Death on High (The Lakeland Murders) (21 page)

‘The latter.’

‘Excellent. Shall we get on with it then?’

When Vicky Harrison showed them in to the sitting room she seemed slightly less self- assured to Hall, but she still caught him off guard. ‘Haven’t seen you down at the wine bar Inspector. Found another way to fill the lonely evenings, have you?’

Hall felt slightly flustered, and Jane took control before he had a chance to speak.

‘We have made some progress with identifying the woman that your husband was seeing in the weeks before his death’ said Jane.

‘Clever old you. I’ll bet you’ve thought of nothing else.’

‘We wanted to ask for your view on her identity.’

‘At least it’s a her’ Vicky laughed briefly. It wasn’t quite convincing.

‘Lillian Hill was the person who Tony was seeing’ said Jane. ‘Are you surprised at that?’

It seemed to Hall that Vicky reacted just a little too quickly.

‘Lillian? No, that can’t be right. Have you spoken to her?’

‘Yes, and she denies it.’

‘There you are then. You really must try harder, Constable.’

‘So you don’t believe that it was Lillian who your husband was seeing?’

‘No, I don’t. It’s not the church thing, that place is an absolute temple to hypocrisy, but she just wouldn’t have been his type at all.’

‘You mean physically?’

Vicky smiled. ‘At my age the physical is becoming less important every day. No, I mean personality. Lillian is, well, I suppose the old fashioned word would be bossy. She’s been single a very long time, and she likes everything done her way. Do you know what I mean? I expect you do.’

Jane ignored the last sentence. ‘You don’t strike me as the meek little housewife type yourself, if I may say so Mrs. Harrison.’

‘I’m not, but you have to understand the tone of a marriage is set very early on, and in ours it was always Tony who was in charge. He made all the big decisions, all the time, and as we got older it just got worse.’

Hall hoped that Jane would follow that up.

‘So you’re saying that your husband was controlling?’

Vicky laughed. ‘You could say that. He expected his own way, even when my business became much more successful than his. I was working sixty hours a week at the office, then doing however many more at home. I can’t say I’ll miss that.’

‘But maybe Lillian didn’t know that about your husband. Maybe he came across as a different kind of person to her.’

Vicky Harrison looked at Jane for a moment.

‘That’s a surprisingly shrewd remark. And yes, I suppose that is possible, now you come to mention it. There’s no reason why Tony would be the same with another woman as he was with me, at least in the beginning. But in the end, over time, our own true self always emerges, don’t you think?’

Hall thought about jumping in, but decided not to. Suddenly he didn’t want to seem too dominant, and for a moment he found himself thinking about Carol, his wife. Would she have said much the same about him?

‘So you’re saying that it was possible that your husband was having an affair with Lillian Hall’ Jane continued.

‘Theoretically yes, but affairs don’t happen in theory, do they? As I said, she would have soon found out what Tony was like, but he would have known what she’s like right from the off. Lillian is an attractive woman, I’m not saying she isn’t, but he just wouldn’t have been attracted to her personality. I’m sure of it.’

Hall decided that it would be safe to bring the interview back on track, and maybe establish some facts.

‘So you never had any concerns when you saw them together?’

‘I never saw them together.’

‘And did anyone mention any suspicions or concerns to you?’

‘No.’

‘Not even Ed Willis?’

‘No.’ Vicky was just a bit too quick, a bit too firm in her reply.

‘Are you sure?’

‘OK, look he did mention something, but he said he didn’t know who it was.’

‘When was this?’

‘I don’t know, maybe a few weeks before Tony died. A month perhaps.’

‘How did you feel?’

‘How did I feel inspector? How did you feel when you discovered that your wife was having an affair?’

Jane didn’t even see a flicker of a change in Hall’s expression.

‘Did you try to find out who it was?’ he asked.

‘No. It would have been so undignified. He’d controlled enough of my life for twenty years, I wasn’t going to let him have me following him about like some low-rent divorce investigator.’

