by Tony McHale
“Thanks,” he said, his mind still on the two youths. “What happened to them? Cassie looked at him as if to say … Leave it alone. But Charlie pushed on.
“Tyler took them off in your Espace. I tried to follow and I had a tyre shot out.”
Cassie stood looking at the tea in her hand.
“Do you know what happened to them? Do you know what Tyler did with them?” persisted Charlie.
Cassie’s expression suddenly turned serious. The ease of manner left her.
“I don’t know what happened, because when something like this happens, it’s best not to know what happened.”
“This sort of thing happens regularly then?”
“No. Not at all. But every so often, someone who hasn’t listened to their neighbours, or are just passing through, step out of line … and when that happens, they’re normally dealt with. But most people think twice about causing trouble in Beck le Street.”
“You carry out your own rough justice.”
“You’re being a bit dramatic Charlie,” Cassie’s voice had a slight mocking lilt in it.
“I was shot at … that was fairly dramatic.”
“No, your car was shot at,” Cassie corrected him. “If you’d have been shot at we’d have been having this conversation either in the hospital or through a medium.”
Charlie wasn’t sure how to handle Cassie’s attitude. He wasn’t sure what to say now he knew she was lying. She knew all about last night’s gun incident.
“Charlie … this is Beck le Street, not Oxford Street. If you hadn’t have been who you are, then you might have been in the back of the Espace along with those lads. Why don’t you take what was a polite warning and quietly go on your way. It would be best all round.”
“This is where I was born. This is where my parents live. This is my village.”
“No it’s not! This is not your village! This was never your village Charlie. You know that. You never belonged here, you got out as soon as you could. And I’m trying to tell you as nicely as possible, that’s what you should do right now … get out of here.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m the only person who wants to find my mother’s killer.”
“No. Because you make people feel uncomfortable. You look down on them ... as if you were somehow a better person.
“I do not …
“Yes you do. Getting away from here doesn’t make you special. If people didn’t like it here they would do what you did and leave. There’s nothing stopping them. But they like the way of life, they like how it is. And they don’t like someone, who should know better, coming on all high and mighty.”
“That’s not how I am.”
“Yes it is. The truth is … you don’t belong here.”
“And do you? Do you belong here Cassie?”
Cassie’s lips parted as she took an intake of breath. Charlie couldn’t tell if she was shocked by the question, or shocked that he’d hit on something she thought was well hidden inside her.
“You should have told me we had a visitor.”
Charlie and Cassie turned. Stood there was Tyler. He had on torn jeans and a tee shirt with oil stains. He was wiping his hands with a rag.
“I was about to,” Cassie lied. But the lie wasn’t proficient and Tyler’s eyes said he didn’t believe her.
Charlie fired up by the disagreement he’d just had with Cassie ploughed straight on.
“I was just asking Cassie about the two youths.”
Tyler just looked at him. He was clearly surprised by the forthrightness of Charlie’s statement. He’d probably thought Old Atkinson’s rifle antics had put an end to any inquisitiveness.
“I told him to just forget them,” said Cassie hoping to avert any confrontation.
Tyler looked Charlie hard in the eyes.
“What do you want to know about them?”
“I want to know what happened to them?” Charlie was holding his own.
“Why? What’s it got to do with you?” Tyler snapped back at him.
“It was me that led you to them … I gave you the information about them, I feel it only right that I know what happened to them.” Charlie thought Tyler wouldn’t be able to argue with that.
“Only right …? Why would it be ‘only right’ … tell me that?”
Charlie didn’t have an answer..
“If I don’t tell you, what then? What you going to do? Eh?”
“Charlie … just leave it,” interjected Cassie.
“Not that easy.”
Charlie wondered about Tyler and what he could be capable of. Could he be capable of murder?
“Why not? Why isn’t it easy for you to just walk away? Got a sudden surge of compassion have you for the common man? Feel responsible for their welfare do you? You make me want to puke,” Tyler’s voice was full of venom. “When have you ever felt responsible …? How many relationships have you ruined … how many lives have you destroyed with your fucking camera. Don’t come it that you care … you’re a soulless git who has only cared about one thing in his life and that’s himself”
Whatever Tyler thought about him was irrelevant to him at the moment. He wasn’t going to let his tirade throw him off course.
“What happened to the two youths?” Charlie asked again calmly.
“Just go Charlie, just go,” urged Cassie.
“Are they in Dark Waters?’
Tyler moved close to him. Charlie saw the box of shotgun shells on the table and wondered if game was the only thing he’d shot. Suddenly Tyler grabbed Charlie by the throat and forced him against the kitchen wall. Charlie was taken so off guard, there was nothing he could do.
“You want to know, I’ll tell you,” Tyler said with a half smile.
Charlie struggled to breathe, Tyler’s grip around his throat was so tight.
