Henry and Diane talked money as they drove north out of Morecambe following the meeting with Jenny Peel, picking up the A6 towards Carnforth, then forking left and aiming for Warton and Silverdale.
‘How much was there in the end?’ he asked. He was referring to the cash found in the garage walls at the Yorks’ farmhouse, and even more later, when Henry led the police raid on a travellers’ site near Blackpool, where the money stolen from Hawkshead Farm was discovered. All the money had obviously been seized by the police, but Henry hadn’t stayed on to count it. By the time that happened, he’d returned to The Tawny Owl to resume his life as a landlord and part-time fireman.
Diane uttered a contemptuous, ‘Ugh, money!’
Henry grinned. He knew that cash coming into police possession was a nightmare to deal with and best avoided if at all possible. It depended on the circumstances, obviously. If the money was drug-related, it might need to be examined for traces of controlled drugs such as cocaine, and if the percentage was higher than the normal traces found in general circulation – most notes out there have drugs on them – then it was good evidence to show it was money from drug dealing. There was also the possibility of needing to examine it for fingerprints, or it might just need to be retained as found cash.
However, regardless of the circumstances, it was always necessary to count it and record the serial numbers, and then it had to be sealed and kept in a secure exhibits store. If it was simply ‘found’ money, it could be paid into a police bank account, but then there were problems with accrued interest and what to do with it.
The money coming in from the Yorks definitely had to be unpacked and recounted, the serial numbers noted and checked for drug traces.
‘I would never have guessed just how tedious money could be – especially when I wasn’t allowed to throw it on my bed and roll naked in it and light my cigar with it,’ Diane said, implanting an image into Henry’s mind that was hard to extinguish. ‘Anyway, there was too much to count manually, so Rik Dean said we could use counting machines. We had to count it twice under strict supervision and record all the serial numbers too, though the counting machines did that for us, thankfully. We took dip samples to check for drugs and fingerprints – no results yet from the fingerprints.’
‘So, how much?’
‘All the money we recovered – the money found in the walls at the farm and the money found at the travellers’ site comes to nine million, three hundred thousand in sterling, give or take – can’t remember the exact amount. And two million, one hundred thousand euros and just short of a quarter of a million dollars. All seemed to be laced with cocaine and fingerprints … lots of fingerprints.’
Henry whistled with wonder. ‘And the two bodies? Where are you with them?’ He was now referring to the two murdered young men whose bodies he and Diane had discovered in the wall cavity in the quadruple garage at the farm alongside the money.
‘Not doing terribly well. No fingerprints or DNA back as yet.’
‘Surprising,’ Henry said.
‘Well, you would’ve thought so,’ she agreed. ‘The weapons we found with them, though, are the ones used to murder them, but we haven’t found any other instances of them being used.’
‘You think the Yorks killed ’em?’
Diane shook her head. ‘Nah. Doesn’t quite fit with what we know about them.’
‘So, disposing of them for someone else?’
‘And maybe that is why they were about to run,’ Diane suggested.
‘Have you done photos to press, social media and all that?’ he asked, thinking he should probably have known the answer to that, but he hadn’t been keeping abreast of the investigation.
‘We have. No bites as yet.’
‘Have you tried talking to the travelling community?’
‘No, why?’
‘Just a thought, really,’ Henry mused. ‘After all, the people in custody for murdering the Yorks are travellers – part of an organized crime group within that community, I know, but still travellers. Perhaps there’s a connection.’ He shrugged. ‘And identifying travellers can be a problem … could be worth a punt.’
Diane considered this. ‘Yeah, definitely.’
‘They’re going to be someone’s sons or boyfriends, you’d think. Someone’s going to be missing them, but it’s not the natural inclination of travellers to come to the police, so perhaps we should go to them.’
Diane took the fork off the A6 at Carnforth and drove towards Warton, dipping under the bridge over which the West Coast railway line passed. Just before Warton itself she did a sharp left and took the road to Silverdale, the pretty, leafy village nestling between Warton and Arnside in beautiful countryside undiscovered by many. It was an area Henry knew well, had visited often over the years, although it had been a while since he was last there.
