Deadly Serious

by Jean Chapman

  ‘Are you expecting more trouble?’ one man asked.

  ‘Are those bikers still in the village?’

  ‘We believe they are no longer a danger to you at this moment.’

  ‘So have you arrested all the trouble-makers?’ another asked.

  ‘No, they’ve not,’ a robust, middle-aged woman who had just bustled across the green and into the shop, red-faced and breathless, said, ‘I can tell you, I live opposite 24.’ She paused for breath and jerked a thumb in the direction of the pall of smoke behind her.

  ‘I’ve seen it all but none of this lot wanted to listen to me and Mr Thompson.’ The gesture now was at the policeman standing next to her.

  ‘Come on, Mrs Brompton, this is not the time,’ the constable said.

  ‘Oh! Know me, do you?’ she retaliated. ‘Then you should know better than to try to shut me up.’

  Big, Irish, red-faced, Madge. Cannon realized he knew her too, or knew of her. Her husband had been a regular for breakfast at The Trap, a lorry-driver who had transported Lincolnshire produce all over the UK and beyond. Cannon had heard he had died. So this was where Madge had finished up.

  A paramedic came hurrying over to the inspector. ‘We’re ready to leave,’ he said, ‘and he’s conscious.’

  The inspector hastily handed over to the constable and, leaving the situation and his car in his care, went to climb into the back of the ambulance, which left immediately.

  ‘Those bikers,’ Madge continued, ‘they were after something they didn’t find. They went through that house like a hoard of rampaging elephants, but they didn’t find the man – not at first. I saw him come earlier. He was loading things out of the garden shed – planks, signs and things. He must have managed to keep out of sight for a bit, and – cheeky bugger – he’d backed up on poor old Mr Thompson’s drive.’

  He remembered Thompson had talked about planks, supports and a ‘Road Closed’ sign.

  ‘But next thing that happened, one came out of the front door with a fur rug, a settee thing came hurling through the window. Another clever sod brought a can of petrol, doused the rug thing and threw it back in through the window, a lit match after it. The place went up in no time. Scary, that was. I’m getting a bloody smoke alarm, I don’t mind telling you.’

  ‘Mrs Brompton,’ the constable tried to stop the flow, ‘these people should be getting to their homes.’

  ‘We want to hear this first,’ one said.

  ‘They should hear,’ Madge asserted, ‘don’t you try to shut me up, this is still a free country.’

  Somebody muttered a doubt and she rounded on him. ‘It’s what we make it,’ she told the doubter and she was encouraged by several to go on. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘this bloke who’d been fetching things from the shed suddenly runs out and tries to get away in his van, but he’d no chance.’ She blew out her cheeks and shook her head. ‘They had ’im in a short time, and they thanked their God, I can tell you, you could see by their manner. I should ’ope he’s praying to ’is ’cause I reckon he’ll need divine intervention to save himself.’

  ‘We saw the van race off across the green,’ one said.

  ‘So where are the bikers?’

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘With the police all blocking the way out of the Crescent, they took off over the back fields, across crops and crashing through fences and gates like it was a bleeding rodeo.’

  ‘Have you come here for a reason?’ the constable asked. In spite of his riot gear, he was obviously feeling disadvantaged in front of this Irish virago.

  ‘I’ve come to pick up my neighbour’s girl, she stays with me until her parents get home from work.’ A tall, intelligent-looking girl came to stand by her side, raising her chin as if defying anyone to contradict her parents’ friend.

  ‘And I can’t stay here or at home, I have to go to work,’ a man said, ‘so if it’s all right I’ll …’

  The constable stood back and it was the signal for all the adults to gather up their children and any others they knew and escort them home.

  Cannon followed Mrs Brompton out of the shop. ‘Mrs Brompton, I knew your Billy well. I’m landlord of The Trap public house. I was sorry to hear of your loss.’

  ‘Ah!’ she exclaimed. ‘He loved your breakfasts.’ She added with direct and honest sincerity, ‘You never get over it, y’know, you just get used to it. Nothing’ll bring m’dear man back.’

