Riddled on the Sands (The Lakeland Murders) (22 page)

‘OK. You know what to do. Get the door-to-door started as soon as you’ve got enough bodies. Quick-sharp, please, Ian.’

‘Will do. Are you on speakerphone?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘No reason. I was just going to say, you remember my old mate?’

‘Which one?’

‘James. Jimmy.’

‘Yeah, of course. What about him?’

‘I saw him again, this morning. I just thought...’

Hall cut in sharply. ‘OK, Ian. I’ll leave you to it. We’ll catch up when the doc’s at work.’

‘Got you.’

Mann rang off before Hall could even say goodbye.

‘Who’s this mate of Ian’s?’

‘It’s nothing. He mentioned the other day that he’d bumped into a lad from his old job. On holiday or something.’

‘From the military?’

‘Yes. Like I say, it’s just a co-incidence.’

‘But hang on, Andy, shouldn’t we be looking at this guy? He’d know how to handle an assault rifle, wouldn’t he?’

‘He’s been eliminated, Jane.’

‘But there’s nothing in the file.’

‘That’s right.’ If Hall was irritated nothing in his tone of voice suggested it.

Jane was driving fast, very fast, and they both went quiet while she overtook some cars. Hall wasn’t sure that it had been a wise thing to do.

‘Oh, I see’ she said eventually. ‘This bloke’s some sort of secret service type. That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘Come on, Jane, you know how this works.’

‘But this is a murder case, surely everyone involved in the investigation needs to know everything, don’t they? We owe that much to Jack Bell.’

‘Don’t lecture me, Jane. I know what I’m doing.’ He paused. ‘When we get there if you’d report to Ian, I’m sure he’ll need a hand with the door-to-door.’

Jane didn’t say anything, but if anything she started driving even faster.

The first of the SOCO team had arrived, and while Hall and Mann suited up they ran through the protocol. Mann and Hall knew it by heart, but they both nodded when they needed to. One of the SOCOs opened the front door and lead Hall and Mann into the house. They went straight to the living room and looked at the body. There’d obviously been a lot of blood, and some was congealing on the brown cord sofa. It looked as if there were upwards of a dozen puncture wounds.

‘Someone had to get their courage up’ said Mann, and Hall nodded. ‘Assuming the first cut wasn’t actually the deepest, and the rest weren’t made post-mortem, then we’ve got a good chance of finding something under the fingernails. He must have tried to fight back. He must have.’

But Hall wasn’t getting his hopes up. He looked around the room. The TV was still on, with the sound down low, and there was one lamp on. The curtains were drawn. There were no snacks, or signs of a meal on the old coffee table.

‘Can we walk the rest of the house?’ Hall asked the SOCO. She nodded, and led them through to the kitchen. Hall looked at the knife block. There were two missing, but he wasn’t going to read too much into that. They went upstairs, and looked into the two small bedrooms. Capstick’s bed didn’t look as if it had been slept in.

When they came out of the cottage Doctor Beech and his assistant were preparing to go in. Quite a few villagers were out on the street now, and Hall saw that one of them was Pat Bell. He asked one of the uniforms to say that he’d like a quick word in about five minutes, if she could go home and tell her mum. Hall knew that there wasn’t much he could do until the Doc and SOCO had finished, so it made sense to pay the Bells a visit now.

‘Ian, as soon as you’ve got the manpower, and if and when SOCO confirms it’s not in the house, can we start looking for the weapon?’

‘Aye. What are you thinking, just the village, or the foreshore as well?’

Hall thought about it.

‘When are we guessing for time of death?’

‘Midnight, maybe the small hours.’

‘Sounds reasonable. I wonder where the tide was then?’

‘You’re thinking someone might have gone out on the sands, and chucked the knife into the sea?’

‘Not quite. If I’d done it, and I was local, I think I’d probably get myself down onto the foreshore, then walk out as far as I could and bury the knife in the sand. It might never turn up then.’

