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

by John Dean

  ‘You had been under a lot of stress, suddenly the one thing you wanted – to run away and start a new life with Marian – was threatened. Maybe you lashed out at Jacob, grabbed the first thing that came to hand. Smashed him over the head.’

  ‘No! No!’

  Sanders was on his feet again.

  ‘Sit down, dammit!’ said Blizzard. ‘It’s like interviewing a sodding Jack-in-the-Box.’

  ‘You’ve got me wrong, I’m not like that,’ moaned Sanders. He sat down heavily. ‘I could never do anything like that.’

  ‘We can all do anything if the pressure is too much for us,’ said Blizzard. ‘Maybe you set out to silence Glenda as well. After all, you had nothing to lose. The theft alone was enough to send you to prison, especially given the suspicions hanging over you from your previous church. You’re a serial offender, Henry.’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ protested the vicar.

  ‘And then there’s your history of mental illness.’

  ‘That was a long time ago, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Not so long. You have been to see a consultant lately, have you not?’ said Blizzard. ‘In the past few weeks, in fact.’

  Sanders looked shocked at the revelation. He was silent for the best part of a minute and the detectives allowed him time to regain his composure.

  ‘I am not a violent man,’ he said eventually. His voice was so quiet that they had to strain to hear him. ‘Yes, I admit, I was angry when Jacob Reed confronted me that night but he gave me the opportunity to return the money and said he would not tell anyone. He’s a great believer in forgiveness is Jacob. They all are. He was unharmed when I left and I did not kill Glenda.’

  Blizzard leaned back in his chair and surveyed the vicar thoughtfully.

  ‘I think I believe you,’ he said at length. ‘But how come you were seen on the canal path?’

  ‘I go for a walk there sometimes – helps clear my head.’

  Blizzard glanced at Colley, who shrugged.

  ‘Tell me why we found you chained to a radiator,’ said the inspector.

  Sanders sighed.

  ‘They came to my house,’ he said. ‘Bob Lennox and his son. They grabbed me as I was walking up the drive to the manse and bundled me into a car. They said they knew about me and Marian and that Steve was furious.’

  ‘How did he know about it?’ asked Colley.

  ‘Lennox told him when he got back after Jamie was killed.’

  ‘Which explains why they met up before he went home,’ said Colley. He looked at Blizzard. ‘Lennox probably knew it would all come out once we started poking around. So how come you ended up on The Manor, Henry?’

  ‘They moved me from place to place. They said that Steve would come to see me when you released him. They took me to that awful place on The Manor yesterday.’ He shuddered at the memory. ‘When your officers kicked the door in, I was convinced it was him. I thought I was going to die.’

  Blizzard thought for a few moments.

  ‘OK, Henry,’ he said. ‘For the moment, let’s say we believe you, shall we?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the vicar. ‘What happens next?’

  ‘Well, for starters, you will be charged with the theft from the church and kept here until you appear in court on Monday.’

  ‘Can’t I go home?’

  ‘Frankly, I reckon this police station is just about the only place where you are safe right now. Apart from Lennox and his Neanderthal son, plenty of other people out there want to have a go at you. Margaret Hatton has got them in such a state that they’ll have a go at anyone. Read him his rights, David, and get him down to Custody.’

  Blizzard headed back to his office and sat down at his desk. He was picking listlessly at the reports when Danny Rowan and Keith Leighton walked into the room.

  ‘Any news?’ asked the inspector.

  The constables shook their heads glumly.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Leighton. ‘We’ve looked everywhere. I’m not sure we can spend any more time on it, really. Our inspector needs us back on our normal duties.’

  Blizzard nodded.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Thanks for your efforts, lads. I’ll tell Tom. I keep meaning to go to see him in hospital anyway.’

  ‘You’d be wasting your time,’ said Rowan. ‘We’ve just come from there and he’s still unconscious. The doctor didn’t sound very optimistic.’

  ‘Could he die?’

  ‘The doctor says it’s a possibility.’

  Blizzard sighed.

  ‘Too many victims,’ he said.

