by Dan Laughey
Sant broke out of his musings and returned to the files. Lotherton was of the opinion that the two men had designs on stealing the Cortina and using it to commit crimes locally, including armed robberies to fund drug dealing. Lotherton had been right in his first instinct about the armed robbery link, Sant realised with hindsight, though every unsolved robbery spanning a four-year period back to 1980 received what turned out to be fruitless scrutiny. Even a building society hold-up in the far-flung seaside town of Morecambe was briefly tied to the investigation.
Once it was clear that both men had evaded the police chase, Lotherton released descriptions of them to the media together with an artist’s impression of the gunman based on the wounded PC Tanner’s shaky powers of recall. The gunman was white, in his early forties, five feet ten inches tall, stocky build. Capstick had noted for Sant’s benefit that this identikit was subsequently used to identify Humphreys as Gray’s killer – along with possession of the same firearm used in the 1984 shootings – in the aftermath of the botched armed robbery at Stockton-on-Tees two and a half years later.
Humphreys was also known to favour a checked flat cap – he earned the nickname ‘Andy Capp’ because of it – and the discovery of a cap matching this description near the ring-road roundabout in Moortown (a likely getaway route) was made public the day after the Gray murder. The theory of the limp, built on the assumption that a twenty-foot fall would cause damage to the gunman’s feet and legs, was offered to the press by Lotherton too.
Humphrey’s accomplice, later named as Alfred Shaw, was described as white, aged about forty, five feet eleven inches tall, thin build with dark brown hair, full beard, sideburns and moustache. He was wearing green overalls and a dark donkey jacket. Following the 1987 identification of Humphreys and verdict of death by misadventure, Shaw was questioned and later charged with involvement in the Gray/Tanner shootings. During the Leeds Crown Court trial it was proven that Shaw didn’t use a gun at any stage during the 1984 murder/attempted murder, so he was cleared of the most serious charges brought against him. But he was found guilty of conspiring with Humphreys to commit armed robberies as well as possessing a firearm and failing to disclose information on the Gray/Tanner shootings – to which he was declared a witness (not a perpetrator).
To add intrigue to the whole affair, Shaw was released early from prison after an appeal prompted by a legal technicality; that he wasn’t provided with adequate access to a solicitor during his initial interrogation by West Yorkshire Police. In other words, his admission of guilt had been forced out of him under duress. No doubt to appease Shaw and his lawyer, the police agreed to supply the man with a new identity and a new home away from Yorkshire – a privilege only usually enjoyed by witnesses who break those thick walls of silence and stand shoulder to shoulder with the Crown Prosecution Service against their former underworld comrades.
Sant pressed fingers on his temples, face sagging. What did this Shaw ruling on police blunders say about the alleged police-killer Humphreys? Mistreatment and death? Was Humphreys really the man who’d killed Gray? Possession of a murder weapon and an identikit match hardly warranted full-proof evidence against Humphreys. Was his death a convenient closing of the dreadful events of Halloween 1984?
What was odd about Lotherton’s approach as the senior investigator, Sant noted, was his bold move on day two of the investigation to pursue a divide-and-rule strategy. He read through an official press release issued by Lotherton:
The shootings of Sergeant Gray and PC Tanner were carried out by the first man, and as far as we can tell the second man is in no way party to the shooting incident. I would urge the second man to consider very carefully his legal position. It is quite apparent that he was with the first man – they were acting together in the attempted theft of a car – but he does not appear to have been involved in the shooting of the two officers. I would urge this second man, or indeed any person who may be related to him, to come forward and assist the police in finding the person responsible for the shooting.
At later press briefings, Lotherton had even replaced second man and accomplice with the less loaded term companion. Reading between the lines, Sant imagined this was a desperate move from a desperate detective. No criminal in his right mind, whether killer or companion, would turn himself in after such an appalling crime. It was simply unthinkable, and Lotherton’s approach did nothing to foster a feeling of trustworthiness either. For any person who may be related to him, read: any fellow crook prepared to grass up his mate.
Another strange press statement from Lotherton suggested that Gray’s killer may have been recognised by Gray in connection with a previous crime and was trying to elude certain arrest. The murder was therefore impulsive rather than premeditated. But if that were the case, why had the gunman shot Tanner first? Had both officers recognised him?
Tanner’s testimony – hazy though it was – presented the best chance of identifying the two men, but the unfortunate policeman was still recovering from a massive flesh wound to the stomach and would remain in intensive care in St James’s Hospital for a good while yet. At least he’d entertained some distinguished visitors – the Tory MP for Pudsey, the Home Secretary and the Chief Constable no less. Once he was well enough, Tanner did his best to provide a full description of his attacker, but it was clear from the files that Tanner’s testimony had been treated like dog shit: most of it judged unfit for purpose in the event of a criminal trial.
Sant wondered if Frank Tanner was still alive. All that was filed on him was retirement documentation – he’d quit as an officer with less than five years of service to his name soon after recovering from the gunshot wound – and a note stating he’d become a civilian clerk at Millgarth police station. Not for long, Sant assumed, as no employment records dating beyond his officer retirement had been kept, nor a forwarding address, nor an employer reference of any kind.
