Death in Dark Waters (12 page)

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Authors: Patricia Hall

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural

BOOK: Death in Dark Waters
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“Thank you for your help,” Thackeray said to no one in particular and led Val Ridley away down the long hospital corridor at a brisk pace leaving Adams to berate his lawyer in a fierce whisper.
“That was a bit over the top, wasn't it, boss?” Val said as soon as they were out of earshot. “You don't really think the boy's been dealing, do you?”
“I haven't the faintest idea,” Thackeray said. “The whole thing is a complete charade. He'll never tell us where he got the Ecstasy and his cannabis stash isn't even worth cautioning him for. But Adams himself was the one screaming for retribution. It doesn't hurt to let him know just where that might lead.”
Val glanced at her boss with some curiosity. She recognised
a bombastic bully in Adams when she saw one but she had not often seen the DCI react so overtly to such a challenge. Canteen gossip, in this case originating she guessed with Kevin Mower, suggested that Laura Ackroyd has been known to indulge in a spliff now and again - although how Kevin had come by that piece of compromising information she could not begin to guess. Perhaps Kevin had shared one with her. She would not put it past him. Or perhaps the reporter had been passing round a relaxing joint at home these winter nights, Val thought with a secret smile.
“We waste too much time chasing kids with dope,” she said cautiously. Thackeray glanced at her as they waited for the lift.
“Maybe,” he said. “Though in this case you're certainly right. If Grantley Adams didn't regard himself as the great moral arbiter for the whole of Bradfield …”
“Or its grand master, more like,” Val said sharply. “We wouldn't be here, right?”
“I couldn't possibly comment,” Thackeray said. Thackeray let the detective constable go back to police HQ without him and made his way through the long hospital corridors and down a back staircase to where the mortuary and pathology departments lived discreetly separate lives in the basement. Amos Atherton was not in his office, and after glancing through a small window into the main operating room, Thackeray saw the pathologist untangling his bulky frame from green blood-stained overalls. He nodded at the DCI through the glass as he struggled out of his boots.
“Give me two minutes, lad,” Atherton mouthed, holding up his fingers in a Churchillian salute.
Thackeray waited in the corridor wondering whether he could get away with a cigarette immediately beneath the large red no-smoking notice on the tiled wall. It was not a place he had ever felt comfortable. Too many memories stalked the infirmary corridors for his peace of mind, and they were not just of people he had met professionally, lying naked and
ultimately exposed in the room behind him, victims of a second assault under Atherton's dispassionate scalpels and saws, although those ghosts were bad enough. Once he had roamed these tiled depths for hours, without authority and crazed with grief and alcohol, while a pathologist - and he had never dared ask Atherton if it had been him — had ascertained the cause of death of his tiny son. Upstairs his wife had lain comatose hooked up to life-support machines, and while every fibre of his being had wished Ian back to life, he had just as fervently wanted Aileen dead. In the end the cries of pain he was hardly aware he had uttered had brought officialdom in his direction and sympathetic but firm hands had led him away. He had never set foot in the hospital again without a shudder of fear and shame.
Atherton's two minutes were up and the pathologist shambled out of the morgue straightening his jacket across broad shoulders and making a vain attempt to button it across his ample stomach.
“Now then?”
Thackeray hesitated for no more than a second.
“The lad on the Heights who fell off the roof,” he said at length. “Open and shut, was it? Nothing to suggest it might not have been an accident?”
“Ah, now I'm glad you asked me that. I've been meaning to complete the report and get it back to you,” Atherton said, looking slightly flustered. “I'd been expecting to find him full of heroin. The tolerance these kids build up never ceases to amaze me. But even though he had plenty of old scars and track marks on his arms, the blood tests came back clean.”
“His mother's insisting he was murdered,” Thackeray said shortly.
“Well, I can't say that's what I concluded. There were no injuries I could find that weren't consistent with him simply hitting the ground from a great height. He could have been pushed, I suppose, but I'm not sure that's what the coroner will decide, on the evidence we've got. He could have just
been fooling about up there, the way lads do. All I can tell you is that he wasn't high on drugs, for what that's worth.”
Thackeray shrugged.
“It's probably nothing. Though in the natural course of events, there's too many people dying up there. Take each case on its own and it looks like an overdose or some other sort of accident. Take them together and you begin to wonder.”
“If you want to kill an addict there's one foolproof way to do it,” Atherton said. “And that's to give them an overdose, or a dose full of rubbish like sink cleaner. Who's going to ask questions any road? Most folk just write it off as no more than they deserve. And kids on the Heights all get tarred with the same brush. Are the police any different?”
