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

by John Dean

  ‘We’re getting nowhere fast, David,’ he said. ‘Pissed-off old folk and idealistic young people a murder case do not make. We’ve got nothing to tie anyone to the killing of Jamie Holdsworth and that includes Henry Sanders.’

  He paused for a few moments.

  ‘What do you make of Margaret Hatton?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Blizzard. ‘She’s playing a game and I can’t help feeling that I don’t know all the rules. Be interested to hear your thoughts on her.’

  ‘Well, she’s a smart cookie,’ said Colley. ‘A right troublemaker and, like you say, one who knows how to play the game. She likes getting her face on the telly and in the papers, and she’s got the media eating out of her hand. In fact, just before I came here, she was on the radio news saying that we should have arrested Macklin the moment he got out.’

  ‘Yeah, but on what charge?’ said Blizzard.

  ‘She said that it didn’t matter, society had to be protected from men like that, blah blah.’

  ‘She’s certainly stirring things up. I’m just not sure why someone with her reputation would be so interested in a scuddy hostel in a place like Hafton.’ Blizzard glanced at the wall clock. ‘I’m going to call it a day. Didn’t you want to get away for rugby practice?’

  ‘I assumed you’d want me here.’

  ‘No, you go. I suspect we’re in this one for the long haul and we’ve got to keep our people as fresh as we can. I’ve let Chris go to his karate club so I’m happy for you to go to rugby practice.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure.’ Colley stood up and reached for his anorak. ‘I’ll have the mobile if you need me. Where will you be?’

  ‘I thought I’d go down the shed.’

  ‘Won’t Fee be expecting you home?’

  ‘I’ll have missed Mikey’s bedtime by the time I get there. Again. Besides, I need to do some thinking first.’

  ‘Ah. That kind of a visit.’

  Once Colley had gone, Blizzard pulled on his jacket and was about to leave the office when two young constables appeared at the door. He recognised them as the rookies who had been struggling to police the protest. They looked nervous.

  ‘Evening, gents,’ said Blizzard. He gestured for them to enter the room. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘Our sergeant sent us,’ said one of them. ‘DI Ramsey told us that you needed help finding an old lady.’

  Blizzard eyed them dubiously.

  ‘And you’re the best we’ve got, are you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What are your names?’

  ‘I’m PC Rowan,’ said the first one. ‘This is PC Leighton. We’re the neighbourhood beat officers for the area including St John’s Church.’

  Blizzard picked up the file from his desk and handed it over.

  ‘Well, PC Rowan and PC Leighton,’ he said. ‘Familiarise yourselves with this. It’s about the disappearance of a woman called Martha Raine. Were you here when it happened?’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘We were finishing our training,’ said Leighton.

  ‘When you have read the file, I want you to get in touch with her husband and retrace every step that she might have taken. She’s out there somewhere and I want her found.’

  ‘Can I ask why CID are involved?’ asked Leighton. ‘Is her disappearance being treated as suspicious?’

  ‘No. I just want to know what happened to her.’

  ‘It happened last year,’ said Rowan, glancing at the top sheet in the file. ‘We’re unlikely to turn up anything new, are we?’

  ‘You got a grandmother, son?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then think how you would feel if she was the one who was missing.’

  Rowan thought for a few moments and nodded.

  ‘When do you want us to start?’ he asked.

  ‘What time are you due to go off duty?’

  ‘We’ve just finished.’

  ‘Then start tomorrow,’ said Blizzard. ‘Might I suggest you pop in on Tom Raine before you start. Go on, be on your way.’

  Rowan picked up the file and the young officers scuttled gratefully from the room.

  ‘God help us,’ murmured Blizzard. He stood up. ‘Not that he has so far.’

  He snapped out the light and left, stopping at the front office to tell them where he would be, before heading out into the night. A few minutes later, he was unlocking the padlock to a corrugated iron shed on wasteland beyond the railway lines that served the city’s central station. Blizzard hauled open the door, grimacing at the squeak and reminding himself to give the hinges a dot of oil before he left. He fumbled for a switch on the wall, cursing as he barked his knuckles, and a single lightbulb sputtered into life to reveal a tangle of scrap metal vaguely recognisable as a steam locomotive.

  Blizzard could trace his interest in steam trains back to his childhood in rural Lincolnshire when he used to watch them thunder along the line at the bottom of their garden. Now, he chaired Hafton Railway Appreciation Society, a group of enthusiastic volunteers who used their spare time to restore locomotives. The shed gave him somewhere to let his mind settle and to order his thoughts. He switched on the small heater, filled the kettle and struggled into grease-stained blue overalls.

  As David Colley hurled himself around the rugby pitch on the other side of the city, John Blizzard worked quietly without disruption for an hour, stopping occasionally to sip from his mug of tea. He was just about to pack up for the evening and head home when the door opened with a grating sound to reveal Arthur Ronald. Blizzard looked at his boss in surprise; he could not recall the last time the superintendent had visited the shed.

  ‘They said you’d be here,’ said Ronald. He picked his way through the pieces of metal. ‘It’s never a good sign. It normally means that you’re struggling.’

