“Is he fit enough to talk?” Longley asked. Thackeray shrugged.
“He’s regained consciousness but he’s lost a lot of blood so it’ll be a while before I can do a detailed interview. But as soon as the doctors give the OK, I want to be in there, getting whatever I can.”
“And Foreman’s girlfriend?” Longley asked.
Thackeray glanced bleakly out of the window where it was possible to see streaks of blue in the sky above the cherry trees in the town hall square, and a pale sunlight for the first time for months.
“The underwater search team are down there now,” he said. “They’ll be there, all three of them, Karen and the babies, I’m sure of that, but how the hell we’ll ever prove that Foreman dumped them there I can’t imagine. There won’t be much forensic evidence if they’ve been trapped in that torrent for a while, possibly not even a cause of death.”
“They probably drowned anyway,” Longley said, his face sombre. “Poor little beggars.”
“You can just imagine what an imaginative defence lawyer would get out of that: Karen was so distraught when she and Foreman split up that she chucked the babies in the Beck and then herself; or else, any one of Foreman’s employees could have known about the access to the water from his cellar and dumped them in for some reason of their own; or else, all three of them slipped into the water accidentally in one of the downpours we’ve been having and the bodies were washed as far as the obstruction …”
“Could they have become trapped in Foreman’s cage arrangement if they’d gone in higher up?” Longley asked.
“It’s just about possible, though it would be a bizarre coincidence if that’s what happened. The upstream side of the hiding place was only constructed out of wire strands. A body could have got entangled there, and then taken the full force of the water as the flood rose. It only needs the babies’ pushchair to turn up somewhere higher up the stream to get him off the hook.” Thackeray shrugged dispiritedly.
“And we all believe in Santa Claus,” Longley said. “Talk to the Crown Prosecution Service. You were right about Foreman and I was wrong and that’s the one I’d really like to pin on the bastard if we pin a murder on him at all.”
“Oh yes,” Thackeray said. “Don’t worry. If it’s humanly possible to make a charge stick, I’ll do it. I can promise you that.”
They buried Stevie Maddison and his best mate Derek Whitby side by side in the municipal cemetery high on one of Bradfield’s seven windswept hills, Derek’s friends and relations muffled in dark coats and hats on one side of the double grave, Stevie’s, fewer in number and more casual, shivering in insubstantial multicoloured jackets, on the other. As the commital prayers ended and the ritual handfuls of dirt rained down onto the two coffins a tall black woman, her pashmina streaming in the wind, began to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ in a voice so powerful that not even the bitter Pennine gusts could whip the sound away completely. Standing between a tired-looking Michael Thackeray and a newly clean-shaven Kevin Mower at the rear of the crowd of mourners, Laura Ackroyd, wearing a soft black velvet beret to conceal the bandage she still had round her head, shivered and felt the tears prickle.
“What a bloody waste it all is,” she said. Thackeray put his arm around her protectively as the hymn ended, the mourners began to straggle away and the grave diggers moved forward with their shovels, anxious to complete their thankless task before the dark clouds on the horizon unleashed more rain.
“Come on,” he said. “Some good came of it all in the end.”
“Foreman, you mean?”
“So far we’ve only charged him with drug-dealing but that’s open and shut, and he’ll go away for a long time. The rest will take longer to unravel but I’ll have him for at least one of the deaths in the end.”
“Karen and the babies, surely,” Laura said with a shudder but Thackeray shook his head.
“Now the water’s gone down, most of the remains have been recovered,” he said, his face grim and Laura knew better than to press him for more. “They were all there, all three of them, but it’ll be a forensic nightmare to prove how they died, let alone who killed them.”
“And Stevie and Derek?” Laura asked, glancing back at the cars in which the Maddison and Whitby families were embarking on the rest of their shattered lives. “They were only kids.”
“All those forensic reports are in now and the CPS is looking at charges of murder. Foreman’s claiming that Stevie and Jake Moody, our undercover man, both had guns and shot each other, which we might have believed from the circumstantial evidence, but someone wiped the second gun clean after the shooting and the only person who could have done that was Foreman, no doubt in a moment of panic. Moody certainly wasn’t in a fit state to be worrying about fingerprints on triggers. Foreman’s claiming he tried to stop Moody from killing the boy but I think it’s more likely Moody tried to stop Foreman so Foreman shot him as well. They removed three bullets from Moody’s body, two of which definitely came from Stevie’s gun, the third is so badly damaged that it’s difficult to tell. They’re still working on it. He’s lucky to be alive.”
