Death in Dark Waters (4 page)

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Authors: Patricia Hall

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

BOOK: Death in Dark Waters
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“Mrs. James, I'd like to hear what Louise has to say for herself,” Thackeray broke in sharply. “If you don't mind.”
The girl shot him a glance which appeared almost grateful while her mother turned away, affronted.
“We like the music,” Louise said. “And the DJs. Wednesday was Dizzy B. He's cool.”
“So you went down there at what time?” Val asked.
“About ten, I suppose.”
“Had you been anywhere else first?”
“We had a couple of drinks in the Parrot and Banana.”
“No difficulty getting served, I suppose,” Val said dryly. “And was it just the two of you went on to the club, or were you part of a larger group?”
“We've tried to bring her up to drink sensibly,” the girl's mother said quickly.
Louise ignored her but hesitated, gazing down at her clasped hands on the table in front of her.
“There was a whole gang going on from the pub,” she said eventually. “No one I knew very well.”
“Names?”
“Just first names. No one from our school. Not close friends.”
Thackeray knew the girl was lying and guessed that the two women did too.
“We'll give you a pencil and paper later,” he said. “You can have a think about the names of anyone you can remember who was around that evening. Will you do that, Louise?”
The girl nodded, not looking up, and Thackeray knew that the list would be short and the names unidentifiable, but he did not think it worth pressurising the girl at this stage.
“We know from the hospital that Jeremy took at least one Ecstasy tablet during the evening,” Val Ridley went on, her voice calm. “Did you know that?”
Louise nodded, a single tear drop splashing down onto the table in front of her. Irritably, she rubbed it away with a finger
“Did you take any illegal substances, Louise?”
Louise nodded again.
“Just one tab,” she said, and there was a sharply indrawn breath from her mother. Thackeray shot her a warning glance.
“You think Jeremy took more?” Val persisted.
“I think he had two. He was wild …At the club later he was dancing like a mad-man. I couldn't keep up with him. But we knew what to do. We drank plenty of water …”
“So you know we have to ask, Louise. Where did you get the pills from?”
“They were just passing them round in the pub,” the girl said, glancing at her mother. “I'd never had one before but Jez said it would be cool.”
“Who was passing them round?”
“Everyone,” Louise said, sulky now.
“But someone must have been taking the money for them. These things don't come free.”
“I didn't see anyone,” she said.
“Did you pay for them, Louise?”
“I never.” The girl flushed and more tears came.
“So did Jeremy buy them?”
“No, no, I never saw him pay anyone. I don't know who bought them, where they came from, it was nothing to do with me.”
“Right, we'll leave that for the minute, Louise,” Val Ridley said, still calm, her voice still low as the girl scrubbed at her eyes with a tissue that her mother handed to her.
“When you got to the Carib, there was someone on the door, right?”
“Two black guys,” Louise said.
“And did they check you for drugs?”
“Yeah, yeah, they asked, and looked in my bag. I had a little black bag with me, but we'd taken them by then, so there wasn't anything to find, was there? They were wasting their time.”
“Maybe,” Val Ridley said. “But inside the club. Did you see anyone offering drugs in there? Pills, cannabis, anything at all?”
Louise shook her head.
“It was dark, and crowded and we were dancing, I didn't see anything much. It was a great night until that happened …” She glanced at her mother.
“It's not fair the way everyone's going on about the drugs,” Louise burst out suddenly, her voice choked with anger. “It was that taxi driver's fault. He came round the corner too fast. He could have hit me too, lots of people jumped out of the way. Jez was unlucky that's all. He didn't see it coming. It was nothing to do with drugs. What harm does one tablet do? We had a great time. We were going home. If it hadn't been for that driver no one would have been any the wiser. We'd have been at school the next morning and no one would have known anything about it.”
Thackeray stood up abruptly.