“Probably not,” Thackeray admitted.
“Now if it's Grantley Adams's son, then a few stops get pulled out …” Atherton offered with a tight smile.
Thackeray groaned. “Not you as well,” he said.
“Bit close to the mark, is it?”
“I'd not have wasted half a day on it myself, to be honest,” Thackeray said. “Essentially it was a traffic accident.”
“It's all politics, lad, you should have learned that by now. Why do you think this department's still stuck down here in the bowels of the earth with equipment that bloody Burke and Hare would have found familiar. It's because I won't play their games and butter up the chief executive of the hospital trust on the golf course like some folk I could name. Golf clubs, Masonic Lodges — if your only outside interests are a bit of course fishing and a ramble on t'Pennine Way on a Sunday afternoon you're out of the loop. QED.”
The thought of Atherton rambling across Town Hall Square, let alone the wild moorland paths of the Yorkshire hills brought a faint smile to Thackeray's normally impassive features.
“Pull the other one,” he said.
“Aye, well, I was young once. So why else have you come?”
Atherton asked, steering his guest towards the stairs and the faint clatter of the hospital tea-room above. “I reckon it's not to buy me a cuppa and a Penguin biscuit.”
“A favour,” Thackeray said quietly.
“Oh aye?” Atherton said non-commitally, though his eyes said “You too?” He stopped short of the top of the stairs and put out a broad arm to bar Thackeray's way.
“You remember the dodgy doctor at the May Anderson clinic I crossed swords with earlier this year?” Thackeray asked, his voice low.
“No one in the business will forget that bastard in a hurry,” Atherton said. “Bloody General Medical Council hasn't got round to striking him off yet, you know.”
“I know,” Thackeray said. “But it's one of his patients I'm interested in. Medical opinion seems to reckon that he couldn' t possibly have been experimenting with clones, is that right?”
Atherton nodded wary agreement.
“So we're left with the case of Karen Bailey. She had twins at the clinic and the whole thing left her wondering who the hell the father was - assuming there was one.”
Atherton said nothing but his eyes narrowed and he kept his arm firmly in place, blocking the stairs. Thackeray hesitated.
“Her boyfriend says they never had tests done to establish paternity,” he said at last.
“He must be the only man on earth who doesn't want to know,” Atherton said.
“It's hardly credible. And with twins …” He shrugged.
“I don't believe him,” Thackeray said. “Would she come here for tests?”
“The May Anderson has some arrangement with our labs, I think,” Atherton said. “Unless she had it done privately somewhere else. I suppose you want me to root around in the records for you, do you?”
“I'd be grateful.”
“Aye so you should be,” Atherton said. “Of course, you realise that if all they did was a simple blood test it won't tell you who the father actually is, if it turns out it can't be who it ought to be? You'd need DNA samples for that and I doubt they'd go to the expense of getting that done. Chances are they'd not have a sample to match against anyway if the actual father was keeping his head down.”
“Money might be no object, but if the father's not who it should have been that's all I need to know,” Thackeray said. His mind clouded for a second and he felt an emptiness in his gut that took his breath away.
“You all right?” Atherton asked.
“I'm fine,” Thackeray said, trying to drive away the image of a baby's face gazing at him wide-eyed from beneath the surface of his bathwater.
“I'll not promise,” Atherton said. “But I'll see what I can do. You look as if you need a holiday, lad.”
“It's booked,” Thackeray lied.
Laura Ackroyd set up her tape-recorder on the polished table which dominated councillor Dave Spencer's spacious office and smiled sweetly at the councillor himself and his even younger press officer who sat opposite her, as she recalled the first rule of journalism according to Jeremy Paxman which was to ask why these bastards were lying to her. She had no particular reason to distrust Spencer, who had granted her request for an interview about the new development on the Heights readily enough. He had all the attributes she admired in a politician. He was young, and evidently energetic and open-minded, ready to find solutions to problems without relying on dogma to give him the answers. And however much the lack of ideology might upset her grandmother, Laura could see no reason to object to any strategy which brought results for Bradfield's less prosperous citizens, as Spencer and his colleagues claimed their policies did. And yet as she pulled out her notebook and her list of topics she wanted to discuss with him, she felt uneasy. All the Italian-suited charm, and crop - haired openness across the table did not impress her as much close up as it had at a distance. Might there after all, she thought, be something to hide? But if there were, she was not sure that she was skilful enough to discover what it was.