‘You’re talking about a huge area, and we’ve probably had another high tide already, remember.’

‘I know, it’s a long shot. But it might be worth getting hold of the local metal detectorists. I bet some search down on the sands anyway. They might be able to help.’

‘Aye, you’re probably right. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘So what about your mate, Jimmy Rae? Did he intend for you to see him, do you reckon?’

‘Oh aye, no question. If he wanted to keep this place under surveillance without us knowing he could do it easy. He could have a drone up there,’ Mann jerked his thumb skyward, ‘and we’d never even know the first thing about it, guaranteed.’

Hall looked relieved. ‘Good. I guessed as much. So he probably wants to talk, or at least let you know that he, and maybe some of your former mates, are still around.’

‘Aye, that’d be favourite. So what do you want me to do?’

‘Nothing for now. You’ll have your hands full co-ordinating the door-to-door and the search. But if he doesn’t make contact of his own accord in the next day or so then I think one of us is going to have to call one of his bosses, and see if we can’t find out what’s going on.’

‘Good luck with that’ said Mann.

‘There has been another murder here, Ian’ said Hall, sharply. ‘And at least this time we have got an actual body. They bloody should help us out. And if they know anything, anything at all, then they have to tell us.’

‘I know, Andy. That’s the theory. But the thing is these people are well used to violent death. Trust me, I know.’

Hall nodded. ‘I see that, but it’s no excuse. This isn’t a war zone. Anyway, let’s see what happens. Jimmy Rae might abseil in from somewhere at any moment, and if he does I want a word, OK?’

‘Got it. What are you going to do until the Doc’s finished? The mobile incident room should be here soon, by the way.’

‘Good. I’m going to go and have a quick chat with the Bells. Let them know what’s happening.’

Mann nodded. ‘And try to figure out if one of them has blood on her hands too, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Hall didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. It was one of the things that he liked least about the job, seeing victims of crime turn to perpetrators. But it happened, and both men knew it.

‘See you at the incident room in twenty minutes. And try to get something moving on those detectorists sharpish, would you, Ian?’

Andy Hall walked over to the Bell’s house, and as he did Jane walked right past him, without saying a word. He was surprised and hurt, but he didn’t have time for that now. Pat Bell opened the door before he’d even knocked.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked, as they walked into the living room. ‘we hear it’s Pete Capstick.’

Hall didn’t answer immediately, but instead asked Betty how she was. And he said yes to a cup of tea.

‘I’m afraid I do have bad news’ he said, when Pat had returned, and they were all holding mugs of tea. ‘Pete Capstick was found dead this morning, and while it’s too early to say very much, the circumstances are suspicious.’

‘And you think his death is connected to dad’s disappearance?’ asked Pat.

‘That’s certainly a line of enquiry. I just wanted you to know what was happening. After all you’ve been through, you know.’

‘Poor Pete’ said Betty, ‘always such a disappointment.’

‘How do you mean? Who did he disappoint, exactly?’

‘His mother was a strange woman. Whatever he did was never good enough. She was on at him all the time to do this, change that. And all he wanted to do was fish, like my Jack. When she died I thought it would be the making of him, maybe he’d get married, have kids. But it didn’t turn out that way. If anything he turned in on himself even more, you know.’

Hall nodded and smiled. ‘Had you seen him in the last few days? Either of you?’

‘I saw him in the shop yesterday, just to say hello to, like’ said Pat.

‘So you were on good terms, then?’

‘Oh aye’ said Pat, ‘why wouldn’t we be?’

‘I wondered if word had got round that we were interested in Pete? Because of what happened to Jack.’

‘No’ said Betty, ‘interested how? You mean you thought that he might have some connection to whatever happened to Jack? I’ve known Pete his whole life, and that’s a ridiculous idea, Inspector. Absolutely ridiculous.’

‘Had you heard anything?’

