Unti Peter Robinson #22

by Peter Robinson

  Mr. Wythers, owner of Garsley Farm, had invited her in for a cup of tea, and Winsome was grateful for it. She felt as if it had been a long day, though it was still only midafternoon, and she had not stopped for lunch. The slice of Battenberg cake Mr. Wythers gave her with her tea reminded her how hungry she was. It would be back to the station, a quick report, then home for an early dinner followed by an early night.

  “Caleb never said much,” Mr. Wythers was saying. “I don’t mean he was rude or anything, but we weren’t mates, if you know what I mean. He was just a man doing his job, and I was the one who paid him for it. It was just like that. Businesslike, but polite, friendly, you know. I even asked him in for a cup of tea and a piece of cake, just like I did you, but he said he’d just had his lunch. We didn’t chat or gossip or owt, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about him.”

  “That’s all right,” said Winsome. “I’m just collecting whatever bits and pieces I can to try to build up a picture of his last day.”

  “It’s a terrible thing, what happened,” said Wythers. “That pass has claimed more than one victim in my time here, that’s for certain. And you couldn’t see it coming. When he left here it was clear as anything. Clouds, aye, but there’s nowt odd about that. Came like a bolt from the blue, it did. Weather’s like that in these parts and it can be awful bleak out here. It pays to be careful, lass.”

  “I’ll remember that,” said Winsome. “But I think I’m just about done now.” She ate the last small piece of cake, one of the pink bits with a marzipan border, washed it down with the last of her tea and stood up.

  “Sorry I couldn’t be more help, lass,” said Wythers, walking her to the door. “Stay, boy,” he said to the excited young collie who had started to accompany them. The dog sat down by the hearth. “Stay. There’s a good lad.”

  Winsome said good-­bye and stepped into the farmyard. She had seen, and smelled, enough farmyards over the past few days to last her a lifetime, she thought, but at least she hadn’t drawn Annie’s unenviable task of checking out the abattoirs. Still, Annie had come up with a viable lead in the stolen bolt gun and dismissed workers, and Winsome had come up with nothing except the possibility that Caleb Ross might have had something on his mind the day he died. Whatever it was, she guessed that it had lain at the other side of Belderfell Pass, and he had never reached it.

  She started the car and headed back up the long drive to the B road. Instead of turning right to get back to the Swainshead and Helmthorpe road to Eastvale, she turned left toward the high moorland. She remembered this part of the dale well because the potholing club had visited it often. The hills that loomed ahead of her were riddled by one of the largest cave systems in Europe, with miles of underground passages linking huge chambers, some as large as the inside of a cathedral.

  Thinking about her potholing days took her mind back to Terry Gilchrist. She still felt embarrassed about the previous evening. He had rung her that morning, before work, and asked her if she would see him, just to talk. Reluctantly—­mostly because of her embarrassment, not lack of interest—­she had agreed to have lunch with him on Saturday. How long could she go on behaving like a flirtatious virgin around him? Not that she would jump into bed with him—­it was only lunch, after all—­but she would make good on that kiss she had promised herself last night. It had been a long time since she had been romantically and physically involved with a man, that was all. It would take a little practice.

  Beyond Wythers’s farm, which was right on the edge of the high Pennines, the land wasn’t much use for farming and was practically uninhabited. Sheep grazed there, of course, but that was about all. The road turned a sharp left toward Belderfell Pass, and Winsome could see it snaking up the hillside ahead. She pulled over in a passing place and got out to admire the distant view. She probably wasn’t that far from the Lancashire border, she thought, or perhaps she was even far enough north to be neighboring on Cumbria, where the wild fells and moorlands of the Yorkshire Dales would slowly morph into the older, more rounded hills of the Lake District. It was a panoramic but desolate view before her, that was for certain, two or three large hills like long flat anvils, a disused quarry, stretches of moor and marsh. She got her binoculars from the boot and scanned the distance. There were one or two isolated hunters’ lodges, owned by private clubs and used during the grouse season, but that was about all. She was already beyond the source of the river Swain, above Swainshead, and though becks and small waterfalls cascaded from the steep hillsides and meandered through the moorland, there were no rivers or tarns to be seen.

