NO AGE TO DIE: The release of a dangerous prisoner leads to murder (DCI John Blizzard Book 9)

by John Dean

  ‘He a happy bunny?’ asked Blizzard. He drained his mug of tea and placed it on the desk.

  ‘Of course, he’s not a happy bunny!’ Ronald reached for his own tea, took a swallow and grimaced when he realised it was now lukewarm. ‘He’s concerned that the situation will escalate out of our control. We need to make progress and make it quickly, John. Ideally, an arrest.’

  ‘It might not be that easy, Arthur. The only person we have found who was on the towpath at the time was the angler and he wasn’t much use. The boy’s friends know nothing and Mum couldn’t add anything new when Sarah went to see her. The boy’s father works on the oil rigs and is travelling back at the moment. We’ve arranged to go back in the morning.’

  ‘But we still fancy Albert Macklin for it, yes?’ said Ronald.

  ‘It’s a hell of coincidence if we don’t, Arthur. Same stretch of canal, same MO, same method of covering up the body. Victim of a similar age…’ Blizzard hesitated.

  ‘And yet I sense a “but” coming.’

  ‘Surely, Macklin would know that we would go straight for him, wouldn’t he?’ said Blizzard. ‘Would he really be that reckless?’

  ‘Depends how strong his urges were,’ said Ronald. ‘Regardless of what the psychiatrists say, Albert Macklin is a dangerous man and one who’s been locked up for the best part of twenty years. That’s a long time to suppress your base instincts. I take it that we still don’t know where he is?’

  ‘Afraid not. We searched the hostel and he’s definitely not there. I’m not surprised. When the city council found out what had been happening, they made their views very clear to the church. It’s a bloody disgrace that they offered to take him in the first place.’

  ‘Yes, well, be that as it may, we stay out of it,’ said Ronald. He gave his friend a sharp look. ‘Like I keep telling you, we don’t involve ourselves with politics. I don’t want us to do anything that inflames things further. Anyway, sounds like there’s not much more we can do until tomorrow.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Blizzard. He stood up. ‘Might as well head for home…’

  ‘Afraid not, gentlemen,’ said Colley as he walked into the room and gave them an apologetic look. ‘It seems that the locals have taken things into their own hands again. Someone’s put Jacob Reed in the hospital. Sarah’s gone to the church. I said we’d head for A & E.’

  * * *

  Not long afterwards, Blizzard and Colley were standing in the casualty unit of the general hospital’s accident and emergency unit, waiting for one of the nurses to finish with an elderly cyclist who had gashed his head when he fell off his bike on the way home from the pub. Even though the unit was relatively quiet, there were still plenty of people requiring treatment, most of them as the result of drunken incidents.

  As so often when Blizzard visited A & E, his mind went back to one of the biggest decisions of his career. Several years previously, he had been offered the chance to return to uniform in the city centre in return for promotion. It had been a tempting offer; single in those days, he had just bought a detached house in a village on the western edge of the city and the mortgage payments were keeping him awake at night. At the time, he was one of two detective inspectors responsible for a series of sprawling housing estates on the eastern edge of Hafton. The pay was not brilliant, the hours were long, the work was unforgiving and, for a few moments, he had seriously considered the move back into uniform. Then he thought about the city centre with its posturing young bucks and shrill mini-skirted women tanked up to the eyeballs, of the streams of urine trickling across the pavements and of Friday and Saturday nights in Casualty. He rejected the offer and, within a few months, was back in Western Division heading up the drugs squad and on the road to his promotion as a detective chief inspector.

  All those memories came flooding back now as Blizzard and Colley watched the nurse direct the old man to the front entrance.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she said when she had returned. ‘You want to know about Mr Reed?’

  ‘We do, yes,’ said Blizzard. ‘I understand that he has serious head injuries?’

  ‘The doctor thinks he may have a fractured skull. What happened to him?’

  ‘Someone threw a brick through a window. Is it life threatening?’

  ‘We’ll know better when the doctor has seen the scans,’ said the nurse. ‘It’s certainly serious.’

  ‘Can we talk to him?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Not for a while. I’m sorry, I have to go.’

  The nurse headed off to deal with a teenager who had just been brought in by two uniform officers after being assaulted on his way home. Blood poured from his nose, to which he was clutching a crimson-stained handkerchief.

  ‘Who’d be a nurse?’ said Blizzard. He headed towards the door. ‘Come on, we can’t do anything else here.’

  ‘Got to be Bob Lennox, hasn’t it?’ said Colley as they walked out into the night air.

  ‘Could be any of them,’ said Blizzard. ‘But Bob’s a fair bet. He’s pretty wound up about things.’

  ‘We’re going to nick him now?’

  ‘No, let’s check him out in the morning. The Chief is already twitchy enough and the last thing I want to do is spark a riot at this time of night.’

  Blizzard had only just returned to his office when Sarah Allatt knocked on the door. He gestured for her to take a seat.

  ‘You find out much at the church?’ he asked.

  ‘I talked to the assistant manager.’ Allatt looked down at her notebook. ‘Glenda Rutherford. She was the one who found him. He’d just taken over from her. She was halfway down the street when she heard the glass breaking.’