He moved the conversation on to Jack Carter and asked if Diane had any background on him.
‘A bit. No criminal convictions other than a caution in his teens for stealing a trailer, which I suppose points to how he became a haulier. His name came up on several of those websites where you can find details of businesses and directorships. Over the years he’s run a lot of companies and most seem to have gone bankrupt.’
‘Sounds a bit of a chancer,’ Henry said, then frowned. ‘So if this Jack Carter introduced this woman in a Roller to John York, who then invests money for her on the QT, and then York gets a reputation for handling dirty money, which can be a lucrative trade, perhaps this is why he unceremoniously dumped all his clients and starts laundering dosh for crims. Easy money on the face of it.’
‘Except that laundering money for criminals is never easy in the long run,’ Diane said.
‘Because it’s rife with temptation,’ Henry said, recalling the sight of the huge amounts of money he had come across when he’d initially entered the Yorks’ kitchen. ‘Bags of it turn up, often uncounted, and the temptation to skim can be hard to resist … I mean, why was there so much in the garage wall? Why hadn’t it been laundered?’
‘Plus two pretty fresh bodies,’ Diane added. ‘The pathologist said they’d only been dead for three or four days at most.’
‘And guns and ammo.’
‘It’s a complex web, Henry.’
‘Certainly is … but in my experience—’ he began.
He was cut short when Diane interrupted and said with a smirk, ‘Oh, hang on – do I detect a bit of mansplaining about to be unleashed on me?’
Henry ignored her. ‘In my experience,’ he restarted, ‘and you’ll like this analogy being a woman, as women do a lot of knitting when they’re waiting for their men-folk to return home with the bacon … as complex as it all is, once you start pulling a loose thread, it all unravels very quickly.’
Even though she was driving, Diane managed to punch him very hard on the upper arm. ‘I’ve never picked up a pair of knitting needles in my life.’
Henry rubbed his arm. ‘I have.’
McCabe adjusted the ski mask on his head to look like a bob cap, slid out of his car and began a slow jog along the road, keeping low, using parked cars to hide himself so that when Jack Carter turned into the driveway leading up to his house, McCabe was sure he hadn’t been spotted.
The drive was a leafy curve, and by the time McCabe’s trainers hit the gravel, Carter’s car had disappeared out of sight. McCabe began to move just a touch faster because he wanted to time his surprise appearance just right – to catch Carter somewhere between his car and the front of the house.
As McCabe came within view of the house, still keeping low behind some bushes, Carter was getting out of his car.
McCabe stopped abruptly and dived behind a tree.
There was about fifty yards between him and Carter, and McCabe knew if he sprinted too early, there was a chance that Carter could scramble back into his car and make a getaway; if too late, Carter might be able to lock himself in his house.
Not that he would have got away in either scenario, but it would alter the way in which McCabe wanted this to play out. He wanted easy, not messy.
Because what he wanted was Carter firmly planted on a dining-room chair, cable-tied, gagged, unable to move, with McCabe’s Browning shoved up into the soft cleft of flesh under his chin.
It worked like a dream.
He picked up pace, drawing the Browning from his belt at the small of his back, and intercepted Carter two-thirds of the way between car and front door, even though Carter seemed to have his wits about him.
He screwed the gun into Carter’s ribcage and bundled him up the front steps before he could even comprehend what was happening.
McCabe rammed him up against the door frame, growling simple, specific instructions into Carter’s ear and twisting the gun in so hard he could not mistake it. After a short finger-and-thumbs fumble with the keys, they were through into the hallway, and McCabe continued the roughhouse journey, half dragging, kicking, prodding Carter into the dining room. He pushed him down on to one of the chairs, not giving him time to speak or protest, just dominating, always keeping up the fear aspect, never giving him a second, then forced him to cable-tie his own left wrist to the chair arm, before binding his right to the opposite one. He stepped back a few paces and smiled.
