Riddled on the Sands (The Lakeland Murders)

by Salkeld, J J

  ‘And if they don’t start shooting?’ he asked.

  ‘Then it’s happy days. Your lads just make the arrests in the usual way, and as soon as your suspects are disarmed and the drugs have been secured then me and my lads will be on our way.’

  ‘And what about the vessel that the gang land from? What if it gets away?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. It will be taken care of.’

  Mann’s phone rang, and he was just about to send it to voice mail when he saw who it was from. ‘Andy’ he said. ‘Are you on your way? I’m heading out onto the Bay with Jimmy’s boys in a bit.’

  ‘You be careful. No heroics now, Ian. Leave that to the soldier boys. And yes, I’m on my way, but I’ve just had a call from Geoff Atkinson. He wants to see me. It sounded urgent, but he wouldn’t say why. Have you seen him about at all?’

  ‘No. But I’ve not been monitoring the CCTV today. You want me to check?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Mann walked across the farmyard in the rain, and climbed into the truck.

  ‘No, mate’ he said, ‘he’s not been out and about much the last couple of days. He was in Capstick’s yard for a bit today, he was there for an hour apparently, but that’s it.’

  ‘Could you see what he was doing in Capstick’s yard?’

  ‘No, Andy, the cameras can’t see round corners, mate.’

  ‘OK. I’ll find out what he wants. He’s probably feeling a bit unloved, that’s all. I’ll let you know if anything happens.’

  ‘I’ll be turning my phone off before we go out there, Andy, but I doubt it’ll be anything important, do you?’

  ‘No. But you’re happy for me to be seen in the village, I take it. No need for any creeping about?’

  ‘Of course not. I don’t think you’d be much good at creeping anyway, mate.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, I think. And listen, good luck, and don’t take any risks. You’re just out there to observe and make the arrests. If they’re carrying the same weapons as last time then we’ve got a decent chance of conspiracy to murder here, and that’s the very least that Jack Bell deserves.’

  When Hall parked in the village the street was quiet, but the rain was falling heavily again, and he could hear peals of thunder in the far distance. Geoff Atkinson’s door opened before Hall could knock.

  ‘Drink?’ he said, when they were inside, holding up his whisky tumbler.

  ‘No, I’m fine thanks.’

  ‘On duty?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m driving.’

  ‘Things must be quiet, if you’re willing to drive all the way out here for no reason.’

  ‘There is a reason. It sounded urgent, and you’re a former colleague. Plus, you helped us no end with the Bell case.’

  ‘Not so as you’d notice. Until today I hadn’t seen a copper round here for days.’

  ‘Until today?’

  ‘Aye. Then I saw one of the unmarked Volvos down at the shop, one of the firearms unit ones.’

  ‘Really? I wonder what they were up to.’

  Atkinson looked at him closely.

  ‘You’re on to them, aren’t you? You know the gear is coming in tonight, don’t you?’

  ‘Geoff, look, I’m sorry, but I haven’t got a bloody clue what you’re talking about. Maybe it was the gun-squad’s staff night out, maybe they were going to a live firing exercise somewhere. Sorry, but I just don’t know where very one of Cumbria Constabulary’s vehicles are at any given time.’

  ‘I stabbed Pete Capstick.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You heard me. I stabbed Pete Capstick. And I’m due to be driving the tractor and trailer tonight.’

  ‘What time?’ Hall didn’t look surprised, but there was an urgency in his question.

  ‘I leave here at half ten.’

  ‘OK. I’ll make a call, but before I do, tell me one thing. Were you going to go through with it tonight? If you hadn’t spotted our car, I mean.’

  ‘Oh aye, of course I was.’

  ‘And you’re not planning to do anything daft now?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Hang on a minute then.’ Hall made no attempt to prevent Atkinson from hearing what he was saying on the phone. ‘Jane, it’s Andy. Geoff Atkinson has just confessed to stabbing Pete Capstick, and to being the gang’s man on the ground. He was due to drive the tractor tonight. This is what I need you to do. First, phone Vic Osman, ask him to tell Jimmy Rae to come round here for the tractor at ten. He’s to leave at half past.’