  Chapter twenty-nine

  Sunday is usually regarded as a day of rest – but not if you worked for John Blizzard on a major inquiry. The inspector had arrived early at his office and, having made himself a cup of tea, was thoughtfully eyeing the Post-it note stuck to his computer when Colley limped through the door, sporting a black eye and with a fresh bandage on his injured hand.

  ‘I take it you played then?’ said Blizzard.

  ‘Too right we did,’ said Colley. He sat down and stretched out his legs, wincing at the pain. ‘And we won – three-two.’

  ‘I thought rugby matches had bigger scores than that?’

  ‘I’m talking about players carried off on stretchers.’ The sergeant roared with laughter. ‘God knows how Broughton will staff their custody suite today!’

  Blizzard sighed, pretending to be irritated but the pretence was blatant – deliberately so – and it was obvious to the sergeant that his boss had enjoyed the joke just as much as he had.

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’ asked Colley.

  Blizzard glanced at the wall clock, stood up, downed the last of his tea and grabbed the Post-it note from the computer.

  ‘We,’ he said, ‘are going to church again. But first, we have to make a hospital visit. Jacob Reed is back in the land of the living.’

  ‘And why are we heading off to St John’s after that?’ asked Colley. They left the office and walked down the corridor in the direction of the yard. ‘I’ve had enough of the place to last me a lifetime. Jay thinks I’ve found God.’

  ‘We received an anonymous call saying that every Sunday morning, Bob Lennox lights a candle in memory of his son during the eleven o’clock service. Never misses, apparently. I’m gambling that he thinks we don’t know. I’ve got the cavalry on standby.’

  ‘Are you thinking that he could be our murderer?’

  ‘I’m coming round to that idea, yes,’ said the inspector. ‘I think that Margaret Hatton wound him up that tight, he’d have done anything. Mix in the knowledge that the vicar was having an affair with his mate’s wife and it all adds up to a powerful cocktail of emotions targeted at the church. I don’t think he killed Jamie but I do think he attacked Glenda and Jacob.’

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, the detectives were walking along a second floor corridor in the general hospital. Halfway along, Blizzard glanced into a side room and stopped walking. He entered the room and looked down in silence at the figure of Tom Raine in the first bed. The old man’s pallor was grey and the breathing shallow, the eyes closed. A man close to death. There was no one sitting by the bed, no relatives, no friends. Blizzard walked back into the corridor.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk to Jacob. See if he can shed any light on things. Get this thing wrapped up.’

  Lying in a side room further along the corridor, Jacob Reed was a shadow of the young man they had encountered when Albert Macklin was released. Pale, face bloodless, lips almost blue, head swathed in bandages, he had lost a lot of weight and was lying propped up on pillows, hardly able to support himself. As they entered, he turned sunken eyes towards them.

  ‘Jacob,’ said Blizzard. He sat down on the chair next to the bed. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Not too great.’

  ‘You had us worried for a moment there.’

  Reed closed his eyes.

  ‘Are you able to talk?’ asked the inspector.
r />   The eyes opened again.

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Jacob.

  ‘See, we’re still trying to get things straight in our head about the night you were attacked. Henry Sanders says you confronted him about the missing money but that you gave him the chance to put it back. Are we right?’

  A small nod of the head but no words. It was as if even nodding was too much of an effort.

  ‘However,’ said Blizzard, ‘we don’t think that he’s the one who attacked you. We think it was Bob Lennox. Are we right?’

  ‘It’s all a haze. I don’t really remember.’

  ‘What do you remember?’ asked Colley.

  ‘After Henry left’ – Jacob’s brow was furrowed as he tried to recall – ‘I started to do some paperwork. Then someone came into the room… then… no, nothing after that. I’m sorry.’

  He closed his eyes and the nurse who had been standing quietly at the door walked up to the bed and looked at the detectives.

  ‘That’s all for now,’ she said. ‘He needs rest.’

  The detectives started to leave but, as they reached the door, Jacob Reed opened his eyes again.

  ‘Why would you think that Bob Lennox attacked me?’ he said weakly.