  Shivering in the sudden chill breeze, she got back in her car and decided to take the long way back to Eastvale, over Belderfell Pass. Remembering Wythers’s warnings about the weather, she scanned the sky as she made her way up the winding, unfenced road. Before long, she could feel her ears blocking and ringing, the way they did in airplanes at takeoff and landing. She yawned and felt them crack and clear. The pass wound its way high above the valley bottom over to the next dale. She got about halfway when she encountered the first signs of the accident, the dots of the investigators still working at the scene way below. She could see scatterings of black plastic bags. She slowed down as she rounded a promontory and stopped for a moment to watch the men below, but the perspective gave her vertigo. She never usually had a problem with heights, but even the hardiest of souls had been known to tremble at Belderfell Pass. Going the other way was a lot easier, of course. Then you hugged the hillside all the way. But in the direction she was going, the direction Caleb Ross had taken, there was nothing between her and the sheer drop.

  Soon she realized she had started on the slow and winding descent into the tiny village of Ramsghyll, nestled at the bottom of the hill and famous for its pub, the Coach and Horses, which boasted real ale and gourmet food. Hungry as she was, Winsome didn’t stop, but carried on through the village’s narrow high street, past the pub and onto the road that, beyond Helmthorpe and Fortford, would take her eventually back to Eastvale. Perhaps it had been a wasted journey, she thought as she drove along admiring the scenery in the lengthening shadows, and perhaps it had been a wasted assignment altogether, but she still couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling that the answer to Caleb Ross’s role in Morgan Spencer’s murder lay somewhere in the landscape she had just left behind. She was too tired and confused to do anything about it today, or even to know what to do, but she would approach the problem afresh tomorrow morning and work out just what it was that was niggling away at the edge of her consciousness.

  THE DUCK and Drake was a popular old pub on Frith Street, in the heart of Soho, just a stone’s throw from Ronnie Scott’s. Banks had been there many times before, both when he worked in the West End and when he visited London or went down on business. Like this afternoon. The after-­work crowd usually started congregating early, and there were already a few ­people standing outside smoking and quaffing pints when Banks got there at four. It was a small pub, long and narrow. Banks walked past the crowded bar through to the back room, which was furnished with a few ancient wooden tables and chairs, and found the person he was looking for right at the back table, scaring prospective punters away with his churlish expression.

  Detective Chief Superintendent Richard “Dirty Dick” Burgess stood up and beckoned Banks over, shaking hands vigorously. “Banksy, it’s good to see you again. How’s it hanging?”

  Banks cringed. Burgess was the first person to call him Banksy since his school days. Not that he didn’t admire the artist’s work, but the nickname still rankled. Back at school there hadn’t been the “other” Banksy.

  Burgess had worked for just about every law enforcement agency there had been, every acronym imaginable, had been involved in counterterrorism, drugs, ­people trafficking, airport security, homicide and organized crime. Now he was high up in the new National Crime Agency, the NCA, which had been working on Operation Hawk with the local forces. Thoug
h Burgess wasn’t the go-­to man for rural crime, he oversaw a variety of operations, and Banks was willing to bet he knew as much about what was going on there as the team that had been assigned to it.

  “I’m fine,” said Banks, squeezing himself into the small space on a wobbly chair.

  “I noticed the bar was getting busy,” said Burgess, “so I took the liberty of getting the drinks in. Lager for me, of course, and one of those fancy real ale things for you. Can’t remember what it’s called—­Codswallop or Cock-­a-­doodle-­doo or some such thing—­but the delightful young lady at the bar recommended it.”

  “Thank you,” said Banks, and took a sip. It tasted good. Hoppy and full-­bodied.

  “So you got my message?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” Banks had received a phone call from Joanna MacDonald just after he had left Havers’s office, telling him that she had been speaking with the NCA about his visit. They wanted to talk to him while he was in London and see if they could share information. She had no idea it was going to be Burgess who turned up. Banks doubted that she even knew him. But Banks wasn’t greatly surprised. Burgess had a habit of turning up when you least expected him—­which was, perhaps, when you should most expect him. He and Banks had many points of difference, but they got along well and never let a good argument get in the way of the job.

