Falling (Inspector Walter Darriteau cases Book 10)

by David Carter

  Maybe not, thought Walter, though he didn’t say, as he stared across the desks, a blank look on his face.

  ‘What is it?’ said Vairs.

  ‘The dead person is Eilish Banaghan.’

  ‘Eh, that pretty Banaghan kid? How do you know? What have you got? It couldn’t be. You’re barking up the wrong tree. What’s happened? The Banaghan family would be jumping all over us if a hair on her head was touched. You’re talking crap! Have the bosses told you something?’ and he glanced that way, half expecting someone to appear.

  ‘No,’ said Walter, ‘the other way round.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The penny finally cascaded into the basement of Vairs’ brain.

  ‘The golden ticket,’ he grinned, ‘It’s come?’

  Walter chuckled and nodded.

  ‘Show me!’

  Walter slipped his copy of Banaghan’s crazy letter across the desk.

  ‘Bugger me!’ said Vairs, leaning back while scanning the words, whistling through gapped teeth, ‘Who-da-thought-it?’

  ‘It was bound to come sooner or later.’

  ‘Have you told anyone?’

  ‘Course not, sarge,’ said Walter, omitting to mention he’d been considering it.

  ‘Good man, Darriteau, I always said you were pukka,’ and he stood up, jettisoned his coat, grabbed the letter and sped down the corridor, clutching Walter’s piece of treasure.

  Forty-Two

  Somewhere to the west of the small town of Chirk, the VW SUV cruised on alone in the darkness, headlights on full beam. There was no one about. In a break in the clouds, a half moon appeared and lit up the countryside like a weak-powered lamp.

  Shane Fellday and Greg Morrell guessed they were nearing their destination. Fellday gathered himself, eager to run. Greg glanced through the glass at sleeping, rolling fields. Fat sheep went about their business in the moonlight as if there wasn’t a moment to lose. The lane was getting rougher, and the car slowed.

  ‘We almost there?’ grunted Fellday.

  ‘Shut it! I won’t tell you again,’ said Gornall.

  Greg’s mouth was dry. It felt as if they were about to stop. A moment later they crunched into a rough lay-by on the left side, and Fisher cut the engine. Was it there he was expected to prove his worthiness to become a full member of the Brotherhood? A place where Gornall and Fisher would watch him execute the man. It was a dilemma, but one of Greg’s making. He had sought these people out. He wanted revenge, and his opportunity was nigh. Greg must bury his conscience and find the courage. Fellday was a condemned man, finished and done, and that was the justice Greg craved.

  Gornall said, ‘We’re getting out for a short walk. Doug and Greg will each take an arm,’ and he jabbed the gun into Fellday’s ribs to make his point. ‘If you struggle or try to make a break for it, I won’t hesitate to fire. We’re isolated here, no one will hear a thing, and you don’t want to end your days rotting in a damp Welsh field.’

  ‘Why would I run?’ said Fellday. ‘Where would I go?’

  Gornall, Fisher, and Greg all knew he would run given the chance.

  Doug Fisher stood out of the car. Gornall nodded to Greg to do the same. He opened the door and slid out. Gornall told Fellday to get out. He cursed aloud but eased himself out into the dank night. Fisher grabbed an arm, and Greg held the other.

  Gornall jumped out, grabbed the key fob and locked the SUV. He pointed ahead down what looked like a coke waste path. Away to the right, maybe ten yards, a creature of the night rustled away.

  Fellday swore again and said, ‘What ya bring me to this hellhole for?’

  He was ignored. Four men walked on in darkness, travelling thirty yards along level ground, when they became aware of a large bank looming up to their left. Man-made, straight and true, and nothing like nature ever intended. A disused railway embankment perhaps, for there were hundreds of similar dead railways across the kingdom.

  Many were used for leisure, for walkers and hikers and cyclists to bustle across the country on safe and flat and wide paths, without the hassle of highways and cars and trucks and pollution.

  Ten yards later, on the left side, they came to a rough set of steps chiselled into the earthworks. Someone had thought it appropriate to provide an old timber banister on the right side, made of pine, but rotting and in need of attention.

  Gornall said one word. ‘Up!’

