DEAD & BURIED a gripping crime thriller full of twists (3 page)

“And you think he’s behind the shooting? You think he’s making a play for the Hobfield?” Birch asked.

Calladine stuffed his hands in his pockets. He was thinking about what Wayne Davey had said. “Costello wouldn’t be interested in that cash-starved estate. Word has been circulating for a while that he’s retired. But if he did venture back into a life of crime, it would be something far more lucrative than a bit of dealing on the Hobfield.”

“So why was that limo there?”

“I’ve no idea, ma’am. But we have to find out.”

“I’ve found something, sir.”

“Go on then, Imogen.”

“Rose Argent is a sizable concern. It comprises a number of companies,” she told them. “The accounts are up to date and filed each year on time. All of them are in the black.”

“I’d expect nothing else,” said Calladine. “These companies he runs, profitable are they?”

“Yes, sir. He’s doing very nicely. He’s certainly not short of a bob or two.”

Calladine spoke to DCI Birch. “But don’t be misled. Costello is a villain. Just because he’s old and wealthy doesn’t make him any less dangerous than he ever was. If, and it’s a big if, this is down to him, we’ve got a huge problem. The man’s past is so bloody the Hobfield would become a war zone.”

“One of his cars was on that estate. You both saw it with your own eyes,” Birch reminded them. “He’ll have been sizing the place up.”

“He doesn’t need the aggro. The Hobfield isn’t worth the effort. Not to a man like Costello.”

Birch was looking at Imogen’s screen. “This all looks fine to me.”

“Of course it does,” said Calladine. “His life today will be totally above board. He’s clever. I don’t believe he wants the Hobfield but I’m not taken in. His organisation may be big and profitable, but it’s nothing but a smokescreen for his murderous past. Despite the big house in the country, the private school for the kids, he’s still a capable villain.”

“So what are we missing? What would he gain from running the Hobfield?”

“Nothing that I can see, ma’am. But if he was involved in that shooting today, then it sends the case spiralling into a whole new dimension.”

“Perhaps he’s being challenged.”

“No one would dare. He might stay in the background these days but he still heads one of Manchester’s largest and most prolific gangs.” Calladine scratched his head. “He has his own security team. If there was any challenge it would be quashed at birth.

“Perhaps someone wants us to think it was Costello,” Rocco suggested.

“We’re back to that limo. It is registered to his company,” said Birch.

Calladine was still puzzled. “It would have to be something big to drag him into the limelight again.”

“So what could have brought him to our patch?” Rocco asked.

“It’s vacant after the demise of Ray Fallon,” Birch pointed out.

“That’s not nearly enough,” Calladine told them. “It has to be about something else.”

Rocco was studying the information on Imogen’s screen. “It was alleged that he was behind that bank robbery in Cheshire about a year ago. The gang got away with an absolute fortune.”

“That was merely speculation, DC Rockliffe,” Birch said. “Nothing was proven against him. We can’t know for sure that Costello was behind that robbery.”

Calladine sighed. “Nothing is ever proven against him, ma’am. Costello is a past master at getting away with things. He greases palms and intimidates. Cross him and you’re dead. He has a team of goons to do his dirty work and an expensive brief by his side at all times. Central used to call him ‘Fortress Costello.’”

“I remember CID at Central talking about it at the time,” Birch said. “They suspected Costello. Someone leaked information to the local police. A member of his gang was suspected. Problem was, the witness disappeared without trace so no charges could be brought against Costello. I recall he was interviewed though.”

“Do we know who that gang member was?”

“No, Inspector. Whoever gave the information didn’t give a name.”

“So why the Hobfield — and why now?”

“Because it’s going begging, Inspector.” Birch spoke as if it was simple logic. “He knows that if he doesn’t step in then some rival outfit will.”

“What puzzles me is how a young scally like Wayne Davey attracted his attention.”

“He either wouldn’t play ball or he’s crossed Costello in some way,” Rocco suggested.

Imogen turned to them. “That Cheshire robbery. There were two fatalities and a number of gang members injured. Because of the information given, armed police were waiting at the scene. One of the robbers was shot dead and one died later in hospital.”

“And they still got away with the money?”

“Yes, Rocco. According to the report, the money was got out through the cellar and taken into the shop next door,” Imogen told him. “The police made arrests. A small amount was recovered on one of robbers fleeing the scene. Amidst all the mayhem, the bulk of it was spirited away in a refuse truck.”

“Is that relevant?” Birch asked.

Calladine had no idea. But if it was down to Costello he would be damned annoyed at the leak. And he wouldn’t want to be in the informant’s shoes either.

“Let me have a look at his record,” Birch said to Imogen. “See what we’re up against.”