“We will want your daughter to sign a written statement,” he said to Louise's mother. “And in view of what she's told us about the availability of illegal substances the other night we'll want to be sure that she has nothing else hidden at home ← or at Jeremy's home, for that matter.”
“What do you mean, hidden?” Mrs. James asked, her voice shrill.
“We'll need to search your house,” Thackeray said.
“Oh, Mum,” Louise wailed, crumpling across the table and sobbing uncontrollably. “I really, really only took one. I only took one, ever.”
“I'll leave you with DC Ridley,” Thackeray said and left the room without looking back. A quick search for illegal substances would give Grantley Adams something to think about before he spoke to him, he thought with some satisfaction. For all his sympathy for a father with a child in intensive care, he was not averse to laying down a few ground rules before tackling Jack Longley's Masonic acquaintances. And the first of those was to make clear that no one in Bradfield was above the law.
Laura held her grandmother's arm firmly as they made their way up the ramp alongside the broad stone steps which led to the massive mahogany doors at Bradfield Town Hall. The Victorians who had built the place had lacked nothing in confidence, Laura thought, any more than her grandmother did. Dressed in her best grey wool suit with a red scarf at her throat, Joyce looked far younger than Laura knew she was. But she could feel the effort that it was taking her to haul herself up the slope in spite of Laura's supporting arm and the rail she was clutching on the other side.
“Where are you meeting him?” she asked as Joyce paused to regain her breath in the doorway.
“In the members' lounge,” Joyce said. “It's on the first floor but there's a lift.”
Just as well, Laura thought. She could not see Joyce making it to the top of the ceremonial stone staircase, with its ornate fountain on the half-landing.
“Give me my stick now and I'll be fine,” Joyce said firmly but when she marched ahead of Laura and pushed the heavy doors they did not budge.
“Let me, Nan,” Laura said, ushering her through and pretending not to have noticed Joyce's own attempt. “The lift's round here, isn't it?”
On the floor above Joyce still led the way slowly but confidently, back on territory which had been her own for more than forty years. She tapped her way along the highly polished parquet corridors, the dark wood-panelled walls adorned with portraits of long dead mayors and aldermen in full robes, men who had dreamed their dreams for Bradfield ever since it had burgeoned from a small village of weavers' cottages into a bustling manufacturing town of mills and warehouses and back-to-back workers' terraces during the
fifty frantic years of the industrial revolution. Joyce had dreamed dreams here too, trying to alleviate the legacy of slum poverty that revolution had bequeathed the twentieth century, and she had made many of her dreams flesh, only to see them crumble into dust as prosperity ebbed away and grand schemes, like the Heights where she still lived, had decayed and turned sour.
After a walk which Laura guessed she had completed on sheer determination, Joyce opened another heavy wood-panelled door and stepped inside.
“Oh, they've never,” she said, standing in the doorway transfixed. The room, set out with armchairs and small tables, appeared to be empty.
“What?” Laura asked.
“They've taken down the chandeliers and put in those horrid little lamps,” Joyce said in disgust. “I was never a great one for tradition but I did reckon this town hall was summat to be proud of. They've vandalised it.”
“Now then, Mrs. Ackroyd,” said a voice from behind them. “I didn't think we'd be seeing you here again.” The grey-haired man who had spoken and who ushered the two women into the room with old-fashioned courtesy was not much taller than Joyce herself, but twice as broad. But the breadth was contained within a worsted suit of such evident Yorkshire provenance that Laura almost did what her father had traditionally done with his friends, feeling the cloth of the lapel and rubbing it gently between the thumb and forefinger in appreciation of the quality.
“Len Harvey,” Joyce said in surprise. “I thought you'd stood down an'all. Councillor Harvey was leader of the Tory group when I led for Labour,” Joyce added for Laura's benefit.
“Aye, well, I did, five year ago. But they've set up this committee on regeneration and my lot reckoned I could represent them. Likely a sign they don't give a tupenny damn, but I must say I'm quite enjoying popping back in here now and
then. They've not asked you onto the same thing, have they, Joyce? That'd be a turn-up after all the schoolboys Labour's been putting up recently. Makes me feel a right old fuddyduddy with my pacemaker and two pairs of specs.”