“So what can we tell you, Laura?” Spencer asked. “Ted Grant says he wants to give this the centre spread so we've brought you up some of the outline plans which you can reproduce. They're on display downstairs, of course, but not many people make the effort to come and look.” He glanced at the young woman at his side. “Jay here is going to do a flyer which will go out to all the residents of the Heights so that they know exactly where we are coming from with this.”
“Fine,” Laura said, switching on the recorder, bristling at his tone.
“Let me talk you through,” Spencer offered kindly. “I don't suppose you're used to reading this sort of stuff. These outlines here are where the existing blocks of flats stood. They'll all come down, of course, when we get the go-ahead, and not before time. They'll be replaced by low rise housing, here, and here and here.” He ran a finger along the lines which indicated new streets. “And here we have a new primary school to replace the Victorian slum down the hill.”
“The one where the ceilings are always falling down because the roof leaks?”
“St. Michael's. That's it. This will be much more convenient for the families, and a good modern building. That's pure planning gain, of course. And here, a health and community centre, to replace those awful huts, and there an outpost for the further education college to provide courses at that end of the town.”
“And this is all going to be low rent housing, councillor?” Laura asked. “So the tenants of the flats can stay?” The right to buy council properties had proved a dismal failure for tenants in the tower blocks of Wuthering as no financial institution could be persuaded to grant mortgages on the damp and rotting dwellings which had been due for demolition for ten years or more, even if anyone had been prepared to buy them.
“Do call me Dave, by the way,” Spencer came back. “But, no, this is a public-private partnership and in any case the new thinking is that we should mix the types of accommodation so that we don't recreate these sink estates …”
“And the old people's bungalows? They're not in such poor condition.” Laura thought of her grandmother's fury if her small but comfortable home were to be demolished.
“They come down too. That's a prime site they're sitting on, worth a lot of money to the council, and the existing density's too low for the new developers.”
“So how many of the original tenants will be re-housed on the Heights?” Laura asked.
“Well, that sort of detail will be thrashed out in the
consultation. No definite decisions have been taken. And the developers will want a say, of course.”
“Approximately, Dave?” Laura persisted.
“Well, I should think when the plans are finalised somewhere between two-thirds and a half of the tenants will be re-housed elsewhere. It's inevitable when you take these high rise blocks down that some people will have to move on.”
“That's an awful lot of people,” Laura said quietly. “Have they any idea they'll be moved out to make way for more affluent residents?”
“As Councillor Spencer said we're working on the full consultation procedures as we speak,” Jay said enthusiastically. “We'll be leafletting up there, having a public meeting, all long before the planning committee commits to definite decisions.”
“This is all the council's land?” Laura asked.
“Oh, yes,” Spencer said.
“So why isn't it possible simply to pull down the old blocks and replace them with enough new houses to accommodate the whole of the existing community?”
“Well, as I said, it doesn't work quite like that these days. There's a presumption in favour of mixed developments. And then the government likes the thing to be done in partnership with the private sector and inevitably the private sector wants houses to sell. Bradfield will do very well out of this. It's a fantastic way of involving local business and getting investment without massive borrowing. We will get the public buildings a modern community up there needs while our private partners will get land for their housing in a prime site. The views from that hill will be a major selling point …”
“I'm sure they will,” Laura said. “So let me get this clear. Your private partners put money in?”
“They buy the land - cleared of course - which gives the council a nice little windfall …”
“How much is the land worth then?”
“Oh, I'm not sure, but I've heard twenty million mentioned,”
Spencer said. “Can't be bad for Bradfield, that. Then on top of that the developers build the new housing and other facilities.”
“And then some of the housing is sold? So how much will the private houses go for then?” Laura asked.
“Well, they are thinking at the moment of executive town houses, with small gardens and reserved parking, so we're talking top of the range.”
“So not many of the current residents will be buying those?”
Spencer looked irritated for a second and then smiled faintly.
“The indefatigable Joyce has been briefing you, has she? No, as I said, this is intended to be a mixed development.” He ran his finger across the map again. “Private housing here at the east side, overlooking the town. Quite a valuable proposition, that. And public housing further back to the west.”
“And the rest belongs to the council: houses, school, health centre and so on?”
“No, not exactly. We lease what we want back from the developers and they maintain the facilities for us. For thirty years in the first instance. It's a way of getting private investment into public facilities. Brilliantly simple really. It's definitely the way ahead.”
“But your business partners will do very well out of it, won't they? They get to do the building for you, sell the private housing, lease back the social housing and community stuff to the council - they can't lose, can they? But do you actually save public money in the long run? Is it cheaper?”
