Mower glanced at the crushed metal beneath them, half hidden in the ditch, then at the haulage yard behind them where a container truck was just manoevring its massive bulk through the gates and out into the lane, and at their own car where Rita Desai, dark and anxious, and DC Steve Blake, red-headed and built like the proverbial barn door, were leaning against the bonnet, waiting silently for them to finish their conference.
“I’ll see if an RTA’s been reported,” Mower said, pulling out his mobile and calling into the control room at police HQ but the exchange was brief and the answer negative.
“Nothing reported by traffic,” he said. “No ambulance called.” He hesitated for a moment. “We need back-up, guv,” Mower said. Thackeray nodded, tight-lipped.
“The super told me to lay off Hussain’s businesses,” he said. “But in the circumstances I don’t think we’ve any choice but to go in. I don’t suppose I’m going to be very popular afterwards, so I’m giving you the option to come with me or not. It’s up to you.”
Mower glanced at the two detective constables standing a little way away by the Rover. Rita Desai met his eye and gave him an uncertain smile, Blake, stolid as always, cupped his hands to light a cigarette against the blustery wind.
“Leave those two outside,” he said. “I’ll come in with you, guv.” Thackeray glanced at Mower gratefully.
“Right,” he said. “That makes sense.” They walked across to the two junior officers waiting for instructions. “Kevin and I are going in to see Trevor Dale. Bring the car up to the gates and wait there and keep an eye on what’s going on. If you get the impression we’re in any sort of trouble get on the radio and get reinforcements up here fast. But we’ll play it cool - just a visit for a chat with Dale as far as they’re concerned, a chance to have a quick look round as far as we are. Right? Any questions?” Steve Blake looked slightly relieved that a decision had been made and shook his head but Rita Desai gave Mower an anxious look.
“I’d rather come in, sarge,” she said.
“And I’d rather you didn’t,” Thackeray said flatly, ignoring Mower. “You stay outside in the yard. You’ll be just as useful keeping your eyes open there.”
They drove slowly to the main entrance. The flash of warrant cards got them quickly past a burly man on the gate and then a slight, pale girl in an outer office, who rushed ahead of them into an inner room where three men were sitting around a table piled high with papers.
“Mr. Patel,” Thackeray said curtly, following closely on the receptionist’s heels, as he recognised the accountant, who looked less than happy at the intrusion.
“Mr. Dale, I tried to tell them you were too busy…” the receptionist broke in anxiously.
“Why don’t you go and make some tea, Patsy,” the older of the other two men said. Stocky, greying at the temples and with a broad face seamed with determination and disappointment in equal measure, Trevor Dale faced the intruders with some belligerence.
“What can I do for you, chief inspector,” he asked, leaning forward with his hands flat on the table in front of him. He did not make any attempt to introduce the third member of the group, a much younger man in jeans and a dark jacket, with tousled brown hair and anxious blue eyes which never left Thackeray’s from the moment he walked into the room. “I thought you’d charged someone with Imran’s murder.”
“Oh, I have, Mr. Dale,” Thackeray said. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the case is closed, does it? And so far you’ve not been available for us to ask you one or two questions about your role in all this.”
“What the hell do you mean, my role?” Dale asked.
“Let’s leave that on one side for a moment,” Thackeray said quickly. “Before we pursue that, I want to ask you whether you or any of your men were aware of a road accident which seems to have happened just outside your gates? A hundred yards down the lane? A green VW Beetle?”
“No-one’s told me owt about it?” Dale said dismissively. “I can get the lass to ask around if you like.” He crossed to his desk, pressed a button on the phone and Patsy came back into the room looking even more anxious than before.
“There’s two more police looking round the yard,” she said when Dale had explained what he wanted. “Looking at the trucks an’that.”
“Have you got a bloody warrant to poke around like that?” Dale asked.
“I’m sure you’d want to know just as much as we do if one of your trucks has been involved in a nasty collision,” Thackeray said mildly.
“I told you. No-one’s said owt about a collision to me, and you can bet your life that if they’d done any damage to one of my wagons, I’d be told. Bank on it.”
“Good. But that wasn’t the main reason we came up here,” said Thackeray switching tack and attracting the intense interest of the other two men, who had studiously ignored the discussion so far. “And we don’t need a warrant to ask you to explain some discrepancies in your business affairs which give us the impression that you and the Hussain brothers have been involved in some deals that may not be quite as straight-forward as they might be.”
“What do you mean, discrepancies?” Dale asked, his colour rising.
“In the computer records,” Mower said at a glance from Thackeray, whose self-control looked as though it might be beginning to fray. “As you probably know, we examined some of the company’s books during the course of our investigation into Mr. Hussain’s murder.”
Dale glanced at Patel, who turned in his chair to face Mower with a self-confident smile.
“I’m sure you found absolutely nothing in the computer records which could give Councillor Hussain or Mr. Dale any cause for concern,” he said.
“That’s right,” Mower said cheerfully. “It wasn’t what was in the current files which bothered us. Much more what had been in them and had then been erased, incompletely, as it happens.”
Mower had Patel’s total attention now.
“What do you mean, incompletely?”
