Lies That Blind

by Tony Hutchinson

  He drove down the driveway onto the car park, parked up by the steamer station. They both got out.

  ‘She can’t have come too far down here or she’d have run into you. She’s definitely come off the road though, so let’s start at the top and work our way back down here.’

  The rain was getting heavier.

  ‘Fuckin’ weather,’ the second man groaned.

  ‘Least it means nobody will be hanging about. What would you prefer? A summer night, sunshine and wicker picnic baskets?’

  They heard a vehicle and ducked down by the public toilet block, their black clothing melting into the shadows.

  The vehicle didn’t drive past.

  ‘Must have turned off,’ the second man said.

  They crept back towards the road, eyes searching, ears listening, two poachers stalking human prey.

  Chapter 51

  Leisure and tourism in the Lake District means two things to most people: walking and water sports. Ullswater had both.

  Lying face down under the leaking, long-abandoned carcass of an upturned wooden rowing boat, nose pressed into the gravel, forehead resting on her forearms, she shivered, clothes soaked by rain, surface water, and the rotting hull that was wet to its core.

  She tensed her whole body, fighting to control her shivers, frightened she’d make it too easy for them by shaking the boat, scared they would hear her pounding heart.

  James Fenimore Cooper’s book ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ flashed into her head. She had no idea why. She hadn’t read it since school. Maybe the boat resembled a canoe? Not that she was going on the lake in this leaky death trap. Even Sam Parker couldn’t make this thing float.

  Daylight was still hours away, and she knew in this pissing rain, passers-by would be rarer than rocking horse shit.

  Rainwater dripped through the leaking hull onto the back of her head, but neither the rain nor the sound of her own breathing blocked out the whispers she could hear getting closer.

  ‘Be quiet and watch where you’re walking,’ the driver hissed. ‘Christ you’re making enough noise to wake the dead.’

  ‘These stones are soaking. I’m going to break my neck.’

  ‘Well do it fucking quietly.’

  They stopped and looked around; eyes already adjusted to the blackness.

  Under the trees and bushes adjoining the road they could make out two upturned rowing boats about twenty metres apart.

  The driver tapped his associate on the shoulder, put his forefinger to his lips, pointed at the boats.

  The second man nodded.

  On tiptoes they reduced the distance with each careful step.

  Twenty metres from the nearest boat the driver tapped his accomplice’s shoulder again and put his mouth against his ear.

  ‘Let’s fan out,’ he said. ‘You go to the left. I’ll go the right. We’ll get to opposite sides of the boat together, then she has nowhere to run.’

  ‘What are we going to do with her?’ the accomplice whispered back.

  ‘I was just going to drive her away, find out what she said to the police, ask her what’s she playing at. No point now. They’ve put her in hiding. That can only be because she’s filled them full of shit.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Dangerous place this in the dark. People get lost. She’s going to take a long walk off a short pier. Tragic accident but I suppose there’s worse places to drown. Fell off a jetty, bashed her head on the rocks and game over. Now let’s get her found and get the hell out of here.’

  They split up, hunting dogs in a pincer movement closing in on a rabbit. They stopped after each step, eyes glued on the boat, bodies ready to sprint if she made a run for it.

  They reached the bow of the boat and crouched opposite each other.

  The driver raised three fingers on his right hand.

  The second man nodded, ready to grab the front of the boat.

  Two fingers.

  One finger.

  The last finger folded over and four hands grabbed the boat and threw the front up.

  Sound travels further and clearer in the country than the city.

  His ‘fuck’ was muttered but it cracked like gunfire, the sound of a boat crashing back down an explosion.

  They ran to the second boat. No need for stealth now. No need for a finger count.

  They yanked up the hull, lifted it to chest height and pushed it backwards.

  She threw her hands around her face and shielded her eyes from the fierce, bright white light.

  ‘What the fuck?’ said the driver, hand dropping to his leg, torch shining on his black trainer.

  Two types of light hit the men: vivid white illuminated them like actors on a stage, ominous red dots peppered their torsos.

  The combination of dazzling roof-mounted spotlights from the roaring BMW X5 and the ear-piercing repeated shouts of ‘armed police’ left them frozen.