‘No. No,’ said Pat. ‘Oh, I get it. You’re thinking that Geoff Atkinson has been blabbing about this, telling all and sundry what you’re up to, and who you think was involved in what happened to dad. Well he hasn’t said a word, not a word to anyone. We would have heard if he had. He may be a villager, but Geoff was always a copper first. Probably still is.’

Betty nodded. ‘And I’ll tell you something else, Inspector. Even if Pete was involved in what happened to Jack, and even if we’d known about it, we wouldn’t have wanted anything bad to happen to Pete. No more would Jack, I’m certain of it. Like I said, I’ve known Pete since he was a little lad, and he was a good boy, a good boy. I can picture him now, when he was only six or seven, helping his old dad put the shrimps into the boiler. He could barely reach, but I can still remember his face to this day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so happy.’

Afterwards Hall checked in at the incident room, and while he was checking his emails he heard that the Doc was just coming out of the house. And when he climbed the steps into the back of the truck he looked even angrier than usual.

‘It’s as hot as the hob of hell in here, Inspector’ he said.

‘It’s a lorry, doc. What do you expect? Anyway, what are your first impressions?’

‘Accurate and insightful, that’s what they are. Very much the same as usual. The cause of death was stabbing, but that much even you would have surmised. And before you ask I’d say that most of those punctures, which I don’t think will turn out to be deep, were inflicted before the fatal blow.’

‘So he would have resisted, then?’

‘If he did there aren’t any obvious signs. Have you found any sleeping tablets?’

‘Yes’ one of the SOCOs said. ‘Dispensed by his GP yesterday, but hardly any left.’

Beech laughed. ‘Well, it’s an unconventional form of assisted suicide, I’ll say that. But it’s probably what happened.’

‘Was he already dead when he was stabbed?’

‘Definitely not. I could tell you how I know, but I know how squeamish you are, Inspector. So suffice it to say that he was alive when he was stabbed, but unconscious throughout the whole attack. But don’t quote me on that yet. Let’s wait for toxicology to confirm that I’m right. It will of course, but we don’t want the lab rats to feel that their time has been entirely wasted, do we?’

‘Very sensitive of you, Doc. Anything else? Time of death?’

‘Isn’t that enough, for now? Would you like me to go and make an arrest for you as well? But since you’ve asked so nicely: time of death was between about eleven and three AM, but I’ll be able to confirm that later, and possibly narrow it down just a bit. I’d like to get our perforated friend here back to a nice cold slab, and really get to work.’

Beech was right about the heat. The computers in the mobile incident room made it stifling, so Hall and Mann walked down to the foreshore. Mann passed Hall his bottle of water, and after he’d taken a long drink, Hall brought Mann up to date on what Doc Beech had told him.

‘Christ. So Capstick was involved, tried to top himself, but whoever his contact was went in and stabbed him? Finished him off, like.’

‘Seems likely. And even I know enough about your old line of work to know that there’d be no hesitancy if someone like Jimmy Rae was our man. And it would be a bit sophisticated as some kind of double bluff. Your former colleagues strike me as being very much the direct type.’

Mann didn’t laugh, but turned and looked at Hall. ‘You didn’t seriously think that was a possibility, did you? Not a chance. Not in a million years, I promise. Jimmy Rae will have destroyed tons of drugs over the years, literally tons of gear, most of it in countries you probably couldn’t even point at on a map, Andy. And you’re right, that’s not the way that he would have used a knife on someone.’

‘Understood. And I didn’t fancy Jimmy or his boys anyway for this, no matter how neatly Capstick was killed. Because the killer must either have been known to Capstick, or else have had access to a key. There’s no sign of forced entry, and we can be pretty certain that Capstick was comatose when he was stabbed. If he didn’t wake up when he was attacked it’s hard to see how he could have got up to let someone in. That’s an assumption for now, but if the Doc is right then that’s the likeliest explanation.’

The two men stood in silence, both looking out at the withdrawing tide.