Red Mist

by Angus McLean

  Red Mist

  Chase Investigations #6

  Angus McLean

  Copyright 2017 Angus McLean

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Red Mist (Chase Investigations, #6)

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Bonus Chapters

  Chase Investigations#1 | Old Friends

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Acknowledgements

  The author would like to thank the advisers who have assisted with the writing of this book. They must remain anonymous for security reasons, but they (and only they) know who they are.

  My sincerest gratitude goes out to them.

  And once again, huge thanks to “Tori” who does my covers and provides great advice-you rock.

  This is a work of fiction, and all errors are the responsibility of the author.

  Introduction

  Thank you so much for buying my book. I am excited to share my stories with you, and hope you enjoy them.

  If you’d like to know about new releases and receive a free book, sign up to my Hitlist on Facebook.

  Angus McLean

  Prologue

  The cab of the van was warm and Joshi wished he could crack the window.

  But locked doors and secure windows was the name of the game when you were hauling boxes of cash around south Auckland. He glanced at the driver beside him. Big Al had a thin film of sweat on his brow already.

  Joshi knew that before they got half way through their run his partner would be overheated and really starting to hum in the enclosed space.

  Not many guys wanted to work with Big Al because of the hygiene issues, but Joshi had no choice. As the new guy on the Cash in Transit team, he went where he was told. At least he was off nights now. Days gave him more time to get some study in. Degrees didn’t earn themselves.

  He subtly turned the air con up a notch and looked out the window.

  Traffic was steady as they made their way across town from Otara to Papatoetoe, no major snarl ups yet. They turned left from East Tamaki Road into Great South Road, into the guts of the Papatoetoe town centre. Traffic immediately slowed but that was no drama-the bank ATM they were going to service was just round the corner.

  Big Al eased the van round the corner, ignoring a blaring horn as he slowed to a crawl and slid into a loading zone. A beat up car went past with the passenger hanging out the window. He was giving them the bird and shouting obscenities.

  ‘Ha ha, funny.’ Big Al chuckled as he pulled the handbrake on.

  Joshi glanced at him. He found such behaviour abhorrent, but nothing seemed to bother the fat man. Big Al looked at him now.

  ‘All good, bro?’

  ‘Yes.’ Joshi nodded and smiled. ‘All good, bro.’

  It amused him that the Maori guy called him bro. As if because they both had brown skin they were brothers. It was okay, he didn’t mind. It was better than the last guy he’d worked with, who called him Rogan Josh at every opportunity and mocked his accent.

  They both alighted and Joshi took a position on the footpath. Big Al unlocked the sliding side door and grabbed the locked canister they needed.

  Joshi glanced around him, sussing out the passing pedestrians. He always felt comfortable here in Papatoetoe. They were plenty of Indians here and he felt he didn’t stand out so much as in some other parts of town.

  He caught the eye of the old boy standing guard at the door of the bank. He was from a different security company but the uniform was the same-an ill-fitting jersey over a shirt, black polyester trousers and black sneakers. He had thick specs and big freckles on his bald pate.

  Joshi gave the old boy a nod out of professional courtesy. A lot of good he would be if there was ever a robbery. He had to be sixty if he was a day.

  He heard the door slide shut again and the rattle of Big Al’s keys.

  ‘Let’s go, bro.’

  Joshi glanced back to Big Al as his partner stepped away from the van, the cash canister handcuffed to his wrist.

  There was a blur of movement behind Big Al and two guys burst out from between the van and the car in front of it. Joshi was vaguely aware of a car double parked in the nearest lane.

  Both guys wore dark balaclavas over their faces and bulky jackets. They were moving fast and cannoned into Big Al from behind, sending him crashing to the footpath.

  They both moved up on Big Al while a third appeared in front of Joshi, shoving a gun in his face and screaming at him.

  Joshi couldn’t understand a word the guy was saying, but he got the message. He threw his hands in the air and dropped to his knees, staring at the ground. All the training said to be non-confrontational, give the bad guys no reason to get violent.

  The problem with training is that they always give you the best-case scenario.

  The thug stepped in closer and smashed the barrel of the gun down on the top of Joshi’s head. Pain exploded in his brain and he saw stars as he collapsed to the footpath. He was oblivious to Big Al being given the good news by the other two, one of them taking his keys and unlocking the handcuff to take the canister. He saw one of the thugs deliver a last kick to Big Al’s big guts.

  He saw legs hurry past him, then one set paused and came back. A boot slammed into his back and took the wind from him. Joshi gasped soundlessly, gaping like a hooked fish.

  Joshi rolled onto his side, trying to call out for someone to help, but his mouth wasn’t playing ball.

  He didn’t hear the catcalls of the robbers as the car took off or the groaning coming from Big Al.

  Right now, his whole world was just pain.