“There is nothing, ma’am. He’s spotless. He’s been arrested on a number of occasions and he’s always walked clean away. There are either no witnesses or his alibi is cast iron.”

“This one is the real deal, ma’am,” said Calladine. “He’s a far better operator than Fallon ever was. Fallon was a hothead. He got it wrong many times and ended up in prison. But not Vinny Costello. He always gets it right. That man has got away with everything from petty crime to murder, and there is never anything we can pin on him.”

“If he is responsible for maiming that lad today, then we will nail him, Inspector,” she insisted.

“I didn’t realise he was local.” Birch was looking at his record. “Born on the Hobfield too. Do you remember him, Calladine?”

“No, ma’am. He’s quite a bit older than me. But I do remember him being talked about.”

“Have you considered that that could be the reason he’s back? It’s his old stomping ground?”

“That would make him sentimental. Believe me, ma’am, Vinny Costello is a long way from being soft-hearted.”

“He, or one of his people, was driving an expensive limo.”

Calladine nodded.

“Then he’ll have been seen. Someone pulled that trigger and to do that he had to get out of the car and walk across the square.”

“You’re spot on, ma’am, but naïve about the Hobfield, if you don’t mind me saying. No one on that estate will dare speak up. They’ll have been warned. They’re not stupid. If anyone dares to breathe a word, Costello will take them out too. He is not someone you mess with.” He turned to Imogen. “Did you check on that ambulance?”

“Yes, sir. It was called a good ten minutes prior to when you said the shooting occurred. A male voice reported that there had been a shooting on the Hobfield, and then hung up.”

“Do they have the caller’s number?”

“Yes. An unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile.”

“See, ma’am? This is how it is. We end up with nothing.”

“Nonetheless, Calladine, I want you to talk to him. If he was on that estate today, we want a statement. We’ll bring him in.”

“You must not do that!” A woman’s voice shouted from the office doorway. “You can’t drag Costello in here.”

All eyes turned to look at the person who’d had the nerve to contradict Birch. For someone who sounded so full of authority, she certainly didn’t look the part. She had long red hair scraped back into a ponytail and was wearing jeans and a hooded top. She looked like a kid you’d find hanging out on some street corner.

“Currently all dealings with Costello must go through me.” She walked into the room. “Apart from which, I don’t think he was responsible.”

Birch turned and stared at the woman who’d had the temerity to call the shots in her nick. “We’ll take this to my office now,” she glowered. “Calladine, you come too.”

Chapter 4

“Are you sure we’ve done the right thing, Jack? It needs a lot of work.” Annie Naden looked around her at the interior of Clough Cottage. It was an utter mess. “Kids have been in here. Look at the empty beer cans and rubbish on the floor.” She aimed a hearty kick. “The garden’s a state too.” She walked to the window. “What have they been doing? It looks like someone has been digging out there.”

Her husband put an arm around her waist. “We used to be the same. Remember that old barn down Hopecross way? We used to tramp all the way up there, play our music, drink and generally trash the place.”

“We were never this bad. Look, someone’s even had a go at lifting the flags in here.” The kitchen floor was still covered in the original Yorkshire stone.

Jack stamped in an effort to level one of them. “They’ll make a lovely feature cleaned up.”

“Keeping it traditional then, are we?”

Jack nodded. “I could even put an old range back in if you want. I know where there’s one going begging.”

She laughed. “Don’t think we need to go that far. I’ll have a range, but a brand-new gas one, please.”

“When do you want to start?”

“The sooner the better. I’m sick of living with your parents.” Annie began to wander through the ground floor rooms.

Walking behind her, Jack Naden nodded. “We’ll get it cleaned up a bit and live here while we fix it up, if you want.”

“What about water?” she asked. “We’ll have to get our supply from the spring, but that well out there needs attention.”

“We’ll need to sort that as well as the pumps and pipework. Don’t worry. My dad will help. We can copy the system he has up at the farm.”

Annie led the way into the sitting room. “Look at this! It had beautiful panelling on the walls in here but the little sods have kicked holes in it.”

Jack Naden ran his hand over the oak finish of the wall. “There’s a cupboard in this panel,” he said, pushing slightly. It swung open, revealing a small space behind it.

The air was suddenly full of dust, making Annie cough.

“Look at that!”

Annie peered forward through a haze of dust. In the bottom of the cupboard lay a school satchel. Her husband bent forward and lifted it out.

“Something the kids didn’t find and ruin. It’s one of those old-fashioned leather ones. Look! It has those shoulder straps so it can be worn on the back.”

“It’s filthy,” Annie said, brushing off some of the dirt. “There’s a name on the front. It’s been written on a piece of card and stuck into the see-through pocket. I can’t make it out.”

