‘What’s that, boss? A gang war?’
‘Haven’t you heard? I thought everyone knew. The cleaner mentioned it to me this morning, anyhow. It seems George Hayton is finally making his big move on Jack Moffett. He’s been working away at him for months, helping himself to a few bits and pieces. But Moffett’s had enough, and the word is that they’re going to have a set-to at the game tomorrow. Get the whole job sorted out, like.’
‘That’s a bit public, isn’t it boss? There’ll be half the town playing and the other half watching, if the weather’s fine.’
‘Exactly. It’s what-do-you-call-it? Symbolic, that’s it. Hayton’s throwing in half a dozen of his boys, maybe more, and they’ll give whoever Moffett can persuade to risk it a proper hiding. I expect Hayton is hoping that Moffett will wimp out completely, and won’t even try. That’d be as good as taking a full page ad out in the News & Star, that would. Because after tomorrow everyone will know who runs the drugs job, and everything else, in this town. So how do you fancy joining in then, Keith? See what goes on, like. You’re the bloody athlete, after all.’
‘I’ve seen more fat on a bicycle, boss’ said DS Hodgson. ‘Uppies and Downies is more for the larger lad, isn’t it?’
‘More like us, you mean?’
‘Aye, more like us. Well covered, like.’
‘Well, we’re already going, aren’t we? I love a good bundle, me. So how about you then, Keith? Are you in? They call the Friday night game the Apprentice Ball you know, so it’s ideal for first timers.’
‘I’m on duty tomorrow evening, boss.’
‘Aye, I know, and we are too. Mixing business with pleasure, like. I want to be there when Jack Moffett finally gets put out of business.’
‘Shouldn’t we have someone looking after other enquiries? Watching the shop, like.’
Smith looked long and hard at Iredale, as if he was trying to read something in his face.
‘What is it, son? Are you too much of a modern man to get involved in our old traditions, and scrap in the mud for the ball like the rest of us? Afraid of getting a slap from someone you’ve nicked, is that it?’
‘He shaves his legs, does Keith,’ commented Hodgson.
‘I told you, sarge, it makes me quicker on the bike.’
‘So that’s a no then, is it? said Smith. ‘It’s not compulsory. Just thought you’d enjoy getting in touch with the real Workington, you being a Maryport lad, like. Goes back hundreds of years, does the game. And no-one has died in years, not since that young lad back in ’83. And he drowned, like. Swimming down to the harbour, he was.’
‘You’re not really selling it to me, boss.’
‘I tell you what, Keith. You make me and Kenny a nice cuppa, and then you get off and have a look at this fly tipping epidemic of yours. And you’re right, it might be best if you don’t come to the game tomorrow night either, because the local scallywags have been known to get out on the rob when they know that everyone’s down at the Cloffocks for the start of the game. They’re cleverer than they look, some of them.’
Half an hour later DC Iredale had parked the unmarked car in the small car park at the harbour entrance and walked onto the beach. He was glad to be out in the fresh air, mainly because the car smelt of something he couldn’t quite identify, and was glad that he couldn’t. He was wearing his best suit, and he felt over-dressed. The pile of rubbish looked as it had been chucked out of the back of a van, and it consisted of kitchen cabinet carcasses, lengths of yellowing worktop and various other bits of detritus. Some of it was already getting blown around a bit, but at least it was all well above the tideline. Iredale took a few pictures with his phone, and called the local council. It took ten minutes, but eventually he managed to persuade someone with both the inclination and the authority to get something done about it. The stuff would be collected within the day.
Then Iredale started to pick through the material systematically. He was looking for anything that might help identify the broken up cabinets, although he didn’t hold out much hope of that. What he was really interested in was any wrappings, receipts or any other material from the replacement kitchen, because that might help him to trace this material back to whoever had dumped it.
‘After a new kitchen are you, love?’ said an elderly dog-walker, and Iredale just smiled back. Her little Jack Russell looked a lot more on the ball than she did.
Ten minutes later, and with a cut to the webbing of his right hand from where he’d caught it on a nail, Iredale gave up, and walked back to the car. He looked at the fells in the distance, and imagined how he’d feel if he was up there now. He had to force himself to look away, and to get back into the car. It didn’t matter if he bled a bit on the upholstery, because he wasn’t the first, and he wouldn’t be the last. He sat for a moment and looked out at the sea, still just on the grey side of blue, and tried to dispel the nagging thought that he knew exactly who had dumped all that crap on the beach. He didn’t have a shred of evidence, but if anything that just made his suspicions even stronger. He picked up his phone, started to dial, then stopped. He checked his watch, and he started the car.
His sister’s house was only five minutes away, and he expected she’d be in. With three kids under five she usually was. She didn’t seem to hear when he rang the bell, so he went round the back. She was in the garden, pegging out towelling nappies on the line.
‘Nice one’ he said, ‘none of those disposable nappies for you then, Tina.’
‘I can’t afford to be an eco-warrior, not like you’ she said, putting down her basket and cutting off a toddler who Keith didn’t recognise.
‘It’s my mate’s, is that one. Always making a break for freedom, he is. Can I make you a brew?’