  He had also received a call from Gerry Masterson to inform him that DC Cabbot and Doug had got two names of possible bolt gun thieves out of Stirwall’s—­Ulf Bengtsson and Kieran Welles. Annie believed that Welles was their best bet, but the team was working on tracking both of them down.

  Gerry also informed him that the Kent police had phoned to report that Morgan Spencer’s removal van had been found on some waste-­land on the outskirts of Dover. Inside were a Yamaha motorcycle and a Deutz-­Fahr Agrotron tractor. Both intact. The whole lot was being shipped up to North Yorkshire as soon as the locals could get transport organized. That came as a shock to Banks, but he filed it away for later.

  “Well, it’s good to see you down here again,” said Burgess. “It’s been too long. When was the last time? That gay spook murder, wasn’t it?”

  “Probably,” said Banks. “I forget the exact occasion. You’re well, I take it?”

  Burgess looked more gaunt than usual, the belly that had been hanging over his belt the last time they met trimmed down, and the extra flab gone from his face, making his cheeks look hollow.

  “Don’t let appearances deceive you, old mate. I’ve been working out at the gym. Given up the evil weed—­Tom Thumbs, that is—­and cut back on the demon alcohol. A little. You should try it. I had a minor health scare a while back, meant they had to shove a camera up my arse on a stick. I must say, though, with the drugs they give you if you go private, you can’t feel a thing. You can imagine my surprise when I found a note stuffed in my shoe afterward saying, ‘I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.’ Still, such is life.”

  “It was a false alarm?”

  “It wasn’t the big C, if that’s what you mean. A small operation soon put things right, and now it’s the healthy life for me.” He knocked back some lager.

  Banks felt relieved to hear that Burgess’s problem wasn’t serious, and he realized that the man sitting opposite him was one of his few remaining friends, one of the few ­people he cared about, though he would never admit it. “It’s that stuff’ll kill you,” he said, pointing to Burgess’s quickly vanishing pint of lager. “All chemicals. You want something like this.” He held up his own pint. “Organic. Good for you. Or red wine.”

  “Same old Banksy, it’s good to see.” Burgess clapped his hands together. “Anyway, enough of this banter. Let’s get down to brass tacks, as you lot say up north.”

  Banks hadn’t heard anyone say that for a long time, except on television satires of northern life, but he let it go by. It was best to do that with many of the things Burgess said, he usually found. “Montague Havers?” Banks said.

  “Yes, good old Monty.”

  “Why is he still walking around free?”

  “Because he’s a devious bastard,” said Burgess. “All right, I know. I’ll say it before you do. I’m a devious bastard, too, and not above bending the rules when it suits my purposes. You and I, we’re from the same side of the tracks. We should understand each other. Thing is, Monty is, too.”

  “But he’s a crook. And he changed his name because he thought it sounded more posh.”

  “It was a business decision. Monty grew up in the East End, like me, when it really was the East End, if you know what I mean. Thing is, when Thatcher started putting the economy to rights and commies like you went off feeling sorry for the poor fucking miners and electricians and factory workers, some of us knew a gift horse when it kicked us in the face, and we took our opportunities where we found them. There were billion-­pound privatizations, hostile takeovers, corporate raids, asset stripping. And very few rules. Great times, and open to all. You didn’t have to be from Eton and Oxbridge to make it back then. All you had to do was throw out your lefty social conscience—­something you could never do, old mate. Those City lads were practically printing money, and they came from the same place as you and me. The mean streets. Shitty council estates. Comprehensives. If I hadn’t already been busy climbing the greasy pole of policing, I might have been one of them, myself.”

  “I’m sure you would have made a lot more money. But things have changed.”