A torrent of swearing burst from Carter’s foul mouth as he writhed and the chair jumped and almost toppled over. McCabe wordlessly clouted the side of the Browning into Carter’s temple, splitting the skin in a jagged wound and both silencing and stopping Carter. For a moment nothing happened, then his head bled.
‘What’s going on, Mac, what the hell?’
‘You’ve been noticeable by your absence.’
‘Holiday. Been on holiday.’
‘Without your phone?’
Carter had zero reply to that one, but he was still shocked – and now hurt – and desperately wondering what was happening.
Even though he knew.
McCabe stepped to one side of him, avoiding the possibility of Carter kicking out as his feet weren’t tied to the chair legs. He slipped his hand into Carter’s jacket and extracted the smartphone from the inside pocket.
McCabe arched his eyebrows. ‘Or are you just lying to me?’
The blood from the cut on the side of Carter’s head now drenched his face, neck and shoulder, soaking his shirt.
‘What do you want, mate?’
‘Some answers.’
‘Why this, then? Why not just ask me over a brew or summat?’
‘’Cos I don’t fire guns in cafés.’ He pointed the Browning directly into Carter’s face, making the man wince.
‘Just ask, mate,’ Carter gasped.
‘What do you know about John York?’
‘Eh? What d’you mean? I know just what you know. I introduced you to the guy, remember?’
‘I said, what do you know about John York?’
‘He’s dead, for one thing.’
‘What did you know about him before he died?’
‘Fuck – nothing. He was just my accountant and financial adviser. He put money away for me when I sold up … you know all this.’
‘You set us up, didn’t you?’
‘What d’you mean? No way.’
Slowly, McCabe began to circle Carter, causing the man’s head to twist and turn to keep him in his sight. ‘You saw a chance and conned Marcie out of the money, didn’t you?’
‘You are jestin’. I knew she was investing money for other people – bad people – so why would I? I’m not stupid. Look, you came to me, Mac. I didn’t go looking for you. Yeah, I took my fee – I did, I know it. But that’s all … and now I’ve lost all the money I gave to John, because he’s dead and I’ve no way to follow it up.’
‘You scammed Marcie all the same, though,’ McCabe persisted.
‘No, I didn’t, I fucking didn’t.’ He groaned as a shot of pain pierced his skull from the blow McCabe had delivered.
‘Then why disappear for weeks on end?’
Carter raised his eyes to McCabe who was now standing directly in front of him. He didn’t have an answer, and in that moment McCabe realized that Carter had been lying to him. The look in the eye. The flare of the nostrils. The cloud across the face.
And, in turn, Carter knew he’d been sussed.
Just that one question. The simple one. The one that should have been answered with ‘I wanted some sunshine.’
Instead, he had hesitated.
McCabe raised the Browning again.
‘Where did the money get invested? Tell me, or I’ll shoot you now.’
‘It never got invested,’ he blurted.
‘What?’
‘It never got invested. Not a penny … not as such, anyway.’
‘What?’ McCabe was incredulous.
Carter tilted his bloody head right back and swore to the heavens, then lowered his chin and regarded McCabe with contempt as he spoke. ‘John thought he was dealing with imbeciles, OK? People like Marcie who’d be too thick to realize. So he just kept the money, pretended to pay off interest, but it was really just from the capital. He falsified documents, invested some for himself, of course. He knew it’d come crashing down one day, but he had it all sussed. He and his missus would just decamp to Panama or somewhere equally hot … I’m guessing it went tits up sooner than he anticipated, but I don’t know. I hadn’t seen him for months anyway.’
Fury rose in McCabe’s chest like a flame, and he could not hold himself back from crashing the Browning into the other side of Carter’s face.
‘That,’ he growled, ‘is for insulting Marcie.’
Carter’s head hung over his chest.
‘Why are the Yorks dead, Jack?’
‘I dunno,’ he muttered through a mouthful of blood: the second blow had smashed an inch lower than the opposite one and his teeth had lacerated his inner cheek. He dribbled blood and saliva.