‘No, I’m working. I just wondered where Mike is at?’
‘What’s he done, Keith?’
‘I just need a word.’
‘Oh, aye? I’ve heard that one before.’
‘Like I say, just a word.’
‘He’s busting a gut, Keith, honest. I know what dad thinks, but we both know he’s not always right.’
‘True enough. So what’s Mike on with today, like? Another fitted kitchen?’
‘Aye, I think so. He says that PPI compensation is all that’s been keeping us afloat this last year or two.’
‘What, folk get four or five grand and then go and borrow more so they can have a new kitchen?’
‘Aye, lucky buggers. Our gran would be at home in ours, mind, wouldn’t she? All it needs is a mangle and a cloud of steam and she’d feel right at home here. Talk about cobbler’s children. Mind you, your place is all granite and brushed metal, isn’t it?’
‘It’s just rented, sis. Anyway, where is he?’
‘Just round the corner. Number 46 I think it is. You’ll see his van outside.’
‘All right. I’d best get off.’
‘You know I’ll call him, don’t you, Keith?’
‘Aye, of course. I’d expect no less. Tell him I’m not going to nick him. Like I said, lass, I just need a word.’
Iredale left the car and walked round, trying to calculate how likely it was that the van would be gone when he got there. He was relieved to see that it wasn’t. And he was even happier when Mike Gambles answered the door to him. He looked innocent enough, but then he always did.
‘Come to check on our joinery then, Keith?’
‘Oh aye, we do that now. Not enough proper crime around, you see, what with all that PPI compensation coming in.’
Gambles smiled, walked out of the house and pulled the front door closed behind him. Iredale could hear the sound of hammering start up again inside the house.
‘So what’s the craic then, Keith?’
‘You’ve been up to your old tricks again, haven’t you, Mike?’
‘What tricks is that then, lad?’
‘Fly tipping. Down at the lighthouse.’
‘Cobblers, mate. You’ve got the wrong bloke.’
‘Whe
n did you rip the old kitchen out of here?’
‘Couple of days back.’
‘And you had a skip, did you?’
‘No need. Loaded it all into the van, and took it down the tip.’
‘And they’ll remember you?’
‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them. If you really feel that you need to, like.’
‘Maybe I will, Mike. And if I were to phone the owner of this house and ask them if they had an oak kitchen before whatever it is that you’re fitting now, what would they say, do you think?’
‘If they’ve got half a brain they’d tell you that thousands of kitchens like that went in, back in the day. But aye, it was oak. Now, can I get back to work? I’m bloody flat out here.’
‘Aye, you do that. Wouldn’t want to stop you from earning an honest penny.’
Gambles turned to go back into the house, then came back out. He stopped, but only when he was right in Iredale’s face.
‘Just like your bloody old man, aren’t you? He never liked me, decided that right from the off he did. Just because of my old man having been inside. That’s the only reason.’
‘And your brothers, Mike. They’ve both got records. You have too, remember.’
‘They’re all right, and none of us have been in trouble for years. Just because you followed your old man into the police doesn’t mean we all have to follow in the family footsteps. It’s not bloody compulsory. And you can see I’m grafting here, mate.’
Iredale nodded and smiled. But he didn’t take a step back. He knew better than to ever do that.
‘All right, point taken. And I’ve got no proof that it was you. But just be clear, Mike. If we catch you at it, I’ll nick you myself.’
‘I get it. Christ, I get it. So are you coming to the game tomorrow night? We could do with a few more Uppies.’
‘You’re the second person to ask me that this morning. But no, I’ll be working.’
‘Shame. It’s the one chance we all get to duff up a copper, and they can’t bloody touch you for it.’
‘But I’d be on the same side as you.’
This time it was Gambles who smiled.
‘You think that would make any difference, eh, Keith?’
Good Friday, 18th April
DC Iredale sat at his desk and watched the CCTV of the crowd building up on the Cloffocks, lining the metalled path alongside the beck. It was quarter past six, so the ball would be thrown up in fifteen minutes. But other than the two ‘goals’ themselves, one down on the docks and the other right up in the town, that was the only fixed point in the game. There was no limit to the number of players on each side, and apart from the use of a vehicle to transport the ball being discouraged there were no rules, and no boundaries. You could go where you wanted with the ball, and if you could smuggle it away in the dark then all the better. He wondered if any of the players ever brought a fake ball with them, to substitute for the real one. But that was a copper’s thinking, or at least a cheat’s, he told himself.
Iredale had always liked the idea of Uppies and Downies, even if the thought of actually playing the game held no appeal. He’d rather be on his own, walking or running on the fells. He scanned the faces on the screen to see if he could pick up either the DI or the DS among the crowd, but he couldn’t. They’d just be two more bullet-headed men waiting for the fun to begin. He watched until the ball was thrown up into the air, from the middle of the little stream over Cloffocks Beck, and that was the last he saw of it. Because a huge scrum formed around it, wheeling slowly and occasionally ejecting players from the side.
