“You're not going to like this,” Michael Thackeray said to superintendent Jack Longley as he brought him up to date with developments the next morning. Apart from the darker than normal circles under his eyes he gave no indication that he had come so close to death the previous day. Only his wrenched muscles, and throat and lungs which felt as if they had been scoured with sandpaper, reminded him of how close to the edge he had been. His whole being now was focused fiercely on Barry Foreman and making sure that this time the security boss did not slip through his fingers.
“Try me,” Longley said.
“I want to interview DS Jake Moody under caution, as a suspect.”
“The drug squad aren't going to like that,” Longley said, although his own expression remained relatively unperturbed. “It's when you tell me you want to interview me under caution that I might get alarmed these days. Did you read about the number of senior officers being suspended? Why Moody, any road? I thought he was a victim, not a suspect.”
“Maybe,” Thackeray said. “Obviously I want his version of what happened when he was shot.” He hesitated.
“But that's not all?” Longley prompted. “You think he went over to the other side? He wouldn't be the first undercover cop to do that.”
“Ray Walter hinted he'd not been providing much intelligence. Why the hell not, I'd like to know,” Thackeray said.
“You think he was taking back-handers from Foreman? Playing both sides against the middle?”
“Maybe worse than that,” Thackeray said. “Now we've got Foreman's fingerprints they turn out to match some on the dirty videos at Stanley Wilson's place. And our own
intelligence did come up with something interesting when they were trying to match the unknown prints from Wilson's house. They came up with a Brian Freeman, who did a long stretch when he was in his twenties. He was an enforcer for a gangland boss in Manchester. One of the things he enjoyed was stubbing out cigarettes on people. And guess who he shared a cell with in Strangeways.”
“Stanley Wilson?” Longley hazarded.
“I guess Foreman was terrified Wilson had told me about his change of identity. That would really have scuppered him just at the point when he was ingratiating himself into the legitimate business community in Bradfield. I don't know if anyone else was with him at Wilson's place when he was killed but I'm sure Foreman was there himself. And I guess he enjoyed the violence just as much as he used to in the old days.” Thackeray hesitated.
“I want Moody's prints taken,” he said. “Wilson's longtime boyfriend, Harman, reckoned that Stanley Wilson had a new black boyfriend but it's just possible that if the person he saw was actually Moody, he was visiting Wilson for his boss and Harman jumped to the wrong conclusion. I want Moody's prints taken and I want to see if Harman can identify him. If he was there, I want to know why, and what he knows about Foreman's visits.”
“Moody's not gay, is he?”
“That's not the point,” Thackeray said impatiently. “Foreman has been to Wilson's place, the home of a man he says was nothing more than an insignificant clerk in his organisation. Foreman's been paying him over the odds â bonuses he says, set-up money for Wilson's porn business more likely, part of Foreman's money laundering operations, like the development company in Leeds and God knows what else when we've finished going through his books. But recently, according to Val Ridley, who's been trawling through Wilson's bank statements, Foreman's been paying Wilson £1000 a month, on top of his salary. That looks more
like blackmail to me, and Foreman's not a man to put up with that for long.”
“You think Foreman tortured him and killed him?” Longley asked.
“It's a distinct possibility. So far we've only charged him with possession of the consignment of drugs he had in the Land Rover when he was arrested, but there was enough there to remand him in custody while we get our act together on the rest. And we've got his prints and a DNA sample so the forensic people can get to work on those. But before I start questioning him about Wilson I want to get to grips with Moody and find out just how far his undercover activities took him. Even if he's clean he knows more about Foreman's movements over the last few months than anyone else. We've possibly linked Foreman to one murder now and there are three more suspicious deaths being investigated. Mower says that he found a lad who saw something near Donna Maitland's flat the night she died. That needs chasing up too. But I need Moody's evidence first, and I need it quickly, not in a couple of weeks when the drug squad have debriefed him and decided what they want to tell us and what they don't.”
“Is he fit enough to talk?” Longley asked. Thackeray shrugged.
“He's regained consciousness but he's lost a lot of blood so it'll be a while before I can do a detailed interview. But as soon as the doctors give the OK, I want to be in there, getting whatever I can.”
“And Foreman's girlfriend?” Longley asked.
Thackeray glanced bleakly out of the window where it was possible to see streaks of blue in the sky above the cherry trees in the town hall square, and a pale sunlight for the first time for months.
“The underwater search team are down there now,” he said. “They'll be there, all three of them, Karen and the babies, I'm sure of that, but how the hell we'll ever prove that Foreman dumped them there I can't imagine. There won't be
much forensic evidence if they've been trapped in that torrent for a while, possibly not even a cause of death.”
“They probably drowned anyway,” Longley said, his face sombre. “Poor little beggars.”
“You can just imagine what an imaginative defence lawyer would get out of that: Karen was so distraught when she and Foreman split up that she chucked the babies in the Beck and then herself; or else, any one of Foreman's employees could have known about the access to the water from his cellar and dumped them in for some reason of their own; or else, all three of them slipped into the water accidentally in one of the downpours we've been having and the bodies were washed as far as the obstruction ⦔
“Could they have become trapped in Foreman's cage arrangement if they'd gone in higher up?” Longley asked.
“It's just about possible, though it would be a bizarre coincidence if that's what happened. The upstream side of the hiding place was only constructed out of wire strands. A body could have got entangled there, and then taken the full force of the water as the flood rose. It only needs the babies' pushchair to turn up somewhere higher up the stream to get him off the hook.” Thackeray shrugged dispiritedly.