  ‘Yeah, just a bit,’ said Blizzard. ‘What brings you here anyway?’

  ‘The Chief’s been on again, demanding an update.’ Ronald sat down heavily on a folding chair. ‘Thought I’d check where we are.’

  ‘I really am not sure,’ said Blizzard. He picked up the kettle and walked over to the sink, where he filled it with water from the single tap. ‘Cuppa?’

  Ronald nodded.

  ‘No sign of Macklin, I take it?’ asked the superintendent.

  ‘Nothing.’ Blizzard switched on the kettle and leaned over to listen for the familiar wheeze. ‘Derby have drawn a blank. I reckon he’s still in the city.’

  ‘What do you base that on?’

  ‘Instinct. I’ve got nothing to back it up. I just feel that he’s still here.’

  ‘And the vicar?’ said Ronald. ‘He still missing?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Is he a suspect?’

  ‘He may well be.’ Blizzard held a hand against the kettle to make sure that it was getting hot again. ‘I’m just not sure for what.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time that a clergyman has turned to murder, John. Channel 5 has been running a whole series of them. Murder in the Name of God, it’s called.’

  ‘Delightful.’

  Neither man spoke for a few moments as Blizzard busied himself making the tea then handed a mug to Ronald.

  ‘The Chief is also worried about the politics behind this,’ said Ronald as he took a sip.

  ‘Ah, I wondered why you’d come here. What’s worrying him in particular?’

  ‘The politics of it. Margaret Hatton, for starters. He says that she’s stirring things up – as is this Rose-Harvey fellow. He’s been bending the ear of Rory Gill and Gill was straight on the phone to the Chief.’

  ‘And what did the good councillor say? As if I can’t guess.’

  ‘That we’re focusing too much on the church,’ said Ronald. ‘Did you know that he’s a member of the congregation?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘He started attending a few weeks ago. Anyway, Gill told the Chief that the
church and the council are partners and that we should lay off unless we have good reason. He thinks we should be finding Macklin instead of focusing on Rose-Harvey and his friends.’

  ‘Sounds like they want to make Macklin a scapegoat,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘You don’t fancy him for the murder then? He’s the obvious one, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he is, but I’m still not sure. It’s all too easy if it is him.’ Blizzard frowned. ‘If I’m honest, I’m not sure about anything, except that every road we travel leads us back to St John’s. I can’t quite put my finger on it but we’re missing something. Something not quite right about the church.’

  ‘Maybe there is, John, but we have to be careful. You know the Chief’s view of the police and politics.’

  Blizzard looked intently at his old friend.

  ‘That why you’re here?’ he said. ‘To give me the politics speech again?’

  Ronald looked unhappily at his friend.

  ‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘Yes, it’s what the Chief has ordered me to do.’

  ‘But surely he does not want to prevent us from conducting a proper inquiry, does he? You’re not warning me off altogether, are you?’

  ‘You should know me better than that,’ said Ronald. ‘And the Chief deserves better, for that matter. If the roads all lead us to the church then so be it. I’m just letting you know where things stand.’

  ‘Well, I’ll steer clear of the politics if you keep Gill off our back. How’s that for a deal?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Ronald. ‘Can I ask about Martha Raine as well? Uniform say that they’ve had to second a couple of officers to it. She went to St John’s, didn’t she?’

  ‘She did, yes.’

  Ronald gave him an exasperated look.

  ‘I’m sorry, John,’ he said. ‘But it comes over like you’re taking any opportunity to make trouble for the place. I mean, why reopen the case when we’ve got all this other stuff going on?’

  ‘I can’t help thinking that it’s important. I just don’t know why.’

  ‘Well, don’t waste too much time on it, that’s all I’d say.’

  A few minutes later, with their tea drunk and a slight tension still hanging in the air, Blizzard snapped out the light and the two friends left the shed and walked across the wasteland to their cars. Before getting into his vehicle, the inspector stood and looked pensively across at the bright lights of the city centre.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ said Ronald.

  ‘You’ll need more than that,’ replied Blizzard.

  Chapter fourteen

  Colley hobbled into Blizzard’s office shortly after seven thirty the next morning and winced as he tentatively lowered himself into the chair. The inspector, sitting behind his desk, eyed his sergeant with amusement.

  ‘I thought,’ he said, ‘that last night was supposed to just be a practice?’

  ‘You know what Denny Whatmore is like,’ said Colley. He twisted in the seat so that his injured knee was not too painful.

  ‘Say no more. They’ve never had a lot of brains in the Tactical Support Group.’

  ‘Certainly haven’t. How was your evening with the Puffing Billy? Did you come to any conclusions while you were mucking about with your big end?’

  ‘That’s cars,’ said Blizzard.

  Before he could say anything else, Graham Ross entered the room. Blizzard ran his eye up and down the forensic officer’s customary immaculate attire – charcoal grey suit, red silk tie and crisp white shirt with the top button fastened.

  ‘You’re not modelling for a catalogue again, are you, Versace?’ he said.

  ‘I may be before the day is over,’ said Ross. He sat down and turned troubled eyes on Blizzard. ‘You see, I fear we have fucked up. I have fucked up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Blizzard. The levity of moments before had dissipated.

