Riddled on the Sands (The Lakeland Murders) (2 page)

‘I don’t think they know what compunction means either.’ Hall looked doubtful. He was hard to read, but Jane knew that expression now. It was just something around the eyes. ‘I don’t know about this one, Jane. It just reads like it was written by an octogenarian. Someone who couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding.’

‘Ageist too then, are we? If you’d said it read like it was written by an eighty year-old woman you’d have got the set.’

DC Ray Dixon caught Sergeant Ian Mann’s eye. They sat at back-to-back desks, just a few feet away from Jane.

‘I hate that sexism’ said Dixon, to no-one in particular.

Ian Mann was bored, and more than happy to join in. ‘I know you do, Ray. And I bet you also know what gets easier to pick up the heavier it gets.’

Dixon laughed. ‘I do, Ian, and it’s not a man, is it?’

‘Belt up you two’ said Jane. ‘There’s no help for dinosaurs like you. But then you actually remember the dinosaurs, don’t you, Ray?’

‘I nicked one for D&D once. Outside one of the clubs in town. Of course it was all just swamp round here then.’

Hall laughed loudly. ‘Come on then, Jane. Let’s go and see your online entrepreneur. Any form?’

‘Not a thing. He’s a model citizen, is our Mr. Perkins.’

The model citizen was looking impatient.

‘I need to be out of here in twenty minutes. I have to catch the post. A lot of people will be waiting on packets from me, and I don’t want any negative feedback.’

‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Perkins’ said Hall, sitting down. ‘But DC Francis wanted a more senior officer to listen to what you have to say. I’m DI Andy Hall.’

Perkins nodded. ‘Good. Glad to see you’re taking it seriously.’

‘Well your letter’s a bit more than negative feedback, isn’t it?’ said Hall, smiling. ‘In fact the writer has committed a criminal offence, so yes, we’re interested. Have you kept the previous letters?’

‘Nah. I binned them.’

‘Can you remember what they said?’

‘Not really. I get a few shitty emails, comments about my goods, you know. Happens all the time, like. But it’s all online, anonymous like. This is different. This one knows where I live.’

‘So you don’t think it’s from a disgruntled customer then?’

‘A what?’

‘A pissed-off punter?’

‘No way. Come on mate, I hardly sell anything over ten or twenty quid, tops. It’s not enough to start a war about, is it? Mind you, it is amazing how wound-up some punters get over a few quid.’

‘I can believe it. But you still don’t think it’s from a customer?’

‘Nah, ‘course not.’

‘So can you think of anyone else who might have a grudge against you?’

Perkins looked across at Jane. ‘A few angry husbands, maybe.’

Jane didn’t smile back.

‘Mr. Perkins’ said Hall, ‘you want to get your mail sent, and we want to get on with our work, so let’s try to answer the questions, shall we? Then we can all get on with our work.’

‘No, I don’t know anyone who might hold a grudge.’

‘Someone you’ve had a relationship with?’

Perkins shook his head.

‘Are you sure? That’s usually what’s behind this sort of thing.’

‘No. I’m sure. The business has kept me so busy I’ve had no time for...you know, anything like that. Not lately. Not for a good while, in fact.’

This time Jane did smile.

‘OK’ Hall continued, ‘so how about business contacts?’

Perkins thought for a moment, then shook his head again.

‘I don’t think so. Not really. Aye, I’ve had a few good results, buying and selling, but that’s the game, isn’t it? Buy low, sell high. Not the other way round, like.’

‘Have you ended up in dispute with anyone because of that? When you bought low from them, and then sold high to someone else? Because it sounds like there might be two aggrieved parties in that case.’

‘No. And my average selling price isn’t high, remember, like I said it’s usually just a tenner or twenty quid.  I’m into volume, like. I buy a lot of bankrupt stock, from shops closing down, all that. People are usually glad to get rid of the stock. Bit of a public service, I am, in a way.’

