Beddoes, Ronald Tanner and Kenneth Atherton. And Carl Utley as a bonus. He was hiding out in a farmhouse in Provence. We’re sending him up to you, but he was so shaken by what he saw Atherton do in the hangar up there that we can’t shut him up. He and Tanner had to hold the poor bastard’s arms. They thought Atherton was just going to rough him up a bit, but before they knew what was happening he pulled out the bolt gun and shot the kid. At least that’s what Utley says. Apparently there was history between them, bad blood. It was all a rush job. Utley says Spencer didn’t contact Tanner about the tractor he’d nicked until early Sunday morning. They had no time to get the usual crew up from London for a transfer so they arranged to meet at the hangar to figure out what to do: Spencer, Tanner, Utley and Atherton. Then they discovered whose tractor it was and all hell broke loose.’

  ‘That sounds about right,’ said Banks. ‘What about Michael Lane?’

  ‘That name never came up. But it’s airtight, Banksy. It’s being faxed to you as we speak. Next time you get Beddoes and little Miss Melons in the room, you’ll have times, dates, amounts, bank accounts, an eyewitness statement from Utley. Everything but the cream, of course. We know there are people pulling Havers’ and Beddoes’ strings, we even think we know who some of them are, but they’re good at protecting themselves. There are no money trails leading to them, and nobody dare talk. Welles/Atherton isn’t the only psycho killer they’ve got strutting around. But we’ve got the northern mob sewn up. Not too bright, none of them. Get down to the fax machine, then read it and weep. Beat you again, Banksy. And hold the party. I’m coming up for it. You can invite Cassandra Wakefield, too, if you like.’

  Banks thanked Burgess, then hung up and sighed. For a moment he felt defeated. He hadn’t got as far as he had wanted with Beddoes while Burgess had broken Havers, obviously the weakest link. Then he realised that it was just as he had said to Gerry, the way of the world. Get used to it, mate, he told himself. There’ll always be a Cassandra Wakefield, and there’ll always be a Dirty Dick Burgess. He smiled at the thought of what a couple they would make. And Burgess was certainly right about her charms.

  This was no defeat, it was a win, and it called for champagne, or at least beer. Maybe they wouldn’t get Beddoes for murder, but they would get Atherton, if they could find him. Tanner, Utley and Beddoes would get time for various offences, too. And Michael Lane could probably live happily ever after with Alex and Ian, if he kept his nose clean. That would please Annie, but Banks still found himself wondering to what extent Lane had egged Spencer on to steal Beddoes’ tractor simply because he didn’t like the man who had once given him a clip round the ear. Lane couldn’t have known Spencer would get killed, of course. If he had instigated the theft, he had done so to get at Beddoes, and perhaps at his father. The rest was just pure irony. That Lane had helped Spencer with certain jobs of a criminal nature, Banks had no doubt. He only hoped the kid had the sense to realise what he’d got in Alex and Ian, and what a lucky escape he’d had. Some people learn, many never do. It was a toss-up.

  It was a mopping-up exercise now. Compile the evidence, get the forensics right on Atherton’s farmhouse and private abattoir. Spencer’s blood was sure to be among the sticky mess Banks had seen in the central trough, and Atherton’s prints were all over the bolt gun. He’d clearly had his own little business on the side there, which explained the disappearance of stock around the dale over the past year or so.

  Banks ran his hand over his head. He was tired. And hungry. He looked at his watch: nine forty-five. Time to go down to the fax machine, then home for some microwaved chicken tikka masala and a bottle of red. Maybe not champagne, but a good red, one from the ‘cellar’. And thinking of a good red got him thinking of Australia and Oriana. He wondered what time it was over there. He was whistling ‘You Win Again’ as he picked up his coat, turned off the light and left his office.

  ‘Mine’s a pint of lager, Banksy,’ said Burgess in the Queen’s Arms a week later.

  ‘As if I’d forget,’ muttered Banks, heading to the bar to buy the round of drinks. It was the ‘official’ celebration, mainly because the CPS had reviewed the evidence and agreed that there were strong cases against Beddoes, Tanner, Utley, Atherton and Havers. Vic Manson had also managed to get some prints from Spencer’s removal van, and they matched Carl Utley’s. Caleb Ross’s tox screen had come back clean. Banks didn’t think Ross knew it was human remains he was collecting. Atherton, who supplied him with marijuana, probably told him it was the carcass of a sheep or a pig he’d slaughtered and didn’t want to go through official channels.

  Cyril was playing his oldies playlist in the background, Amen Corner belting out ‘If Paradise Is Half As Nice’. The whole team was there: Annie, Winsome, Gerry, Doug, Burgess up from London, Stefan Nowak, Vic Manson, even Terry Gilchrist, under special dispensation from AC Gervaise, who had bought the first round. She was looking a bit put out, Banks thought, perhaps because Patricia Beddoes had screamed blue murder at her when her husband was charged, accusing her of being a false friend. Patricia also swore blind she had no idea what John was up to, that he had just, on the spur of the moment, suggested they take another holiday, and she didn’t see why not. That rankled with Gervaise, too. It was patently untru
e, but they couldn’t prove her guilt, and none of those who had talked had ever mentioned her name.

  The only problem was that Atherton wouldn’t be able to stand trial. His frozen body had been found in the caverns the day after Winsome’s ordeal, when the search parties went in. He had taken the left passage and managed to get himself stuck where the ceiling reached its lowest point. He must have thought he could wriggle under it, because he appeared to have got his head and shoulders through and pushed on, then got stuck around his midriff. In trying to shake his body free, he had managed to wedge himself firmly between the rock bed and the overhang. The doctor who examined the body, once the rescuers had managed to chip away enough rock from above to pull him out, said that he had clearly panicked, as his body was covered in bruises and abrasions, and his back was broken. Nobody could have saved him. He was probably dead by the time Banks and the others arrived on the scene to rescue Winsome.

  It was a horrible way to go, Banks thought with a shudder, but so was Morgan Spencer’s death and its aftermath. He couldn’t dredge up a great deal of sympathy for a killer who liked to stub out cigarettes in a pig’s eye. Looking on the bright side, Atherton’s death saved them the expense of making a case against him and keeping him in prison for the rest of his life.

  Annie appeared at Banks’s side to help him carry the drinks back as Bobby Vee came on singing ‘Take Good Care of My Baby’.

  Back at the table, Burgess was chatting up AC Gervaise, so that ought to take her mind off Patricia Beddoes for a while, Banks thought. The thing about Burgess, Banks knew from experience, was that however crude and blokeish he was with the lads, he was still a handsome devil in his way, and he had the sort of manly charm that many women found attractive. Not exactly a bit of rough – he was too sophisticated for that – but world-weary with a hint of danger and a definite dash of the bad boy.

  Banks and Annie handed out the drinks and sat down again. As Banks sipped his pint, he started to feel himself drifting away from the crowd; the voices became distant, blending into one another, just meaningless sounds. It happened often these days. Even Bobby Vee sounded faraway and distorted, fading in and out.