Tanner was thirty-nine years old in 1984. He’d be well over seventy now. Most people lived into their seventies these days, although most people never suffered a bullet to the stomach. Still, the odds were in his favour. Sant called Holdsworth and asked her to process a computer search for Tanner.
The inspector buried his head in the Gray murder file again. Lotherton’s next move, on day three, was to publicly declare that ballistics tests had identified the type of gun used: Forensic tests are being carried out to link the bullets with bullets used in other offences, he told a press conference. It then took a further three days before the murder weapon was made public. Meantime, Lotherton’s frustration at the silence which greeted his public call for the accomplice to come forward was evident: I hope this second man will take stock of the possible consequences of his not reporting vital information. Not even close to a golden handshake.
It was not until the 5th of November that details of the firearm were released. The gun that killed Gray was an old-type .38 Browning silver revolver with a six-to-eight inch barrel – longer than normal, probably adapted from a replica – and a lanyard ring attached to its butt. The forensic report on the bullets was more revealing. They turned out to be .38 special wadcutter bullets designed exclusively for target shooting, so the gun was probably stolen from someone who used it purely for recreation. No distinct rifling impressions were left on the bullets – only fine scratch lines. They’d been fired from a crudely bored out barrel.
Lotherton appealed to the gun’s supplier, who he described as an underworld armourer, to come forward. Another desperate measure hinting at just how little information the detectives had to go on.
The gun was not found and neither were the two men – until, that is, the Stockton-on-Tees caper of 1987, and then by accident rather than design. A reward of £10,000, rising to £25,000 thanks to donations from the rich and famous, was offered for information leading to the conviction of Gray’s killer. The generous bounty attracted a whole flood of callers retelling all manner of tales in the hope of landing the lottery. But nothing materialised. Clearly £25
,000, no small sum in the mid-eighties, wasn’t enough to loosen tongues in the underworld.
It was around the 8th of November that the investigation was scaled back in Leeds and widened to the rest of the country. West Yorkshire detectives travelled to Manchester on that day to interview two suspects involved in an armed robbery. But their alibis for the morning of the 31st of October were watertight; they’d been collecting their dole money in Salford. Whilst reading this part of the file Sant came across a familiar name: Lister. Detective Sergeant Edward Lister, as he was titled back then, had led the team investigating the armed robbers in Manchester. Sant wondered to what extent Lister’s accomplishments in this high-profile case counted towards the man’s prodigious rise. Would the chief constable be sitting where he was today – at the pinnacle of his profession – without the Gray murder enquiry to his name?
The next section of the file detailed liaisons with New Scotland Yard over a pair of escaped prisoners. The breakout had occurred in early October at Harrow police station. A couple of Harrow-based officers were suspected of taking backhanders in return for an open door, but no prosecutions were brought to bear. The two escapees had a track record of armed robbery and were known to have connections in West Yorkshire, but there was nothing to suggest they’d been in Leeds at the time of Gray’s murder. Around Christmas time, to rub salt in the wounds, murder squad detectives received a postcard from Spain. The two convicts, enjoying the sun-soaked beaches of Benidorm, wrote to make it clear to police they had nothing to do with the murder of the Leeds policeman.
Another Spanish lead that went cold ended with a peculiar twist. In early December it emerged that a woman who had fallen to her death from the ninth-floor balcony of her Tenerife hotel was wanted for interview as a possible witness in the Gray/Tanner shootings. Ms Valerie Clark, who lived with her boyfriend in Moortown, was placed on the list of witnesses after detectives discovered her Colt Lancer parked opposite the parish church on the same morning as the shootings. A week later she jetted off on her holidays and never returned home. Her boyfriend, Mr William Dickinson, said he was certain Ms Clark wouldn’t have been able to help police with their enquiries. A verdict of suicide was subsequently determined by the Spanish coroner.
When the new-fangled HOLMES database of intelligence containing more than 40,000 interviews, 7,000 vehicle checks, 2,500 statements and 11,800 suspects had been exhausted, the investigation went international, focusing mainly on the Irish Republic. Sant was reminded of the IRISH CONNECTION headline he’d discovered with Mia during the microfiche search. With the huge advantage of hindsight, Sant could see how that lead had turned out to be a disastrous red herring. No doubt the stigma accompanying the Irish back then – the IRA, the Guinness family kidnapping, the hunger strikes – had fuelled unfounded fears that Gray and Tanner had been victims of a terrorist atrocity.
The truth, as it turned out, kicked Lotherton hard in the face. Police killer Humphreys was none other than a Yorkshireman familiar to the local police and underworld alike, with no links whatsoever to other countries or paramilitary organisations. Had Lotherton taken his eye off the ball? A classic case of information overkill? It certainly looked that way.
Thoughts of news headlines and microfiche reminded Sant to check his watch. Seven thirty pm. He had to meet Mia on the steps of the university’s Parkinson Building at eight thirty, before their date. The last thing he wanted was to miss dinner with her. With only an hour to get to the university’s refectory and meet with Dr Tony Gordon, he’d be hard-pushed.