  He walked a few steps with her and said, ‘So did I understand you went to the police about the goings-on at number 24?’

  ‘Nah,’ she said, ‘I waylaid some inspector in the street when I was shopping. I’d just been talking to Mr Thompson, and don’t try to tell me that was anything other than bleeding murder, and he said this inspector bloke getting in his car was the man he had seen at the police station, who had more or less just shown him the door.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he did the same to me, just got in his car and drove off. We all knew something was going on there. If my Billy had been here he’d ’ave sorted him out.’

  ‘The police will want a statement.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell ’em, don’t you worry!’

  ‘We could do with a few more like you and your Billy about,’ Cannon said, and she reached forward and laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and there were tears in her eyes.

  He watched her go, straight-backed, and as she and the young girl walked back across the village green she paused and the two of them flattened any churned-up turf they came to.

  He remembered Billy coming into the pub with an injured forearm where she had hit him with a shovel. ‘I love her to bits,’ he had said.

  Chapter 19

  Maddern had heard of a listening silence. He had never known exactly what it meant until the moment he lay being watched, but unable to see, listening to the breathing of the man who stood looking down at him in the back of the Peugeot.

  ‘It was recognizing one of your family that got me into this mess,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t take much, does it?’ There was the noise of a shoe scuffing, coming half a step nearer. ‘And I really liked the lad, young Danny,’ he said, ‘and you’d be his uncle.’

  He listened but could hear only the wind now, the noise of the ride had stopped. Perhaps it was only being tried out for later in the season. The wind was strong, would be whistling along the beach picking up dry sand. A memory of his young daughters trying to shelter from its sting came to him.

  He felt he was poised to take a step into the unknown, and he wasn’t sure it was the future, as he added, ‘But I guess given the chance you would be a very different uncle to, say, your own Uncle Sean.’

  No sound.

  ‘Danny could do with a good uncle,’ he said.

  Chapter 20

  ‘So the London lot have a member of the Jakes family?’ Liz’s face was grave. ‘Plus, Jones, his wife and the undercover officer on surveillance are missing.’

  ‘Like Maddern and his car …’ Cannon muttered on his way up from checking the cellar. He paused at the top of the steps, viewed the new handrail and the very clean floor below him, and added, ‘Still missing.’

  ‘If they make that man talk …’

  ‘When,’ he corrected.

  ‘So when they make him talk, all the action is going to move to those three cruisers.’

  After the trauma of finding Danny and his mother between Boston and the sea, he thought the action looked likely to be the battle of the River Witham in the opposite direction. He wondered if the Jakeses now would risk taking those slow-moving boats all the way to Lincoln? And were Jones and his wife on those cruisers with Godfather Jakes, heading – they hoped – for the old man Jakes’s last, long-planned gamble for a life of Riley, for unlimited luxury and consummate indulgence?

  Liz watched Cannon standing silent, motionless, but as if poised for immediate action, and knew that for the moment he would not hear anything, no matter what outrageo
us statement she concocted – she’d tried that many times. When he strode off to the kitchen, she followed.

  She watched him rummage through the pockets of his outdoor coat and pull out a printed leaflet she saw showed the inland waterways of East Anglia. He seemed to be trying to judge the distance between Boston and Lincoln.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Liz asked. She added his name when there was no response. ‘What are you thinking, John?’

  He looked up. ‘Cruisers are slow. Can the Jakeses afford to travel in such a leisurely manner now? The pressure is on….’ he was saying when he was interrupted by a knocking at the front doors.

  Both looked at their watches. ‘Hardly time,’ Liz said. ‘Someone’s got a thirst.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ he said.

  When he unbolted the inner doors he saw a white Mercedes van outside. For a second he was apprehensive, then swore at himself. He was in danger of believing every large white van was engaged in something dodgy. The young man who grinned at him through the panes of the outer doors certainly wasn’t.

  ‘Hi,’ he called, ‘hope you don’t mind my knocking.’

  ‘Not if there’s a good reason, or your watch is fast,’ he answered.