“And we all believe in Santa Claus,” Longley said. “Talk to the Crown Prosecution Service. You were right about Foreman and I was wrong and that's the one I'd really like to pin on the bastard if we pin a murder on him at all.”
“Oh yes,” Thackeray said. “Don't worry. If it's humanly possible to make a charge stick, I'll do it. I can promise you that.”
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They buried Stevie Maddison and his best mate Derek Whitby side by side in the municipal cemetery high on one of Bradfield's seven windswept hills, Derek's friends and relations muffled in dark coats and hats on one side of the double grave, Stevie's, fewer in number and more casual, shivering in insubstantial multicoloured jackets, on the other. As the
commital prayers ended and the ritual handfuls of dirt rained down onto the two coffins a tall black woman, her pashmina streaming in the wind, began to sing âAmazing Grace' in a voice so powerful that not even the bitter Pennine gusts could whip the sound away completely. Standing between a tired-looking Michael Thackeray and a newly clean-shaven Kevin Mower at the rear of the crowd of mourners, Laura Ackroyd, wearing a soft black velvet beret to conceal the bandage she still had round her head, shivered and felt the tears prickle.
“What a bloody waste it all is,” she said. Thackeray put his arm around her protectively as the hymn ended, the mourners began to straggle away and the grave diggers moved forward with their shovels, anxious to complete their thankless task before the dark clouds on the horizon unleashed more rain.
“Come on,” he said. “Some good came of it all in the end.”
“Foreman, you mean?”
“So far we've only charged him with drug-dealing but that's open and shut, and he'll go away for a long time. The rest will take longer to unravel but I'll have him for at least one of the deaths in the end.”
“Karen and the babies, surely,” Laura said with a shudder but Thackeray shook his head.
“Now the water's gone down, most of the remains have been recovered,” he said, his face grim and Laura knew better than to press him for more. “They were all there, all three of them, but it'll be a forensic nightmare to prove how they died, let alone who killed them.”
“And Stevie and Derek?” Laura asked, glancing back at the cars in which the Maddison and Whitby families were embarking on the rest of their shattered lives. “They were only kids.”
“All those forensic reports are in now and the CPS is looking at charges of murder. Foreman's claiming that Stevie and Jake Moody, our undercover man, both had guns and shot each other, which we might have believed from the
circumstantial evidence, but someone wiped the second gun clean after the shooting and the only person who could have done that was Foreman, no doubt in a moment of panic. Moody certainly wasn't in a fit state to be worrying about fingerprints on triggers. Foreman's claiming he tried to stop Moody from killing the boy but I think it's more likely Moody tried to stop Foreman so Foreman shot him as well. They removed three bullets from Moody's body, two of which definitely came from Stevie's gun, the third is so badly damaged that it's difficult to tell. They're still working on it. He's lucky to be alive.”
“What's Moody saying?” Laura asked. “Isn't he fit to talk yet?”
“Moody's saying a lot of things, none of which make much sense,” Thackeray said.
“Jake Moody was as bent as a three pound note,” Mower suddenly said. “He was lording it around the Heights in the Beamer as Mr. Pound, Foreman's minder. Why, if he wasn't involved in the drug trade? He was in it up to his neck. Why else didn't he call his guv'nor when Foreman decided to move all the gear from his cellar to avoid the flood? If he was undercover, what the hell was he undercover for if it wasn't to look for an opportunity like that, to nick them with a serious consignment in transit, no argument? As it was, it was pure chance Dizzy and I were there to see what was going on and make sure Foreman was stopped in the Land Rover. As far as I can see the only thing we've got to thank for pinning Foreman down at all was the bloody weather.”
“The drug squad don't like that interpretation,” Thackeray said.
“They wouldn't, would they?” Mower came back quickly.
“Moody's claiming he did everything an undercover cop could safely do in the circumstances. But don't worry, Kevin. We're looking very carefully at his story too.”
“And pigs might fly,” Mower muttered.
The three of them walked towards Thackeray's car which
he had parked behind the two families' funeral cars on the gravel pathway some hundred yards from the new graves. Behind them the other mourners beginning to scatter, shoulders hunched against the wind and the first spots of rain, but as Thackeray unlocked the driver's door, Laura took his arm.
“This looks like a delegation,” she said softly. The mothers of the dead boys were approaching side-by-side, each of them red-eyed but with a determination that was not diminished by the chilly gusts which made Laura shiver and Mrs Whitby clutch firmly at her large black hat. Behind them some of the rest of the mourners turned and stood watching in silence, like an accusing chorus.
“Inspector Thackeray? I'm Dawn Whitby, Derek's mother ⦔
“I know,” Thackeray said. “And can I say how sorry ⦔
“It's too late for that now, Inspector,” Mrs. Whitby said firmly. “Too late for Derek and for Stevie. What happened to them has happened. But Mrs. Maddison and me, we've come to a decision. We want to tell you some things that we learned while this was going on, some things we heard, some things we seen with our own eyes. We want to make sure now that no other boys die like our boys died. So if you want evidence, we will give you evidence. It's the least we can do, the least I can do before I go home to Jamaica. And we think if we decide to talk to you then maybe some others will too.”
“We want the man they call Ounce off the estate,” Lorraine Maddison broke in. “He's a dealer and he's maybe a killer too. Stevie told me he saw him the night Derek died. He was there on the roof when Derek was pushed off Priestley House.”
“And he was there when I was trying to get Derek clean,” Dawn Whitby said. “He was brazen that one. He came to my home offering Derek cheap drugs. He was the one who wanted to keep him hooked.”