Abattoir Blues: The 22nd DCI Banks Mystery (Inspector Banks 22) Page 12

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I never really considered that. I don’t think he’d be capable of the level of organisation needed to pull off such a job. There must have been more than one of them, wouldn’t you think?’

  ‘Possibly. Though I heard the key was readily available.’

  Beddoes reddened. ‘Yes, well, I’ve learned my lesson from that.’

  Something about bolting stable doors came into Banks’s mind, but he didn’t give voice to it. ‘Could Lane have known you were going to be away?’

  ‘I suppose so. His father knew, naturally.’

  ‘Did you know that Lane’s girlfriend works in the GoThereNow in the Swainsdale Centre?’

  Beddoes frowned. ‘No, I didn’t. I know nothing about his private life.’

  ‘Isn’t that where you booked your trip?’

  ‘Yes. Are you suggesting that she told Lane, and that he and some pals made off with the tractor?’

  ‘It’s just a possibility, that’s all. I can’t say it’s one I take very seriously, though. As you say, there’s a level of organisation to all this. Of course, Lane might be a cog in a much larger wheel. But it wasn’t just something a mischievous kid does on the spur of the moment. Steal an expensive tractor. How would he get rid of it, for a start, assuming he could have made away with it?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I said.’

  ‘Do you know a friend of Lane’s called Morgan Spencer?’

  ‘I can’t say as I do.’

  ‘The two of them do odd jobs on farms around the dale.’

  ‘Not here they don’t. I wouldn’t trust Lane anywhere near my property. Do you think this Spencer character was involved?’

  ‘I don’t know anything yet,’ said Banks. ‘Only that there are too many loose ends and too many coincidences.’ He slapped his thighs. ‘No doubt it’ll all become clear before long. I’ve taken up too much of your time already. Thanks for the music, Mr Beddoes.’

  ‘John, please,’ said Beddoes, holding out his hand to shake at the door. ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘John, then,’ said Banks. ‘And don’t worry, we’ll do our best to find your tractor.’

  He headed back to the Range Rover, where the three uniformed officers were waiting for him. The looks on their faces told him they had found nothing of interest.

  After a hearty lunch of fish and chips and mushy peas in The Magpie, Annie and Wilson made their way to Tesco and found Denise Lane working at one of the checkout counters. She got clearance from her supervisor to accompany them to the little coffee shop near the supermarket entrance. They found an empty table by the plate-glass window that looked out on the car park and the inner harbour beyond. Wilson went to fetch a latte for Denise. Neither Annie nor Wilson wanted anything after their lunch. Besides, Annie thought, there was something obscene about drinking latte straight after fish and chips. A couple of unruly children were running around unattended, but other than that the coffee shop was quiet, and their table was far enough away from the others for privacy. Annie glanced out of the window and saw flocks of seagulls circling above an old wooden sailing ship moored in the harbour. It was something historic, she thought, something she should know about but didn’t. Hornblower, Nelson, or Captain Cook or someone.

  Denise Lane had a heart-shaped face under a tidy cap of streaked blonde hair, a smooth complexion and attractive features, all in the right proportions. She was also long-legged and looked slim and shapely under her uniform. Mrs Prince had been right about the fitness centre. Denise Lane would hardly be forty, Annie reminded herself, not much more than ten years older than Alex Preston, and maybe five or six years younger than her ex-husband. If those hard years on the farm had taken their toll on her, she had certainly worked at regaining her good looks and youthful glow. Perhaps her weakest feature, Annie noticed, was her fingers, which were short and stubby, with bitten and broken nails.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked Annie, before Doug Wilson had even returned with the coffee. ‘Has something happened to Michael?’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘It’s not every day I get a visit from the police. I haven’t done anything wrong, so I assume it must be bad news.’

  ‘Just routine inquiries,’ said Annie, kicking herself immediately for coming out with the most obvious police cliché. ‘I mean, we’re just here to ask you a few questions, that’s all. As far as I know, nobody’s come to any harm, and nobody’s done anything wrong.’

  ‘You must have some reason for seeking me out?’

