Death on Account (The Lakeland Murders)

by Salkeld, J J

  After a bit of detective work Andy Hall found Jane Francis in one of the conference rooms with Gill and Alison. As soon as he walked in he realised it would be awkward. So he stood there, mute, until Jane introduced him.

  ‘This is DI Andy Hall, he’s our SIO, and I expect he’s come to sweep me off my feet. Isn’t that right boss?’

  That didn’t make Hall feel any better. He mumbled something, and backed out of the room.

  Twenty minutes later Hall and Jane Francis arrived at Williams’ house. Tonto was still there, talking to a couple of colleagues who were standing at the back of a big, unmarked van. It was getting warm again, and Tonto was drinking a can of fizzy drink.

  ‘Rots your teeth’ said Hall.

  ‘So do carrots.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Probably. Possibly. I avoid all vegetables, just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘So can we go in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do we need to suit up?’

  ‘No, contaminate away. We’re all done.’

  ‘Anything of interest?’

  ‘No signs of forced entry, and none of the prints we lifted have matched the database, except for Williams himself of course. And a right little charmer he was too, looking at his previous. If I didn’t know better I’d guess that he was our killer.’

  ‘I wish. OK, thanks. Anything else?’

  ‘Not really. He’d had company recently, probably Monday night, there’s prints we can’t identify on a glass by the sink. The one next to it has his prints on. Traces of Bourbon in both. That seems to have been his tipple.’

  ‘Have you sent the other glass off for DNA?’

  ‘Can do, if you want. We’re done here, so just lock up when you go would you. I don’t think Mr. Williams will be coming back.’

  Hall and Jane Francis stepped cautiously into the house. They both noticed the silence, timeless and deep. Hall found himself commenting unnecessarily on the things he saw, just to fill the vacuum. He had to force himself to stop.

  ‘So what are we looking for, boss?’

  ‘Well, I’d be interested in anything that tells us about the way he lived, his lifestyle, and whether he left in a hurry when he came down to meet me.’

  ‘And his maker. He seems to have been pretty tidy. Don’t think much of his furniture though.’

  ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead, Jane. In any case this house was rented. But it doesn’t look as if he entertained all that much.’

  ‘Neighbours say he was quiet as a mouse. Didn’t go out much, no visitors to speak of.’

  ‘But Tonto says that he had one on Monday night.’

  ‘Very few visitors then, or possibly un-observant neighbours.’

  ‘No such thing. When you’re retired it’s in the job description to twitch your curtains on the hour, every hour. And looking at the reports from the door-to-door they’re mainly retired round here.’

  ‘Fair enough. And with the Cafferty re-trial on the go I suppose he had every incentive to keep his head down.’

  They walked upstairs, and looked in the main bedroom.

  ‘No pictures of family’ said Jane.

  ‘Didn’t have any. None that he was in touch with anyway.’ Hall opened the wardrobe, and looked through the clothes. ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘What is, boss?’

  Hall had bent down, and pulled out three pairs of shoes, all leather and polished. ‘He was wearing trainers when he was killed.’

  ‘Yes, what of it?’

  ‘Probably nothing, but he didn’t really strike me as the athletic type. And they didn’t quite go with his clothes somehow. Not that I’m qualified to judge’ Hall added quickly. More than once since his wife had left he’d had to change his tie after one of the kids had said it didn’t go with his shirt. He was never quite certain why.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, Andy’ said Jane, smiling. ‘But I see what you mean. So you think he wore trainers because he thought he might have to run for it?’

  ‘It’s possible’ said Hall, ‘but tenuous.’ He walked out into the hall and Jane followed. ‘You know one thing is odd, about me, not him. Normally I feel quite strongly when I see the victim’s stuff, knowing that they’ll never see any of it again, but this time I don’t feel a thing. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes’ said Jane cautiously. ‘But do you think that would make you a less effective detective, if you don’t feel any empathy towards the victim? Sometimes emotions can get in the way, can’t they?’

  ‘Spoken like a true professional’ said Hall. He’d meant it as a compliment, and he started back down the stairs without a backward glance. It was a moment or two before Jane followed him down. It was a good thing that he couldn’t see her expression.