He went and made a brew, then chatted to a WPC who he liked and who he was almost sure liked him back. When he glanced back at the screen twenty minutes later the scrum seemed to have moved no more than a few feet, and he watched as it collapsed under its own weight. Then the players stood up and helped the others to their feet. It was almost chivalrous, and that made him smile. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d even thought of that word. ‘Chivalrous’ he said out loud, as if he was trying to remember how to pronounce it.
For the next two hours, until darkness fell from Debenhams down to the docks, Iredale worked in the silent office, filling in form after form, often with the same information but in a slightly different order. He made a few phone calls, to organisations and bodies that the Super insisted on calling ‘partners’, but these were the kind of partners who kept office hours. So in each case Iredale left a brief voicemail message, and went back to work.
At snap time Iredale decided to walk down across the Cloffocks to Tesco to buy a sandwich, and he stopped and looked over at the game, which was now in the Council car park. He reckoned that it had moved no more than thirty yards in three hours, so he wasn’t surprised to see that the crowd of onlookers had thinned out. And when he walked back past again, after he’d been to the shop, the game still hadn’t moved.
He spent the rest of his break looking online at bits for his mountain bike, and then he went back to work. The phone hadn’t rung once all shift, and he was almost sorry. Iredale filed the last of his forms for the night, drew a line through another item on his ‘to do’ list, and called up the CCTV from the Cloffocks. Straight away he knew that was something was wrong. It had to be. The scrum had dispersed, and people were milling about the car park. And then he saw the ambos, four of them, and a couple of marked cars too. Bumps and bruises in the game weren’t uncommon, he knew that, but this didn’t look right at all. So Iredale grabbed his radio and his high-vis jacket and ran for the door.
He kept running until he reached the foot bridge where the game began, and he saw the DI and the DS on the bridge. And he knew, long before he saw it, that there’d be a body nearby somewhere too.
‘What do you need, boss?’ he shouted, not wanting to interfere with the crime scene, and happy not to get too close to the body.
‘Help uniform to get witness details. Anyone who was playing tonight. Try to get the names of all of them.’
‘I’m on with it.’
There were only five uniformed officers on the ground, but that was all that was available, and it included the duty sergeant.
‘We’ve got more lads coming over from HQ, but they won’t be here for half an hour’ the sergeant told Iredale, ‘by which time most of this lot will have fucked off.’ He raised the loud hailer to his mouth, and asked again for anyone who’d been playing that night to stay in the car park until they’d been spoken to by an officer. Then he switched it off and turned back to Iredale. ‘Tell you what, Keith. Most of them will head back into town to get a few drinks in, so why don’t you get up there? Anyone who looks like they might have been playing tonight, and they’re not hard to spot what with the mud and the wet clothes, get their details. There’ll be a fair few who wouldn’t ever talk to us voluntarily, like.’
‘Got you, sarge. Will do.’
Saturday, 19th April
It was almost 6am when DI Smith called the team together in the CID room.
‘For those of you who don’t know the victim’s name is Chris Brown, aged 20, from an address in Workington. Next of kin have been informed. That wasn’t difficult mind you, because his dad was in the game earlier, and his mum and sister were watching, worse luck.’
‘Christ’ said someone.
‘Preliminary cause of death is drowning, but don’t be surprised if that changes. He was pulled out of the beck at about 10.55, only about five yards below the bridge. SOCO is on site, but as you’d expect the place looks like it’s been trampled over by a herd of rhino, which is pretty much how it felt, I can tell you. And that brings me to the next point. As most of you will know both myself and DS Hodgson were playing last night, because our information was that George Hayton had issued a kind of challenge to Jack Moffett. If you don’t know who those two are then you don’t deserve to be coppers, so don’t ask me about them. Look them up if you bloody have to. Anyway, this is what we know for sure. At about half ten some of Ha
yton’s lads arrived, and we have positive IDs on three of them, and they joined the game. Shortly after that it all really kicked off, and that’s when we had the casualties. Three or four, all Moffett’s boys, ended up with broken bones, ruptured kidneys, the works. At that time the game was here,’ Smith pointed at the map on the big screen, ‘just on the edge of the council office’s car park, only a few yards from Cloffocks Beck. The scrum then went back into the water, at about ten two, and soon after they moved away again, along the Cloffocks in the direction of the Reds’ ground. And that’s when the body was spotted by one of the spectators, in the water, like. A young lad he is. We’ve got his statement, and he’s not a suspect. Any questions so far?’
‘We’re sure that the deceased was a player, are we, sir?’ asked Iredale.
‘In which sense? Player of the game, or a player as in an active gang member? He was certainly a player of the game, and his mum has confirmed that he’d been in right from the start at half six. He’d been looking forward to it for weeks, apparently. As to whether or not Chris Brown was involved with either gang that’s hard to say. He didn’t have a record, not even a caution, which as you know is pretty unusual these days. He’s not showing up in intelligence reports, and the drugs team have no interest. However, we know exactly what was going on last night, don’t we? So I’d say it makes sense to assume that he might have been associated with one of our gangs, most likely Moffett’s crew. So let’s divide up the tasks. I need all of the witnesses we’ve got listed spoken to, today please. How many are there, Keith?’
Hail and Farewell (The Lakeland Murders) Page 2