  Wilson came back, handed her the latte and took out his notebook.

  ‘When did you last see Michael?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Not for a while.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘A few months.’

  ‘You’re not close?’

  ‘I suppose not. At least, not since . . .’

  ‘The separation?’

  ‘Yes. It’s been difficult for everyone. I mean, Michael stayed at the farm with his dad. What could he do, really? He was only seventeen. Oh, he used to come and see me at Mum and Dad’s sometimes, at first, but we argued. I think he blamed me for what happened. And Mum can be so . . . judgemental. I suppose I felt betrayed, abandoned. Then when I met Ollie things changed. I saw less and less of Michael. He and Ollie didn’t get on at all. Maybe in time . . . ? I don’t know.’

  ‘So you don’t know much about his recent life, what he’s doing, how he’s living?’

  ‘I know he moved out about a year ago and he has a girlfriend who’s older than him, but that’s about all.’

  ‘Your mother calls her the “floozie”. Doesn’t that bother you?’

  ‘What? That mum calls her a floozie? That she’s older than him? Why should it? Men take up with younger women all the time. As long as they’re happy, I don’t care. Look, I wish you’d get to the point. My break’s not long enough to waste on idle chat about Michael.’

  Annie wished she knew what the point was. ‘We’re trying to find him, that’s all,’ she said. ‘A neighbour’s tractor was stolen while he was away on holiday, and Michael’s father was supposed to be looking after the man’s farm. Mr Beddoes mentioned Michael, that’s all.’

  ‘And you think he did it? On John Beddoes’ say-so?’

  ‘We don’t think that at all, but we do want to talk to him. It seems there was some bad blood between your son and Mr Beddoes, and Michael does have a conviction to his name.’

  ‘You never let go, you lot, do you? Oh, I know all about the stolen car. The joyride. One silly mistake and he’s in your sights for ever.’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ Annie protested, though perhaps without too much conviction. ‘Michael’s disappeared. Alex is worried about him. We want to find him, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. It’s not a disappearance. That’s so melodramatic. Is that what this “floozie” told you? Alex. That he’d disappeared?’

  ‘Do you know a friend of his called Morgan Spencer?’

  Denise looked towards the harbour through the window. ‘Morgan? Why do you mention Morgan?’

  ‘He’s made himself scarce, too.’

  ‘Well, there’s someone you should keep in your sights. I always thought he was a bad influence on our Michael. He’s older, for a start. They’ve known each other for a few years, since before I left. I suspect Morgan was behind the joyriding business, for a start. It was only Michael who took the blame, but I’ll bet you anything Morgan was behind it. He was older. He’d probably have got a harsher sentence. I also blamed him for putting ideas into Michael’s head.’

  ‘What ideas?’

  ‘Oh, about what a waste of time education was, how you should just make your own way, that there was plenty of easy money to be had if you knew how to get it. Christ, I wish to bloody God I’d gone to university when I had the chance.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  Denise gave a harsh laugh. ‘I wanted money in my pocket, the flash life.
I couldn’t see the sense in learning some subject I didn’t care about. I wanted holidays abroad, sun and fun. What I got was Frank bloody Lane and the farm. Only myself to blame. But that’s behind me now.’

  ‘So Morgan was a bad influence on Michael. Is that all you know about him?’

  ‘He’s . . . I think . . .’ She looked away.

  ‘What is it, Denise?’

  ‘I think he’s dangerous, too.’ She glanced around the coffee shop, as if to make sure no one could hear. Annie didn’t think anyone could. Then Denise lowered her voice. ‘Or he could be. One time, about three years ago, before things really started to fall apart, Morgan came up to the farm looking for Michael. He wasn’t there. Neither was Frank. I was by myself. Morgan didn’t seem bothered by that, and he started to . . . I don’t know . . . chat me up, I suppose. Then he got more explicit. Said why didn’t we go upstairs, we could have some fun. That I wasn’t bad looking for an old woman, and he could give me a good time. That sort of thing. Thinks he’s God’s gift.’

  Annie felt herself turn cold. ‘Did he touch you?’