  ‘Get on the floor! Hands on your heads! Now! Do it now!’

  Harry Pullman and his accomplice hit the ground quicker than the discarded boat.

  Eight figures dressed in combat black and pointing MP5s emerged from their hiding places in the trees and encircled the two men.

  ‘Stay where you are. Don’t move.’

  A gloved hand reached for the woman, pulled her to her feet.

  ‘About bloody time. I’m in the early stages of hypothermia here.’

  Bev Summers winked at the AFO, walked past the inner cordon and got into the back of the waiting car.

  ‘Turn the heater up before I catch my death,’ Bev said, slamming the rear door.

  Sam turned up the fan speed. ‘Better?’

  Bev nodded, pulled a soggy cardboard box from her coat pocket and snatched a cigarette. It snapped just above the filter, shreds of tobacco fluttering in the warm, blown air towards the floor.

  ‘Brilliant!’

  She threw the packet with such force it bounced off the gearbox tunnel, ricocheted from the dashboard and hit Sam before the floating strands of tobacco had landed on the carpet.

  Bev sat back, stared at the roof lining, counted loudly to five. ‘Don’t suppose anybody can spare a fag?’

  Sam and Tara, who spent the count focused on the windscreen fighting to keep straight faces, burst out laughing.

  Sam passed her a cigarette. ‘You okay?’

  Bev steadied her shaking hands, lit up, inhaled.

  ‘Apart from the fact I’m half frozen to death, pissing wet-through and my nicotine levels are dangerously low, I’m absolutely fine and dandy.’

  Smoke drifting from her nostrils formed a thick, low-level, eye-stinging fog.

  ‘And I never got to see the look on their faces because of all the lights. First their torch, then the main show. Who was it?’

  ‘Harry Pullman and one of his mates,’ Sam said.

  ‘As expected,’ Bev looked with something like devotion at the glowing cigarette end. ‘No show without Punch…you okay Tara?’

  Tara shuffled forward, half turned, watery eyes blinking at Bev through the cloud of smoke.

  ‘Good thanks, although I was shitting it when I thought the post box was one of them.’

  Sam laughed, more relief than humour, explained the significance of the post box to Bev.

  ‘I must have been under that bloody canoe for an hour or more,’ Bev said. ‘Absolutely Baltic. Poor buggers who are homeless. Makes you wonder. I’m going to volunteer at a shelter when this all gets sorted.’

  ‘Very public spirited,’ Sam said.

  ‘And I’m going to read The Last of the Mohicans again.’

  ‘What?’ Sam’s head snapped left in surprise.

  ‘Last of the Mohicans. Got to thinking about it when I was under that bloody canoe.’

  Sam shook her head, smiled. ‘It was a rowing boat. Look, I’ll drop you two off. You can get a shower and a cuppa.’

  Bev leaned forward, her head between the front seats, exhaled smoke from her puckered lips.

  ‘Don�
��t know about you Tara but warm shower, warm clothes is a must.’

  Tara nodded, lit her own cigarette.

  ‘But you can stick the tea Sam, I need a drink...a proper drink.’

  Smoke and woody damp latched onto Bev’s hair, clung to her clothes. She was a herring being kippered in a Northumberland smoke house. The coughing fit began.

  Instinctively, everybody opened their window.

  Bev stuck her head out and gulped fresh air before settling back into the seat and the cigarette.

  ‘How was everything when you left the hotel Tara?’

  ‘Wet, but all good.’

  ‘All good?’ Sam said. ‘Clockwork more like. Went like a dream.’

  ‘I just got past the Glenridding Hotel,’ Tara said, excitement in her voice. ‘Jumped in the back of Sam’s car when she drove past.’

  ‘You should have stayed there,’ Bev said. ‘The front seats are for police officers only.’

  ‘When I’ve dropped you two off,’ Sam said, ignoring the jibe, ‘I’ll go to the local nick, thank all concerned and see what we’ve got. The spotter in the hotel did a good job, giving us the heads up when Tara left, so I need to thank him.’

  Bev shivered. ‘Least he was warm and dry.’

