“I might have mentioned it. It was a cold day. I might have said something about some lucky bastards getting to go to Mexico. But I had nothing to do with stealing the tractor.”

If that was when Spencer had first heard about the Beddoes farm being empty, it explained why he had stolen the tractor so late in the week. If he’d known earlier and done it Monday or Tuesday, it would probably have been safe at its destination by the time Beddoes got back and missed it. As it was, it had ended up near Dover. “OK. Let’s move on to Sunday morning.”

“Right. Well, Alex was just getting ready to go to church with Ian. She’s not really religious, like, but she thinks it’s a good idea to bring him up right, you know, and he likes the Bible stories.” Lane smiled to himself. “Probably the violent bits, like his video games. Anyway, Morgan texts me and says to meet him at the hangar, that he might need help with something.”

“What sort of help? Did he mention the tractor?”

“No. He doesn’t say. It’s just a text, you know, not an explanation.”

“What did you think he meant?”

“A removal job or something.”

“Go on.”

“Well, as I said, he’s a sort of mate, and he’s helped me out from time to time, so if he needed me in a bit of a hurry, I could hardly say no, could I?”

“Didn’t you at least suspect that it might be something illegal?”

“No. Why should I?”

“Had you ever met him at the hangar before?”

“No. I knew where it was, like, but it wasn’t somewhere I’d been. No reason.”

“Go on.”

“When I got there, I couldn’t see his van or his bike, but there were a ­couple of cars I didn’t recognize outside in the yard. I left my car just down the road, by the turnoff south of Drewick. That was the road someone must have seen me on later. It leads to the Thirsk road and the A19.”

“Why did you leave your car there?”

“I don’t know. Just a gut feeling. I didn’t know who was there, did I?”

“But why would you be worried if you didn’t suspect anything criminal was going on?”

“Something felt not quite right. And by the way Morgan talked sometimes.”

“What way?”

“Like he was in on things, knew ­people.”

“Criminals? Gangs?”

“That sort of thing, yeah. He talked big. Liked to impress. That gangsta rap stuff. Said he met ­people in the clubs, contacts, ­people who could help him if he helped them. He wanted to be a rap singer.”

That was an oxymoron as far as Banks was concerned. “So you were nervous about who he was with, who might be in the cars, so you stopped short and made a silent approach?”

“That’s right. I was being careful. Maybe he really did have gangsta friends.”

“What kind of cars were in the yard?”

“There were two. An old Corsa and a red pickup truck.”

Ronald Tanner drove a Corsa, Banks remembered. He didn’t know who drove a red pickup truck. Montague Havers drove a BMW 3 Series, but they already knew he didn’t arrive in the area until Sunday afternoon, after the deed had been done. The CSIs hadn’t done very well with tire tracks from the crime scene, but they had got a ­couple of partial fingerprints, one of which was a close match to Ronald Tanner, but not good enough for court. Maybe the other matched whoever had driven the red pickup truck. One of them, Tanner or the mystery man, must have brought a passenger, because after Spencer’s murder, three vehicles were driven away from the hangar compound. It also made sense that two of them held Spencer’s arms while the third, perhaps Kieran Welles, shot him between the eyes with the bolt gun. He wondered whether they were expecting that, or did it surprise and shock them? Banks put his money on Tanner bringing Utley, the crooked ex-­lorry driver they still hadn’t found, and Welles driving the red pickup truck. “What did you find when you got to the hangar?” he asked Lane.

“I didn’t get there, did I? You know how open it is there, on the airfield. They were all inside. I could hear voices, so I figured it was safe enough to creep up, using the cars for cover. Then the voices got louder, ­people shouting, arguing.”

“Could you hear what they were saying?”

“Not at first. The voices got lost in the hangar.”

“But later?”

“I started backing off. I mean, it sounded really bad. I didn’t know if Morgan knew he was walking into something dangerous and wanted me to fight with him, or what, but I’m no fighter. I suppose I was torn. I mean, we were sort of mates, after all. I didn’t like to think I was leaving him.”

“But you were scared?”

Lane looked down at the table. “Yeah.”

“How many voices were there?”

“I can’t say. Mostly it was Morgan, and he was arguing with someone, protesting about something, and occasionally someone else would chip in. Maybe three altogether.”

“So what did you do?”

“Like I said, I was backing off by then. I mean, if he was mixed up with a dangerous crowd, I thought they might have knives or something. I thought the best thing I could do was get away from there and call the police.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I didn’t get the chance.”

“What happened?”

“The shouting stopped, and there was silence for a moment. Then I heard this explosion like . . . I don’t know . . . It sounded as if someone was firing a gun. I legged it fast as I could. One of them looked out of the hangar. Maybe he’d heard me, or maybe he was just checking there was no one around. He shouted something, and two of them started chasing me.”

“Did you get a look at them?”

“Are you joking? I was praying that rust heap of a car I had would start. Thank God it did. First try. Then I was away.”

“Did they chase you?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t shoot at me, and I didn’t look back. I mean I didn’t see them when I checked the rearview mirror after a ­couple of miles, so I suppose they didn’t know which direction I’d gone.”

There was a pause, then Annie said, “I still don’t understand, Michael. You’d got away. You thought Morgan might be hurt, or dead. You weren’t involved. Yet you still didn’t call the police. Why not?”

“It was what he said last, the bloke who was arguing with Morgan. Maybe the bloke who shot him, for all I know.”

“What was that?” Annie asked.

“I don’t know if—­”

“Please answer DI Cabbot’s question,” said Banks.

Lane looked from one to the other, the fear obvious in his eyes. “He said, ‘You’ve done it this time, haven’t you, kid? You’ve gone too far. You’ve just gone and stolen the boss’s fucking tractor.’ ”

15

WHEN WINSOME PULLED INTO THE LAY-­BY UNDER the shelter of bare trees just a ­couple of hundred yards above High Point Farm to get the lie of the land, it was already beginning to snow, white flakes swirling in the air, melting on the car windows, not settling on the earth yet. The forecast promised several inches by nightfall, and drifts in the high Pennines. Whatever she was going to do, Winsome realized, she had better be quick about it.

She took her binoculars from the glove compartment and leaned her elbows on the dry stone wall to steady her grip. As she brought the scene into focus, she could see that there were four buildings in the hollow, a small farmhouse, or cottage, a large barn with pens for animals attached to one side and two smaller outbuildings for storage. It was a typical Dales barn, part wood, part stone, and it seemed to be shut up tight, as did the farmhouse. There were no signs of a car in the yard or drive, though Winsome supposed one might be locked in one of the buildings. Nor was there any smoke coming from the chimney. He could have electric heating, radiators or a storage heater. Gas was unlikely in such a remote setting, but whoever lived there would surely have electricity. Though the building was registered to a Kenneth Atherton, Winsome realized that he may well have rented it out to somebody else. Was this where Caleb Ross stopped between Garsley Farm and Belderfell Pass? If so, why? Who lived there, his drug supplier or a killer?