“No, I'm just here for a chat with Dave Spencer,” Joyce said abruptly. “I can't get about the way I used to. My hips have given up on me.”
The smart tap of footsteps in the corridor outside heralded the arrival of a much younger man, sharp suited, fresh-faced, and with a haircut so close to the scalp that he could have played football for England. He glanced around the room, ignoring ex-councillor Harvey and waving the two women to a table and chairs in an alcove well away from the door. As they settled themselves down, Spencer, with his file and mobile phone lined up in front of him, glanced at the elaborate looking watch on his wrist.
“I'm sorry, Mrs. Ackroyd - can I call you Joyce?” he said. “I've got an urgent sub-committee in fifteen minutes. Something's come up. So perhaps if you just tell me what the problem is I can get back to you later?”
“I think it might take a little longer than that to explain exactly what the problems are at the Project,” Joyce said, an obstinate look coming over her face.
“You do know about the Project, Councillor Spencer, don't you?” Laura asked sharply. “The Gazette did a big feature on it about six months ago.”
Spencer glanced at her sharply.
“You are?”
Laura told him.
“I didn't make the connection,” he said, looking irritated with himself as if his omniscience had been challenged in some way.
“No reason why you should,” Joyce said. “Laura's not here as a journalist. She gave me a lift. I'm not as good on my feet as I used to be but there's nowt wrong with my brain.”
“And now there's a problem at the Project?” Spencer
asked, altogether more placatory now he realised that the Press was in on the meeting, if only unofficially.
Joyce told him exactly how the Project had been vandalised and, in outline, how their precarious financial position meant that unless they could improve their cashflow the whole enterprise might have to close.
“Training is certainly going to be part of the regeneration project that we're discussing with the government,” Spencer said at last. “It's a particular interest of some of our business partners, of course. We've a massive skills shortage building up in Bradfield. Far too many kids still leaving school too soon. Those who do go to university not coming back again to work. We need to address those problems if we're to attract modern high-tech industries to the area. What sort of outcomes are you showing up there? Are they getting jobs?”
“Some are,” Joyce said. “Some aren't. If your business friends don't like the colour of their skin it's harder. But you'd be aware of that, of course, on your regeneration committee.”
“Of course,” Spencer said, glancing quickly at Laura and away again.
“And then there's the problem of drugs,” Joyce said firmly.
“At the Project?” Spencer sounded alarmed.
“Not if we can help it, no,” Joyce snapped. “But on the estate. Too many kids with nothing to do. Too many pushers. Who do you think wrecked the place for us? It wasn't the ones we were helping, that's for sure. They're good as gold when they come to us. It's the ones who won't be helped. Another lad dead and the Project wrecked, all in two days. What we need is short-term help to keep going and long-term help to get drugs out of the community before any more youngsters die. Can I come and tell your regeneration committee what needs doing up there, before you make any more plans?”
“I'm sure that would be very helpful, Joyce,” Spencer said. “But I'll have to put it to them first.”
“Can you raise it at this urgency sub-committee you're off
to now, then?” Joyce asked quickly as the councillor glanced at his watch again. He smiled faintly. Her grandmother still did not miss a trick, Laura thought.
“Not appropriate, I'm afraid, Joyce,” Spencer said. “It'll have to wait until the next full meeting of the regeneration committee - if they agree. Perhaps in the meantime you can let me have something in writing, including the financial position you find yourselves in now. Our business partners will want to know just what value the project is adding …”
“I've got all that here for you,” Joyce said, delving into her bag and bringing out several closely handwritten sheets neatly encased in a plastic document folder. “I didn't think you'd sign a cheque just on my say-so, lad,” she said. “I may be old but I'm not daft. You'll find it all here. But I will say one thing. I've worked with folk up on the Heights for the last fifty years, on and off, and this is one of the best projects I've seen for the last thirty. But it's no use the Lottery putting in thousands for the capital costs if we can't insure against theft and vandalism. You can tell your business friends that, especially if some of them are from the banks and insurance companies. They'll know what I'm talking about. And you'd best make sure that they don't sell all your new schemes down the river the same way. Regeneration's all well and good, but when summat goes wrong you've got to be able to pick up the pieces.”