  This time she blew smoke through the window but it still kick-started another coughing fit.

  ‘Those firearms lot sent the willies up me,’ Bev said, ‘when they started bawling and shouting and they’re on our side. God only knows what Toot and Ploot made of it all.’

  ‘Toot and Ploot?’ Tara was thrown.

  ‘She means Harry Pullman and his mate,’ Sam said.

  ‘Shit themselves I bet,’ Tara grinned. ‘Good enough for them.’

  Sam looked over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m leaving a couple of AFOs outside the White Lion just in case there’s any more of Pullman’s mates in the area.’

  Tara’s smile vanished. ‘Do you think there’s more?’

  ‘Just a precaution, Tara. Don’t worry, but make sure you stick to Bev.’

  Harry Pullman, arms cuffed behind his back, walked towards the lock-up van, firearms officers by his side. He saw Sam in the driving seat of her vehicle.

  ‘Parker,’ he shouted.

  Sam stuck her head out of the window.

  ‘Everybody’s been played here, you included.’

  She got out of the car and stood with her left arm on the roof.

  ‘Bent bastard Whelan told me where to find that lying slag.’

  He nodded towards Tara in the front seat.

  ‘I came here to find out what shit she had told you lot. I’ve got fuck all to do with any shootings.’

  ‘Save it for the interview,’ Sam said, ducking back into the car, the signal for the AFOs to put Pullman in the van.

  ‘I’m telling you Parker,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve all been played here. Ask yourself who by. Bent cop’s my bet.’

  Pullman was still shouting when the back doors of the van slammed shut.

  Chapter 52

  Sam parked close to the only vehicle at the far end of the White Lion car park.

  Bev jumped out, jogged towards the VW camper, towards Ed Whelan leaning against its bonnet, the thick-trunked trees and their huge branches sheltering him from the rain.

  ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ she said, stopping short of throwing her arms around him.

  He smiled; arms outstretched. ‘Disgraced and abandoned.’

  Sam and Tara caught up.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Tara demanded.

  Ed Whelan smiled again.

  ‘You okay?’ Sam said.

  ‘Never better,’ Ed said. ‘You lot want a brew in Doris before you go?’

  ‘Not got anything stronger?’ Bev said, the cold and the soaked clothes temporarily forgotten.

  ‘You’re on duty,’ Ed said.

  ‘Not for much longer I’m not.’

  ‘Go on then, get the kettle on,’ Sam said.

  Tara’s head swivelled from one police officer to another, hands on hips, legs bent at the knee. She was oozing indignation.

  ‘Will somebody explain what’s going on here?’

  ‘Already boiled,’ Ed said.

  ‘Cup of tea and a few extra minutes won’t hurt,’ Sam said. ‘I called round to see Sue this morning.’

  ‘Went well did it?’ Ed sighed.

  Tara turned up her volume and glared at him. ‘Which one are you shagging then?’

  Ed ignored her as he stepped into the van, filled four plastic mugs with boiling water and put them on a plastic tray.

  ‘Well as you could expect,’ Sam said. ‘I told Sue everything would work out, but the fact that you’d never answered her calls and were splattered all over the papers didn’t help.’

  ‘The last thing I needed pulling this together was outside distractions and that included the soon to be ex-Mrs Whelan.’

  Steam rose towards their faces as they each lifted a mug.

  ‘You made your mind up then?’ Sam said.

  ‘Sure have,’ Ed said. ‘I’ll be the talk of the Gurdwara. Corrupt and seeking a divorce.’

  Tara nodded towards Ed, sipped on the tea. ‘I thought it was Bev but maybe it’s Sam...or are you doing them both?’

  Nobody responded, just carried on as if Tara was nothing but empty space.

  ‘What’s Harry said?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Just that her ladyship here is full of the proverbial,’ Sam slurped the tea.

  ‘Well he would say that wouldn’t he,’ Tara snapped, straightening her legs, planting her feet.

  ‘I want everything boxed off tomorrow Sam,’ Ed said. ‘Reputation restored.’

  ‘Hello,’ Tara shouted. ‘I am here. I’m not a tree.’