  To his surprise Hall was able to get home in time to eat with the children that night. Alice, the oldest, had her exams coming up, and she needed high grades to get in to York, her first choice university. But she seemed to be reasonably relaxed, was eating properly, and wasn’t doing too many hours. But unlike him she was a night-bird, so he couldn’t be absolutely sure that she was getting enough sleep.

  ‘I read that geniuses work better at night, while plodders like me work in the morning’ he’d said.

  ‘You’re PC Plod’ said Alice, laughing.

  ‘Inspector Plod, thank you very much’ said Hall, trying to think of something other than schoolwork to talk about. He never asked about the girls’ boyfriends, or any aspect of their emotional life. He hoped that their mum was taking care of that.

  ‘I’m going out later’ he said.

  ‘Is it Gill again?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Hall watched Alice as closely as any suspect, trying to gauge her reaction.

  ‘It’s fine to bring her round here you know. We wouldn’t mind’ said Alice, going back to her jam roly-poly.

  Hall didn’t really feel like going out, and hoped that Gill didn’t want to talk shop. That was the last thing he wanted. They’d met through work it was true, but as far as Hall was concerned hobby-bobbies like Gill weren’t the real thing. But within five minutes of them sitting down in a quiet corner of the wine bar she was indeed talking about work. But not the Williams murder, so Hall sat back, sipped his pint and listened.

  ‘I was out with Nobby the other day, before I got called in to work with Jane. And you won’t believe what we saw.’

  Hall tried to look as if he expected a surprise, if not actually a revelation.

  ‘Some knob-head was pelting a disabled kid and her mum with burning lumps of charcoal off a barbecue. You know, over a garden fence. It was disgraceful.’

  It only took Hall a moment to mentally flick through the list of likely names. ‘Let me guess, the knob-head in question was Terry Walker.’

  ‘Yes, how did you know?’

  ‘Kendal’s a small town, and we don’t have a murder every day. So I’ve had a couple of run-ins with Terry, and his feral kids come to that. I know that they live next door to a family with a disabled child, so it wasn’t difficult. A very, very depressing man. But whenever I see him I always try to look on the bright side.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Without a word of a lie, Terry’s brood, plus no more than a dozen similar families, if you can call them that, keep half the station in work. There’d be even more redundancies if it wasn’t for the likes of them. Honestly, that the truth. Anyway, did you nick him?’

  ‘No. Nobby wanted to, but we got called away, to work on the other thing, you know.’

  Hall nodded. ‘Nobby’s a good lad. He would have nicked him if he could. He can’t stand Terry Walker, I know that for a fact.’

  ‘But Nobby was very friendly to Walker. I was surprised.’

  ‘That’s why he’s a good lad, and a good copper. It doesn’t matter how hard they push Nobby, he never loses it, but he never backs down either. He tried to nick three lads who had been on the rob at the old people’s home, just down from where Terry lives, a
bout two years ago, and they gave him a terrible hiding. But he managed to keep hold of one of them until back-up reached him. Fortunately the lads who got away were helpful enough to resist arrest later on that night, which made a lot of coppers feel better. Nobby was off work for months afterwards though.’

  ‘So can’t anything be done about Terry?’

  ‘Nobby wanted to nick him, didn’t he? And the trouble is that we’ve had a few problems with Eleanor, the neighbour, so she’s not the best prosecution witness when things come to court.’

  ‘No way. What trouble has she been in? She seemed lovely.’

  ‘She’s kicked off at the hospital a couple of times, about her daughter. She’s on some pretty strong anti-depressants, which she sometimes doesn’t take. So she’s had a couple of cautions lately. It’s all down to living next door Terry Walker of course, crown prince of all the knob-heads.’

  ‘So we can’t do much about it?’

  ‘No, we’re not social services. But come to think of it, they can’t do much either.’

  ‘But where does Terry get his money from? Surely he’s at it?’

  ‘You mean crime, or benefit fraud?’

  ‘Either. Both. They had a TV the size of their patio door.’

  ‘Terry’s not stupid, but he’s unpredictable, and on the piss most of the time. So the working villains wouldn’t use him for anything worthwhile. He does a bit I expect, they all do, but a master criminal he’s most definitely not.’

