Hail and Farewell (The Lakeland Murders) Read Online Free Page B

with one of our gangs, most likely Moffett’s crew. So let’s divide up the tasks. I need all of the witnesses we’ve got listed spoken to, today please. How many are there, Keith?’
    ‘We’ve got a total of twenty four participants, plus half a dozen others who say they were nearby at the time it happened.’
    Smith looked tired, and irritable with it. He shook his head.
    ‘That’s not good enough, not good enough at all. There had to have been fifty in the scrum at the time it happened, minimum, so where are the others at? I want every witness interview to start by asking who else they knew who was in the game. Let’s see if we can’t get that total up, and quickly. I’m relying on you, Keith.’
    ‘Aye, boss.’
    ‘Right, Kenny. Get the tech support team collating all the CCTV that they can find, and we’ll go through it later. Then I need you to get the background enquiries started. By the time we meet again I want us to have a full picture of this dead kid. What he did, who he knew, whose gang he was in.’
    ‘If anyone’s, boss’ said Iredale.
    ‘Aye, that’s right. But our working hypothesis has to be that this kid was a soldier, probably for Moffett, and that one of Hayton’s lads killed him. And if that’s the case, and they think that they’ll get away with it because we won’t be able to identify exactly who it was who drowned the kid, then they’ve got another bloody thing coming. Because conspiracy to murder is what we’ll be looking at here, at least until we know different. And the benefit of that charge is that we might get to put a whole load of scum-bags away at the same time, and for a long time too. So there’s plenty to play for. All right, let’s get on with it.’
     
    Smith hadn’t heard the phone ringing in his office as he was talking, so he was as surprised as anyone else when ACC Val Gorham walked into the room. She wasn’t a big woman, but she certainly got everyone’s attention. ‘DI Smith, if I could have a word.’
    ‘Certainly, ma’am.’ Smith wondered if he could reach his office before Gorham did, and reckoned that he could. But it would hardly be worth it, because there wasn’t a lot of tidying that he could do in five seconds. So he just held the door open instead.
    ‘Can I get you a coffee?’
    Gorham glanced round the room, and then said that she wouldn’t have a drink. Smith already seemed to have the station’s entire stock of mugs on his desk anyway.
    ‘I’d like an update on the death last night. What are we looking at? An accidental death?’
    ‘Possibly, ma’am. It certainly has been known. But then it’s also been known for an Uppies and Downies scrum to actually go through the cinema right up in town, so pretty much anything is possible at this stage.’
     
    Val Gorham didn’t smile, but Smith hadn’t really expected her to. They’d only met once before, at a senior manager’s conference, and she’d seemed about as warm, and every bit as stiff, as one of the frozen fish fingers that his kids loved so much.
    ‘So you’re treating the death as suspicious?’
    ‘Absolutely, for now at least. I expect you’re aware of the intelligence that we had regarding the power struggle between our two resident gang leaders? The word is that the game last night was supposed to be some kind of show of strength, to prove to the whole town that George Hayton is the main man round here now.’
    ‘I do hope that Superintendent Skinner is the main man round here, as you put it.’
    ‘Of course, ma’am. I meant in the criminal community.’
    ‘Is that really a likely explanation, Inspector? Some kind of gang battle? It seems a bit implausible.’
    ‘They don’t call this the wild west for nothing, ma’am.’
    Smith hazarded a smile, but quickly realised that he’d hazarded in vain.
    ‘I do dislike stereotyping, Inspector. It makes for inefficient policing. But you’re probably wondering why it isn’t your own station commander who is