  Sam nodded. ‘Appleton will be livid. Bad enough you’re not bent, but when he finds out the suspension was all fake...’

  Tara’s eyes flicked around the group, brain trying to compute what was unfolding.

  ‘Will somebody tell me what the fuck’s going on!’

  Bev lit a cigarette, offered them around. ‘He’s livid? I was only told the suspension was all a set up just before I climbed under that boat and I’m supposed to be your mate.’

  ‘Appleton’s a knob,’ Ed said. ‘No idea how close I was to knocking his lights out. As for you not knowing Bev, sorry, but needs must. If the likes of you were genuinely shocked, no one would think the suspension wasn’t for real’

  ‘I give up,’ Tara said, inhaling on the cigarette, stepping closer to Bev. ‘Have your private police conversation.’

  Ed closed Doris’ sliding side door and stepped backwards from the cloud of smoke hovering above him, away from the smokers spewing their pollution into the Lakeland sky.

  ‘So Tara,’ Ed said, acknowledging her at last. ‘Now we get to hear what Harry thinks about all of this, although I can tell you when I spoke to him, he was saying what he’s saying now, that you’re full of shit.’

  Tara drew deep on the cigarette, blew more smoke into the darkness. ‘And?’

  The word hung in the rain.

  ‘He’s bound to say that isn’t he. He’s the gangster, not me.’

  Ed stepped towards her. ‘But some of what you told Bev is shit, isn’t it?’

  Tara straightened her back, inhaled deep on the cigarette and forced smoke through her oval mouth towards Ed.

  ‘Such as, Sherlock?’

  Ed ignored the smoke, didn’t give Tara the satisfaction of a reaction. ‘Like how your mother was an alcoholic.’

  ‘She is.’

  Ed poured as much sarcasm into his smile as he could.

  ‘Didn’t look like it when I spoke to her.’

  Tara’s contorted face echoed the cold aggression in her voice.

  ‘Whatever. More faces than the town clock that woman. Trust you to believe her.’

  Ed backed away from the next plume of smoke that was forcefully and deliberately blown towards him.

  ‘And I spoke to your w
ar hero, wheelchair-bound stepfather. Not exactly your archetypal rapist.’

  Tara threw the mug into the bushes with a sudden swing of her arm.

  ‘You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I think I do. Your stepfather is paralysed. He can’t have sex.’

  Tara stepped towards Ed, her tone poison.

  ‘You’re all the same aren’t you. No wonder victims don’t come forward, don’t want to report.’

  She raised the cigarette to her eyes, examined it before speaking again.

  ‘Doesn’t mean he can’t look. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to try, does it? Doesn’t mean he can’t use his hands or let his mates have a go.’

  ‘Is that the part when they came upstairs?’ Ed paused, a barrister preparing to deliver another verbal blow. ‘Even though you lived in a bungalow.’

  It was Tara’s turn to grin.

  ‘I never said we didn’t live in a bungalow.’

  ‘You lying cow,’ Bev spat out the words, anger shooting through her pointed index finger.

  Tara shrugged her shoulders. She drew on the cigarette again, savouring the nicotine hit, relishing the verbal fist fight.

  ‘I trusted you Parker,’ she turned to Sam. ‘Now you’re prepared to believe Harry Pullman on this bent bastard’s say-so. I told you not to trust male coppers.’

  ‘You can go and get that mug back,’ Ed said.

  Tara leaned forward from the waist, raised her wrists to her face and wobbled her hands from side to side.

  ‘Oooooo. Let’s all change the subject because the detectives have got it wrong.’

  Sam spoke: ‘Lester Stephenson described you as a commodity.’

  ‘Charming,’ Bev said.

  Tara stood up straight. ‘He can say what he wants, free country.’

  ‘Of course he can say what he wants Tara,’ Sam said. ‘He’s your grandfather.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Bev said, looking up at the rain leaking through the trees. ‘I’ve missed out on all sorts whilst I’ve been stuck up here in the sticks.’

  Tara put the cigarette between her lips, stepped closer to Bev and blew a mouthful of smoke in her face.

  ‘About time you retired. You’re past it. Even your mates kept you up here, out of the loop. Ask yourself why.’