  ‘And the hostel residents. Any of them see anything?’

  ‘None of them were in at the time. According to Glenda, they’re supposed to be in for ten o’clock but it’s usually after that. As far as I can ascertain, Jacob Reed was alone in the church when the attack happened. I’ve left forensics there.’

  ‘OK,’ said Blizzard. ‘Get yourself home. It’s been a long day. We’ll pick this up in the morning.’

  Chapter five

  ‘Well?’ asked Blizzard impatiently.

  ‘Not really,’ replied Home Office Pathologist Peter Reynolds. He straightened up and gave a sly smile at the inspector’s pained expression at one of his oft-used quips. ‘In fact, I’d go as far as to say that he’s dead.’

  Blizzard stood and glared across the examination room, which was on the ground floor of the general hospital. There were many people in life that he disliked and Peter Reynolds was near the top of his list. As ever, the thing that Blizzard found most difficult to fathom as he watched the pathologist probing the teenager’s body was the gusto with which Reynolds did his job. A balding middle-aged little man with piggy eyes twinkling out of a chubby face, the pathologist loved post-mortems, and even more than that, he loved post-mortems with police officers present because he knew that they hated the experience. Reynolds had grown used to the sights and smells years ago. That many police officers had not was a constant joy to him.

  The pathologist particularly liked winding up John Blizzard. Their encounters were legendary within the force and David Colley watched with keen interest as he stood in his customary position leaning against the wall. Following encounters between the two men, he was always inundated with requests for every minute detail by colleagues; every sly quip from Reynolds, every brusque reply from Blizzard, was seized upon.

  ‘So, what killed him?’ asked Blizzard. He tried to keep the irritation from his voice but it was not easy.

  Reynolds did not reply immediately and the inspector watched with distaste as he ran a hand absent-mindedly across the teenager’s battered skull.

  ‘Something red,’ said the pathologist.

  ‘Red?’ said Blizzard. ‘The search teams didn’t find anything red at the scene. Just branches and a few lumps of concrete. Are you sure it’s red?’

  ‘I am,’ said Reynolds. He held up a plastic evidence b
ag containing a collection of shards which glinted under the harsh lights of the post-mortem room. ‘See?’

  ‘Where did you get them?’ asked Colley. He moved over to peer closer.

  ‘From the skull. They’re fragments of wood. There is no doubt that they came from the murder weapon. It must have been something fairly heavy as well. And it was wielded with some force. The trauma to the brain is extensive. I have sent a sample to your forensics people.’

  ‘Any other injuries?’ asked Colley.

  ‘Quite a number.’ Reynolds held up the boy’s right forearm to reveal a series of scratches. ‘These are new but there are older injuries as well.’

  ‘What are they?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Scars which suggest that he has been struck with something sharp – a belt buckle, maybe. And there are signs of at least two fractures, one on his other forearm and a rib. Maybe two or three years ago. It’s difficult to be more precise.’

  ‘Had he been sexually assaulted?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘There’s nothing to suggest that.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I am always sure, Chief Inspector.’ Reynolds shot him one of his sly looks. ‘Unlike the esteemed members of the Constabulary, I do not engage in idle speculation.’

  Blizzard glowered at him.

  ‘Any DNA?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing of use.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean it’s not a sexual assault, does it, though?’ said Colley. ‘It could just be that the kid fought back before the attacker had a chance to do anything.’

  ‘And far be it for a humble medical man to tell you how to do your job,’ said Reynolds, ‘but there are striking similarities to the physical injuries sustained by the Lennox boy when he was murdered. It does rather look to me like you need to talk to our Mr Macklin.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Blizzard. ‘It isn’t your job.’

  He left the room without further comment.

  ‘No, don’t thank me,’ said Reynolds. He glanced across at Colley. ‘I’m sorry that this meeting did not provide you with as much humour as you might have liked. The good inspector is in a particularly foul mood, even for him.’

  ‘He’s about to go into a press conference,’ said Colley. He made to follow his boss out into the corridor. ‘Somehow, I don’t think that he is in the mood for laughing. I don’t think anyone is.’

  ‘Pity, in my experience, humour does so provide salve for the soul,’ said Reynolds. ‘Don’t you find, Sergeant?’

  Colley glanced back at the body on the slab.

  ‘Not really,’ he said.

  Chapter six

  An hour later, Blizzard hesitated with his hand resting on the handle of the door to the briefing room at Abbey Road Police Station. He gave himself a few moments to compose his thoughts. What he would give to know where Albert Macklin was, he thought; one of the journalists was bound to ask the question. It was the obvious question, the one that everyone was asking, and John Blizzard was acutely conscious that, as things stood, he had little to offer the local community by way of reassurance.

  He was about to push his way into the room to begin the press conference when he was approached by a fresh-faced man with wavy brown hair, wearing a smart grey suit. Blizzard felt his hand going up to his loosened tie in the way it always did when confronted by the beautifully-groomed Detective Inspector Graham Ross, the division’s head of forensics. What was it about modern officers that made them so damned smart, thought the inspector as he watched Ross walk along the corridor. The inspector removed his hand from the door handle.

