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

by John Dean

  The detectives were acutely aware of the hostile expressions from the small number of men gathered round the tables, drinking their pints and talking in low conspiratorial voices as they watched, suspiciously, the detectives heading for the bar, where Bob Lennox was sitting, deep in conversation with a burly skinhead.

  ‘Didn’t know Big Pat was out,’ said Colley quietly. ‘Do you think we need to call for backup?’

  ‘No need,’ replied Blizzard. He tried to sound calm and in control but he could feel his heart pounding. ‘Me and Pat go back a long way.’

  ‘That’s what worries me,’ said the sergeant. ‘You haven’t had a Christmas card from him for years.’

  ‘He’ll give us no trouble.’

  Lennox swung round on his stool and watched the detectives approach. Pat Molloy, who had just been released from Hafton Prison, having been arrested by Blizzard and served five years for armed robbery, glowered at the inspector. His right fist bunched.

  ‘Stay calm, Pat,’ said Blizzard. ‘I’m not here for you.’

  The two men eyeballed each other for a few moments then Pat nodded and sidled away to join a group of drinkers in the corner. The detectives tried not to make their sighs of relief audible.

  ‘Time for a chat, Bob,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘I ain’t got nothing to do with Jamie’s death, if that’s why you’re here,’ said Lennox.

  ‘That may well be so, but actually we are here about Jacob Reed.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know who and he’s seriously ill in hospital after someone chucked a brick through the hostel window last night.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ said Lennox.

  ‘That’s what we would like to know,’ said Blizzard. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I was at home.’

  ‘Can anyone verify that?’

  ‘The missus and Margaret Hatton.’

  ‘She seems to be cropping up everywhere like a bad penny,’ said Blizzard. ‘What was she doing at your house, may I ask? Surely you weren’t having a dinner party? You haven’t been making vol-au-vents again, have you, Bob? I hear that your mushroom canapés are sensational.’

  Lennox bridled at the mocking tone in the inspector’s voice. Colley allowed himself a smile, his confidence fast returning after having watched Pat Molloy back down.

  ‘What we were doing is no business of yours,’ said Lennox.

  ‘But what happened to Jacob Reed is,’ replied Blizzard. ‘If he dies, it’ll be a murder investigation and, as it stands, you’ll be at the head of the list of suspects.’

  Lennox considered the comment for a few moments then nodded; talk of murder changed everything.

  ‘We were talking about the hostel, if you must know,’ he said.

  ‘What about the hostel?’

  ‘Margaret says that it is up to us if we are going to get it closed down. She says that your lot are doing fuck all about it. She said it was a strategy meeting. She was at our house until late. You ask her.’

  ‘We certainly will,’ said Blizzard. ‘Are you sure that you didn’t nip out for a few minutes, while your wife was preparing the salmon mousse, to throw that brick?’

  ‘Look, Mr Blizzard, I admit I ain’t no angel but I ain’t so stupid as to do something like that. Besides, Margaret says that it just plays right into their hands.’

  ‘Whose hands?’ asked the chief inspector.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Whose hands?’

  ‘She didn’t say. It just does.’

  ‘Your command of strategy is indeed truly commendable,’ said Blizzard. He winked at Colley, who grinned. ‘OK, Bob, I’ll take your word for it, for the moment, but any more trouble and we’ll be back – do you understand?’

  The inspector’s stare dared Bob Lennox to challenge the statement. He didn’t and Blizzard turned to go.

  ‘Oh, one more thing,’ he said, turning back. ‘Apparently, you met Steve Holdsworth when he got back from the rig earlier today? What did you talk about?’

  ‘He said he needed someone to talk to. He was very upset about what happened to Jamie.’

  ‘And he chose you?’ Blizzard could not conceal the scepticism from his voice.

  ‘Have you met his wife?’ said Lennox.

  ‘Fair point,’ said the inspector. ‘And what did you talk about, may I ask?’

  ‘That’s between me and ’im and I ain’t telling you.’