  Fisher and Greg nodded the way ahead and pulled and prodded Fellday up the narrow and primitive staircase. Shane counted the steps. Fourteen to the top. But it wasn’t a railway embankment, nor a disused railway.

  They paused and glanced around. They were standing on an ancient towpath, two yards wide, and beyond the path was a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old canal, sleeping in the quarter-light. Greg imagined it being dug out by Irish navigators, or navvies, in 1775, singing their old Emerald Isle songs, and he wondered what happened to them all.

  How many had lost their lives hereabouts on that gargantuan task? And all before power tools were invented. Everything accomplished by manpower, horsepower, and mule-power because there was nothing else. What they would have given for a JCB.

  The canal was five yards wide, the dark water still and flat, where in places mist eddied up and floated away across the fields, as if transporting the souls of dead navvies from long ago, away into the ether.

  The moonlight kept dimming and returning, as thin cloud scurried across the sky, giving the scene a purple tinge. On the far bank, one of the mallard ducks quacked an alarm. They scurried away to the left, not used to being disturbed at the dead of night. Beyond the canal, the ground did not fall away, but rose into the distance. They had carved the waterway into the hillside. It looked right and felt right, as good as it was hundreds of years before. Someone sure knew what they were doing.

  ‘Get a move on,’ snorted Gornall from the rear, jerking the gun away to the right. ‘That way!’ as Fisher and Greg pushed Fellday onward. ‘It’s about two hundred yards.’

  But what was two hundred yards? thought Greg.

  Fellday was thinking the same, and said, ‘What is?’

  ‘You’ll see, soon enough,’ said Gornall, urging them to pick up the pace.

  As they trudged on, marching in step, their rubber-soled shoes almost silent on the towpath, Greg speculated on what they might find. The ground came up to meet them from the right, while on the left, the ground flattened out until the canal was carving its way through a flat section, with what looked like grazing land on either side, an idea reinforced by occasional groups of puzzled sheep, huddling together for protection from whatever danger lay out there.

  Their ancient genes warned them of wolves and bears, but neither had been present for hundreds of years. But buzzards and other large birds of prey, and foxes and badgers, and even two-legged brigands seeking cheap meat and a hearty meal, could still take an unwary and unguarded lamb. Not to mention out of control so-called domesticated dogs, run by inconsiderate owners; always the worst menace to grazing beasts.

  In the moonlight, up ahead, they saw something on the canal. Maybe a small jetty protruding from the bank, or a canal maintenance craft, or even a sunken structure that had succumbed many years before, and no one had ever jumped in and hauled it out. Who would do such a thing, and who would pay for it? It was perhaps six and a half feet wide, dark and dead-looking.

  They stared at it, and as they closed on the black shadow, a picture of the stern of a narrowboat revealed itself in the swirling mist. A dark and thin metal tiller posturing at an angle on the stern, a rear flat decking area, with a pair of skinny lockable doors beyond, each door boasting a six by ten inch rectangular window.

  It was one of 30,000 steel bodied narrowboats that tramp up and down the national canal network. They carry holidaymakers, and people who choose to live that way, some through choice and others through necessity. But sprinkled among them, a surprising number of craft still carried commercial cargo, two hundred years after the network
was established as the main transport system across the nation.

  Arriving at the boat, Gornall said, ‘We’re going for a little late night cruise, enjoy yourselves, ladies,’ and he stepped onto the deck. It was less than a foot below the towpath, no need to jump. He produced a key and slipped it in the keyhole, turned, the doors fell open, and he disappeared inside. A minute later, weak electric light spluttered through the windows, becoming brighter by the second as the sleeping craft returned to life.

  Outside, the moon came back brighter, too. The other three could see the name painted along the side of the thirty-five foot long craft, picked out in fancy yellow letters against the dark blue superstructure, The Welsh Diviner, and its home port, Chirk Marina.

  Greg and Fisher hustled Fellday down onto the deck, through the doors, into the narrow but comfortable rear sitting room that morphed into a modern fitted kitchen. There was an all pervading damp smell, as if it hadn’t been occupied or aired in a while. Gornall went to the doors, pulled them shut, and locked them. He stared at Fellday and said, ‘Empty your pockets.’