“What’s Moody saying?” Laura asked. “Isn’t he fit to talk yet?”
“Moody’s saying a lot of things, none of which make much sense,” Thackeray said.
“Jake Moody was as bent as a three pound note,” Mower suddenly said. “He was lording it around the Heights in the Beamer as Mr. Pound, Foreman’s minder. Why, if he wasn’t involved in the drug trade? He was in it up to his neck. Why else didn’t he call his guv’nor when Foreman decided to move all the gear from his cellar to avoid the flood? If he was undercover, what the hell was he undercover for if it wasn’t to look for an opportunity like that, to nick them with a serious consignment in transit, no argument? As it was, it was pure chance Dizzy and I were there to see what was going on and make sure Foreman was stopped in the Land Rover. As far as I can see the only thing we’ve got to thank for pinning Foreman down at all was the bloody weather.”
“The drug squad don’t like that interpretation,” Thackeray said.
“They wouldn’t, would they?” Mower came back quickly.
“Moody’s claiming he did everything an undercover cop could safely do in the circumstances. But don’t worry, Kevin. We’re looking very carefully at his story too.”
“And pigs might fly,” Mower muttered.
The three of them walked towards Thackeray’s car which he had parked behind the two families’ funeral cars on the gravel pathway some hundred yards from the new graves. Behind them the other mourners beginning to scatter, shoulders hunched against the wind and the first spots of rain, but as Thackeray unlocked the driver’s door, Laura took his arm.
“This looks like a delegation,” she said softly. The mothers of the dead boys were approaching side-by-side, each of them red-eyed but with a determination that was not diminished by the chilly gusts which made Laura shiver and Mrs Whitby clutch firmly at her large black hat. Behind them some of the rest of the mourners turned and stood watching in silence, like an accusing chorus.
“Inspector Thackeray? I’m Dawn Whitby, Derek’s mother …”
“I know,” Thackeray said. “And can I say how sorry …”
“It’s too late for that now, Inspector,” Mrs. Whitby said firmly. “Too late for Derek and for Stevie. What happened to them has happened. But Mrs. Maddison and me, we’ve come to a decision. We want to tell you some things that we learned while this was going on, some things we heard, some things we seen with our own eyes. We want to make sure now that no other boys die like our boys died. So if you want evidence, we will give you evidence. It’s the least we can do, the least I can do before I go home to Jamaica. And we think if we decide to talk to you then maybe some others will too.”
“We want the man they call Ounce off the estate,” Lorraine Maddison broke in. “He’s a dealer and he’s maybe a killer too. Stevie told me he saw him the night Derek died. He was there on the roof when Derek was pushed off Pries
tley House.”
“And he was there when I was trying to get Derek clean,” Dawn Whitby said. “He was brazen that one. He came to my home offering Derek cheap drugs. He was the one who wanted to keep him hooked.”
“You didn’t say you knew who the dealer was,” Laura said softly, recalling her own interview with Dawn Whitby. Derek’s mother glanced away and Laura guessed that even she had been too afraid to disclose everything she knew.
“Do you know who he is?” Thackeray asked carefully. “Is Ounce his real name? Can you identify him?”
“Ounce is what the kids call him. It’s like a joke, I suppose. He’s called Mr Pound,” Dawn Whitby said. “You see him aroun’. He drives a big blue BMW. I’ve seen him, even at the Project I’ve seen him where you’d think Donna Maitland would have more sense than to let a dealer in.” She glanced at Lorraine Maddison.
“We can identify him,” she said.
Thackeray’s eyes met Mower’s for a second and he saw the triumph there.
“It’s Moody,” Mower mouthed. “I bloody knew he was bent.”
“You’ll make statements telling us everything you’ve learned about Mr. Pound?” Thackeray asked the two women, who had linked arms now against the bitter wind. They nodded.
“Gotcha,” Mower said, and raised a clenched fist in the air.
Later that evening, when Thackeray brought a tray to Laura where she was sitting with her feet up on a sofa, eyes closed and bandaged head resting against a cushion, the fury which had threatened to consume him ever since he had been told she had been taken to hospital gradually eased.