‘Like I said – must’ve all caught up on him before he could leg it … I dunno.’
‘Is that why you disappeared and then slunk back like a fucking rat?’
‘I thought whoever did it might come for me, too.’
‘So why did the gyppos top him?’ McCabe demanded.
‘Again, dunno … we had nothing to do with travellers. Why would we? Why would anyone for that matter? They’re bad news.’
‘So where is the rest of the money, Jack? If it didn’t get invested, where is it all?’
‘York bought cars, stupid expensive ones. Even bought that Jag outside for me … I actually don’t know what he did with the money, except all that the police seized from the farm … that was a lot.’
‘How much did he give to you as a backhander? In cash, not in cars.’
‘About half a mill.’
‘Which is … where?’
No response.
‘Won’t ask again, Jack.’
No response.
‘Is that what you came back for?’
No response. Carter just raised his eyes once more and looked sullenly, yet afraid, at McCabe.
This time there was a response – but from McCabe, who pointed the gun into Carter’s face and fired.
‘This one, I think,’ Diane said, slowing down almost to a stop and peering up the driveway to what she hoped was Jack Carter’s house on Shore Road, Silverdale.
‘Not bad for a serial bankrupt,’ Henry commented.
She pulled up on the road, and they got out and began to walk up towards the house. As they reached the curve in the drive, they saw a car parked on the gravel.
‘Maybe we’ve struck lucky,’ Diane said.
They walked up the steps to the front door, but as Diane was about to raise her knuckles to rap on the door, they heard the distinctive sound of a double gunshot from within the house.
Diane glanced quickly at Henry who nodded in answer to the unasked question. She reached for the door handle, expecting the door to be locked.
It wasn’t.
She pushed it open and shouted, ‘Police officers! Police officers entering the house.’ She stepped across the threshold, Henry just behind her and slightly to one side so he had a view across her shoulder.
A figure stepped out of a room at the far end of the hallway. Gun in hand. Raised. Aimed. A man wearing a ski mask pulled down over his face, just eye holes.
Henry pushed Diane to one side and he went the other way, splitting like a zip.
The man fired.
Henry crashed down on to his right knee as he felt the whoosh of the bullet slice through the air above him.
In front, Diane rolled away.
The man fired again and a bullet imbedded itself in the door frame to Henry’s right, splintering it.
‘Fuck!’ Henry heard Diane utter as she continued to roll.
Henry tried to keep one eye on the man, knowing that both he and Diane were horribly exposed and very likely to take a bullet next time. The first two shots had been fired in a rush; the next ones might not be.
But the gunman spun, then disappeared back into the room.
Henry scrambled up to his feet, having to lever himself up with the help of the damaged door frame. Diane was up before him, already creeping down one side of the hall at a crouch with her right arm extended outwards, angled backwards in a gesture that meant ‘keep back’ to Henry.
‘Police!’ she called again, still moving forwards, but allowing herself to rise gradually. ‘Drop your weapon.’
Then she was at the door from which the gunman had appeared, flattening herself against the wall. Henry slid in behind her. She called another warning and instruction, then added, ‘We’re coming in.’
She glanced back at Henry and mouthed, Are we?
He nodded.
OK, she mouthed, then shouted. ‘That gun had better be on the floor, because I’m coming in right now.’ On the last word, her fingers tightened for purchase on the door jamb and she used her arm as a fulcrum to swing herself fast and fearlessly into the room, Henry again just behind her.
She stopped abruptly, causing Henry to crash into her, and said, ‘He’s gone – out of the patio door.’
She exhaled. Henry saw her shoulder shudder as her lungs deflated in relief, then she stepped to one side to allow Henry to see the body of a man tied to a chair, slumped forwards, the wounds to his head catastrophic.
‘He has no face,’ Diane said.
Beyond him was a patio door, open.
Henry said, ‘He’ll have transport.’
He wasn’t talking about the victim.