‘Did you use any third party to check up on him then?’

‘No, I’ve told you.’

Hall had saved the question that had been troubling him the most until last.

‘So why didn’t you mention in your statement that you knew Lillian Hill?’

‘No-one asked, and it was just a co-incidence that we were both on the hill at the same time. It just wasn’t important. It didn’t mean anything at all.’

‘Did you know that she didn’t mention to us that she knew you either? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

‘No, just the opposite. She probably didn’t think that it was important either. Why do you ask?’

‘Because I’d have expected one or both of you to have mentioned it, that’s all.’

‘Well it seems that neither of us did. Now is that all? I’ve had a long day, and I’d like to get something to eat.’

Neither officer spoke as Hall drove back to the station. When he turned off the engine Jane made no move to get out. Hall was aware that he needed to be getting back to the kids, but that wasn’t a priority for Jane. Every extra minute that she was away from home was another minute that she wouldn’t spend alone.

‘So what do you think Andy?’

‘Some sort of conspiracy between the two of them? I can’t see it, can you? Can one really have pushed him over the edge, and the other one is covering it up?’

‘Maybe they did it together.’

Hall laughed. ‘Well it is possible I’ll grant you, but it all sounds a bit Witches of Eastwick, don’t you think?’

They sat silently for a minute.

‘Shall we look at both of their mobile phone records? See if they called each other?’

‘OK Jane, why not? The file is still open after all.’

Jane was still making no move to open the door.

‘Listen Jane, I need to get off home. The kids are expecting me, and I’ll be up half the night waiting to hear from Ian. I just wish criminals would do their stuff during office hours.’

‘Some do’ said Jane, opening the door. ‘Just look at all those banksters.’

‘Don’t get me started’ said Hall, reaching for the ignition.

Mann was sitting in the dark when the knock at the door came. He left the house, and this time there was a car outside, with one of the rear doors open. Spedding was driving, and Carl Richardson was in the front. Tom Rigg was in the back, and he nodded as Mann got in, closing the door quietly.

They drove east out of town and then turned north, into the flat border country. Mann didn’t know it at all. Soon they were on pitch dark minor roads, Spedding driving fast but safely. Then he slowed, and they turned into a long drive. It looked like the entrance to a country estate, but Mann couldn’t see any lights anywhere.

It was cloudy now, and starting to get windy, and when the moon came out Mann saw what looked like an old abbey or church, standing all on its own among the fields. A flat-bed lorry was already parked next to it. They all got out of the car and Spedding opened the boot. There were two climbing harnesses, lots of rope, and a couple of big pairs of tin snips.

Spedding passed a harness to Mann, and started to put the other one on himself.

‘I’m an action man too’ he said. ‘It’s not just squaddies that can do this stuff, you know marrer. Tom will belay you, and Carl will take care of me if needs be, all right? It’s only forty foot, and there are plenty of hand-holds, so I’ll lead.’

‘Are you putting in protection as you climb?’

‘Nah. I’ll be careful. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure the rope’s secure before you climb.’

Mann watched as Spedding climbed. He was impressed, despite himself. Spedding was a good climber, quick but cautious with it. From the ground it wasn’t possible to see the roof, because it was hidden behind castellations, and it was a couple of minutes before Mann felt a tug on his rope, and he set off. He hadn’t climbed in ages, and he very glad he was being belayed. But Spedding was right, it was easy enough, although the tin snips dangling from his belt were a bit awkward.

On the roof Mann unclipped, reached up and turned on the head-torch on his helmet. The roof was huge, and was actually two shallow roofs with a central valley gutter. Mann could see that there was lots of lead flashing. He helped Spedding rig a simple hoist, and they pulled up a basket. It would take forever doing it this way,

‘Keep the pieces small, and not too many at a time, OK?’ said Spedding. ‘We’ve got three hours, so take it nice and steady. They’ll send us up drinks and stuff later. Work near me, I’ll show you what to take.’