“You’re safe now,” he said quietly, putting the tray down on the coffee table and kissing her bruised cheek gently. She opened her eyes and smiled.
“And you’re learning to cook. I’ll domesticate you yet.”
“I wouldn’t bank on it,” he said, peering at the scrambled eggs and bacon he had prepared with a sceptical look before perching himself on the edge of the sofa beside her.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “Now you’ve got Foreman? Is that the end of it?”
Thackeray did not reply immediately. Had he, he wondered, really exorcised the obsession with Foreman.
“Foreman’s saying absolutely nothing but Moody’s decided that he’s on our side after all,” he said slowly. “He’s giving us chapter and verse on Foreman’s drug business, saying he had to get seriously involved to gain Foreman’s confidence. And there’s enough to charge Foreman with Wilson’s murder on Moody’s evidence. He says he dropped Foreman off at his house that day — not an unusual event, apparently. Foreman used to go there personally to pick up his dirty videos. And forensics have come up with corroboration of Moody’s version of what happened the night of the flood. One of the bullets they took out of his body came from the gun that killed Stevie. Only Foreman could have fired it.”
“So you’ve got him for two murders.”
“There’s a lot of loose ends though,” Thackeray said. “It’ll take months to be sure what will stand up in court and what won’t. Donna Maitland’s death, that’s the one which is exercising Kevin Mower, but the crime scene was so contaminated that we’ll be unlikely to make a case against anyone there. And Derek, the boy on the roof: Moody denies he was anywhere near the Heights that night, and no one else has come forward in spite of Derek’s mother’s efforts.”
“And Karen and the babies?”
“Moody says he knows nothing about any of that either.”
“Do you believe him? He could be covering his own tracks,” Laura suggested.
“He could, but if we want him to give evidence as a witness on the rest we may have to accept we’ll never know the truth about some things. It’s rough justice but maybe the best we can do.”
“I thought you didn’t make deals.”
“We don’t make deals,” Thackeray said. “But the CPS assess how likely we are to get a conviction, you know that. And you know what that estate’s like. There’s not enough evidence to pin down anyone for Donna’s death, or Derek’s, nor likely to be.”
“Or to catch whoever tried to kill me?” Laura said, turning away, overtaken by the tearfulness which had dogged since she came out of hospital.
“Maybe not,” Thackeray admitted. “We’ve not traced any witnesses.”
Thackeray sat very still for a moment beside her before he took her hand in his.
“That day,” he began hesitantly. “That day, I really thought I’d lost you. I thought history was repeating itself and I was going to be alone again.” His grip on Laura’s hand tightened. “And the thing that hurt most was that I might have missed my chance of asking you what I should have asked you long ago.”
Laura reached forward and put a finger on his lips.
“For a man who asks questions for a living you’ve been remarkably slow with this one,” she said. “But I’m not sure this is the moment to choose. Can you give me some time?”
Thackeray looked for a moment as if he had been struck across the face, but then he nodded and touched her bruised cheek gently.
“Sorry,” he said. “As much time as you need.”
Also by Patricia Hall
In the Ackroyd and Thackeray series
Death by Election
Dying Fall
In the Bleak Midwinter
Perils of the Night
The Italian Girl
Dead on Arrival
Skeleton at the Feast
Deep Freeze
and
The Poison Pool
The Coldness of Killers
This is a work of fiction and all characters, firms, organizations, and instants portrayed are imaginary. They are not meant to resemble any counterparts in the real world; in the unlikely event that any similarity does exist it is an unintended coincidence.
DEATH IN DARK WATERS. Copyright © 2002 by Patricia Hall. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby Limited
eISBN 9781429926577
First eBook Edition : May 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hall, Patricia, 1940 –
Death in dark waters/Patricia Hall.—1st St. Martin’s Minotaur ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-32155-4
1. Thackeray, Michael (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Ackroyd, Laura (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Police—England—Yorkshire—Fiction. 4. Yorkshire (England)—Fiction. 5. Women journalists—Fiction. 6. Drug traffic—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6058.A46D439 2004
823’.914—dc22
2003066819
First St. Martin’s Minotaur Edition: February 2004
Death in Dark Waters Page 27