  Hall looked at Atkinson, who nodded.

  ‘Then I want you, Ray Dixon and the biggest PC you can find to get round here, quick as you like. But not SOCO. I just want Atkinson to be detained here until after the drugs arrests have been made. And can you call the Super for me too, and let her know?’

  Hall listened for a moment.

  ‘No, I don’t know why. I’m just about to ask him that.’

  ‘I might as well have that drink’ said Hall, when he’d rung off.

  ‘Are you surprised? You don’t look it.’

  ‘Don’t I? Of course I am, Geoff. I’d be lying if I said I’d totally eliminated you, but I couldn’t see why, or how, you’d be involved.’

  ‘What do you want to know first?’

  ‘How you ever came to be involved in this shit.’

  ‘I used to take a few quid off a couple of lads from west Cumbria, when I was in the job, like.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just to make sure that they had no trouble landing ciggies, a bit of booze, like. I did it for years, on and off.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Come on, Andy. We both know better than that.’

  ‘OK, go on.’

  ‘I just used to make sure our lads weren’t around, and check that Customs and the Coastguard hadn’t got wind of what was happening. Make sure that there weren’t going to be any unpleasant surprises, like.’

  ‘How did you do that? Were you paying someone off?’

  ‘No, I didn’t need to. Young Simon Healey is so bloody keen, you could barely stop him talking about it. He was forever asking me if I’d seen anything suspicious, and I soon twigged that he was seeing emails from his bosses, whenever they had operations on. He just printed them out and handed them over. But he’s totally clean, Andy, I swear.’

  Hall nodded. So Jimmy Rae wasn’t quite as bad a detective as Hall had thought.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘About three months ago, soon after I’d left the job, I had a visit. Don’t know who he was. Told me that he’d got my name from the Cumbrian lads, and that I’d just started playing in the big league. He gave me five grand in cash, and told me that there’d be another twenty five when the gear was ashore.’

  ‘Did he tell you what it was?’

  ‘No, and I didn’t ask. There was no need, was there?’

  ‘So why didn’t you tell him to get stuffed?’

  ‘I did. Of course I bloody did. He just said that I’d be grassed up quicker than you could say ‘bye-bye pension’, and I was sure he meant it. He told me that they needed someone to drive a tractor and trailer out onto the sands, they’d not done that before, and that I was to do it. I said I couldn’t, that it would be too dangerous, so he told me to get someone else found, and quick.’

  ‘And you chose Pete?’

  ‘Aye, it was easy. I fed him some bullshit about it being a bit of fun, smuggling like, and he bought it. I told him there was a bit of cash in it, and that was it. He didn’t seem to realise what it would be like. What the people would be like. He didn’t even know it was gear, the prat.’

  ‘And you didn’t feel the need to tell him?’

  ‘No, God help me, I didn’t. He was happy as Larry to be going out there the night that Jack got shot, he’d been talking about it for days. I could hardly shut him up about it. It all seemed like a game to him, like.’

  ‘And then Jack got shot.’

  ‘Aye. He told me that they
’d just started loading the trailer when they heard Jack’s tractor, and he got quite close before they even saw him. Pete’s engine was running see, and the outboards on the boat were too. One of the lads on the boat jumped off, and shot Jack before he’d got five yards away from his tractor. Pete said that someone else opened up as well. They didn’t shout a warning, nothing, just shot Jack down. Jack called out to Pete first, but then the shooting started.’

  ‘Then what? They took Jack’s body?

  ‘Oh aye, they chucked it in the boat. They’ll have weighed it down somehow, when they were out in the deep channel, and chucked him over the side.’

  ‘Did someone tell you this?’

  ‘I was told he was dead.’

  ‘And this was another house call, was it?’

  ‘No, on the phone. He left a mobile for me to use.’

  ‘Do you still have it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you do with it?’

  ‘Same as the knife. Walked out at low tide, buried it in the sand. You are a clever bastard, Andy.’

  ‘And when did he tell you it was tonight?’