  ‘And it doesn’t bother you? That he just gets away with it all the time.’

  ‘Of course it bothers me. When I first joined the job I thought there were probably very few bad people, and lots of unlucky ones. Now I know different. And, to be honest, I don’t really care what made them the way they are. I just want to get the really shitty ones off the streets for as long as I possibly can. The rest is someone else’s problem.’

  ‘Isn’t that just giving in?’

  Hall smiled. It was time to change the subject, and he was sure that Gill knew that too. It was one of the things that he liked most about her. But it was only one of the things he liked.

  Friday, 26th April

  Andy Hall was in the office before seven, but Tony Sheridan was obviously an earlier starter still. There were three notes on his desk, all in Jane’s hand-writing, the earliest timed at just after six. And they all said the same thing. ‘Call DI Sheridan - URGENT.’

  Hall put his phone on speaker, dialled Tony Sheridan’s number, and called out for Jane. She came in to the room as Sheridan answered.

  ‘What’s up, Tony?’

  ‘Emilio Sanchez. He’s your man, even though he sounds like he should play in midfield for Liverpool. More aliases than you can shake a stick at, and we still don’t know where he went from Liverpool. You guessed right by the way, he dumped a phone, and we got lucky. He dropped it in a bin just inside the door. It’s one that doesn’t get used much, so it’s only emptied once a week. He’d wiped it before he dropped it, but we got three partials off it. Absolutely no question, it’s him all right.’

  ‘He’s a pro, I take it?’

  Sheridan laughed. ‘We can just add our warrant to the pile mate. Quite the little grim reaper is Emilio. Ten killings on three continents that we know about, plus we don’t know how many more. Apparently he’s Columbian by birth, but no-one knows where he spends his time. And a garotte is his favourite weapon. He’s an up-close specialist.’

  ‘Charming. So we’ve got no chance of nicking him?’

  ‘Not a one. Even if he does get nicked at some point we’ll be at the back of the queue for a chat. So do you want to get down here and talk about what’s next, or shall we talk through where we go from here on the phone?’

  Jane held up her hands as if she was holding a steering wheel, and Hall nodded.

  ‘We’ll come down. At the very least we’ll buy you and your team a beer.’

  ‘It’s a bit early, even for Scousers.’ Hall laughed. ‘Seriously, I’m a bit surprised that he let us find his prints. It seems a bit sloppy for such an old hand.’

  ‘I see what you mean, but maybe he wasn’t that bothered. He knew that by the time we worked out who he was he’d already have changed planes and passports twice. And maybe he doesn’t mind if people know it was him. Maybe he puts his prices up because of it. Anyway, thanks for letting us know so quickly. When did you find out?’

  ‘I got woken up by an over-excited young DC at four. She said I was a genius, and I didn’t like to tell her that it was your bright idea. Rather nice she is actually, Andy, so thanks for that.’

  Sheridan must have heard Jane’s laughter. ‘Bugger, am I on speaker-phone?’

  ‘You are, but don’t worry about it. Listen, we’ll be down for nine, and thanks for the news.’

  ‘You don’t sound entirely overjoyed.’

  ‘I’m not, Tony, and you know as well as I do why that is. With Sanchez away we’re going to have a hell of a job tying this back to Cafferty, and finding out who it was who gave Williams up. So it’s just one step forward, two back in a way.’

  ‘Yeah, understood. Let’s talk about it when you get here. You’ve already won the whodunnit award from this station for the month, maybe the year, so let’s see what brainwaves you can come up with later on today.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on any’ laughed Jane.

  ‘You going to stand for that, Andy?’ said Sheridan.

  ‘No, and now we all know who’s going to be driving us down this morning. See you in a couple of hours, Tony.’

  Hall rang off, and he spent the next ten minutes writing an email to the team, and he attached the photo of Sanchez. He barely more than glanced at him himself, because he knew that he’d never meet the man in person.

  ‘Charlie Coward is going to love me’ said Hall, as he and Jane walked out to her car, ‘his troops are going to have to re-canvass everywhere they’ve already been with that photo now, and it’s a total waste of time really. We know it was him, and it’s never going to court. Not Sanchez, anyway.’