“It must have been there years. It’ll have belonged to someone long gone.” Jack pushed back the panel. “Perhaps someone who lived in the cottage at one time.”

“Do you think there’s anything inside it?”

He gave the thing a shake, raising a cloud of dust. “Books, probably.” He handed it back and walked away towards the kitchen.

Annie knelt on the floor and opened up the satchel. “The schoolbooks are still inside!” she shouted to her husband. “They’re in really good condition too.”

Annie took them out one by one. All the exercise books had covers made of wallpaper. She smiled. Her teachers had made them do the same. She read the name on the inside of the satchel: Carol Rhodes. Annie wondered if she was still around in the area, perhaps she could give it back. Her parents-in-law might know. They had lived for nearly fifty years in the farm a few hundred yards away.

There was nothing of much interest in the books. Carol obviously hadn’t been a particularly good student. Her work was covered with scathing comments in red ink. Annie was about to give up when she spotted another smaller book tucked into a pocket. It was a diary.

It was pink with a lock that had long since rusted away. Annie flicked it open. The writing was in thick black pen and was easy to read.

Annie couldn’t help feeling guilty. She was prying into the world of a teenage girl who’d long since grown up. This was her diary, her personal world, and these were her secrets. How would she feel about someone reading her diary?

Carol Rhodes was now probably old enough to be Annie’s mother. But she’d been only fifteen years old when she’d written this. Back then, her head was full of clothes, boys and leaving school. No thought of staying on in education in those days. Apparently a job had already been earmarked for her at Leesdon paper mill. The entries rambled on at length about how she couldn’t wait to leave that summer and what she’d do with the money. A holiday: ‘Spain’ was circled in red with the letter ‘E’ beside it. ‘E’ featured on almost every page. She must have been Carol’s best friend, or a boyfriend perhaps. They were going to a concert — a pop group Annie had never heard of were playing in Oldston. Then Annie spotted the hearts, two of them. One had ‘Caro’ and ‘?’ written inside it; the other, ‘E’ and ‘Ken.’

She wrote every day, pages of the stuff. Then suddenly it stopped. After the sixth of May 1969 Caro wrote no more. The last entry was simple. It read: ‘pregnant.’

* * *

“Who was she?” Rocco asked Imogen, his mouth still open. “She’s got some balls, ordering the DCI about like that.”

“She’ll be the DCI we’ve been promised from Daneside,” Imogen told him. “She’s here to help with the murder. I reckon the Costello angle has got them all fired up. I bet he’s the real reason she’s here.”

“What has Costello got to do with Emily Blackwell’s murder?”

“Nothing. But if Costello is currently operating on our patch, then Daneside and the new MIT would be interested. And they’d want to watch him,” Imogen explained.

“She didn’t sound like Daneside to me. That was a Yorkshire accent.”

“So? What does it matter where she’s from?”

Joyce interrupted. “Did you give the inspector his message?”

“No, I forgot.” Imogen read the note on her pad. It was from Ruth Bayliss, the detective sergeant who usually worked with Calladine. “Ruth knows how fraught things get. She’ll understand. Did she say what she wanted him for?”

“No. Just that it was important.”

“She’ll be missing us,” Rocco piped up.

“I doubt that. Ruth’ll have her hands full. It’s no picnic looking after a tiny infant, you know,” Joyce said.

“How hard can it be? They eat, sleep a lot and you push them around in a pram.” He shrugged. “Piece of cake.”

“I’d like to see you coping, Rocco.”

“Well, he couldn’t, could he?” Imogen smiled. “He’s all talk, this one.”

“I’ll ring her later,” Joyce told them. “Tell her what we’re up to.”

“What d’you reckon then, about the redhead? Trouble, or what?” Imogen asked.

“I’m sure she’ll be okay once we get used to her,” said Rocco.

A pretty face, thought Imogen. Typical. “She won’t be okay if she persists with that attitude. DCI or not, Birch won’t like being put in her place like that in front of the team. Personally, I think she’s going to be a problem,” she said.

* * *

“How can you be so sure Costello wasn’t responsible for shooting that lad?” Birch asked the woman.

“Because my team had him under surveillance. He hasn’t left his house in Harrogate for over a week. And that car — it wasn’t his. It was a company car. Any one of his employees, or their family members, could have been driving it.”

“Costello always takes a back seat while someone else pulls the trigger. It’s called having other people do your dirty work.” Calladine smiled glibly. “You must know that. You’re not that naïve, surely?”

“If there’s one thing I’m not, Inspector, it’s naïve. It really pisses me off when male colleagues start with that sort of thing.”

Birch cleared her throat. “My inspector saw the car himself,” she told her.