  ‘Just, you know, he put his hand on my breast, but I slapped him away. I thought then for a moment from the expression on his face that he was going to force me. He looked so angry at being rejected.’

  ‘But he didn’t do anything?’

  ‘No. He just left.’

  ‘And that was the only time?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have him in the house after that.’

  ‘Did you tell your husband or Michael?’

  ‘No. I haven’t told anyone. I felt so dirty, so ashamed, and things were already bad between Frank and me. But I want you to know what kind of person he is. If there’s any trouble, if Michael’s in any sort of bother, than you can bet Morgan Spencer is behind it.’

  ‘Thanks for agreeing to see me at such short notice,’ Banks said to Detective Inspector Joanna MacDonald as they sat in a pub on the outskirts of Northallerton waiting for lunch.

  ‘Any excuse to get out of the office,’ Joanna said, smiling. ‘And you did say you were buying.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  Joanna shrugged. ‘What can I say? The career’s fine. The personal life’s still a bit of a mess. It gets a bit lonely sometimes.’

  Banks knew that Joanna had recently separated from her husband after she had discovered that he was involved in a number of affairs, or flings, as she had called them. He remembered how much it had hurt him when his own ex-wife Sandra had left him for someone else, the betrayal, the sense of being played for an idiot for not seeing it coming, the shame and humiliation.

  ‘You miss your husband?’

  ‘Like a bad smell. But to look on the bright side, I’m not in Professional Standards any more, so everyone doesn’t hate me.’

  Somehow, Joanna didn’t seem so much the icy Hitchcock blonde she had been when Banks had first met her. She was still blonde, and still a very attractive woman, but now instead of wearing her hair piled on top of her head, she let it hang straight over her shoulders. She wore black-rimmed glasses, which suited her and gave her the aspect of a college professor. There was also something warmer and more open about her manner. When they had been on a case in Tallinn together, she had been remote, edgy and quick-tempered. It was probably a lot to do with working for Professional Standards, Banks knew, and suspecting her husband of infidelity, and he had to admit that he hadn’t exactly welcomed her with open arms. She was the enemy, after all. In fact, he had treated her cruelly, and he now felt childish when he remembered the silly practical jokes he had played on her.

  ‘You did a damn good job,’ Banks said simply.

  Joanna laughed. ‘Thanks. It might have helped if you’d told me so at the time.’

  ‘Well, no one likes being under the microscope.’

  ‘Oh, I was never out to get you. You know that. You just had an exaggerated sense of your own importance, like most men.’

  ‘Now there’s a generalisation if ever I’ve heard one. I wasn’t that bad, was I?’

  Joanna wrinkled her nose and held her thumb and forefinger slightly apart. ‘Maybe just a little bit. Anyway, you haven’t come all this way just for the pleasure of my company.’ She tucked her hair behind her ears. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Banks waited while the server brought their plates of food, warning them to be careful, they were hot. It was typical modern pub grub, haddock and chips and a beef and mushroom pie, also with chips. Banks sipped a pint of Timothy Taylor’s and Joanna stuck to Diet Coke.

  ‘You’re still working on Operation Hawk, aren’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘I spend most of my waking hours on it. Ever since our new police commissioner made it a priority. Why?’

  Banks explained a little about the missing tractor and the blood found at the abandoned hangar.

  ‘And you think they’re linked?’ Joanna asked.

  ‘Yes. Not officially, of course, not yet. We don’t have the DNA results, for a start. But we do have a stolen tractor and two people of interest who seem to have disappeared. And the timing is just too close to be coincidence.’

  ‘Are these two local?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you give me their names?’