  Chapter One

  Wednesday

  Someone moved his cheese, and Dan Crowley didn’t like it one bit.

  He’d been attacked by a mongrel dog as he biked to work that morning, the beast deciding that the man on the battered mountain bike resembled a chunk of dog roll. It had chased him for a full block while Dan biked on oblivious, his ear buds in, wondering why he’d never heard the snarling dog undertone on his favourite Noiseworks album.

  When he finally clicked that he had company he’d tried to outrun the hound, only to be nipped on the calf and forced to dismount. Unfortunately for the dog its breakfast carried a spare canister of OC spray in his bag-it paid to be prepared in the dodgier parts of Mount Wellington-and the beast got a full dose of pepper in the face. The journey to work which normally took twenty minutes had taken an extra ten by the time he’d called Animal Control and got himself together again, and it hadn’t got him off to a good start.

  He reached the Otahuhu Police Station wit
hout further incident, only to realise the dog attack hadn’t been a random hit from the Dark Lords of Fate.

  Dan had a very set routine in the morning, always parking his bike in the same place, reaching the locker room at the same time, ironing a shirt, showering, shaving and dressing in the same way every day. He liked routine and it worked for him. But when someone moved his cheese-it was a term he’d picked up from a book Molly had tried to get him to read before they married, and was much politer than how he would have put it-it threw him into a tailspin.

  So to find a stranger using the locker next to his, with the contents of his bag spread over the communal bench and his trousers hanging on the hook Dan always used-his hook-brought a scowl to his face. The locker the guy was using had been empty for some time, so whoever this guy was, he’d just arrived. The trousers were light grey with a brown belt. A pair of brown shoes were on the floor under the bench. Dan didn’t like brown shoes for work, or grey trousers.

  He shifted the guy’s bag along the bench and dropped his own bag down, dug out his key and turned to his locker. The other guy stared at him silently. Dan sized him up in a nano-second and his mood got darker.

  The man was half dressed, wearing only a white singlet and flowery satin boxers. His socks were pulled nearly to the knees of his thin white legs. The socks were black with red roses on them.

  Dan looked back up. The man’s chest was sunken, almost inverted, and he wore a gold necklace. Dan met the man’s eye. He looked to be a few years older than Dan, somewhere in his mid or late thirties maybe, with thinning hair combed over the top. The hair was dotted with flecks of dry scalp. Dan didn’t like novelty socks, and the only jewellery a man should be wearing was a watch and a wedding band.

  His beady eyes were sussing Dan out, and now he spoke.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said.

  Dan noticed his teeth were small and rodent like, and could do with a visit to the dentist. He nodded.

  ‘Gidday mate.’

  He opened his locker and grabbed a shirt. While the iron heated up he stripped out of his sweaty T-shirt and light rain jacket, dropping them by his bag. By the time he’d finished with the iron he expected the guy to be gone. He wasn’t. In fact, he had even moved Dan’s bag along and had his foot up on the bench while he laced his brown shoe.

  Dan grit his teeth but said nothing. He hung his shirt up and grabbed his towel. By the time he got out of the shower the guy and his brown shoes better be gone, or there was going to be blood on the floor.

  Or, at the very least, cross words spoken.

  ***

  Apex Printing was a medium-sized enterprise based in an industrial cul-de-sac street in Mount Wellington near the border with Glen Innes. On one side was a kitchen manufacturer and on the other a plumbing supplies outfit.

  Molly Crowley pulled in through the gate and drove down the side of the building to the staff parking area. A few cars were already there from the guys who started early in the factory, and a couple of them were outside having a smoke before the bosses arrived.

  The building itself was a squat yellow concrete block with moss on one side and pot holes in the car park.

  Old Russ was shuffling in, his lunch box in his hand. He was still working on the factory floor in his sixties, and undergoing chemo for a recent bout of cancer. He was a quiet old bloke who always had a cheery word.

  Molly slotted the blue MGB into her normal park and sat for a minute. Ray Lamontagne was finishing up Shelter Me on the stereo and it would be a crime not to wring out every drop of listening pleasure from his husky vocals. Molly saw the two smokers looking at her while she head-swayed to the music and she stopped self-consciously, feeling herself cringe inside. It was hardly going to help the divide between the factory workers and the office staff, but it was too late now.

  Her cheeks still burned as Molly got out, locked up and threw a friendly wave to the two smokers. They both nodded back but didn’t speak and Molly headed to the side door, taking it no further. Since she’d started there almost a year ago she’d found it to be a strange working environment.

  The factory workers barely spoke to the office staff, and the office staff looked down on the factory workers. The boss put on beers and a barbie every month but even that made no difference. Molly had been a couple of times to try and be sociable, but had left early both times.

  It hadn’t helped that Dan had come along the last time. Somebody had asked him what he did for a job and once it was known that he was a cop, most of the factory workers had avoided her like the plague.