  ‘Come on, man!’ he protested.

  ‘Empty your damned pockets, everything!’

  A filthy handkerchief, a handful of mixed coins, an optimistic pack of three condoms, several tiny sealed plastic bags containing white powder, held together with a broad red elastic band. Plus a fat roll of cash, restrained by another thinner brown band, all placed on the twee and worn worktop. But no needles, and no other drug paraphernalia.

  ‘How much cash?’ asked Gornall.

  ‘How should I know? A lot! Maybe five hundred; and it’s all mine. Keep your thieving hands off it.’

  ‘You’ll get it back. Don’t worry about that.’

  ‘I’d be crazy not to be worried with you loons.’

  ‘Sit there and shut up,’ ordered Gornall, and Fellday sat on a long red padded bench seat, pulled a reprimanded schoolboy face and waited for the next part of their crazy midnight play to unfold.

  Forty-Three

  The hand-delivered letter From Banaghan to Meade arrived in Cornucopia at 2pm on a cold Wednesday afternoon. Howard Meade was out and didn’t return until five o’clock, when he spotted the letter sleeping on a silver tray on the long table in the hall.

  He slipped off his Crombie coat, hung it on the Habitat coat-stand parked in the corner, and gathered up the letter, along with eight pieces of Royal Mail delivered junk, and headed for his office.

  Special Delivery letters didn’t arrive every day, and it demanded to be opened first. But Howard figured that was what everyone else would do, so he left it till last. By the time he opened it, he hoped it would contain something more interesting than the rubbish he’d waded through.

  The phone before him rang, the harsh constant ringing echoing through the massive house. He grabbed it and barked, ‘Yes!’

  It was Mervyn Mainwaring, the manager of one of his better clubs.

  ‘What is it, Merv? I’m busy. It had better be important. You know you have complete authority to sort anything mundane.’

  ‘It’s Candy Crosthwaite.’

  ‘What about Candy?’

  ‘A punter got rough with her.’

  ‘Which punter? And how rough?’

  ‘A guy called Gerry Evans. I’ve never seen him before.’

  ‘And Candy?’

  ‘Cut lip, bloody nose... and two missing teeth.’

  ‘Buggering-hell! I thought putting CCTV in all the booths was supposed to stop this behaviour.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right, boss. It was one of those things. The TV watcher had gone for a quick pee.’

  ‘Get rid of him! I’m not having that. I can’t be doing with lazy oiks who can’t concentrate, and can’t control themselves.’

  ‘I can’t do that, boss.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘Because it was your Richard.’

  There was a short silence as that information filtered into Howard’s brain. Ricky, the youngest boy, nineteen, and not the brightest of the brood, still on training, given a job even he couldn’t muck up, except he had.

  ‘Give me strength! I’ll speak to Richard later. Leave him to me. And Candy?’

  ‘She needs attention, boss, and fast.’

  ‘Get her to Harley Street, PDQ, no expense spared, and get her fixed. Understand? I’ve always liked Candy.’

  ‘We all do, Mr Meade.’

  ‘And this Gerry Evans bloke, what’s happened to him? Is he still with you?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s here. We wouldn’t let him go. He’s in the basement. The two guys who sorted out Eilish Banaghan are with him now... awaiting your pleasure.’

  ‘Just as it should be! Give the man a beating he won’t forget. But don’t kill him! You got that?’

  ‘Sure boss, yes. They know when to stop.’

  ‘I bloody hope so. And make sure this Gerry Evans individual picks up the Harley Street bill. I don’t see why I should pay for that. He’s barred for life; that goes without saying. And remind him that if he goes to the old bill, he won’t get off so lightly next time.’

  ‘Sure, boss, yeah, understood, great thinking.’

  ‘All right, Merv, bugger off, sort it, and leave me in peace.’

  Howard banged the phone down, not waiting for an answer, and cursed under his breath. Why was he plagued with outright idiots? It was a pity about Candy. She was a sweet kid, and he recalled the day she first turned up. Twenty-one; dyed blonde hair, scarlet nails, soft brown eyes, pretty face, slim figure, girly voice, the kind of girl who’d attract more than her fair share of admirers.

