Riddled on the Sands (The Lakeland Murders) (3 page)

Hall nodded. He’d heard much the same before, and many times too. People just found it hard to accept that accidents do happen. And Hall thought that Ian Mann should have known better.

‘Look, mate. Even if she’s right and he’s super careful he could still have had a heart attack, a stroke, anything. I’m sorry, Ian, but what she says doesn’t alter the facts, does it? Her husband’s gone missing, and there’s nothing in it to interest us. And I assume the neighbourhood Bobby is looking after her?’

‘Aye, but she’s just a kid. Jan Wilding, you know her?’

‘No. But I’m not sure what you want from me here, Ian, honestly I’m not. As far as I can see there’s nothing in it for us. Nothing at all.’

‘I wanted to drive down there, ask around a bit. Maybe try to get out to the tractor, if they’ve found it. Off the clock, like.’

Hall didn’t look convinced. ‘What’s your case load like?’

Mann shrugged. ‘Much the same as usual.’

‘You mean as dull as ditchwater. All right, off you go, but only while you’re on duty, Ian. And do me a favour and take Ray with you. Because if I hear him moaning on one more time about being forced out I’ll end up charging myself with conspiracy to murder in advance of the fact.’

Mann grinned. ‘You’d get away with diminished responsibility though, eh, Andy?’

‘Don’t push your luck. Now sod off, and don’t you dare come back here dripping and walking sand into the carpet tiles. You know what the Super thinks about a messy office.’

Mann was going to say something about the state of Hall’s office, which had files on the desk, the meeting table and the floor next to his desk, but he decided not to risk it.

‘I know what you’re thinking, Ian’ said Hall, who in this case had guessed right. ‘And maybe a tidy desk does equal a tidy mind, but where’s the interest in that?’

Ray Dixon volunteered to drive to Flookburgh. ‘I could do with the expenses, Ian’.

‘All right. But on two conditions. First that there’s nothing organic actually decomposing in your car, and second that you don’t bang on about being kicked out. You’re not being fired, you’re retiring. Deal?’

‘Deal. And I don’t know why you all keep going on about my car. I clean it whenever there’s a V in the month.’

‘And how long have you had it?’

‘Three years.’

‘So how often have you cleaned it?’

‘Twice, and I’ll do it again this November, whether it needs it or not.’

As usual Ray Dixon drove as if he was on an economy run.

‘Get a move on, Ray. It’s low tide in an hour and I want to get a ride out with the Coastguard to look at this tractor. It’ll be underwater before we get there if you carry on at this rate.’

‘It’s my petrol we’re using, Ian. So they’ve found it then, the bloke’s tractor?’

‘Looks like it. The chopper spotted it again about an hour ago. Half covered in sand already, but they’re sure it’s a tractor. About two miles out, apparently.’

‘Do you want me to come as well? Only I’ve not brought my wellies.’

Mann laughed. ‘You’re all right. You do what you do best, and take a stroll round the village, chatting up the old dears.’

‘What am I after?’

‘Usual stuff. What was Bell like? Friends, enemies, rumours, anything you can get.’

‘Was? So you reckon he’s fish-food then, Ian?’

‘You’ve got a lovely turn of phrase, Ray, I’m going to miss that. But unless you pick up anything to suggest he’s done a Reggie Perrin then yes, we can assume he’s dead. But don’t you let on that’s what we think, because you’re bound to bump into a cousin or something. Officially he’s strictly a MISPER, nothing more. You know what these little villages are like.’

‘I do. My folks’ families both come from round there.’

‘That explains a lot. Anyway, it’ll give you something in common with the locals.’

‘The same gene pool?’

‘Aye. On both sides of the family, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Dixon laughed. ‘It’s over-rated, is diversity.’

Mann leaned over and looked at the speedo. ‘Drive to the limit, Ray, for Christ’s sake.’

Dixon accelerated, very gently, to 60. ‘I’m going to have a miserable old age, thanks to you, Ian.’

‘Ray, you’re not even fifty-five. And you could get another job, you know. There’s no law against it.’

‘I want this job.’

‘But why? Until the last month or two you’ve done nothing but moan. Even by coppers’ usual standards you’ve turned grumbling into a bloody art form. Like modernist poetry it is, sometimes. Andy Hall told me that, so it must be true.’

Dixon considered the point, and slowed back down slightly.

‘Well, aye, being a DC is a shit job, no doubt about that. The lowest of the bloody low. That’s a given, like. But the alternative is even worse.’

‘Being at home, you mean?’

‘Exactly. Did I tell you that she’s got a list as long as your arm of all the jobs I’ve got to do? She was talking about getting a wall chart to put them on, and some marker pens. A bloody wall chart, all colour-coded. I’d rather be in the cells.’

‘Well I’m going to nick you for wasting Police time if you don’t get a move on.’

Dixon parked carefully behind the Coastguard 4x4.

‘See you back here in and hour and a half, Ray’ said Mann, opening the door. ‘Use your charms and find out if he might have done a bunk, or if anyone’s got it in for him.’

Dixon watched Mann shake hands with the Coastguard and a couple of lads from the search and rescue teams. ‘He bloody loves all this’ said Dixon.

And Dixon was right, Ian Mann did love it. Riding out across the sands in the back of a tracked rescue vehicle reminded him of being in the Marines. He was sure he’d been in something just like this, only it was a different colour, and the sand was very dry and very far away from Morecambe Bay.

‘Will we be able to recover the tractor?’ he shouted to the man sitting next to him.

‘Aye, we can tow it back. But do you want to? It’ll be knackered, like. No use to anyone now.’

‘Evidence. There might be evidence.’

‘Oh aye. Well there’ll certainly be sand, I’ll tell you that for nowt. Gets everywhere, does sand.’

