Free Death on High (The Lakeland Murders) by J J Salkeld Page B

told her what Robinson had said.
    ‘So do you want me to come along when you talk to her again?’
    ‘No, I’ll do as he asks, but I wanted you to know. Would you do me a favour and note this conversation in your notebook, and ask Ray to sign it for you? And when you’ve done that, would you ask him to pop in?’
    Jane was curious, but Hall didn’t seem to want to discuss it further.
     
    Ray Dixon came in, bringing a couple of case files, and he and Hall went through them together. One, an aggravated burglary, was just about to go to trial, and Hall said he thought they’d got a good chance. ‘But it was Ian I really wanted to talk about Ray, see if you’ve got any bright ideas. He’s really struggling to get close to Spedding and his mates. They’re on nodding terms, but that’s about it apparently.’
    ‘Maybe Spedding just isn’t the friendly type’ said Dixon.
    ‘Or maybe he’s already got all the manpower he needs, and isn’t recruiting.’
    ‘That’d be favourite, I agree. Spedding is a working criminal, so he must have no end of brain-dead muscle available.’
    Hall smiled. ‘I hope you’re not putting Ian in that category.’
    ‘You know what I mean, boss. We need to show Spedding that Ian can offer him something useful. Something he can’t get any other way.’
    Hall thought about what Ray had said. ‘I agree. We’d need it to be relevant, whatever it is, and motivating with it. We’d also need to think of a way to let Spedding know about it that was subtle enough to look accidental, but obvious enough to be unmistakable.’
    ‘So we need to work out the ‘what’ and the ‘how’.’
    ‘Exactly, so let’s it break it down into those two aspects. Maybe the ‘what’ is some kind of knocked-off equipment that would be useful to Spedding.’
    ‘But what? We don’t know what he already has access to, or what he might need. I can’t see that working.’ They both sat quietly, thinking about the problem. ‘I know boss, how about this. You need paperwork when you move sheep, right? There’s a DEFRA form that ties back to the tags in the sheep’s ears, and the same for cows. Now when Spedding and his crew have lifted someone’s stock they must have to move it for slaughter, because they can’t do it locally, so those documents would be useful. They wouldn’t stand up to very close scrutiny, but they’d probably be useful at a stop and check. Just so long as no-one went back and looked at the database.’
    Hall banged the flat of his hand down on the table. ‘Ray, you are a genius.’
    ‘Can I have that in writing boss?’
    ‘Tell you what, if we can develop this idea properly you can take the whole weekend off.’
    ‘But I’m off this weekend anyway.’
    ‘I didn’t make the rules, Ray. Now, assuming that we can persuade our local DEFRA bods to hand over some forms, how do we make Spedding aware that Ian has got them?’
    Dixon had a nasty feeling that this was a strictly rhetorical question, and he was right. Hall looked at Dixon, smiled, and pointed at him.
    ‘Oh no boss, you’re not going to make me go up there are you? My mum doesn’t like me going into pubs, especially in Carlisle.’
    ‘She’s a wise woman Ray, but that’s exactly what you’re going to do. The local DEFRA lot were very keen to support us when we set this unit up, so let’s see them get behind it now. You can be our man from DEFRA. We’ll need a name badge with your name on it, a DEFRA email address, and their switchboard will need to put any calls for you through to someone. If I was Spedding I’d check you out. But basically the plan is that you meet Ian in the pub, when Spedding is there, and hand over the forms.’
    ‘Hang on a minute boss, let’s think this through. What does Ian want with movement paperwork for sheep? We’re not pretending he’s a freelance sheep rustler now, are we? I know he’s been down on the farm with Brockbank, but Ian’s a right townie really.’
    Hall