  ‘He was looking for Albert Macklin,’ said Blizzard. ‘The man who killed his son. There was a lot of anger about that night. People weren’t thinking straight.’

  ‘But can they not find it in themselves to forgive?’ said Reed sadly. ‘If only they would allow the Lord to touch their hearts.’

  Blizzard made no reply and the detectives walked out into the ward.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Blizzard once they were back in the corridor. He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Do these people never learn?’

  Colley grinned.

  ‘They’re going to love you in church,’ he said. ‘They really are.’

  Chapter thirty

  They didn’t love Blizzard at church. It might have been his distinctly secular approach to life that annoyed the good people of St John’s, or it might have been his perpetually brusque nature but it was probably more likely to be the presence of a vanload of uniformed police officers sitting outside the church as the faithful filed out of the Sunday morning service. Blizzard and Colley stood at the front gate, watching the congregation leave and ignoring the hostile stares as they scanned the faces. After a few minutes, Edgar Rose-Harvey strode purposefully from the church, a thunderous expression on his face.

  ‘Mr Blizzard,’ he said angrily. ‘I demand an explanation!’

  ‘As I think I might have mentioned before,’ said the inspector, ‘when I am running murder inquiries, I do the demanding.’

  Rose-Harvey glared at him, hesitated for a moment then appeared to think twice about escalating the confrontation.

  ‘In which case,’ he said, bringing his emotions under control with an effort. ‘I request to know why you are here.’

  ‘Because of him,’ said Blizzard.

  He pointed to Bob Lennox as their quarry appeared at the entrance to the church, accompanied by his wife. Lennox caught sight of the inspector, his eyes widened and he spun on his heels only to be confronted by a couple of plain-clothes detectives who had emerged from the church having sat through the service. Lennox considered trying to run but thought better of it and shrugged his shoulders. One of the officers cuffed his hands behind his back.

  ‘How did you know I would be here?’ asked Lennox as Blizzard approached.

  ‘You might be a toerag but you’re a toerag with a heart,’ said the inspector. ‘Unlike your pal Steve Holdsworth.’

  Tears welled in Lennox’s eyes. Blizzard watched for a moment, fascinated yet again by the contrasting mixture of the hard, violent man and the loving father who had never come to terms with the loss of his son.

  ‘I was pretty sure that you wouldn’t miss it,’ said Blizzard.

  Lennox shook his head.

  ‘Never do,’ he said.

  ‘Take him away,’ said Blizzard. He nodded to the two plain-clothes officers.

  ‘Whereya takin’ him?’ asked Lennox’s wife, a bottle blonde in a sheepskin coat.

  ‘Confession,’ said Blizzard.

  Edgar Rose-Harvey watched Lennox being bundled into the police van then turned to the inspector.

  ‘I take it,’ he said, ‘that this is the last of your antics at this church? I really would like us to be left in peace so that we can return to normal life again. People are already leaving St John’s because of all the trouble. All our hard work is being ruined.’

  ‘Frankly, Mr Rose-Harvey, I would happily see your church closed down, given what I have seen over the past week or so.’

  ‘I do hope you do not mean that, Chief Inspector,’ said Rose-Harvey. ‘We have worked too hard to bring the light of the Lord into this church and to give up now because of a few setbacks would undo all the good work that we have done.’

  ‘I hardly call a murder and two serious assaults a setback!’ exclaimed Blizzard. ‘I call that wicked!’

  ‘We are all sinners,’ said Rose-Harvey. He assumed the faraway expression that the detectives had seen before, one often replicated on the faces of many of the other young members of the congregation. ‘If only you would open your heart.’

  The inspector turned on his heel and stalked off down the path. As he reached his car, his mobile phone rang.

  ‘Blizzard,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Chris,’ said Ramsey. ‘Any chance you can pop in on Jacob Reed at the hospital again? He says he didn’t tell you everything when you went to see him earlier. He seems to have remembered what happened.’

  ‘Hallelujah,’ said Blizzard.