She struggled to her feet, ignoring Laura's arm.
“I'll be hearing from you shortly, then, shall I, Councillor Spencer?”
Spencer got up and took a step towards the door, clutching Joyce's folder as if it was giving off a faintly unsavoury smell.
“I'm sure,” he said. “I'm sure.” And he was gone, the door slamming behind him.
Joyce looked around the room with some satisfaction. On the far side, Len Harvey peered around his
Daily Telegraph
with a wicked grin.
“Not lost your tongue then, Joyce?” he said.
“Think they know it all, these sharp young men,” Joyce said.
“Same with us,” Harvey said more soberly. “Trouble is, I think some of them know nowt. Doesn't matter what party they belong to, they're all t'same. They're ambitious, I'll give you that. Full of big ideas but all mouth and no trousers, I reckon, a lot of them.”
“Well, we'll see,” Joyce said, following Laura slowly to the door. “If they can't solve a simple problem like we've got just now on the Heights, then I reckon you're right. Business partners! Since when did business do owt for the poor? Unless there's a fat rate of interest in it for them.”
 
DCI Michael Thackeray closed down his computer, stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and sat for a moment in the half-light of the winter evening, with the rain beating against the window as it had done for weeks, reviewing an unsatisfactory afternoon. Superintendent Longley had marched into his office halfway through it as Thackeray expected he would. His face was flushed and his expression as angry as the DCI had ever seen it.
“I've just had Mrs. Adams on the phone,” Longley had said, without preamble.
“Sir?” Thackeray said, his face impassive.
“Did you have to search the bloody house?” Longley asked. “I told you to handle this with kid gloves and you choose to use a bloody great sledge-hammer. Did you go down there yourself?”
“Val Ridley was in charge,” Thackeray said. “I told her to handle it sensitively. She's no fool. She knew the implications.”
“That's not the impression I got from Mrs. Adams complaining about coppers in hob-nailed boots tramping around her home when the lad's life is on a knife-edge. And I can't say I blame her, either.”
“You wanted the drug aspect investigated, sir,” Thackeray had said as mildly as he could manage. “Unless we eliminate the two kids we know took Ecstasy that night we don't know
where to begin looking for the dealer. And unless we'd moved quickly we'd have had the parents doing a search before us and destroying any evidence there might have been. I told Mrs. James we'd need to search. I sent the teams out immediately so she couldn't warn the Adamses.”
“And did you find any evidence?” Longley had asked, more quietly now, but still flushed.
“A small amount of cannabis in Jeremy Adams's bedroom.”
“Bloody hell.” Longley had sunk into a chair, breathing heavily, while he took in the implications of this news.
“Did you inform the parents?” he asked eventually.
“You'll have to check with Val, but I don't think so, no. Mrs. Adams took off for the hospital before the search was competed, apparently, leaving the cleaner to lock up the house. They probably don't know yet.”
“A small amount, you say?”
Thackeray had reached into his desk drawer and handed Longley a plastic evidence bag containing some screwed up paper which Longley opened and sniffed suspiciously.
“Not much doubt about that then? Though you'd have difficulty making a charge of dealing stick,” he said.
“Maybe.” Thackeray did not try to hide the challenge in his eyes and eventually Longley looked away.
“I'll keep this,” the superintendent said, putting the bag into an inside pocket. “If the lad snuffs it, it won't have any evidential value any road, will it? If not, we can think about what to do about it when he's in a fit state to be interviewed. Right, Michael?”

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