  Howard remembered he’d been intrigued enough to sample the merchandise, something he rarely did, and thinking about it, he’d given her a solid nine out of ten. No matter, Harley Street would have her as good as new in less than a month. It was amazing what they could do with battered bodies in the 1980s.

  He grabbed the hand-delivered letter and wondered what it might be. Perhaps he’d been awarded an MBE. A Member of the British Empire, not that there was much of the goddamn empire left, courtesy of weak governments.

  That would be fair enough. An MBE, a deserving award for all the charity work he did, the boxing clubs he sponsored and paid for, keeping unruly youths off the street. The same establishments that threw up mad young men eager to make something of themselves. Come to think of it, the guys who’d dealt with Eilish, and were about to get some serious exercise, had both risen to his attention through the ranks of Meade Manor Boxing.

  His mind returned to the possible MBE. Perhaps the letter was from the Palace itself. Wouldn’t that be cool? Cynthia would love it. He grabbed his gold plated letter opener, slipped it in the corner, and sliced it open. But it wasn’t from the Palace. It wasn’t from anyone worth considering. It was from that monstrosity of a man who went by the name of Liam Banaghan. What the hell did he think he was doing writing to Howard at home? The damned cheek! That man needed to be taught a lesson he would never forget. Howard thought he’d done that by culling one of his girls, but it seemed he hadn’t done enough.

  IN THE CHELSEA POLICE station, Vairs tapped hard on the Chief Super’s door. Waited for the obligatory ‘Come!’ and fixed a cool smile on his thin-lipped face, or so he imagined, and went inside.

  Chief Superintendent Barry Wilkins sat back and joined his hands behind his head.

  ‘Ah, Vairs,’ he said, grinning across at Chief Inspector Noel Grimsdale, the same man who was often there, sitting in his chair, one ankle resting on one knee, as he cradled a cup of steaming coffee. ‘What have you got today? Something more useful than the ridiculous chess club business that wasn’t worth a carrot?’

  ‘I have, sir, yes,’ he said, glancing between the pair of them, looking triumphant, brandishing his piece of paper like Neville Chamberlain at Croydon Airport after returning from Germany. ‘The golden ticket,’ Vairs said, milking the moment, ‘the golden nugget... it’s arrived.’

  ‘Calm down, Vairs,’ said Noel Grimsdale
. ‘You’ll give yourself a hernia. Get to the point and tell us what the hell you’ve got.’

  ‘Vital intelligence me and my team have uncovered regarding the Meade and Banaghan families. You will not believe this.’

  ‘Hold on a second,’ said the Chief Super, ‘If this is to do with the carbon ribbon transcribing business, your oppo, DC Darriteau is working on, I think he should be here too.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Grimsdale, nodding and grinning at Vairs’ discomfort.

  The sergeant’s mouth popped open. He glanced back at the closed door and stammered, ‘Yes sir, of course, so do I... he should be,’ and he let himself out to fetch Walter, and as he hurried along the corridor, he heard both men laughing.

  Forty-Four

  In the Welsh Diviner narrowboat, Gornall went to a drawer in the fitted kitchen. He pulled it open to reveal a small selection of cutlery, but sitting on top of the mismatched knives and forks was a set of modern handcuffs.

  He took them out, opened them, grabbed Shane Fellday’s wrist, and clipped him to the built-in gas cooker.

  ‘Just in case he gets any idea of making a break for it,’ he muttered, glancing at the others, looking satisfied. ‘Watch him,’ he said. ‘I’m going to service and fire up the engine. Be about ten minutes,’ and he disappeared down the narrow centre corridor.

  Further up the craft on the left side was a polished hinged hatch on the floor. Gornall bent down, undid the clasp, and pulled it open. The water-cooled engine looked okay. There was no standing water in there, or any obvious dripping or leaks, for it had been serviced in the spring at considerable cost. He checked the oil levels. Minimum reading. High on the wood panelled wall was a pair of small shelves. A large yellow plastic canister of oil sat on the top. He grabbed it, opened up, crouched down on his haunches, and topped up.