Hall glanced across at Jane, who shook her head slightly. She didn’t want to take it on from there. So Hall pushed the letter across the table.

‘All right, Mr. Perkins, let’s take a look at this letter, shall we? What do you make of it?’

‘Not a lot. He says he’s going to destroy me. As if.’

‘Not quite. He says that he’s going to destroy ‘all that you hold most dear’, doesn’t he?’

‘Same thing.’

‘So what do you hold most dear then, Mr. Perkins?’

‘Don’t know really. My car, maybe? Not my house because I’m selling that. I can afford something much nicer now. It reminds me of when I was young and just starting out, see.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty seven.’

‘OK, let’s look at something else. Do you know what ‘compunction’ means?’

‘No, why?’

‘Because it’s used in the letter. Can you think of anyone you know who might use a word like that?’

‘Not since school. And I’ve proved them wrong, haven’t I?’

‘I’m sure you have. When the writer says ‘me and my kind’ who do you think he might be referring to?’

‘Poofs is what I thought.’

Hall smiled. ‘So you think you’re being threatened by a band of well-spoken homosexuals?’

Jane sputtered out a laugh, but quickly regained her self-control. She reached across and straightened her pad and pen on the desk.

‘Maybe’ said Perkins, a little defensively. ‘What else could he be talking about?’

‘You think it’s a man?’

‘Yes, no, I’m not sure. Look, it’s your job to find out who sent this, isn’t it? I’m just a hard-working businessman.’

‘It is our job, you’re absolutely right. So leave it with us and we’ll see what we can do. And if any others arrive, bring them straight in to us. Don’t even open them next time, OK?’

‘Yeah, whatever you say. But what are you going to actually do now? Am I going to get protection?’

‘You mean are we going to have you and your property watched twenty four hours a day, a car outside your house, that sort of thing?’

Perkins cheered up. ‘Aye, that’s the idea.’

Hall’s face was as expressionless as usual, and Jane wondered where he was going. He couldn’t just be having a bit of fun with Perkins, could he? It would be out of character, thought Jane. But this time Jane was wrong. ‘I’m afraid that’s out of the question. We just don’t have the resources, I’m afraid.’

‘So you’ll just wait until he starts destroying stuff or attacking me or something, is that it?’

‘I’m sure it won’t come to that, Mr. Perkins. But if you can’t give us specific names of people who you think might have done this then we don’t really have anything to go on.’

‘So it’s my fault now, is it?’

‘Of course not. I’m just trying to explain the realities of the situation. People who don’t have much contact with the Police always think we have a lot more people available to help them than we actually have. But we’ll log your concerns, and we will make some enquiries.  And we’ll let you know if we come up with anything, OK?’

Perkins didn’t look as if it was OK at all. He stood up quickly, and his chair toppled over backwards behind him. ‘I’d better go and get on with posting my stuff then. I just hope I don’t get mugged on the way.’

Hall smiled. ‘I don’t think that’s very likely at all, Mr. Perkins. But, just out of interest, what’s in your parcels?’

‘This and that, you know. Collectibles, a couple of electronic things that I buy wholesale from a contact in China, a few CDs, some old books. Nothing worth mugging me for, that’s for sure.’

‘What kind of books?’

‘The kind that people pay for. I don’t know, do I? I’m a trader, I buy and sell anything. What it is don’t matter.’

‘Everything has its price?’

‘Exactly.’

Hall nodded. Jane glanced across at him, but he was as impassive as ever. She thought that Perkins could have told them that he’d just sacrificed a pregnant panda in the station car park and Hall’s reaction would have been much the same. But now she knew him well enough to be absolutely certain what he would be thinking about Perkins, and she agreed entirely with that view. Perkins made even Ray Dixon look like Melvin Bragg, a regular Cumbrian cultural colossus.

Hall held the door open for Jane, and did the same thing all the way back to his office. There were five doors in total.

‘Is it worth a look then, boss?’ she asked when they got there.