“In the short term, yes, much cheaper,” Spencer said.
“But not long term?” Laura persisted.
Spencer did not answer. If I can find a tame accountant, Laura thought, I'll work out just what this does cost in the end.
“Who are these partners exactly?” Laura asked.
“That's not for public consumption yet,” Spencer said. “It'll be a consortium. There's a couple of groups interested. City
Ventures is one. Blackstock Holdings another. But there may be more by the time it goes out to tender.”
“Local businesses?”
“Oh, yes, some of them. It all boosts the local economy, one way or another.”
“So there'll be an open competition for the contract?”
“Probably,” Spencer said. “We may have a favoured bidder, but that's all in the future.”
“And what about the project that the women are running up there for the school drop-outs, the one my grandmother was so anxious about? That will be housed in the new college facilities, will it? Or in the community centre?”
Spencer glanced at Jay, who looked disconcerted.
“I'm not sure any provision has been made for that sort of facility, although Mr. Foreman did say that he would be interested in helping with facilities for young people in difficulties,” she said. “Of course, with the new executive housing on the Heights we're hoping that a lot of the problems they have currently up there will be …” She hesitated.
“Dispersed,” Spencer said cheerfully. “That's the word Jay's looking for. One of the difficulties we have currently up at Wuthering, as you must know, is the sheer concentration of problem families and difficult kids. They'll undoubtedly be dispersed by this new development. And a very good thing too. It'll be much easier for the schools and other agencies to deal with these kids if they are not concentrated in one place, and in one or two schools.”
“But much harder for the parents to organise self-help schemes like the Project,” Laura said. “And where exactly will they be dispersed to? They'll get nice new houses somewhere else, will they? Or not?”
“Well, we have no other major redevelopment schemes in the pipeline so I expect most will move onto older properties elsewhere. That's inevitable, really,” Spencer said. “We've no shortage of vacant properties which are in better condition than the flats up at Wuthering. So everyone gains.”
“I thought most of your vacant properties were vandalised and impossible to sell,” Laura said, feeling almost as outraged by Spencer's plans as she knew Joyce would be when she heard the details.
“Not at all,” Spencer said. “In any case, any property people move to will be made fit before they move in. We'll have the funds for that too, when the land on the Heights is sold to the developers.”
“Not really much in this for those who have to move though, is there? The community broken up, lots of people moved out to areas they may not want to go to? Won't this be a difficult scheme to sell to the people on the Heights, Councillor Spencer?”
“Oh, I think we'll manage, Laura,” Spencer said easily. “I don't really anticipate any difficulties. The crucial decisions will be taken by the planning committee once the regeneration committee has drawn up its final plans and has costed the whole project.”
So I guess that's all sewn up already, Laura thought.
“Well, it's certainly an interesting scheme,” she said.
“Well, I know your editor thinks so. You know we've asked him to sit on the regeneration committee, don't you. We're sure his input will be extremely valuable.”
Laura nodded weakly, not willing to admit to knowledge that she was not supposed to have.
“Terrific,” she said.
“Call me if you have any more questions when you come to write your feature,” Jay said, passing a wad of glossy brochures across the table to Laura. “This is what we've prepared so far.”
Laura glanced at the sketches of town houses set amidst trees and neatly parked BMWs which appeared on the front of the publicity material and thought of the fate of cars currently left parked for more than half an hour on the Heights. She smiled sweetly, green eyes opaque as she caught Spencer's gaze.
“Fine,” she said. “And when does your consultation begin?”
“After the next meeting of the committee,” Spencer said. “Ted indicated that he would use your feature the day after that.”
“And there was I thinking we were an independent newspaper,” Laura said stabbing off her tape-recorder with an angry jab. Dave Spencer's expression hardened for a second and then he smiled, without warmth.
“I'm sure no one is going to compromise your independence, Laura,” he said. “You're a chip off the old block.”
“I'll get my grandmother to contact you again about funding for the Project, then, shall I? I don't think she's had an answer on that yet.”
“Of course,” Spencer said. “We'll see what we can do about that. Perhaps Barry Foreman would come to the rescue with a bit of persuasion. You never know.”
“I'm not sure that's quite what she had in mind,” Laura said.
“No, I'm sure it isn't,” Spencer said, distinctly waspish this time. “But even the dinosaur tendency is going to have to shift its arse in the end, you know. Perhaps you could tell her that before she comes badgering me again?”
 
“D'you fancy lunch?” Laura asked when she was back at her desk and finally got through to Michael Thackeray. There was a long enough silence at the other end of the line to cause her heart to sink.

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