“You obviously didn’t know that when a file is deleted that doesn’t necessarily mean it is erased, just that it becomes inaccessible - unless you know how to find it, of course.”
“You stupid Paki bastard,” Dale said, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind whom he was addressing or why. Outside in the yard Thackeray watched idly as another huge container lorry made the difficult swing into its parking place and the driver climbed down from his cab, stretching wearily as if after a long journey.
“I think perhaps it would be helpful if Mr. Dale and Mr. Patel came down to headquarters so that we can continue this conversation more formally,” he said abruptly. “Though you could tell me one thing now, Mr. Patel. Have you ever used the name Sharif locally, Azul Sharif?”
“Of course not, why should I?” Patel said. “You know I’m not a Muslim. Why would I use a Muslim name? Why would I use any name apart from my own?”
“So if we asked you to meet some of the people who know Azul Sharif you’d have no difficulty with that?” Mower asked. “People like the Haque family, for instance?”
“No difficulty at all,” Patel said.
But Mower was becoming aware that something was wrong. Thackeray was staring out of the window behind Dale’s head with such intensity that Mower moved slightly to see what he was watching. But it was the young man sitting at the table and facing in the same direction as the two policemen who spoke suddenly.
“Oh, damnation,” he said. “The bloody consignment’s arrived early.”
Dale and Patel swung round and all five men watched in silence as the doors of the newly arrived rusty red container swung open slowly after the driver unlocked them and a young dark man in traditional Asian dress jumped out, blinking in the daylight as if he had been shut up in the dark for a very long time. He was followed by another man, and then another, until a dozen stood in a confused group in the centre of the yard.
“A Muslim name would be useful, I imagine, if you were making arrangements for Pakist
anis to be brought illegally into the country,” Thackeray said as everything fell into place.
But he turned back towards Dale and Patel to find himself facing the barrel of a small pistol which the Asian had pulled from an inside pocket of his suit.
“I don’t think that’s going to help you very much,” Thackeray said quietly, but he was very aware that there was not the slightest tremor in Patel’s hand, or sign of hesitation in the dark eyes and he knew that Mower, a step or two behind him, was standing as unnaturally still as he was himself. Both men guessed that the man with the gun had already killed at least once and would not hesitate to do so again.
“Mobile phones,” Patel said. “Give Dave here your mobile phones. Do it!” The last two words were rapped out and Thackeray and Mower moved quickly to comply. Outside they heard confused shouting and they glanced back to the window, to see that the recent arrivals were milling around in what looked like panic as a new force of men poured into the yard. Briefly, Mower saw Rita Desai talking to a tall blond man in jeans and sweatshirt, and gesticulating in the direction of the office.
“Please God, don’t let anyone rush in here, especially not her,” he said to himself and was actually relieved to see the immigrant group suddenly break apart and run in different directions, some making for the gates, others trying in vain to scramble up the high metal fence which surrounded the yard, hotly pursued by whoever it was who had arrived to meet them. Dale and Patel had exchanged words in a low voice and now Patel waved the gun in the direction of a door at the back of the office.
“In there,” he said. The storeroom was small and windowless and lit by a single light-bulb hanging from the ceiling.
“You’re making a big mistake,” Thackeray said levelly as Dale made to close the door on them. “Give us Safi Haque, and Laura Ackroyd, if you’re responsible for the wreck of her car and her disappearance too, and things will be much easier for you. If they’re dead - or have been left to die…”
The door slammed shut before he even had time to finish and they heard the lock turn and what sounded like heavy bolts being drawn shut. Thackeray stood with one hand on each side of the door, fists clenched and his head bowed and for once in his life, Kevin Mower was lost for words. He felt something soft beneath his feet and glancing down he found he was standing on a sleeping bag and he realised that they were not the first people to be imprisoned in the tiny room.
“That looked like the regional crime lads outside,” he said. “Someone’s got through to them. We’ll not be here long.”
“That’s the least of our worries,” Thackeray said. In fact it was five minutes or more before they heard movement again in the room outside and Mower banged pre-emptorily on the door. It was opened by DC Steve Blake, looking white and shaken beneath his thatch of bright ginger hair.
“Out here, sir,” he said, almost inaudibly. “Quick.” They ran outside to find the yard still milling with people as the illegal immigrants, most of them now in handcuffs, were being shepherded into a fleet of police vans parked outside the gates. At the other side of the yard Thackeray noticed the tall thin figure of Ray Roberts and realised that he was witnessing an immigration operation of which he had been kept in total ignorance.
“Bradfield CID. Did you get those bastards?” Mower asked a passing police officer he did not recognise. “The ones with the gun?”
“Sorry, mate,” the uniformed sergeant offered over his shoulder. “They were in the wagon before we even noticed them in all the mayhem. And an Escort followed them out. Went out shooting, too. Someone’s down over there.”