  “Tell me about it. Bunch of wankers we’ve got in there nowadays couldn’t manage a kid’s piggy bank, let alone a fucking economy. But that’s not our concern. If you want to understand ­people like Monty Havers, you’ve got to understand ­people like me. The barrow boys made good. We were young, we were quick-­witted and we were cocky. Not a shade of shit different from the criminal classes you might say, and you’d be right. But we had vim and vision and stamina and, by God, that’s what the country needed. We got things done. So what happened to them when the dream ended? Well, I imagine some of them were damaged for good by the lifestyles of excess, same way as the hippies who’d taken too much LSD. But the others, like Havers, wormed their way into legitimate businesses, like specialized banking, and learned the ropes and how to get around them. Like I said, we were bright and the rule book was out of the window. Now, if you ask me, there’s not a hell of a lot of difference between most of your merchant banks and organized crime, so it shouldn’t come as such a big surprise that Havers is bent. Thing is, he’s learned his tradecraft. He knows intimately the ins and outs of money laundering, invisible transfers, hidden accounts, offshore shelters, shell companies and so forth. He’s always one step ahead of the legislation. That’s why we know him only by his contacts, and by what they do. Some of them do very unsavory things, but Havers never puts his name to anything that can get back to him, never gets his hands dirty. He knows the ­people who can ship you anything anywhere anytime, for a price. He knows where you can get your hands on fake passports, phony bills of lading, thirteen-­year-­old virgins, you name it. He knows which palms need to be greased, and he might supply the funds—­from somewhere squeaky clean—­but he doesn’t do the greasing. See what I mean? He stays out of the world he helps to run, even socially. You’ll find him at the Athenaeum, not some dive in a Soho basement.”

  “I suppose he just had to become a Montague, then. But why the rural crime? I mean stolen tractors, for crying out loud, when according to you Havers could make a million just by the blink of an eyelid. Where does that fit in?”

  “Because there’s a market for them, old son. Multiply one tractor by ten, twenty, whatever. Do you know how much those things are worth? They’re not going to peasants in Bolivia, you know, Banksy. They’re going to ­people who can afford them. It’s not just tractors and combines and pitchforks and what have you, it’s forklifts, backhoes, Land Rovers, Range Rovers, along with all the Beemers and Mercs from the chop shops. Seems
country ­people are often a lot more sloppy about security than us city dwellers. It’s easy pickings, and when you have the know-­how to get it from A to B, you’ve got it made.”

  “There are a lot of ­people to pay off.”

  “Peanuts. I know where you can get an arm broken for twenty quid, two for thirty.”

  “Twenty quid? Them’s London prices, then?”

  Burgess laughed. “Yes. I’m sure you can get it done for half in Yorkshire.” He finished his lager and set the glass heavily on the table.

  “Another round?” Banks asked.

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Banks walked back to the bar. It wasn’t too busy. He thought over what Burgess had said as he waited to get served. If Havers were even half as smart as Burgess gave him credit for, he would be very hard to bring down. On the other hand, Banks thought he’d put the wind up him by the end of their meeting. For one thing, he had let him know that the police knew the names of pretty much everyone they thought was involved. That ought to be cause for concern, even if two of them were dead and Havers believed none of the survivors would dare talk. Whether he would be cocky enough to carry on business as usual remained to be seen. In a way, it wasn’t so much him as the northern branch of his operation that Banks was interested in, especially the person who had killed and cut up Morgan Spencer. If Beddoes was involved, Banks would also make sure he went down one way or another. Someone would talk, given the option of a softer deal.

  When it was his turn, he ordered the same again. The barmaid had an American accent and hennaed hair. She smiled sweetly at Banks as she pulled the pint, but he didn’t think she was coming on to him. It was just her style. Besides, she was young enough to be his daughter. Which reminded him, he had to get in touch with Tracy. They’d planned to go and see Brian’s band the Blue Lamps at the Sage next week. Banks was excited about that, seeing his daughter and watching his son perform on a prestigious stage. He’d call her tonight when he got back home. If he got back. But he had to, he realized. There was so much to be done up there, he couldn’t desert the team and enjoy an overnight in London. There were plenty of trains, and he wasn’t far from Kings Cross. This would have to be his last pint.