Mann turned and looked through the window. The Bay looked flat, featureless, and the shore seemed a long way away already.

‘How long ‘til we get there?’

‘Just another minute or two. One of the lads will check for quicksand before we get out. Big lad like you, we wouldn’t want to have to pull you out, like.’

Mann smiled.

‘How do you know where the quicksands are, then? Are they on a map?’

‘No, nothing like that. It moves around with the channels. The sea is always moving everything around, but you get so you know where the soft sands will be, given time. Either that, or you get stuck.’

‘Where you found the tractor, is there quicksand there?’

‘You can have a look for yourself in a minute. This is it.’

The vehicle stopped, and the noise level fell. But Mann still heard himself shouting.

‘Am I all right to get out?’

‘Aye, looks like some of the lads have been out here for a while. They’re giving me the all-clear. Just don’t wander off anywhere, mind.’

Mann was surprised at how flat the sand was, and how firm. It was slightly ridged, as if ripples of water had been set in sand, and it hardly moved under his weight at all. It was hard to believe that this landscape had been under water just a few hours before, and in a few hours would be again. The clouds had lifted, and it was hot when the sun came out. Mann found himself squinting against the glare. He walked over to the tractor, still upright but more than half covered in sand. The trailer was nowhere to be seen.

The local Coastguard chief, who Mann had known slightly when they’d both been in the Forces, walked over. Mann remembered that his name was Mike something.

‘Not much to see, is there? Still, beats being in the office. I’ve been coming out here for years, and nothing beats it. Cleanest place in the world this is, and every time you come out you feel like an explorer. Not a footprint for miles. Know what I mean?’

Mann did, but he didn’t feel like discussing it.

‘Would he normally have been this far out?’

‘Not normally, no, but it’s not that unusual. If he was into something good then he’d go out even further. Low tides this week, see, so he’d have plenty of time to get back.’

‘So what would he have been after out here? One of the rescue guys said he didn’t think it could be shrimp. Wrong kind of area altogether, he said.’

Mike shrugged. ‘You’d best ask him. Sounds like one of the fishermen. Which one was it?’

Mann pointed.

‘That’s Sam. Yes, he’s from a fishing family in the village. Just does a bit part-time himself now, but he’d be worth a chat. Tell the truth we don’t usually have much to do with the net fishermen. There are hardly any left, and they know the Bay better than we do anyway. You can have all technology you like, GPS and that, but without the experience this place is dangerous. Never the same you see. The sands are restless, like, moving all the time.’

‘So I keep hearing.’

Mann walked round the tractor slowly. He was beginning to wonder if it was even worth recovering. Maybe it was better to leave it out here as a kind of memorial.

‘What about his trailer? All his gear? Washed away, were they?’

‘Aye. Probably half way to the Isle of Man by now. I expect the body will be washed up in a day or two, but as to the rest of his gear, no, I don’t think so. The odd thing might wash up, but how would we identify it?’

‘So an accident, you reckon?’

‘Oh aye. What else? Surprised to see you out here, Ian. It happens.’

‘How?’

‘Maybe he collapsed, maybe he got caught up in his gear and was dragged along. Maybe something broke and knocked him out. There’s no wheel tracks now, no blood, no nothing. There’s been millions of tons of water over this since it happened. The tractor’s only still here now because it’s bogged down in the sands.’

‘So you think we should just leave it?’

‘Oh aye. The sea will see to it eventually. Like I said, it’s the cleanest place in the world, is this.’

Mann nodded, and walked over to Sam, who was chatting to a couple of the other rescue team. But Mann could tell that Sam had been watching him, and he left the group before Mann reached them. He wanted to talk.

‘Bad job, this’ said Mann.

‘Aye, the worst. Been years since we had a death like this in the village.’

‘What happened, do you reckon?’

‘Dunno, but I’ll tell you what it weren’t. He didn’t run out of diesel nor misjudge the tide or anything daft like that. Cleverest bloke I’ve ever known, was Jack, and he knew the fishing job better than any man alive. Careful too, he was, always telling off us younger ones when we were learning the job and got careless.’

Mann nodded.

‘So you were surprised when this happened?’

‘Surprised ain’t the word. Bloody gobsmacked.’

Mann nodded encouragingly, but Sam didn’t say anything else. But something about his body language suggested that he had something on his mind.

‘Who else was out that night? On Friday?’

‘Not many. It’s a part-time thing for most of us, is the fishing job, so us younger ones usually go out supping on a Friday night instead. So it’s just the old-timers at the weekend, like. Mind you, a grand night it was, Friday. Perfect for the fishing job. Pete was out, but I expect you’ve already spoken to him.’

Mann unzipped his jacket and found his notebook.

‘Pete Capstick, this is?’

‘Aye. Old mate of Jack’s. They go back donkey’s years, do those two.’

‘Close, were they?’

‘Yes and no. You’re close to everyone if you come from a small village, but they were competitors too, like.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s a funny thing, the fishing job. You rely on each other, and one will always help someone in trouble, but you’re always trying to put one over on the rest at the same time. Get the best catches, like. Especially the shrimp job. An international brand, that’s what Morecambe Bay shrimps are now. Like Champagne.’

‘Is that what Jack was after that night? Shrimp?’

‘Speaking to people in the village, I’d say so. He had the right gear on his trailer by the sounds of it. Funny thing though.’

Again Sam stopped. Mann waited, but still Sam said nothing.

‘Funny how?’

‘No shrimp here. Not now, not last weekend, not ever really. Bugger all here. Rock hard, this sand is. No good for anything except sunbathing on. And you can bet your life that’s not what Jack was doing. It were night time, for a start, and the only bits of any fisherman that are tanned are his face and his hands.’