“Viking Rocks. If you want to know what happened to them … go to Viking Rocks.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Viking Rocks were on the edge of the moors about five miles outside Beck le Street. The slabs of rock formed a near perfect circle with a diameter of about forty meters with a flat slab of slate in the centre. According to legend the Vikings used this natural arena to gang rape virgins from the village. A sort of precursor to the Hell’s Angels. Charlie had believed the story when he was growing up and because of it Charlie and most other kids were drawn to the spot. His parents hadn’t been happy about him going there as it was quite a way off the road and if the mist came down and you were to wander off in the wrong direction then you could easily find yourself lost on the moors.
However today there was no mist as Charlie parked his Range Rover at the side of the road. The mobile tyre company had been out and repaired the damage done by Old Atkinson’s bullet. His father hadn’t asked how his tyre had been punctured and neither had a single person who passed by as the mechanic went about his business. Charlie couldn’t help but think that Cassie might have been right – he should get out of Beck le Street. But he knew he couldn’t go, not until he had some answers.
He set off towards Viking Rocks, not sure what he might find. His imagination ranged from finding nothing to finding two dead bodies.
The ground was dry so it didn’t matter that his footwear wasn’t designed for trudging across moorland. As he neared the circle of rock he caught sight of two shapes on the ground. He realised quite quickly these were the two youths, both still naked, both still with sacks over their heads and both still with their wrists bound behind their backs and tethered to their bound ankles so it was virtually impossible for them to move. They just lay there and the nearer Charlie got, the more convinced he was that he was looking at two corpses. A few feet away he stopped.
What the hell had Tyler done?
Then one of them moved.
They were alive.
Charlie bent down and took of the sacking from their heads. Both looked at him with fear.
“You recognise me?”
They obviously did, because neither of them spoke as Charlie undid the ropes that had cut into their skin causing bleeding. They were also bruised extensively, as well as having grazed skin where they’d been dragged along the ground.
“I’ll call an ambulance.”
“No.” It was the taller youth. “We don’t need an ambulance.”
Charlie knew an ambulance probably meant police and the last thing these two wanted to do was to talk to the police. They were too scared to talk to the police.
“Can you take us to Whitby? We’ve got no clothes.” The hooded youth now looked young and pathetic and sounded almost human.
Charlie led them back to the road and his Range Rover. They both got in the back, which made Charlie feel uneasy. They sat there silent for the first part of the journey with just the sacks they’d had covering their heads to cover their more exposed parts.
When Charlie asked where exactly did they want him to drop them, the taller youth asked to borrow Charlie’s mobile. Charlie could hear him arranging to meet someone just outside “the caravan park.”
“Do you know Sandsend Road?” asked the youth handing the phone back to Charlie.
“Yeah,” replied Charlie slipping the phone back into his pocket.
“Can you drop us there?”
“It’s a long road,” proffered Charlie, knowing they were actually wanting the caravan park.
“I’ll show you where.”
Back to silence … until Charlie could keep quiet no longer.
“I should be taking you to the police.”
He looked at the two youths in the mirror, who stared back at him with a dumb insolence.
“Haven’t you got anything to say?”
“You won’t take us to police,” said the hooded youth.
“Oh no …”
“You’re new … aren’t you?”
“What you talking about?” asked Charlie, but really knowing the answer.
“To Beck le Street.”
“Why don’t you think I won’t take you the police.”
“Because that’s not how it works … here.”
Charlie realised there was no point in talking, he wasn’t going to learn anything. The next words uttered were from the taller youth, “You need to do the next right.”
Charlie knew it was Cliff Lane, the turning that led into Sandfield House Caravan Park. But before he got close to the Park, he became aware of a car, an old Volvo estate, parked at the side of the road. Standing next to the car was a woman wearing a short denim skirt and a vest top. Charlie estimated she was in her early forties. Both her arms had various tattoos and her left leg also had a tattoo, which even at a distance Charlie could see it was some sort of depiction of a serpent.
“Here.” One of the youths said – Charlie wasn’t sure which one.
Charlie pulled up in front of the Volvo, as the woman took a drag from the cigarette that dangled between her fingers.
Then without a word, the two youths scuttled from the Ranger Rover clutching the sacks round their middles and jumped into the Volvo.
The woman took another drag on her cigarette; it was a long hard pull as she tried to weigh up how best to deal with Charlie.
“Thanks lad.”
Charlie said nothing.
“As soon as I found out what they’d done, I knew this would happen. I wouldn’t mind, but they’d been warned.”
“What do you mean?” asked Charlie.
“When they heard about the murders, they shot up there …”
“To Beck le Street …?” Charlie wanted to know he was getting the story straight.
“Where else. They were about a mile out of the village when they were pulled over by a copper.”
“What for?”
“Because he felt like it. He told them to steer clear of the place. Well you’ve met my Ewan … so you know how lippy he can be.”