  ‘You remember me?’

  ‘Callum, from the boatyard,’ he replied, looking down at the brace of rabbits he was holding.

  ‘These are for you. I’ve just seen Mr Hoskins, he sent them,’ he added, ‘and …’

  ‘And?’ Cannon studied the sudden look of concern on the young man’s face. ‘There’s something else.’

  The youth nodded.

  ‘You’d better come in.’

  ‘I had a word with Mr Hoskins and he said it was best to talk to you.’

  ‘He’s usually pretty sound in his judgements,’ Cannon said, ‘but don’t tell him I said so.’

  Callum laughed. ‘It’s just that I know there’s something going on, and he said there’s been trouble in Reed St Clement – he heard it on the local radio. Shooting he said?’

  Cannon confirmed it all with a nod, adding, ‘so he gave you the rabbits as an excuse for the visit.’

  ‘Something like that,’ he was saying but when he found himself in the kitchen with Liz, he seemed a bit embarrassed.

  ‘Is this men’s talk?’ Liz asked.

  ‘It sort of involves a girl,’ Callum admitted.

  ‘I think you can safely say we’ve both seen enough life to be very broad-minded,’ Cannon said.

  Callum still looked doubtful but, seeing the leaflet from the boatyard on the table, walked over and looking down at it said, ‘The thing is I have a girlfriend who lives near Bardney. Her people run an art gallery combined with a restaurant, and most evenings I drive over there to see Cathy. Last night we went for a run in the car, then we walked through the woods to the river, and those three cruisers my boss sold were all moored up there.’ He looked up now. ‘They were the Boston side of the first locks going up towards Lincoln, and I wondered if they were in trouble. I brought …’ he pulled a folded map-book from inside his black jacket, ‘to show you exactly where I’m talking about. Those men hadn’t seemed very expert to go off with three boats in the first place, and in the hands of amateurs there can be problems navigating locks. Wouldn’t be the first time a holiday-maker has got a boat too near the lock gates, flooded and sunk it.’

  ‘So you went to the boats?’ he asked.

  ‘We just walked along the towpath past them at first.’

  ‘So who was with them?’

  ‘No one,’ Callum said, ‘and when we walked back we had a closer look.’

  ‘Went aboard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  This answer was hesitant.

  ‘There was, like, party food and wine, spirits, all kinds left there, doors all open and everything.’

  ‘Did you go on all the boats?’

  The young man nodded. ‘I knew we shouldn’t, but there’d been the money in the carrier-bags. I knew there was some kind of scam.’

  The police would eventually need the fingerprints of this couple who had gone from boat to boat. ‘So, three empty boats,’ he said, ‘and you saw no one?’

  ‘Not then,’ he said. ‘This is where it gets a bit embarrassing….’

  Cannon and Liz waited.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Cathy and I began to walk back through the woods. It was much later than we intended, but the sky was sort of light and Cathy’s lived there all her life, never lost in that area….’

  Another Brownie point for local knowledge, Cannon thought.

  ‘And our eyes were used to the dark by then, so we could see quite well. We stopped after a time, you know and … after a while….’

  In the real old films, Cannon thought this would have been where the camera would have switched to waves crashing up on a beach. It endeared him to young Callum that at least he was a bit embarrassed talking about it. ‘You came back to this world and realized there were other things going on,’ he suggested.

  Callum grinned. ‘Not far away from us, actually.’

  He unfolded the map book. ‘Here’s Bardney and the lock; the boats were here. We left the car here,’ he pointed to a spot where a minor road neared the river, ‘and after we’d been on the boats, we must have walked to about …’

  They bent forward to see that the immediate area was marked with the National Trust and picnicking symbols. Callum put his finger in the middle of an area marked ‘Bardney Limewoods’ and now the pause was more meaningful. ‘It must have been because we were lying down that they did not see us, and believe me we stayed lying down, hardly dared breathe. But I recognized their voices, and once one of them came near enough for me to see him in outline. Looked like Shrek in the dark. They were definitely the men who came to the boatyard and paid in notes for those boats. But though they must have come quietly enough, we didn’t have to listen long to know there was trouble. They argued in whispers for a start, but were soon shouting at each other.’

