“Is he fit enough to talk?” Longley asked. Thackeray shrugged.
“He’s regained consciousness but he’s lost a lot of blood so it’ll be a while before I can do a detailed interview. But as soon as the doctors give the OK, I want to be in there, getting whatever I can.”
“And Foreman’s girlfriend?” Longley asked.
Thackeray glanced bleakly out of the window where it was possible to see streaks of blue in the sky above the cherry trees in the town hall square, and a pale sunlight for the first time for months.
“The underwater search team are down there now,” he said. “They’ll be there, all three of them, Karen and the babies, I’m sure of that, but how the hell we’ll ever prove that Foreman dumped them there I can’t imagine. There won’t be much forensic evidence if they’ve been trapped in that torrent for a while, possibly not even a cause of death.”
“They probably drowned anyway,” Longley said, his face sombre. “Poor little beggars.”
“You can just imagine what an imaginative defence lawyer would get out of that: Karen was so distraught when she and Foreman split up that she chucked the babies in the Beck and then herself; or else, any one of Foreman’s employees could have known about the access to the water from his cellar and dumped them in for some reason of their own; or else, all three of them slipped into the water accidentally in one of the downpours we’ve been having and the bodies were washed as far as the obstruction …”
“Could they have become trapped in Foreman’s cage arrangement if they’d gone in higher up?” Longley asked.
“It’s just about possible, though it would be a bizarre coincidence if that’s what happened. The upstream side of the hiding place was only constructed out of wire strands. A body could have got entangled there, and then taken the full force of the water as the flood rose. It only needs the babies’ pushchair to turn up somewhere higher up the stream to get him off the hook.” Thackeray shrugged dispiritedly.
“And we all believe in Santa Claus,” Longley said. “Talk to the Crown Prosecution Service. You were right about Foreman and I was wrong and that’s the one I’d really like to pin on the bastard if we pin a murder on him at all.”
“Oh yes,” Thackeray said. “Don’t worry. If it’s humanly possible to make a charge stick, I’ll do it. I can promise you that.”
They buried Stevie Maddison and his best mate Derek Whitby side by side in the municipal cemetery high on one of Bradfield’s seven windswept hills, Derek’s friends and relations muffled in dark coats and hats on one side of the double grave, Stevie’s, fewer in number and more casual, shivering in insubstantial multicoloured jackets, on the other. As the commital prayers ended and the ritual handfuls of dirt rained down onto the two coffins a tall black woman, her pashmina streaming in the wind, began to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ in a voice so powerful that not even the bitter Pennine gusts could whip the sound away completely. Standing between a tired-looking Michael Thackeray and a newly clean-shaven Kevin Mower at the rear of the crowd of mourners, Laura Ackroyd, wearing a soft black velvet beret to conceal the bandage she still had round her head, shivered and felt the tears prickle.
“What a bloody waste it all is,” she said. Thackeray put his arm around her protectively as the hymn ended, the mourners began to straggle away and the grave diggers moved forward with their shovels, anxious to complete their thankless task before the dark clouds on the horizon unleashed more rain.
“Come on,” he said. “Some good came of it all in the end.”
“Foreman, you mean?”
“So far we’ve only charged him with drug-dealing but that’s open and shut, and he’ll go away for a long time. The rest will take longer to unravel but I’ll have him for at least one of the deaths in the end.”
“Karen and the babies, surely,” Laura said with a shudder but Thackeray shook his head.
“Now the water’s gone down, most of the remains have been recovered,” he said, his face grim and Laura knew better than to press him for more. “They were all there, all three of them, but it’ll be a forensic nightmare to prove how they died, let alone who killed them.”
“And Stevie and Derek?” Laura asked, glancing back at the cars in which the Maddison and Whitby families were embarking on the rest of their shattered lives. “They were only kids.”
“All those forensic reports are in now and the CPS is looking at charges of murder. Foreman’s claiming that Stevie and Jake Moody, our undercover man, both had guns and shot each other, which we might have believed from the circumstantial evidence, but someone wiped the second gun clean after the shooting and the only person who could have done that was Foreman, no doubt in a moment of panic. Moody certainly wasn’t in a fit state to be worrying about fingerprints on triggers. Foreman’s claiming he tried to stop Moody from killing the boy but I think it’s more likely Moody tried to stop Foreman so Foreman shot him as well. They removed three bullets from Moody’s body, two of which definitely came from Stevie’s gun, the third is so badly damaged that it’s difficult to tell. They’re still working on it. He’s lucky to be alive.”
“What’s Moody saying?” Laura asked. “Isn’t he fit to talk yet?”
“Moody’s saying a lot of things, none of which make much sense,” Thackeray said.
“Jake Moody was as bent as a three pound note,” Mower suddenly said. “He was lording it around the Heights in the Beamer as Mr. Pound, Foreman’s minder. Why, if he wasn’t involved in the drug trade? He was in it up to his neck. Why else didn’t he call his guv’nor when Foreman decided to move all the gear from his cellar to avoid the flood? If he was undercover, what the hell was he undercover for if it wasn’t to look for an opportunity like that, to nick them with a serious consignment in transit, no argument? As it was, it was pure chance Dizzy and I were there to see what was going on and make sure Foreman was stopped in the Land Rover. As far as I can see the only thing we’ve got to thank for pinning Foreman down at all was the bloody weather.”
“The drug squad don’t like that interpretation,” Thackeray said.
“They wouldn’t, would they?” Mower came back quickly.
“Moody’s claiming he did everything an undercover cop could safely do in the circumstances. But don’t worry, Kevin. We’re looking very carefully at his story too.”
“And pigs might fly,” Mower muttered.
The three of them walked towards Thackeray’s car which he had parked behind the two families’ funeral cars on the gravel pathway some hundred yards from the new graves. Behind them the other mourners beginning to scatter, shoulders hunched against the wind and the first spots of rain, but as Thackeray unlocked the driver’s door, Laura took his arm.
“This looks like a delegation,” she said softly. The mothers of the dead boys were approaching side-by-side, each of them red-eyed but with a determination that was not diminished by the chilly gusts which made Laura shiver and Mrs Whitby clutch firmly at her large black hat. Behind them some of the rest of the mourners turned and stood watching in silence, like an accusing chorus.
“Inspector Thackeray? I’m Dawn Whitby, Derek’s mother …”
“I know,” Thackeray said. “And can I say how sorry …”
“It’s too late for that now, Inspector,” Mrs. Whitby said firmly. “Too late for Derek and for Stevie. What happened to them has happened. But Mrs. Maddison and me, we’ve come to a decision. We want to tell you some things that we learned while this was going on, some things we heard, some things we seen with our own eyes. We want to make sure now that no other boys die like our boys died. So if you want evidence, we will give you evidence. It’s the least we can do, the least I can do before I go home to Jamaica. And we think if we decide to talk to you then maybe some others will too.”