  ‘Not how his son came by his injuries, by any chance?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘Like I said, I’m saying nowt.’

  ‘Now, there’s a surprise,’ said Blizzard.

  The detectives headed for the door where Blizzard paused with his hand resting on the handle. He looked slowly around the room, taking in the familiar faces sitting at the tables.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said coldly. ‘It’s been an absolute pleasure, as ever. We must do it again sometime.’

  And, followed by the sergeant, he pushed his way out into the drizzle of the afternoon, smiling as he ignored the baleful stares from the regulars. Once outside, Blizzard looked at Colley.

  ‘There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ said the inspector.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to do it every day. So, what do you think?’

  ‘I think that too many people are hiding things from us,’ said Blizzard. ‘And I don’t like it when they do that.’

  Chapter eleven

  Blizzard had only been back in his office at Abbey Road Police Station for a few minutes when there was a knock on the door. He looked up to see Chris Ramsey – a tall, slim man in his thirties, with short-cropped brown hair, an angular face and a prominent nose. He was one of Western Division’s detective inspectors, the organisers, the ones who kept on top of the administration, the ones who Blizzard had to convince when it came to manpower allocation. Ramsey sat down and placed a slim brown file on the desk.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘You asked about Martha Raine.’

  ‘Is that all we’ve got?’

  ‘It’s all there is,’ said Ramsey. ‘Why so interested, anyway? It was straightforward.’

  ‘I’m sure it was, but her husband collared me outside the church this morning.’ Blizzard glanced at the wall clock. ‘He’s coming in to see me in a few minutes and I want to be on top of the facts.’

  ‘Why did he want to see you in particular?’

  ‘Says he wants me to find her,’ said Blizzard. He glanced at the file. ‘So, what’s the story?’

  Ramsey gave a slight smile; everyone knew how bad Blizzard was at reading reports. He knew that he’d end up explaining it to his boss.

  ‘An all-too-familiar one, I am afraid,’ he said. Ramsey opened the file and ran his eye down the first of three pages. ‘A story for our times. Martha was two days away from her seventy-fifth birthday when she went missing. She had dementia and had started wandering off. Her husband tried not to leave her alone unless he had to.’

  ‘But this time he did?’

  ‘Yeah, had to go to pick up a prescription from the chemist. He was only gone for half an hour and he locked the front door but when he returned, she had gone. No note. Just vanished.’ Ramsey flicked over onto the second page. ‘Uniform did all they could. They had people searching everywhere and even had divers looking in the canal. And the helicopter was up for several hours.’

  ‘But they found nothing?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Ramsey. He flicked over onto the third page but it was blank. ‘It was a cold day and the assumption was that she had collapsed somewhere. They kept searching for a couple of days before calling it off.’

  ‘And we found nothing to alert our suspicions?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’ Ramsey placed the file back on the table. ‘It was referred to us as a matter of routine and I sent a DC round to see the husband but, like I say, it was all straightforward. Tom Raine didn’t say anything that made us think it was suspicious.’

  Blizzard sat back in hi
s chair and nodded.

  ‘Sounds like we did everything by the book,’ he said.

  ‘So, what are you going to tell the old boy? That we can’t help?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Chris.’

  ‘Surely, you’re not thinking of reopening the case?’ said Ramsey in dismay. ‘We’re stretched enough as it is what with this kid and the attack on the guy at the hostel. I can’t spare anyone, I really can’t.’

  ‘I know but I can’t help feeling that we owe the old boy something.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the man is hurting.’ Blizzard frowned. ‘And something he said reminded me of my mum’s final years. Something about it being no age to die. My mum had dementia and I lost count of the number of people who treated her like she was a seven-year-old. And if she had gone missing, I’d not have let it drop until she had been found.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Ramsey stood to leave. ‘I’ll see if I can’t rustle someone up to help, but, if you ask me, I’m not sure what we can achieve after all this time.’

  It was a view with which Blizzard felt he had to agree when, twenty minutes later, he was sitting in his office and looking across the desk at Tom Raine, acutely aware that he had little to offer the old man.