  Ross looked at him gloomily; he had been dreading the moment and had still not settled on the right words. In the end, he opted to tell it straight. If there was one thing that John Blizzard detested more than mistakes, it was officers trying to cover over them.

  ‘We were so preoccupied with Jamie Holdsworth that we did not think enough about Jacob Reed,’ said Ross. He sighed. ‘We committed the deadly sin of jumping to conclusions. We assumed that because he was lying on the floor with a head wound and a brick lying next to him it was obvious what caused the injury. I reckon that is what we were meant to think. The brick was certainly thrown through the window with some force.’

  ‘If there was a mistake, we all made it. I take it you think differently now?’

  ‘I think it was staged,’ said Ross. ‘When I reviewed the notes on Jacob Reed, something was a bit off. The angles didn’t seem quite right so I went back to the hostel. The more I looked at it, the more I doubted that the brick was what injured him. That was confirmed when I went to the hospital and talked to the doctor who treated him. I reckon that Jacob Reed was assaulted.’

  ‘Assaulted?’ Blizzard sat forward in his chair and looked intently at the forensics officer. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I am. By good fortune, the nurse who cleaned him up in A & E was also there when I went to the hospital. She remembers having to pick out several small splinters of wood from the wound. I think someone attacked him then threw the brick to make it look like one of the protestors did it.’

  ‘So, what was the weapon?’ asked Blizzard. ‘Nothing was found at the church.’

  ‘But we didn’t exactly look very hard, did we? So, I went back to the church and found a bookend that is used to hold Bibles. It had been wiped clean of prints but it had a chip that looked like it was done recently. It’s at the lab at the moment but I am sure it was used to strike Jacob Reed.’ Ross looked anxiously at the inspector. ‘I’m sorry, I truly am.’

  The expected explosion of anger did not come.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Blizzard. He stood up and slipped into his jacket then looked at Colley. ‘Maybe the same person attacked both Jacob Reed and Jamie Holdsworth. What do you reckon, David?’

  ‘It’s got to be a good chance,’ agreed Colley. He struggled to his feet and winced in pain from his injured knee. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Back to the church. I want to see when “thou shalt lie your head off” was added to the Ten Commandments.’

  As they reached the door, Colley limping badly, Blizzard glanced back at the disconsolate Ross, who was still sitting in the chair, staring at the floor.

  ‘Good work, Graham,’ he said.

  ‘But I missed it.’

  ‘You got there in the end – and it hadn’t even occurred to me or Hopalong Cassidy here.’

  ‘And it’s achieved more than the governor’s big end has,’ said Colley.

  ‘Big end?’ asked a bemused Ross.

  ‘Big end.’ Colley tapped the side of his nose. ‘It’s a technical term. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

  The two detectives walked from the room, leaving a relieved Graham Ross pondering over what big ends had to do with things and wondering if his leg would ever stop trembling.

  Chapter fifteen

  Also trembling was Glenda Rutherford as she stared at herself in the mirror in the hostel washroom and tried to look more presentable. The assistant manager was finding it impossible to conceal the tears and she had hardly slept since the attack on Jacob Reed. She dared not think of what she had seen, of the secret that she was carrying. Outside the hostel, Blizzard and Colley stood and surveyed the words ‘No perverts’, which had been crudely spray-painted across one of the church walls in large red letters.

  ‘This is getting out of hand,’ said Blizzard.

  The inspector banged on the front door of the church. It took a couple of minutes for it to be answered by the caretaker.

  ‘I’ve been told not to talk to you,’ he said.

  He tried to close the door but Blizzard jammed it open with his foot.

  ‘We don’t
want to talk to you,’ he said. ‘We want to see Glenda Rutherford. Is she here?’

  ‘In the office but…’

  Blizzard brushed past the caretaker and the detectives walked along the corridor leading to the flat-roofed extension that housed the hostel. Blizzard had not visited it before and he surveyed the scene with interest. The centre comprised a dormitory with beds for six men, a common room with comfy chairs, television and table tennis table, and a kitchen. None of the guests were present but Colley ran his eye down the handwritten list that had been pinned on the wall. He gave a grunt of recognition.

  ‘Someone you know?’ asked Blizzard. He walked across to stare over the sergeant’s shoulder.

  ‘A couple of them.’ Colley tapped the names. ‘I nicked them when I was in uniform.’

  ‘What for?’

  Colley tapped one of the names again.

  ‘Him for drunk and disorderly,’ he said. He pointed to the other name. ‘And him for flashing at women in the park.’

  ‘Charming,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘Yeah, but neither of them are in Albert Macklin’s league. At least we know that he’s not here. His name’s been crossed out.’

  They made their way to the office a few moments after Glenda Rutherford had sat down behind the desk. She looked nervous as they entered the room.

  ‘I’m not sure I can add much to what I told DC Allatt,’ she said. Her voice was shaky.

  ‘Yes, well, we’d just like to check a couple of things,’ said Blizzard. He sat down at the desk. Colley stood by the door.

  ‘What things?’ She fumbled in her handbag for a tissue and dabbed her eyes as the tears started to well up. ‘I did not see anything. I was on my way home.’