Such is my lot, he smiled ruefully. The hectic lot of a harried detective untangling a web of murders a generation apart.
12
The refectory was much bigger than he’d imagined. Once a famous rock concert venue hosting bands like The Who and Led Zeppelin, it was now an all-singing, all-dancing, self-service canteen. The wood-panelled walls and elegant balcony were steeped in the history of debating societies and avant-garde art, but the only lasting constant, Sant reflected, was the insatiable appetite for food. Since he was eating out with Mia later, he settled for a mug of tea and a fruity flapjack.
He paid and then began scanning the crowd for Mia’s face. He shook himself and redirected his misguided thoughts back to Tony. Dr Gordon took some finding – Sant must have glanced over fifty tables before striking lucky – and when he finally did, it was clear from Tony’s empty dinner plate that he’d already eaten.
‘Spag bol with tonnes of ketchup and garlic bread.’ He said this in perfectly pronounced Queen’s English despite the colloquial parlance. ‘Delicious. You should try it, Inspector.’
Sant made his excuses and got down to business. ‘Let’s suppose Chloe was researching news reports from the 1980s,’ he said, biting into his crumbling flapjack. ‘Where would she look?’
The historian put chin in hand and squinted. ‘Reports of what exactly?’
‘I’m not entirely sure, to tell you the truth.’ Sant stared back to cover the lie.
Tony thumbed the pencil behind his earlobe. ‘Depending on how far back she was searching, I reckon Chloe would use Nexis and save her findings as email requests.’
He went on to explain that Nexis was a public record of newspapers from all over the world. Researching the 1980s with Nexis, however, was limited; most records only went back thirty years. Only a handful of newspapers stored older data. Sant actually knew about Nexis, but allowed Tony to elaborate before giving assurances he would check Chloe’s university email account for Nexis messages.
‘Is Chloe interested in your research on the Thatcher years?’ Sant asked.
‘I’d like to think she is,’ Tony replied. ‘She did read a journal article I wrote on race relations in Britain. I noted it in my diary – the one I showed you this morning.’
‘So your research on Thatcher struck a chord with her interest in fascist dictators?’
Tony laughed. ‘Now you put it like that, I suppose the answer is yes. You see, the early eighties was a period of transition in race relations, mostly for the better. For much of the 1970s, especially the two elections of 1974, the National Front made progress at the polls, not winning seats in parliament fortunately, but at times coming quite close and definitely winning sympathy from working-class whites.’
Sant began to feel strangely dislocated; inadequate even. Here was a man some twenty years his junior who knew more about the history of times he’d never lived through than someone who had.
‘So what went wrong for the NF?’ he asked. ‘Or should I say, when did the white working class – I’d count myself among them – start seeing sense and stop voting for fascists?’
‘The general elections of 1979 and 1983 were catastrophic for the far right,’ Tony explained. ‘You see, Margaret Thatcher stole the NF’s thunder, and many of those voters tempted by the far right in the 1970s moved over to the less extreme, but still radical, right-wing politics of Thatcherism.’
Sant, though not a political beast by nature, still felt he knew enough to cast a sceptical eye over Tony’s interpretation. ‘Thatcher was politically right-wing, I’d agree, but a mouthpiece for racism and hatred?’
Tony smiled knowingly. ‘She wasn’t overtly racist – no British prime minister could afford to be – but she rubbed shoulders with Norman Tebbit, Harvey Proctor and other Monday Club hardliners, and shared some of Enoch Powell’s views on tighter immigration controls.’
Sant sipped his sugary tea. ‘Didn’t Powell call for the repatriation of immigrants?’
‘He did, but on a voluntary basis. Forced repatriation was what the NF demanded, but Powell refused to go that far.’
‘And Thatcher wasn’t as extreme as Powell on race,’ remarked Sant, ‘so I guess that made her a moderate racist. Would that be fair?’
‘Her supporters would deny the “racism” tag, yet critics rightly point to a television interview she gave in 1978. With millions of viewers at her beck and call, she denounced the National Front for being extremist thu
gs, only to go on and say she was worried that Britain could become swamped with people of a different culture. The press and a good deal of the public loved her for it, and her election victory the following year was no doubt owing to her tough stance on immigration, but to play the race card was a cheap shot. And don’t forget the patriotism and xenophobia she whipped up during the Falklands War.’
Sant swallowed the rest of his flapjack. ‘It doesn’t take an expert to conclude that she won a second term in office off the back of that victory against Argentina.’
‘Exactly. And the 1983 General Election victory saw Thatcher increasing her share of the vote. At the same time, the nationalists disappeared over the political horizon.’
‘Which meant time for change?’
Tony nodded. ‘Things were changing fast around this time. With the National Front falling apart and factions splitting off, eventually the key players divided into two camps. There was the old brigade represented by former leading figures in the NF. Most of these men were university-educated southerners keen to hold the balance of power in the face of threats from young upstarts. Those upstarts from the rival camp were remnants of the other fascist organisation that made its presence known in the seventies – the British Movement.’
Sant recognised the name immediately and said the first thing that came into his head. ‘Football hooligans.’
‘Some of them, though not all hooligans were fascists.’