  ‘Let me level with you,’ said the inspector. ‘I have reviewed the file on your wife’s disappearance and I really am not sure there’s much we can do.’

  ‘You could find her,’ said the pensioner.

  ‘We’ll certainly try.’

  ‘That’s all I ask.’

  ‘The file says that your wife had dementia?’

  ‘She did,’ said Tom. ‘But she could still do things. She loved volunteering.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Martha was a florist for most of her working life. Worked in a shop on Caterham Street. She loved doing the flowers at St John’s.’ Tom frowned. ‘Then the new people came.’

  ‘Yes, tell me about them,’ said the inspector.

  ‘I didn’t like them. Neither did Martha and she got on with most folks. I’ve got nothing against young people, Chief Inspector, but sometimes they forget that us oldies had lives before we retired and that we can still be useful.’

  Blizzard nodded his agreement.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Tom. ‘They were unpleasant to a couple of Martha’s friends and she told them what she thought of them. Next thing we knew, Edgar Rose-Harvey said she was not needed to do the flowers anymore.’

  Tears had started in the old man’s eyes and he paused to gather his composure.

  ‘Martha was very upset,’ he said eventually. ‘They were very unpleasant to her in the days that followed, and to me as well, so we left. Went to St Cuthbert’s instead. It was terribly sad, we had attended St John’s for nigh on sixty years but they forced us out.’

  ‘They would say that they had to take firm action to save the church from closure.’

  ‘Maybe they would, Chief Inspector, but did they have to hurt so many people in the process?’ The tears glistened in the old man’s eyes again. ‘I genuinely believe that my Martha would be alive today if they hadn’t driven her out. Her dementia got much worse after it happened.’

  Blizzard thought back to the thin file into Martha Raine’s disappearance.

  ‘Did you mention this business with the church at the time?’ he asked.

  ‘I told one of your constables. A nice young man.’

  ‘Do you recall his name?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no,’ said Tom Raine. ‘And I wouldn’t tell you if I could.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I do not want to get anyone into trouble and, to be fair to him, I didn’t make a big thing of it at the time anyway. Like he said, dementia makes people do strange things, and being unpleasant to someone is not against the law, is it?’

  ‘No, it isn’t but there’s something very wrong at St John’s,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘That’s what Martha always said. Will you help me find her, Chief Inspector?’

  Blizzard thought for a few moments then nodded.

  ‘Do you know?’ he said. ‘I think that I will.’

  Chapter twelve

  The next morning dawned bright and sunny and Blizzard’s gloomy mood of the previous day brightened as he drove into the city from his home in the small village of Haltby, which he shared with his girlfriend, Fee, and their young son. When he pulled into the car park behind Abbey Road Police Station, there was news to further improve his mood. Colley, who had been watching for him from the CID office window, walked out of the building, pulling on his anorak as he did so.

  ‘Where you off to?’ asked Blizzard as he got out of the car.

  ‘Somewhere that might interest you,’ said the sergeant. ‘A woman saw your appeal for help on the telly last night and rang the incident room. Reckons she saw Albert Macklin hanging around the canal at the time Jamie was killed.’

  Fifteen minutes later, the inspector brought his car to a halt outside an old people’s sheltered complex. Soon, the detectives were sitting in the small, tidy flat of Agnes Proud, surrounded by the trinkets which chronicled her life, photographs of her dead husband and her beaming grandchildren and a couple of faded cat ornaments.

  ‘Mrs Proud,’ said Colley. ‘Can you go through what you saw on the canal bank again, please?’

  ‘Biscuit?’ asked Agnes. She offered them a plate of custard creams. ‘You, young men, have got to keep your strength up.’

  Blizzard took one but Colley declined.

  ‘The canal?’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ she said. Her voice was firm and definite as she sat down in a battered old armchair and reached for a biscuit. ‘It was about three o’clock and I was having a walk along the canal: I like to have a walk most days, keeps my old joints in working order.’

  ‘And what did you see?’

  ‘I saw an oldish-looking man walking along the path towards me.’