Mower and Thackeray looked in the direction he had indicated and saw a crowd kneeling around someone on the ground close to the gates. Seized by a terrible fear Mower ran the twenty yards without taking breath, and he knew that Thackeray was close behind him. Gasping, he found himself looking down at the sprawled figure of Rita Desai, lying on her back, her face pallid and her eyes closed, her dark plait of hair lying limp in the dust and a pool of blood still spreading beneath her from the wound in her chest. Mower said nothing, looking with mute appeal at the man who was closest and had a hand gently on the side of her neck feeling for a pulse. Their eyes met and Mower did not need to be told that Rita was dead.
He turned away abruptly, pushing past Thackeray who had barely taken in what had happened, and walked out through the metal gates onto the narrow lane. He crossed the road and leaned over the rough stone wall, digging his fingernails into the grit until it drew blood, and gazing over scrubby fields and a sprawling council estate at the small grey town spread out in the valley below. His eyes blurred with tears, and he felt as if was gazing down at the entrance to hell.
“Oh, you bastards,” he said, between clenched teeth. “Oh, you bloody, fucking bastards.”
He sensed rather than heard Thackeray behind him until he felt a hand touch his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Thackeray said.
Mower nodded dumbly, taking deep breaths to steady himself before he dared to turn around, leaning back half propped against the wall for fear his knees would buckle beneath him.
“I need you, Kevin,” Thackeray said. “They’ve got Laura, and the Haque girl. They’ve got a gun and no fear of using it. And when we’ve found them we need to deal with the idiots who set this operation up without telling us.”
Mower pushed himself upright with difficulty and swallowed hard.
“Right,” he said. Thackeray turned away without daring to look at the misery in his dark eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Laura was not much given to introspection. She remembered school reports which had monotonously suggested that she should think before she acted, look before she leaped and generally curb her impetuosity. Staring into the impenetrable darkness she wondered whether, if she had listened to all that good advice, things would really have turned out very differently.
She knew that if she had not followed Dave Swinburn when she had the chance, there would have been no possibility of discovering where he had been heading. There had not been time to call for help, had there? she asked herself. When it came to the point, she had no choice but to follow, no way of avoiding what had happened?
But she knew she was lying to herself. She could have called Thackeray at any time on the drive up to Dale’s haulage depot, not recommended practice with a mobile phone, perhaps, but in an emergency surely permissible. It had been pride this time which prevented her from seeking help, pride and the anger which had burned deep inside her ever since she had discovered that he had lied to her for so long. She looked like paying a heavy price for that now, she thought bitterly. She was trapped with an unconscious school-girl in a truck heading at speed to an unknown destination and she could not imagine any way she could escape.
Wearily she put her head on her bruised knees and shut her eyes, hoping that the darkness inside her own mind would be less oppressive than the black void around her. She was sitting with her back to the wall of the container, close to the silent girl on the floor who had, as far as Laura could tell, not moved since the lorry began its journey.
How long ago that was now she could not tell. Time seemed to have ceased to exist in the black metallic belly of the beast which was carrying them. Once or twice she had switched on her mobile phone again but without result and she feared that the small red light was beginning to fade as the battery began to weaken. They were as cut off as if they had been dropped to the bottom of a deep well, and as helpless. No-one could possibly know where they were.
Eventually the juddering movement of the lorry stopped and after several lurches which sent Laura sliding across the dirty floor, scraping her knees and hands again, there was silence. Laura strained her ears for what seemed like hours before settling back against the wall again with one hand on Safi’s wrist where she could feel a faint pulse. Much good that would do her, Laura thought. The container, she realised, has been lifted and detached from the trailer. She suspected that the two of them had s
imply been dumped and left to die.
She could put up with the unfairness of that, she thought. Just. She had taken a risk and had lost and to that extent what had happened had been her own fault. What hurt was the thought of those who would miss her. She thought of her grandmother, enjoying a holiday in spite of herself with her son in Portugal, oblivious to the danger she was in. And, with an almost physical pain, she thought of Michael Thackeray, who probably knew by now that she was missing and that his life was about to be torn apart again. She knew he did not deserve that.
“Dear God,” she prayed to a Deity she did not believe in. “Dear God, if you get me out of this, I’ll try to make amends.”
Michael Thackeray prowled around superintendent Jack Longley’s office like a caged animal, barely able to contain his anger and anxiety and not trying very hard.
“I should have been kept informed,” he said, not for the first time. “With two inquiries likely to clash, I should have been told.” Longley sighed heavily.
“I told you to keep away from the Hussain business once you’d charged the boy,” he said, restraining his own impatience with some difficulty. “You took no bloody notice. You’ve only yourself to blame that the whole thing went pear-shaped. Immigration wanted the whole operation kept under wraps. They got their back-up from the regional crime squad.”
“They didn’t trust us,” Thackeray said and they both knew that he meant Longley, not himself. “And because they didn’t trust us I’ve lost a good officer, a young woman who deserved better. Kevin Mower’s beside himself and there are two women missing. What an appalling bloody mess!”
“Have her family been told?” Longley asked shortly.
“I went myself,” Thackeray said. “With her superintendent from Leeds. It was the least I could do.” He did not want to be reminded of the precarious dignity of Rita Desai’s parents as they listened in silence to the news he had brought them. “She was an only child,” he said. Longley avoided Thackeray’s eyes.
Dead on Arrival Page 23