  ‘You could hear what they said?’

  ‘Some bits. At first it was more general impressions. Some thought it was “all over”, but an older man, you could tell by his voice, said it was only the timing that would be different. But one was furious, raised his voice, said if the moaner had talked the “other lot” would know where they were going. The older man said the moaner didn’t know where they were going, only the family knew, and once they got there they were safe. They could fly out whenever they wanted to. They only had to wait for the vans. Then they decided they’d move “the stuff” nearer the road once they’d had a rest. We knew we had to move then. We slowly edged our way back until we were behind some thick bushes, then got to our feet and legged it as quietly as we could.’

  ‘Would you be able to pin-point exactly where they were?’ Cannon asked.

  ‘Cathy’s marked it.’ He pointed to where a faint dot had been inked in.

  ‘And you came straight here, so how long ago was this?’

  ‘I took Cathy home, we talked about it on the way, I decided to go to Mr Hoskins, then here …’ He consulted his watch. ‘A couple of hours or more I guess.’

  ‘A couple of hours or more!’ Cannon exclaimed as he picked up his mobile phone.

  ‘There’s something else, I—’ the young man paused, then rushed at it, ‘I took a bottle of wine and a blanket off one of the boats.’

  Cannon frowned to hide his true feelings. There was always the little things, the stupid things people did on the spur of the moment. ‘Where are they?’ he asked.

  ‘In my car, I thought I’d just throw them away.’

  ‘No, leave them here, I’ll deal with them.’

  While he went back to his car, Cannon phoned Austin, told him briefly what he knew.

  ‘Ah!’ Austin exclaimed. ‘Just what I needed. The man taken must have talked….’

  ‘Poor sod,’ Cannon muttered.

  ‘The Faima bikers were heading in precisely the direction you’ve indicated and we’ve had r
eports of several large white vans leaving Lincoln in that direction. We’re trying to seal them off. It looks like being a major operation. I just thank God that it seems to be in an isolated spot. Tell that young man, his young lady and their families to keep well clear. The next few hours are going to be very tricky.’ Austin paused then added, ‘And we’ve found our surveillance officer, the body of our surveillance officer – he was twenty-nine, just married.’

  Cannon felt a burning anger knot his stomach.

  Chapter 21

  Maddern knew he was dealing with the trickiest thing in the world, a strong, powerful man’s emotions.

  ‘Danny.’

  The voice was thick, guttural, flat.

  ‘Yes, Danny Smithson, he used to deliver my newspapers. I like the lad.’ Bound, helpless, his voice his only weapon, he tried to keep it level, sounding as normal as possible.

  ‘Carol.’

  ‘His mum, yes.’ Maddern’s hopes soared ridiculously. ‘A nice girl, she’s done her best for him.’ He listened intently, tried to gauge this brain-damaged man’s reaction. ‘It can’t have been easy for her, in the circumstances.’

  ‘Cir … cum … stan … ces?’ Jockey climbed the word like it was a flight of steps.

  ‘Family pressures, you know all about those,’ he said, inwardly wincing, this was where it could all go wrong, ‘being told what to do.’

  ‘T-told what to do.’

  ‘Even when you don’t want to do it,’ Maddern ventured.

  ‘Yes.’

  The agreement was like an electric shock. He forced his voice to stay steady. ‘You could help save Danny from that. He’s a good kid. Sean—’

  ‘Sean!’

  The name exploded out like a dull thud, a blow, a dum-dum bullet, and the next moment he sucked in air as hands fell on him, held him, shook him. ‘What can I do? What?’

  ‘Get free of the family, go to him, stay close to him and Carol. He’s lost his father, he needs someone. They both do.’

  The hands that had shook him gripped tighter and Maddern knew this younger man had a strength way beyond his own. Punch-drunk he may be but powerful he certainly was. ‘Sean’s at the house,’ Jockey said.