  ‘What was he wearing?’

  ‘A long brown raincoat – it seemed new – and a scruffy brown suit. It didn’t really fit him, a bit baggy, and the lapels were frayed. It was definitely an old suit, you don’t see that design these days.’ She smiled. ‘I worked in a clothes shop for many years. You look for these things straight away.’

  The detectives exchanged glances: apart from the new raincoat, which he could have acquired on release, she was describing the clothes Albert Macklin had been wearing when they saw him outside the prison.

  ‘What was his face like?’ asked Colley.

  ‘No need for a description,’ said Agnes. ‘It was Albie Macklin, alright.’

  ‘But how do you know?’ said Colley. ‘The picture used in the media when he came out was taken twenty years ago when he was sent to prison. He’s changed a lot since then.’

  ‘Not that much, young man. I have known Albie for many years. We went to school together. He was a wrong’un then. After we left school, I often used to see him around town – when he wasn’t in prison.’ She turned anxious eyes on the detectives. ‘You don’t think he killed that poor boy, do you?’

  ‘I do not know what to think,’ said Blizzard. ‘I hope not.’

  ‘That’s what I said to the vicar.’

  ‘Henry Sanders?’ said Colley. ‘You talked to him about this?’

  ‘Yes, such a nice man.’

  ‘You go to St John’s then?’

  ‘Not any more.’ Her face clouded over. ‘I go to St Cuthbert’s now. A lot of the older ones do.’

  ‘So, when did you see the vicar?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘A few minutes after I saw Albie. He was walking down the path that leads from the canal towards the city centre.’

  The detectives looked at each other.

  ‘Let me get this right,’ said Blizzard slowly. ‘Henry Sanders was on the canal bank at the same time you saw Albie?’

  ‘Yes, we only stopped for a quick chat. He seemed to be in a hurry.’ She realised the import of what she saying and clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, b
ut surely you don’t think…?’

  ‘It’s probably coincidence,’ said Blizzard. He was wary of giving anything away. ‘I am sure that there is a perfectly innocent explanation.’

  Agnes relaxed.

  ‘I am sure there is,’ she said. ‘Henry is such a kind man – but always so worried. I blame those young people at the church. From what I hear, they make his life a misery.’

  After chatting for a few more minutes, and declining her offer of another cup of tea, the detectives stood up to leave.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ said Blizzard. ‘You didn’t happen to know Martha Raine when you attended St John’s, did you?’

  ‘I did, yes,’ she said. ‘Nice old stick. What happened was terrible. She lived for the flower arranging but they told her she wasn’t wanted. It was a cruel thing to do, it really was. She was never the same after that.’

  Once they were outside, it was Colley who spoke first as the detectives walked to the car.

  ‘Why did you ask about Martha Raine?’ he asked. ‘The DI said it was all straightforward.’

  ‘It probably is.’ They reached the vehicle and Blizzard looked across at the sergeant. ‘But I want to get a sense of what’s been happening at the church and I don’t like what I’m hearing.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Colley. ‘What do you think about what she said about the vicar?’

  ‘That we had better pay him another visit. The good reverend would appear to have some questions to answer.’

  Chapter thirteen

  ‘The Lord may well move in mysterious ways,’ said Blizzard. ‘But he’s got nothing on Reverend Henry Sanders.’

  ‘Certainly looks like he’s gone to ground,’ said Colley.

  It was 7.00pm and the detectives were sitting in Blizzard’s office at Abbey Road Police Station, sifting through reports of the inquiries conducted by the investigation team during the day. Of Henry Sanders there was no sign, even though his description had been circulated to uniformed patrols and Blizzard and Colley had made two further visits to St John’s. As the officers left the church the second time, they had spied a group of protestors standing nearby with placards demanding that the hostel be closed. At their head, as ever, was Margaret Hatton, giving interviews to a national news television crew. The detectives had made a hurried exit and, now back in the office, they sat drinking from mugs of tea. Blizzard tossed the file he was reading onto the desk in frustration.