  ‘Yesterday, tea time. About then, anyway. I got rid of the phone after.’

  ‘And what about Pete Capstick? What about that poor bastard?’

  ‘He was coming apart. I knew he wouldn’t hold out much longer. He didn’t want to grass me up, but he was going to, I could see it in his face. In his eyes. I told my contact, and he told me to kill him.’

  ‘Told you?’

  ‘Aye. He said I was in for Jack’s death as well, and if I didn’t kill Pete then they would. And it wouldn’t be quick.’

  ‘And then they’d come for you too, I suppose?’

  ‘Aye, something like that.’

  ‘Did you know he’d taken those pills? Pete, I mean.’

  ‘Not at first, no, but yes, I worked it out soon enough, like. He just lay there. Didn’t wake up, didn’t ever even see me, thank God.’

  ‘All right, we’ll get all this in a statement later. Is there anything else that you can tell me about tonight then, Geoff? Are they making for the same place as last time?’

  ‘Aye. Same GPS co-ordinates.’

  ‘And who will be there? How many exactly? Do you know? Did Pete tell you?’

  ‘Aye, he said he thinks there were five. One never left the boat.’

  ‘And two were armed?’

  ‘That’s what Pete said. But maybe that’s the only ones who fired. I don’t know, and Pete was in such a state after I don’t think he did either. Not for certain, like.’

  ‘OK. Jimmy Rae, the lad who’ll be driving the tractor, will be here in a bit. You’ll need to tell him everything you know.’

  ‘I don’t know him. Is he one of the firearms lads, then?’

  ‘You could say that’ said Hall. ‘But tell me this, Geoff, why didn’t you contact this bloke and tell him that you’d spotted our car?’

  Atkinson looked away. ‘I did. I went to the pub at lunchtime and borrowed a phone, like.’

  ‘So why didn’t they abort? Or move the drop, at least.’

  ‘He told me I was imagining things. But he told me to check with Si, see if he’d had any alerts, but only to contact them again if he had. So I checked, and there was nothing. So I didn’t contact him again. But I knew, I knew bloody well. The more I sat and thought about it, the more certain I was. Like I say, you’re a clever bastard, Andy. And I guessed that you had me down as the prime suspect anyway.’

  ‘And so you thought that the only way of avoiding going out there tonight was by owning up? That’s why you did it?’

  ‘Aye, that’s about it.’

  ‘Jesus, Geoff, you’re going to be doing a lot of years, whatever the CPS decides to go for over Capstick.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to try anything daft? Even if you get away from here you know it’s all over. You let me make the call, for Christ’s sake. Everyone knows it was you, mate. It’s over.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, Andy.’

  ‘Have you taken something? Have you? Come on, let’s get it out of you.’

  As Hall stepped forward Atkinson reached behind him. A wide muzzle pointed at Hall.

  ‘It’s only a flare gun, Andy, but it’d still kill you. It’d go straight through you from this range. So you stay where you are, while I sit down here.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Not long. It’s funny, isn’t it, looking back, like. When you’ve taken a wrong path, and you know it like, but you can never get back, can you? No matter how hard you try, you can never get back to the right path.’

  Hall was angry. He surprised himself.

  ‘But you haven’t tried, have you, Geoff? Not really. You stabbed a friend, someone who only wanted to impress you, to do what you wanted. And you repaid him like that. You could have given yourself up at any point, given us the details of that first drop, but you didn’t. Why not?’

  But Atkinson didn’t answer, and his arm dropped a moment before his head did. Hall ran forward, and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one. He reached for his phone.

  ‘Vic, it’s Andy Hall. Can you get those paramedics who are with you down to the village right now. No sirens, no hurry. Geoff Atkinson has taken an overdose, and I’m sure he’s dead. But I need to be sure there’s nothing we can do for him.’

  Hall sat and waited, trying not to look at Atkinson as the darkness settled around him, until Jimmy Rae knocked at the door. Hall let him in, and stood back.

  ‘Blimey’ said Rae, when he caught sight of Atkinson’s body. ‘Your interrogation methods are even rougher than ours. And Ian Mann told me that you were a bit of a big girl’s blouse.’