Charlie had no idea which of the youths was Ewan.
“He said something like no one could tell him where he could or couldn’t go. It was a free country … you know all that crap,” continued the woman. “And the copper said he wasn’t warning them, he was just giving them some advice. He said if they went near the place, then on their own heads be it. He couldn’t help ‘em … he wouldn’t help ‘em. And if they ended up dead like the woman on the moors, they couldn’t say he hadn’t warned them.”
“Who was this policeman?”
“I don’t know … just some copper.”
“Did they say what he looked like?”
“Uniform … One of the bosses … Not some PC Plod. So when they arrived back with all the stuff … I knew they’d blown it. I thought I might having been burying the two of them.”
“They didn’t believe this policeman?”
“Yeah they believed him. They know about the place. They just thought if they got out of there, then they’d be safe. They didn’t reckon on them coming after ‘em. But it’s Beck le Street … a law unto itself. Anything goes.”
“Like what?” Charlie was genuinely curious about what they knew about Beck le Street.
“Anything …”
Charlie looked at her … waiting for an answer. He could tell the woman wanted to talk.
“Okay … this double murder that happened …”
Charlie felt the blood start to drain from his face, this wasn’t the gossip he was expecting.
“Well ..” she continued, “I was told that the woman that was killed was having a relationship with the retard. I tell you Beck le Street … anything goes.”
The woman climbed in the Volvo and it pulled away in the direction of the caravan park.
Charlie stood for a few minutes, unable to move. He knew what the woman had just said couldn’t be true, but he still couldn’t get it out of his mind.
But he had to. He had to move on. That was just stupid, ignorant gossip. How many articles were printed in the papers each day that weren’t true?
This was like one of those articles. Someone had made it up, because it was sensationalistic. Charlie had to move on.
He climbed back into his car, telling himself to move onto something else. His father had said that Tyler had a mate in the police force. Someone who looked up the owner of the number plate. Charlie had always assumed this was a low ranking copper, but what if the copper was high up the ladder … a uniformed copper, who allowed Beck le Street to operate its own form of law? This was something worth looking into and something that would take his mind off what the woman had said about his mother and Kyle. That couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jack Wood wasn’t in charge, although he knew he should be. If anybody asked who was heading up the double murder inquiry in Beck le Street, the whole police station in Whitby would say – ‘DI Jack Wood.”
But really Wood knew he wasn’t.
Wood was being manipulated and there seemed little he could do about it. He’d been given his instructions. Told to act. He’d also been told he had to arrest Jed Ashton, despite the lack of evidence. Even though he had a reluctance for the job he’d chosen to do, Wood had a good instinct and he knew going after Jed Ashton was going after the wrong man. He’d been proved right. They didn’t have anywhere near enough evidence to take to the CPS, so they had to let him go without charging him. It had been a waste of time and all the while the real killer was being given the time to put more metaphorical distance between himself and the crimes.
Wood wasn’t sure what to do next. He’d looked through the statements and had quickly come to the conclusion that nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything and nobody
suspected anyone.
Also the only physical evidence was Jed’s fingerprints on the gun. But it was his gun, so it was hardly going to persuade a jury to bring in a guilty vote. No – as far as he was concerned the investigation had been sent down a blind alley, what he couldn’t figure out was why.
There was a knock on his office door. Wood called out, “Come in.”
Some officers left their doors wide open, so whoever could wander in and out whenever. Others adopted the knock and enter without waiting to be given permission procedure. Wood was the only one who adopted the ‘wait to be summoned’ policy. He liked his privacy.
A PC put his head round the door, “Charlie Ashton is at the front desk. Says he wants to see you.”
Wood was surprised. He’d half expected Jed’s solicitor, but not his son. He was obviously going to complain about the treatment of his father. And Wood could hardly blame him.
“Show him through.”
Wood remained in his seat behind his tidy desk in his tidy office. There was nothing personal in his office, no photographs, no commendations, no knick-knacks, nothing. This man had no intention of making his office home from home.
He didn’t have to wait long before the knock came on the door again.
“Come in,’ he said while straightening himself up in his seat. If Charlie was going to attack him, he must look confident, that had been part of his officer training.
The PC ushered Charlie into the office. Wood looked at him for a few seconds before standing to shake hands with him.
“Mr Ashton.”
“Thank-you for seeing me.
“Please … take a seat.”
Charlie settled in to the seat in front of the desk, while Wood remained standing. Another training tip.
“So … what can I do for you?”
“Why would one of your officers advise two youths to stay away from Beck le Street?”
“Sorry …?”
“Two nights ago, two youths were pulled over by a police officer in uniform on the road to Beck le Street. He warned them that if anything happened to them while they were in the village … they were on their own. There was nothing he could do. I was wondering why anybody would say that and who it was that said it.”