  ‘It had better be good news, Versace.’ Blizzard did not try to conceal his irritation that Ross was grinning, having noticed the inspector’s tiny gesture with the tie.

  ‘Good job it is then,’ said Ross. He held up a small plastic bag containing shards of red wood. ‘These are a couple of the wooden fragments recovered from Jamie Holdsworth’s skull by Reynolds. We think that they come from a baseball bat or something similar. One of our lot has gone back with some uniforms to double-check the scene.’

  ‘Guv,’ came an urgent voice.

  Blizzard turned as a forensics officer walked briskly along the corridor, his anorak flecked with the rain that had been falling all morning. He held up a plastic bag of his own. This one contained a crudely painted red and yellow baseball bat; one side of it splintered and spattered with blood.

  Ross held up his own bag. ‘Snap,’ he said.

  ‘That what killed him?’ asked Blizzard. He looked closer at the bat.

  ‘Could well be,’ said the forensics officer.

  ‘And how the fuck did we miss it?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘One of the uniforms found it a long way down the towpath from where Jamie’s body was left,’ said the forensics officer. ‘Well away from the scene and hidden behind a fence. Concealed, not just thrown away.’

  ‘Well, it certainly fits,’ said Ross. ‘We’ll have to compare the paint but, at first glance, I’d say that they match.’

  ‘And there’s more.’ The forensics officer turned the bat round to let them read the spidery, black painted letters on its side.

  ‘Property of St John’s Church,’ said Blizzard. His eyes gleamed. He noticed Colley walking along the corridor towards them. ‘You seen this?’

  ‘Yeah, and I put a call in to them,’ said Colley. ‘Talked to one of the churchwardens. Apparently, they have a sports equipment store in the hall. It’s used by the Scouts and the youth group. Jamie was in the Scouts.’

  ‘So, he could have met Macklin there after he was released?’

  ‘Conceivably,’ said Colley. ‘But Scouts is earlier in the week. However, the store definitely has baseball bats. The Scouts play games on an area of grass behind the church.’

  ‘And who has access to the cupboard?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Ah, that’s the snag,’ said Colley. ‘Just about everyone does. It’s supposed to be locked but folks are pretty lax about it.’

  ‘Does the church have security cameras?’

  ‘I am afraid not. St John’s is run by a bunch of born-again types who believe that cameras would send out the wrong signals. They believe that the Lord will protect the place.’

  ‘Perhaps he’d also like to fix their broken windows,’ said Ross.

  ‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ said the sergeant. ‘And while I remember, we’ve been keeping an eye on Bob Lennox’s house but there’s still no one in.’

  ‘Keep trying,’ said Blizzard. ‘Riot or not, I don’t want the community thinking that they can get away with things like this. The atmosphere is volatile enough in the area as it is.’

  He pushed his way into the briefing room and headed for the table at the front, while Colley followed him to take up his customary position leaning against the wall at the back of the room. Blizzard sat down and eyed the gathered journalists and cameras without much enthusiasm. He looked towards the back of the room where Arthur Ronald watched anxiously, as he always did when the inspector met the media. It had always been a fractious relationship between Blizzard and the media but, although the inspector disliked the scrutiny, he was smart enough to realise that the journalists could be useful in cases like this, when the investigators desperately needed witnesses. As he composed his thoughts, he also knew that he needed to reassure the community that the police were in control of the situation.

  The first quarter of an hour of the conference was routine then came the question that the inspector had expected.

  ‘Can you comment on rumours that you would like to talk to Albert Macklin about the death of this young boy?’ asked the local newspaper reporter who had been at the canal the previous evening.

  Blizzard hesitated, ordering his thoughts, choosing his words carefully.

  ‘It would be wrong of me to speculate about one individual in particular,’ he said. ‘However, I am aware that there has been coverage in the media surrounding his release and I can confirm that we would like to talk to him,
yes. At this stage, though, it is just one of many lines of inquiry that we are pursuing.’

  ‘Do you have any comment on the fact that he was released into the custody of St John’s Church?’ asked the reporter.

  ‘Only that I don’t think “released into the custody” is the right phrase,’ said Blizzard. ‘This was not an official arrangement and, once Albert Macklin left prison, he was a free man able to do whatever he liked.’

  ‘But you must have viewed the decision to admit him to the hostel with some trepidation?’ asked the reporter. ‘I mean, children attend the church, don’t they?’

  Blizzard looked at Ronald and remembered his warning not to play politics. The superintendent pursed his lips and waited uneasily for Blizzard’s reply.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said the inspector. ‘I have no comment to make on that. Oversight of the hostel rests with the church and the city council, as I am sure you are already aware.’

  Ronald gave a slight nod of appreciation.

  ‘Any more questions?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Yes,’ said a radio reporter. ‘Is there any truth in the rumour that a man who works at the hostel is in hospital after being hit by a brick last night?’

  Blizzard cursed inwardly; he had hoped to keep the information out of the public domain for fear of further heightening tensions in the area.

  ‘I can confirm that we are investigating an incident, yes,’ he said.