“Did you see who pulled the trigger?”

Calladine shook his head.

“Then why blame Costello?”

“The
car
,” Calladine repeated. “If Costello is staking his claim to the Hobfield and Davey crossed him, he would dive in with a gesture exactly like that. At the very least we should ask ourselves why the car was there. Can you explain why there was a shooting within minutes of it turning up?”

“No, and I’m not even going to try.”

“I think you should at least give it a go, DCI . . . ?”

“King,” she replied. “I’m DCI Eliza King, from the Yorkshire MIT. I’ve been seconded to the new MIT for Leesworth area for a while.”

“We’re not sure we are.” Calladine smiled. “Party to anything I mean. The boys upstairs haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, I’m here regardless.”

“Because of the murder or because of Costello?”

She didn’t answer him.

“We don’t like riddles, DCI King,” Birch told her. “This is a shooting on our patch, so we will investigate. Currently we’re investigating a murder too. DI Calladine will interview anyone he considers has something to offer.”

“You are wasting your time. I know where Costello has been for every hour of last week. Why bring him in to have him laugh in your faces? He’ll make you look like a bunch of bloody fools. And do you want to know how he’ll do it?” She waited, her hands on her hips, and her dark eyes moved from one to the other. “He’ll feed you some tale about that car being stolen and he’ll provide a police report to prove it. I don’t want to get heavy about this, but I will if you don’t back off.”

Her attitude rankled both Birch and Calladine. This was their nick. Birch’s expression said it all.

“So we leave him alone, do we?” Rhona Birch said. “We just let him shoot and terrorise the people of Leesdon?”

“That won’t happen. My team won’t let it.”

“It is already happening,” Calladine said.

“We are gathering evidence that will finally nail him.”

Calladine snorted. “Fat chance of that. It’s been tried before and it failed.” He paused, studying the woman. “You do know who you’re dealing with?”

No response.

“You are not helping, DCI King,” said Birch. “DI Calladine has a point. You are here to support the investigation into the murder that took place today. That, surely, is your priority.”

“Unless the murder has something to do with Costello,” added Calladine. “Is that it? Do you suspect him of killing Emily Blackwell too?”

“No . . .” She hesitated. “But they both lived around here once and could have known each other.”

“The shooting and the murder are two completely different matters,” Birch told her. “We know a vehicle belonging to his firm was on the estate. If you have explored any links between him and Emily, you should tell us what you’ve found.”

“Can’t,” Eliza King said. “Not yet anyway.”

Dislike was written all over Rhona Birch’s face. “We don’t have time for this,” she told King.

“I’m here because of the murder,” she insisted. “About the shooting — I don’t know yet. That happened while I was still on the M62. I’ve only just caught up with events. Superintendent McCabe suggested Emily Blackwell might have known Costello and told me to keep an open mind.”

“So why would he kill her?” Calladine asked.

“I’ve no idea.” She looked at Calladine. “And it wasn’t him personally, because I know exactly where he was.”

“But you acknowledge that he could have been behind it,” Birch added. “I repeat, it was one of his cars at the scene. That given, you can’t go getting upset when Calladine drags the miscreant in.”

“That would ruin months of work.” Eliza looked at Birch and then at the DI, her eyes narrowing angrily. “We want Costello. He is top of our hit list. He’s being monitored and he’s unaware of it. I don’t want him rattled.”

“
You
want him! He’s a Manchester villain. If any force is hounding Costello then it should be us.”

“For the last few years his people have been running a drug-dealing operation on the East Yorkshire coast. We’ve taken down three of them. They were crucial but we need Costello. Only then will the gang become fragmented enough for it to cease existence.”

Calladine shook his head. “You’re fooling yourself. Costello is a sharp operator, sharper than a lot of detectives.” This was pointed. “Are you sure he’s not running rings around you?”

She gave him a look. Her eyes flared.

“Look, let’s all calm down, shall we?” Birch said.

Calladine could see that King wasn’t happy. She’d obviously expected to swan in here and just take over. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. He’d have to know a lot more about her first. How much experience did she have in dealing with villains like Costello? The woman looked so young. Eliza King was wearing denim jeans, a hoodie and a pair of what he knew to be expensive Converse trainers. He’d bought Zoe a pair just like them at Christmas. Practically all the female DCIs he’d met so far were in the style of Birch — suited and smart. This one looked as if she’d be more at home on the Hobfield!

Calladine watched King move over to the office window. He would really like to know how a young woman like her had made DCI already. What was she? Late twenties, early thirties? Certainly no more than that.

“What is your role while you’re with us?” Birch asked. “We have a murder and the shooting to investigate. We’re one officer down, so we need all the help we can get.”