  ‘Can’t you get Charlie to let it go then? Or not put many people on it?’

  ‘He’ll probably do that a bit himself, God knows he’s overstretched enough, but of course we still need to place Sanchez here with certainty, assuming we get some others in the frame for the conspiracy later on. And that’s really down to Tony and his team, working this from the Liverpool end. So I’ll be interested to see what they’re like.’

  They talked about the case for the first half hour of the drive, and Hall took a brief call from Robinson.

  ‘He’s chuffed’ said Hall, when he’d rung off. ‘So what are you up to this weekend, Jane? Not working I hope.’

  ‘I’m not sure yet, Andy. I’ll play it by ear.’ She wasn’t sure why she’d been so evasive, because her weekend was already pretty well mapped out. A long lie-in on Saturday, chores, and probably an hour or two in the office on Sunday. ‘How about you?’ she asked, but not until they’d driven another mile.

  ‘Much the same’ said Hall cautiously. ‘But I tell you what: I’ll enjoy it a bit more now we know who our killer is. Because at the very least it’ll keep Robinson off my back for a while, and it should help us put an end to this daft stuff about Ian or someone else from our nick grassing up Neil Williams.’

  When they arrived at Sheridan’s station Hall couldn’t help but get a case of facilities envy. The station itself was the usual sixties monstrosity, but inside there was lots of shiny new technology. Even the carpets were clean. And Hall was impressed by Sheridan’s team as well. They seemed bright, keen, and there were plenty of them too. When they were all settled in the briefing room, a picture of Sanchez on the interactive whiteboard, Sheridan stood slightly to one side and brought them all up to speed.

  ‘We’ve now got Sanchez boarding a shuttle to Heathrow at 1830, traveling under the name Ramirez, on a Mexican passport. We’re checking to see if he travelled out of the UK on the same passport, or a different one,
assuming that he’s left at all. For obvious reasons it might take a day or two to be sure.’

  ‘Understood’ said Hall, ‘have you got him arriving at the airport?’

  ‘Yes, on foot. Matt, would you run the footage?’

  They watched the CCTV footage of Sanchez coming through the revolving doors.

  ‘Anything from the drop-off area?’

  ‘No. It doesn’t look as if he was dropped off there.’

  ‘That’s a shame, so we may struggle to find the vehicle that brought him?’

  ‘Give us a chance, Andy, we’re working on it.’

  ‘Of course. There must be hours of the stuff to go through, even though we know when he arrived. So how about the phone, anything?’

  ‘It’s with the techies now. I’ve asked Donna to come and join us if they get anything. But it had the SIM in place, so we should get something out of it. Like you said on the phone, Andy, maybe he’s happy enough for us to know who he is. I can see that it could be good for business in future, if everyone knows what a quick, efficient killer he is.’

  ‘That sounds good. So how about Cafferty? Based on the assumption that he’s behind all this, which we all think is a fairly safe one, then how might he have sorted all this international hit-man stuff. Is it his usual speed? Has he done anything like this before?’

  ‘Gary will take that’ said Sheridan.

  ‘DS Gary Chivers, and the Caffertys are my specialist subject. No, actually I was surprised that they went out shopping for Sanchez, and as far as we know Billy hasn’t used him before. As far as he’s concerned foreign starts on the far side of the Mersey Tunnel. Usually Billy only works with a very small number of trusted lieutenants, no more than three, and if one crosses him then he deals with them himself. And that doesn’t mean a pay off and a fat pension. Soon after he took over from his dad he found out that one of his senior lads was skimming from their prostitution income, and we fished him out of the Mersey back in the late ‘80s. It was hard to tell what had been done by a ferry and what by the killer before the man died, but it looks like Billy Cafferty took his time doing the job. So he rules by fear, and it’s worked well for him so far. He’s our number one target criminal, but we’ve never had a reliable tip about him. Look at his record. Thirty years a working criminal, and he’s hardly been inside. He did six months for a nasty road rage incident, he punched a sixty year old woman in the face when she nipped into a parking space.’