  Banks told her, and Joanna wrote them down in her notebook. She ate some more fish, then put her knife and fork aside and rested her arms on the table. Banks noticed that the cuffs of her white blouse were a little frayed around her wrist. That wasn’t like the Joanna he had known. Had she let things go? Was she hard up? Perhaps the divorce was costing her in more ways than one. Or maybe she was just working too hard. ‘As you probably know,’ she said, ‘what we do on Operation Hawk is try to keep track of criminals on the move who strike at rural communities around the country. We also link up with various farm and border watch groups, along with the National Parks Commission, Country Watch and the Farmers’ Union to spread awareness of the problem. I don’t really see how we can help you much if it’s a local matter. You’d be just as well equipped to deal with something like that as we would.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Banks. ‘But it’s the national angle I’m interested in. Maybe even international. Who knows? I mean, if someone steals a few sheep, the odds are he’s going to slaughter them locally in an illegal abattoir and sell the meat off the back of a lorry, especially with the price of lamb these days. But if he steals a tractor worth a hundred thousand quid or more, he’s going to whisk it out of the country sharpish. And for that you need organisation. Remember Tallinn?’

  ‘I do remember,’ Joanna said, with a tilt of her head. Then she laughed and touched his hand. ‘Whatever happens, Alan. We’ll always have Tallinn.’

  Definitely not the Joanna Banks had known. She had changed. She would never have said something like that before.

  ‘But that was different,’ Joanna went on. ‘It was people we were dealing with, not sheep or pigs. Or tractors.’

  ‘We think the hangar might have been used as an exchange point,’ Banks went on. ‘You know, somewhere the local thieves deliver their goods, whatever they are, make the transfer, and get it on transport brought in specially for the purpose. Then it goes on its way to Bulgaria or wherever. For that, some of the people involved will have to drive up and down the A1. I understand you’re using ANPR to track the movements of suspects?’

  ‘You’ve been reading the papers, I can tell,’ said Joanna, leaning back in her chair and sipping her Coke. ‘OK, yes, that’s a part of what we do.’ ANPR stood for automatic number plate recognition, a system of software able to collect number plate data from converted CCTV units on all motorways, major roads, and in town and city centres.

  ‘So you must have some names for me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Some of your regulars. And don’t tell me Operation Hawk has yielded no results so far. There’s organisation involved here, Joanna. Palms to be greased, papers to be forged, that sort of thing. They might use locals for the jobs and for the sc
outing, but the whole operation’s got to be run by an organised gang. There has to be a brain behind it somewhere. And money.’

  ‘Fair enough. There’s a few people we’re keeping an eye on, though they’re hardly the ones who drive lorries up and down the motorways. We do liaise with the NCA, too, on a regular basis, as well as with other county forces.’ The NCA was the National Crime Agency, what the media referred to as the British FBI, which had replaced the Serious Organised Crime Agency. They weren’t primarily concerned with rural crime, as Operation Hawk was, but they were interested in almost everything else except counterterrorism, which remained within the Met’s remit. Slowly but surely, the technology was catching up with the criminals. ‘The problem is,’ Joanna went on, ‘that we’d need specific locations to know if a certain car or lorry has been regularly spotted on that route. And, as you can imagine, on somewhere like the M1 or the A1 there’s a hell of a lot of normal traffic flow to rule out.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Banks. ‘But if I give you the location of the hangar, and the closest access points to and from the A1, can you find out whether anyone’s been visiting the place regularly over the past year or so?’

  ‘We keep the ANPR data for two years, so yes, we can do that. I don’t know about the actual location itself, but certainly the general area. Have you thought, though, Alan, that if some organisation is using that corridor, as you suggest, then they’ll be smart enough to know about ANPR, and maybe even about Operation Hawk – it’s hardly a classified operation, after all. They could avoid detection by using different vehicles. Or different number plates. Or varying their route.’

  ‘Surely even you lot can spot a false number plate?’

  Joanna laughed. ‘Sometimes. But there’s a lot of traffic. Not to mention all the foreign vehicles. We can liaise with Interpol and Europol if we need to, as well as with forces in specific countries, but that takes time and a finely honed sense of what you want. What you’re talking about just sounds too vague to me. I’m not saying we can’t help. Don’t get me wrong. Just telling you not to expect miracles.’

  ‘I never have,’ said Banks. ‘Not unless I’ve laid the groundwork for them.’ He finished his pie and sipped some beer, then swirled the pale gold liquid in his glass. ‘If I’m thinking along the right lines,’ he went on, ‘someone might have driven up on Sunday morning. At least that’s when one of our suspects received a text and left his flat in a hurry.’