  A mile and a half out on the Bay Ian Mann was too tired to think about anything other than putting one foot in front of the other. They’d had to take a long detour back along a channel until they found a spot shallow and safe enough to cross at. And his shoulders and knees were aching now, because of the weight he was carrying and the speed at which they were moving. And what made it worse was he knew that the pace had been reduced because of him. He’d felt old when they’d started, and he felt ancient now. He had no idea how much further they had to go, and he knew that questions weren’t encouraged. In fact, they weren’t permitted. They marched on in silence. They’d reach their objective, all of them, and it made absolutely no difference to anyone how much pain he had to go through before they did.

  It was very dark now, and raining hard, and Mann had long since lost sight of the shore on the far side of the Bay. And he hadn’t looked behind him once since they’d set out. He just concentrated on the footprints of the man ahead of him, and tried to hit the same ones. It had been easy enough when they’d left, but now he was having to make an effort to keep his stride as long. He hoped that the man behind him, who he knew would be checking behind the group as they walked, hadn’t noticed. But Mann felt himself stooping under the weight of his pack, and he badly wanted a drink of water.

  The man in the lead must have been a mind-reader, because he stopped, and everyone sunk to their haunches. ‘Two minutes’ someone said, and Mann slipped off his pack and reached for his water bottle. No-one asked him if he was OK. He looked at his watch. If everything was going to plan Jimmy Rae and the Police firearms team would just be leaving the shore somewhere behind him, but when he looked back he couldn’t see anything. And ahead of them the Bay and the sky had merged into one. Mann put his bottle away. He noticed that none of the others had even bothered to take off their packs.

  Jimmy Rae had watched, amused, as the armed Police Officers climbed onto the back of the trailer. They looked scared, but Jimmy doubted that they had much to worry about. Because if the gang decided to shoot it out the whole thing would be over before they’d even been authorised to fire. His only real concern was that they didn’t shoot at any of his men.

  But he was driving now, and as soon as they hit the sand, and he felt th
e heavily loaded trailer swaying behind him, Rae stopped thinking about anything but navigating his way out to the rendezvous. He’d walked it several times, always at night, but now, high up on the tractor and with the headlights casting a pale yellowish light, he wasn’t so sure. But according to the GPS route he’d plotted he was on the right route. He just hoped that the sands hadn’t shifted significantly since the last high tide.

  Rae eased the hand throttle back as he approached the edge of a channel, carrying rain water down from the fells and out into the Bay. It seemed deeper, faster than it had been before. Rae made a decision, and pressed the throttle forward, and watched as the headlights played across the rippled water. The angle seemed steeper than it had before, and he felt the rear wheels slip sideways as the trailer followed him down. And a second or two later the tractor was stuck fast.

  It took almost twenty minutes for Rae to get the tractor free, and safely onto the other side of the channel. The Police officers were wet through, but the air was becoming warmer all the time. The rain had eased off, but Rae still saw the occasional distant flash of lightning and thought, for a moment, that he caught a glimpse of the Blackpool Tower, lit up by nature’s illuminations.

  He knew that he’d be late to the rendezvous now, because it was too dangerous to try to increase his speed even more, but Rae had no intention of radioing the lads to let them know. He knew they’d wait for as long as they needed to, and if needs be they’d be picked up by the rib that he knew was circling quietly far out in the Bay.

  Rae glanced down at his GPS. It told him that there were only a few hundred yards to run, and he couldn’t see any sign of a boat pulled up on the sand. He couldn’t see his own guys out on the sands either, but that was no surprise. As he reached the target area and throttled back he heard a powerful outboard being gunned, somewhere nearby, and a spotlight flicked on just offshore, pointed his way.

  Rae was wearing Atkinson’s oil skins, his hood was up and he had a beanie hat on too. There was no way that anyone on the boat could identify who was on the tractor, nor could anyone be heard over the sound of the engines, or the wind. Rae waved, and drove forward slowly, trying to encourage the boat to beach before he came too close. He needed to leave his guys a safe firing angle.