The River Irwell begins life as a trickle in the wind-ravaged moors high above Bacup in east Lancashire. It flows through the Rossendale Valley, never more than a few feet wide or deep, then meanders through some picturesque landscapes and villages as it makes its way to Greater Manchester. Sometimes it widens out, but never by very much.
The rushing waters, forced through the narrow gorge, washed Dix about a mile downstream, often crashing him against mid-stream boulders and various other bits of debris, like broken prams and bedsteads, until, near the area known as New Hall Hey, it slowed dramatically before pouring down a weir.
Dix could not believe he was still alive: he had swallowed what seemed like gallons of foul-tasting, ice-cold water, and retched much of it back; he had been bashed to hell. Suddenly the strength of the river weakened and he found himself close to the bank, near overhanging trees.
Exhausted though he was, his innate survival instinct was reborn. He paddled desperately to the side, feeling weaker with each movement. He caught and hung grimly on to a branch and started to tremble.
He saw a footbridge fifty metres ahead and the lights of houses and street lamps.
Still holding the branch for support, he dragged himself to his feet and lurched up the bank, out of the water, slipping and sliding in the mud and grass. He forced his way through bushes which tore at his skin and clothing, but he was so chilled he did not feel the snags and cuts. He tumbled over a low fence on to a narrow, muddy path, which he followed towards the lights. It brought him out by the bridge and into New Hall Hey. It was quiet. Nothing moved.
Sodden and shaking, he made his way to a telephone box.
‘Have to let ’em know I’m okay,’ he wheezed desperately.
Once inside the phone box, he began to dial a number which would eventually connect him to Ray Cragg.
He was on the last digit of the dial when he stopped to think.
His exact thoughts were: I’ve got a quarter of a million pounds strapped to my back. . There’s a very good chance people now think I’m dead, drowned. . Now there’s a thing. He hung up the phone with a dithering hand. Whatever, he thought, I need to get dry otherwise I will die. . of pneumonia.
He pushed himself out of the phone box and looked up and down the street. He needed to get inside somewhere warm, fast, before hypothermia set in.
Jane and Henry separated, bathed in sweat, shattered, breathing heavily. They lay staring at the ceiling, legs and arms splayed out across each other.
‘You know, I really wanted to hate you when I met you. . but as soon as I saw you, I knew deep down that you’d change my life.’
Henry said nothing. A slight feeling of trepidation in his guts.
‘I’ve been in love with you from the first,’ Jane whispered.
Still he said nothing, but his mind was racing. He thought, She’s married, I’m trying to get my life together — oh God!
Her mobile phone rang. With a rumble of annoyance, she fumbled for it among her discarded clothing and studied the display.
‘Hubby,’ she said thinly and pressed a button.
Henry lay back, hands clasped behind his head while she talked to her obviously irate spouse, who was wondering where the hell she was. She kept her composure, raising her eyes at Henry as she talked him down from the heights and assured him she would be home soon. Things had got very hectic and it looked like being a long, involved investigation, this last bit being news her husband did not take well.
‘Yes, a long one. Comes with the territory. . Right, fine! I’ll be home soon but I’ve got to be back at work by half seven, so I’m going straight to bed. . What? Well if that’s your attitude, I will.’ She pressed the ‘end-call’ button, scowled at the mobile as though it was its fault and tossed it back on her clothing, shaking her head. ‘He said I might as well find a hotel cos it’s not worth me going home — so I’ll do just that,’ she said haughtily, tossing her fine mane of hair back, ‘I’ll stay here if you’ll let me.’
Henry had been secretly hoping she would go, but he said, ‘Sure, no problem, but we’d better get some sleep. It’ll be a long day tomorrow.’
It was an end-terraced cottage, up for sale and unoccupied by the looks of it. Dix was shivering badly, unstoppably. He needed to get out of his clothes and get warmed up. The cottage was an ideal place.
The street was deserted. Dix went round the back, expecting to find that each cottage in the row would have a separate walled yard which would have provided him with some sort of cover from snooping neighbours. Instead, all the yard walls had been demolished long ago and each house now had a lawned back garden, divided by low stone walls.
Dix cursed, but then had some luck. There was a clothesline next door with jeans, T-shirts, socks and underpants strung across it. They appeared to be about his size. He unhooked the holdall from his shoulders and deposited it by the back door of the empty house and stepped slowly across the garden walls until he reached the line, then helped himself. They felt cold and damp, but at least they were not drenched like his own clothes.
He was inside the empty cottage within moments. Having been a prolific housebreaker in his younger days, burglary was a skill that had never left him.
The house was completely empty, but had the ambience of having been recently habited. It was warm and cosy and even warmer and cosier when he lit the gas fire in the living room and turned it up full. The curtains had been left open, so he drew them and stripped off, then stood in front of the fire, turning himself round as though he was a pig on a barbecue. The heat permeated his body very slowly.
Ten minutes thawed him out. Fifteen minutes and he was glowing.
He dressed in the stolen clothes, which fitted nicely, and stayed by the fire, taking the damp and chill out of them, trying to dry his zip-up jacket. The worst things were his feet and his sodden trainers. He sat on his backside and toasted his soles on the gas fire, wriggling his toes like mad, trying to get full circulation back.
Half an hour found him in the right frame of mind to unzip the holdall and inspect the cash. Drawing back the zip he wondered if the water had done much damage to the contents.
He almost did a jig when he saw that each block of one thousand pounds was in its own plastic wallet. The money was safe and sound. He’d had visions of having to dry it out, plastering it all over radiators and heaters. Now no such problem existed.
His only remaining problem was what to do with the cash.
Dressed in overalls and wellingtons, Ray, Crazy, Marty and Miller dragged the two bodies out of the house, leaving a slippery trail of blood behind each, and heaved them into the back of a van. They drove up on to the high moorland between Rawtenstall and Rochdale where they threw the dead men into a flooded quarry known as the Blue Lagoon — as were so many across the country. This particular one had been the disposal place for a number of bodies in the past. Ray Cragg knew it would not be long before the men were found and subsequently identified by the police.
They returned to the counting house where they began a clean-up operation with mops, buckets, bleach and detergents. About an hour later they had finished their ghastly task and dispatched Marty to the Irwell to fling the equipment they had used into the river. He threw the blood-soaked items into the fast flow and watched them disappear into the night, just like that idiot Dix had done with the money — got washed away.
Marty was feeling very depressed. He sat down on a stone and pulled out his mobile phone, dialling a well-remembered number.
It rang for a while before being answered by a sleepy voice.
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘We’re back to square one. . not good, not good,’ he whined. He watched the river in front of him. ‘We’re right up shit creek now,’ he observed, looking at the murky water of the Irwell.