Becca came back and they stopped talking. She was wearing a tracksuit that was too big for her and her hair was dripping round her shoulders. Kay tutted under her breath and made her sit in the huge armchair that was pulled up in front of the open fire. ‘Get yourself warmed up.’ She assessed Becca for damage. Physically, she didn’t look too bad – a lot of cuts and abrasions, and a nasty, swelling bruise on her arm – but emotionally? Kay didn’t know. Becca still had a lot of fighting to do, and if she was going to survive, she had to stay strong.
‘Lewis,’ Becca said urgently, looking at Curwen.
He checked his phone. ‘Text from DC Mason,’ he said. ‘The paramedics think he’s going to be OK. He’d cold, exhausted, but he’ll be all right.’
‘What’s going to happen to him? Will they lock him up?’
‘He’s eleven. He’s old enough to be in trouble. If he tells his story, tells them what he knows, they won’t charge him. Probably. Depends if his mum can take care of him – she’s not done a good job up until now.’
‘She’s doing her best,’ Becca snapped.
‘Yeah. And her lad’s been running wild and nearly got drowned in the estuary. Get real, Becca.’
Becca glared at him and Kay decided they needed a change of subject. ‘Tea,’ she said. ‘You need a hot drink.’ She looked at Curwen. ‘Sort that out for her, will you?’
‘Yes, miss,’ Curwen said, almost but not quite under his breath. Becca giggled and Kay felt relief flood through her.
Chapter 49
Bridlington
Dinah drove slowly back to Bridlington. She’d gone to the hospital in Hull with Lewis, and waited there until the medics gave him the OK, and Hammond’s team arrived with his mother in tow. Jade Acklam was bristling with anger and hostility. She blamed the police for her son’s problems and made it clear she wanted nothing to do with them.
Dinah didn’t know what she thought. Lewis’s mother clearly had a tough job with her son, but he’d been running out of control for weeks; at least, that was what Dinah had heard. They’d question him, and depending on what came out of that, he might well end up in detention, or in care. It couldn’t be her problem.
The colours from the rising sun glowed in her mirror and it was full morning by the time she got back to the town. She seemed to be on the other side of tiredness. Everything had an odd, glassy clarity, and her head felt as if it was floating. It was like a hangover, only without the headache and the nausea.
She’d arrived at the house on Stone Creek Road last night to find the search in full swing. Her ex-boss, Gallagher, had been there, as well as Hammond. She’d found out more about what was going on when she talked to members of the team who were at the hospital, waiting to talk to Toby Sharman.
The drug smugglers were on the run, trying to empty their caches and dump what they couldn’t dispose of. The full picture still wasn’t clear, but one of the routes they had been using to bring drugs in was up the estuary, where bags of spice, disguised as garden compost, were picked up by a small boat, brought in via Stone Creek, and hidden in the house on Stone Creek Road.
When she finally got to Brid, the station was buzzing with the news of successful drug raids coordinated between Bridlington and Hull, with big hauls found in Sunk Island, and in several holiday lets. A Bridlington pub had been raided, and the landlord arrested – Curwen’s nemesis, Carl Lavery. She saw Hammond in the middle of a back-slapping crowd. Curwen was there too, looking uncharacteristically cheerful. He saw her, and gestured her over.
Hammond looked at her. ‘DC Mason. Well done. We’re just going to get something to eat – the whole team, Come on. Breakfast’s on me.’
There was a greasy spoon just across the road from the nick that was used to catering for large groups of cops, either celebrating or drowning their sorrows in cholesterol. Dinah sat at one of the tables, and people kept pulling up chairs until she was in the centre of a happy crowd.
Curwen looked at her and grinned. ‘Did you hear, Mason? We got that fucker Lavery. He’s facing money-laundering charges.’
‘He’s not part of the drugs?’
‘No drugs. Just the money.’
She wanted to ask about Becca’s role, but Hammond was talking, bringing those members of the team who hadn’t been there up to date. Someone dumped a plate filled with sausage, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, fried bread and beans in front of her. She looked at it and felt her stomach turn over. ‘You take this one.’ She shoved it across to Curwen.
Hammond was explaining about the undercover operation. Dave Sykes frowned. ‘You mean we’ve been wasting our time? I’m not happy if I’ve been taken for a mug.’
‘Don’t worry, Dave. You haven’t. We knew who killed Yeatson, but we couldn’t prove it. We’ve been collecting the evidence that will make the murder charges stick.’
Dave Sykes wasn’t ready to be mollified. Dinah could see he felt as though he’d been made a fool of and wasn’t prepared to let it go. ‘Against who? Traynor? She’s dead at the bottom of the estuary.’
‘Toby Sharman and Carl Lavery. There may be others.’
Dinah spoke up. Something had been bothering her ever since she’d heard about the NCA operation. ‘The undercover officers,’ she said. ‘They were there, weren’t they, when Andy was killed?’
Hammond nodded. ‘One of them was. Andy was set up by two members of the