  The other thing that didn’t help was the boss, Renee de Wik, rolling up in his black Porsche Boxster every morning. It went down like a cup of cold sick with the workers struggling to earn a living wage.

  Molly swiped her access card at the side door and entered a corridor, moving in the semi darkness to the alarm pad on the wall which was flashing a red light and beeping at her. She punched in her PIN code and the hash and started to move off again. The pad continued to beep and she turned back, cursing under her breath at the stupid thing.

  Like most things in this place it was worn out and needed replacing. The nylon carpet tiles beneath her feet had once been a hard-wearing beige with pink undertones. Now they resembled compacted squares of baby vomit.

  She did the code again and waited. More beeping and she knew it must be about to activate the alarm itself. She hurriedly inputted the PIN for the third time, stabbing each button firmly before hitting the hash and waiting.

  Finally it bleeped off and the light on top of the pad went from red to green. Molly hit the hallway lights and entered the office she shared with Ailsa, the senior administrator. She wasn’t in yet, which was good. There was only so much South African pop music she could listen to and only so much of her colleague’s attitude that she could stand.

  Molly flicked the office lights on, tucked her bag under her desk and took her cup to the staff room. While she waited for her peach green tea to infuse she tidied up the papers and magazines on the table and checked the milk in the fridge.

  She opened the dishwasher to clear the bench-a task she hated, but nobody else did it-and immediately noticed a distinctive cup in the top rack. White with a large pink flower on one side and a verse about love. Ailsa’s cup. Which was unusual, because Ailsa had left before her yesterday, and Molly recalled her cup being on her desk at that time.

  She wondered if someone else had used the cup, and if so, why? Why would one of the factory staff come into the office to grab the cup? And what about the alarm? There were two alarms in the building-one covering the factory itself, the other just the offices. None of the factory staff should have access to the office system, just as she had no ability to disable the factory alarm.

  Molly paused as she tossed these thoughts around in her head. She hooked out the tea bag, squeezed it and tossed it in the bin. It was all a bit odd, she decided, and took her cup back to the office.

  She checked her Seiko. She had about an hour before Ailsa got in. It was time to enjoy the peace and quiet before she was bombarded.

  ***

  Dan walked into the Otahuhu CIB office, bag in one hand and drink bottle in the other.

  The whole floor was open plan with the various squads arranged into pods of desks with pin-board dividers between them. Shelves against the walls were stacked with folders and boxes of who-knew-what. The station was only a couple of years old but the décor was already looking worn. The guys were never careful with their gear and most things in a cop shop took a hammering. The walls were beige and white, the flooring dark-aside from where somebody had dropped a bottle of sauce right in the middle of the open area, leaving a huge stain that resembled a murder scene.

  The Tactical Crime guys were kitted up and heading out the door, one lugging an exhibit kit and another a sledgehammer. He felt the buzz off them as he stood aside to let them pass, and could see the anticipation in their faces.

  He knew they had been working on a crew o
f ram raiders, and this was obviously D-Day.

  ‘Good luck, boys,’ he grinned as they filed by.

  The team’s Sergeant gave him a playful elbow in the guts as he passed and Dan let him have the free shot.

  ‘Better get that checked, Phil,’ he said. ‘You may have cracked a bone on my abs.’

  Phil flipped him the bird and kept going.

  Dan made his way to his desk, dropping his bag beside it. The office was nearly empty, being only six thirty. Most of the ten investigators didn’t start until seven or eight, but Dan liked to be in early. It gave him a chance to have breakfast and get some work done in the silence, and it also set a good example for the younger trainees. As the senior Detective in the office, Dan felt it was important to be a role model for the others.

  They were supposed to have two Detective Sergeants in the office, each running a team of five. One was on a secondment elsewhere and the other had been running a murder trial in the High Court for a month, so Dan had been relieving up for the last few weeks.

  He had also applied for a DS vacancy, and was waiting to hear if he’d been shortlisted. It was his second application, and on the first one he’d come close to getting an interview, so his hopes were up this time around. There was some fairly strong competition though, so he was resigned to waiting for the phone call.

  The only other guy in yet was Ace Purcell.

  He was standing at the window watching the world go by outside, a coffee in one hand and his phone to his ear, talking in low tones. Dan never knew what Ace was up to. He’d only recently transferred to the office after a long stint undercover, and was a hot shot informant handler. He had an uncanny knack of getting people to talk to him, and always seemed to be slipping away to see informers or other seedy characters.

  Dan went to the kitchen down the hall and nuked his porridge, made a mug of builder’s tea, and returned to his desk. When he got back Ace was at his own desk, facing Dan’s. He was texting someone and glanced up when Dan sat down.

  ‘All good mate?’ Dan asked, and the other man gave a short nod.