Hall glanced back at the letter.

‘I should say no, especially given the fact that we lose Ray in a fortnight.’

‘So you haven’t got him a stay of execution?’ He could hear a slight tone of surprise in her voice. He felt like saying that he wasn’t a bloody miracle worker.

‘Blimey Jane, you’re almost as bad as he is. He’s only retiring, not being ritually beheaded by the Chief Constable in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant. To my certain knowledge Ray counted down the days to his retirement for fifteen bloody years at least, and it’s only in the last few months that he’s been doing all he can to hold on.’

‘It’s the recession, boss’ said Jane, in what she fondly imagined was a passable imitation of Ray Dixon.

‘Well, I’ve done all I can to get him a twelve-month extension, but I don’t think he’s got a snowball’s chance. Doesn’t stop him asking me three times a day if personnel have come back with a decision, though. Anyway, let’s talk about this letter.’

‘You think it’s worth talking about? According to Perkins he hasn’t got an enemy in the world.’

‘I doubt he’s got many friends either. But that letter is odd, isn’t it? Tell you what, ask the intelligence team to see if they’ve got anything similar on file. I doubt it, but you never know. It reminded me of some of those letters you see in the local papers, when people start getting worked up about the kind of things that most of us don’t even notice. You know the kind of thing, someone moved a park bench, why do kids wear hoodies? Rearrange the words ‘hell, going to, and handcart’.’

‘So you’re thinking it’s just some harmless old crank letting off steam?’

‘Like I said, can criminals spell?’

‘And like I said, you’re a terrible snob, Andy Hall.’

‘Am I interrupting anything?’ said Ian Mann, who was suddenly filling Hall’s doorway.

‘Of course not. Come on in, Ian. And perhaps you can settle an argument. Can criminals spell?’

Mann thought for a moment.

‘Well, the ones we never actually manage to nick probably can.’

Jane and Hall laughed.

‘All right clever-clogs’ said Hall, ‘what’s on your mind?’

‘It’s about that MISPER from the weekend.’

‘What MISPER? I didn’t see anything in the summary report this morning. Just some fisherman washed off his boat down at Morecambe Bay. So that’s Lancashire’s problem, not ours.’

‘Not quite Andy. First of all he set out from Flookburgh, and that’s on our side of the Bay and is in Cumbria. Second, he wasn’t in a boat, he was on a tractor. So that’s still technically our patch, even if it underwater half the time.’

‘So he was a farmer then? Did I misunderstand the report?’

‘No, he was the kind of fisherman who goes out between the tides, when the Bay is dry, and collects the fish from his nets, picks cockles, all that. Name of Jack Bell, fifty-five, lifelong fisherman. Knew the Bay better than anyone alive, the Queen’s Guide included, or so they say.’

‘Got you. My kids did a sponsored walk with the Queen’s Guide a year or two ago. Walked right across from Grange. So how come this Bell is missing? Did he hit quicksand or something?’

‘Don’t know. Coastguard and rescue services are still searching. Nothing yet, but it’s a huge area, a hundred and fifty square miles when the tide’s out.’

‘Blimey, that sounds like a hell of a job for someone. But it’s not really one for us, is it, Ian? Not unless a body or something turns up. And I assume it hasn’t?’

‘No, not yet. Apparently it will probably wash up somewhere in the next day or two. They think they spotted the tractor this morning though, but that’s it.’ Mann stopped, and Hall waited for him to make his pitch. Because it had to be coming. ‘Thing is, boss, I’ve had Mrs. Bell on the phone.’

‘Oh yes?’ Jane picked up a wary tone in Hall’s voice, because despite his hard-man exterior Ian Mann was a bit of a soft touch when it came to damsels in distress, everyone in the station knew that. ‘And what did she have to say for herself?’

‘That Jack would never get himself in to trouble. He was always much too careful, and even when he’s had problems in the past he’s always had plenty of time to get off the Bay.’