  * * *

  An hour later, having visited the hospital to see Jacob Reed, Blizzard and Colley were sitting in the interview room at Abbey Road Police Station with Bob Lennox. His solicitor, the paunchy balding Eric Liddle, had said little during the interview. It was a style which made him respected among police officers in the city, not because it meant they had an easier task but because he was not preoccupied with trying to score points on behalf of his clients. Eric Liddle took the view that everyone wanted the same thing at the end of the day, the guilty people to be charged and the innocent people allowed to walk free.

  Although Lennox had persisted in fabricating stories which the detectives knew to be false, they were happy to let him do so; proving that he was telling untruths could prove useful when the case came to court. After the best part of forty minutes, though, Blizzard decided to bring the charade to an end. Time to close the trap on Bob Lennox.

  ‘Look, this is getting us nowhere,’ he said. ‘You’re lying your head off and we all know it. We know you attacked Jacob Reed and we know that you murdered Glenda Rutherford and we haven’t even spoken about the small matter of kidnapping a vicar, something we will be talking to Steve Holdsworth and your son about as well. As we speak, our forensics team are going through your house…’

  Eric Liddle sat forward and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, we have a warrant,’ said Blizzard.

  Liddle nodded and sat back.

  ‘Why are they doing that?’ asked Lennox. He looked anxious.

  ‘Oh, there’s always something,’ said the inspector casually. ‘Criminals always leave us something to find.’

  For the first time, Bob Lennox’s bullish facade seemed shaken.

  ‘You’re fishing,’ he said.

  ‘It would be more fun than this,’ said Blizzard. The inspector recalled contented childhood days on the riverbanks of rural Lincolnshire, trying to catch trout with his father. With a great effort, he dragged himself back into the present day. Placing his hands behind his head, he rocked backwards on his chair. ‘Oh, by the way, Jacob Reed has been very helpful.’

  Lennox’s mouth gaped open. For a few seconds, he was too shocked to speak. As far as the city was concerned, Jacob Reed was still in a coma, hovering between life and death. No one knew that he had regained consciousness nor
that, wracked with guilt at the lies he had told Blizzard and Colley that morning, he had decided to tell the truth.

  ‘You’re bluffing!’ exclaimed Lennox.

  ‘You wish,’ said Blizzard. ‘He remembers exactly what happened that night and he’s put you well and truly in the frame.’

  Lennox searched the inspector’s eyes for a sign that he was trying to deceive him but found nothing, only blue ice. He thought for a moment then glanced at his solicitor.

  ‘I ain’t saying nothing more,’ he announced.

  ‘You don’t need to,’ said Blizzard. ‘See, we’ve just come from Jacob Reed. He remembers seeing you approaching the church just before he was attacked. That places you at the scene, Bob.’

  ‘I go to church some nights to pray for Danny,’ said Lennox. ‘Yeah, that’s it, Mr Blizzard, that’s what happened. I went to the church that night to pray. I loved that boy.’

  ‘No one doubts that. Tell me, how did you get into the church?’

  ‘The caretaker let me in.’

  ‘Well, that’s funny,’ said Blizzard with a hard edge to his voice, ‘because we reckoned you might say that so we checked with him. He didn’t let anyone in that night. In fact, he wasn’t there because it was his thirtieth wedding anniversary. He was even able to tell us what he had for his meal down the Spice Gate. A very pleasant rogan josh, was it not, Sergeant?’

  ‘Apparently,’ said Colley. ‘Quite spicy.’

  ‘I must have remembered it wrong,’ said Lennox. ‘Perhaps it was someone else. Yes, it was…’

  ‘Nice try, Bob,’ said Blizzard. ‘But we think you got in through the side door to the hostel. Jacob reckons that Glenda often left it unlocked. I am sure that if we try hard enough we can also place you at the church the day she was murdered. What do you think, Sergeant?’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Colley.

  It was an unequal struggle to which Lennox finally surrendered and the end, when it came, was so swift that it surprised the detectives.

  ‘OK,’ he whispered. ‘OK. Yes, I did it. I was at the hostel that night.’

  ‘The night Jacob was attacked?’

  Lennox nodded.

  ‘Why?’ asked the inspector.