Spedding must have done this before, because he worked fast, and despite Mann’s superior strength and fitness he knew that he wasn’t as quick. And even though Mann knew perfectly well that they were stealing from a historic building he still felt the need to try to match Spedding, load for load. Eventually his back started to hurt, but he could tell that Spedding was tiring too, and after an hour or so Mann’s tin snips were slicing through the lead flashing even faster than Spedding’s.

They only stopped for five minutes to have a drink and a bar of chocolate, and after three hours Mann’s body was letting him know that it had done enough, bending, kneeling, cutting, lifting and loading.

‘Last load’ Spedding called down after the basket. ‘Right marrer, let’s get off here. Let the basket get clear and down you go.’

‘We’re leaving a lot behind Joey.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll be back in a week or two. The stuff we’ve taken won’t cause any leaks for months. They’ll never even know we were up here tonight.’ Spedding had been keeping his head torch down, so it didn’t shine in Mann’s eyes, but now he lifted his head and the light fell full on Mann’s face. ‘Of course, if anyone does find out then we’ll know who’s told them, won’t we? Now, let’s get on our way, over you go.’

Tuesday, 19th March

Andy Hall had emailed Jane and said he’d be in late to work, but that Ian was fine, and that he’d tell her all about it when she got in. So she tried to avoid looking at the door and got on with ordering both Vicky and Lillian’s mobile phone records. She and Ray Dixon had also been co-ordinating the investigation into Cartmel’s haulage business and Fraser’s slaughterhouse, which meant that she’d done 80% of the graft but he’d signed 60% of the reports. Jane still couldn’t work out how he did it.

‘Low animal cunning’ said Dixon cheerfully, when she asked. They were drinking coffee in Hall’s office, with papers spread around them.

‘So we’ve got a pretty good picture of where we are with both these cowboys’ said Dixon. ‘This Cartmel lad is on his uppers, and it looks like he’s paying his blokes’ wages in the cash he’s getting in from Brockbank, and probably others too. If we don’t nick him he’s going bust anyway, so we’re doing him a favour really. Putting him out of his misery like. Shame that is though, I can remember seeing their trucks around even when I was a lad.’

‘Horse-drawn were they Ray?’ He laughed. ‘So we’ve got enough on Cartmel I think. He’s not even subtle about it, is he?’

‘Can’t afford to be’ said Dixon. ‘Fraser’s a different kettle of fish though. How many companies has he got?’

‘Ten active, plus more dormant, and it will take months to piece it all together, what with the foreign trading and the endless inter-company transfers and stuff. I think we’ll need the forensic accounts boys to sharpen their pencils to get to the bottom of that lot. But I think what we’re saying is that we’ve got plenty on both of them when they’re nicked. Cartmel’s in the bag, and Fraser has deliberately made his accounts as opaque as possible. That’s got to mean something.’

Dixon noisily drained his coffee. Jane noticed a drip run down onto Hall’s table. ‘You write it all up, and I’ll sign it. Shame we’ve got nothing on where the metals go though. But maybe Ian got a lead last night, excuse the pun.’

‘It’s not a pun Ray, it’s a heteronym.’

Dixon didn’t look as if he wanted to know what it was. ‘That’s completely legal now though, right? You know me love, I hate prejudice.’

‘Of course you do Ray. So we tell the boss that if we can find out where the metal is going then we can wrap this all up and bring Ian in from the cold?’ asked Jane.

‘Aye, and about time too. Obviously I hate the Sarge because he tells me what to do and then expects me to actually do some of it occasionally, but I won’t be sorry when he’s out of all this. I’ve got a bad feeling about Spedding and his boys. Don’t tell anyone this Jane, or I’ll be forced to kill you and bury you along with all the other DCs who got too close, but I’ve been waking up in the night worrying about Ian. All these years on the job, and it’s the first time it’s happened.’