Letter From The Dead - a crime thriller (Detective Inspector Declan Walsh Book 1)

by Jack Gatland

  Andy Mac would never preach again.

  Shaun Donnal rocked back and forth on the bench in his cell, pulling the blanket that he’d been given tightly around him. This was a bad idea. He shouldn’t be here. He should be back on the streets, hiding, ensuring that he wasn’t found. Sally would—

  No. Sally wouldn’t send him any money. Apparently Sally had never sent him any money. His family didn’t even know if he was alive or not. Shaun had assumed that by seeing the money going out of the account, they’d at least know he was safe; now however he didn’t know what to do. Should he contact them? Let them know that he was alive?

  No. Because then Francine would move on them. Shaun’s family would be hurt. And he’d hurt them enough over the years.

  Shaun thought back to what DI Walsh had said. Could it be true? Had he believed a lie for twenty years, and taken the blame for someone else’s murder?

  If he had, then someone was going to pay for the last five years of hell. And he knew exactly who that someone was.

  The night hadn’t been that bad, actually. They’d fed him, even allowed him to use a shower, providing him with a little travel sized shampoo to wash what was left of his hair and beard. It wasn’t combed, just finger straightened, but he felt cleaner than he had in ages.

  He didn’t have a watch on, but Shaun had always had a pretty accurate internal clock, and this clock told him that currently it was about 5am. It was the midst of the graveyard shift. The pubs were closed, the nightclubs emptied. Anyone who was being brought in from either of these would already be here. This was the time for it to be as silent as the grave until the dawn in an hour or two started the Saturday rush.

  But it wasn’t silent as the grave.

  He could hear locks being turned, of heavy doors being opened. He could hear whispered words being spoken and footsteps walking down the corridor. Footsteps stopping at his door.

  He pushed himself back against the wall as the door to his cell opened. A policeman leaned in. ‘Sorry to wake you,’ he said, the tone of his voice insinuating that he wasn’t sorry at all, ‘but your ride is here.’

  ‘DI Walsh wasn’t supposed to arrive until morning.’ Shaun said nervously.

  ‘Mate, it is morning,’ the policeman said, still standing by the door. ‘He probably wants to get you out of here before the Saturday shops open. Chop chop.’

  Shaun reluctantly rose from his bench, placing the blanket down. The policeman didn’t know who he was. Nobody knew who he was. Only DI Walsh and his department knew his true identity. If they were here to take him this early in the morning then something bad must have happened.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked as they walked down the corridor. The policeman shrugged.

  ‘I thought I’d be doing day shifts by now, but apart from that I assume so.’

  They didn’t walk through the station; instead they walked through the loading bay, out to where the police cars were parked at the back. Shaun could see that the dawn was approaching, the sky lightening into a hazy turquoise before the morning sun.

  There were two detectives standing by a grey car, waiting for him. One was an Indian woman, the other a young man.

  ‘DC Fitzwarren and DS Kapoor,’ the young man said. ‘We work with DI Walsh.’

  Shaun nodded, looking around. ‘Is he here?’ he asked. Kapoor shook her head.

  ‘What about Monroe?’ Shaun asked again. He trusted Walsh, but Monroe was still an unknown entity here. Christ, he needed a drink.

  ‘No Monroe either,’ Kapoor replied as they signed the paperwork. Shaun looked to the car; in the back seat, just out of sight of the policemen, he could see that someone was sitting there.

  ‘So it’s just the two of you?’ he asked. Fitzwarren looked back to him.

  ‘What is this, bloody twenty questions?’ he snapped. ‘No, there’s nobody else here. Shut up and wait for a moment.’

  Shaun felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. Yet again he’d been lied to. This wasn’t the reception he’d been promised. These weren’t the police he’d been promised.

  ‘It’s just that Monroe said that she’d be here personally,’ he said, watching Fitzwarren.

  ‘Well she’s busy—’

  Fitzwarren paused. ‘Oh, you little bastard,’ he said.

  The policeman that had brought Shaun down to the car looked up from the paperwork.

  ‘There’s no need for that kind of language,’ he said, but Fitzwarren wasn’t listening. Instead he’d pulled an extending baton out of his pocket and had turned to Shaun. Kapoor too had a weapon out, but now Shaun was ready. This was a set up. He wasn’t going anywhere. The back door of the vehicle opened, and the man with the rimless glasses emerged.

  ‘Get in the car, Donnal,’ he said. ‘Don’t make this more painful than it needs to be.’

  Shaun looked to the policeman, now staring confused at this third arrival.

  ‘They’re not police!’ Shaun cried. ‘They’re going to kill me!’

  The policemen didn’t get a chance to reply – Fitzwarren swung his baton up hard, catching the policeman in the throat. But, as the policeman fell to the floor clutching at it, sirens started to blare out.

  ‘Goddammit!’ the man with the rimless glasses shouted. ‘Just kill him now and be done with it!’

  But it was too late. The doors were opening and more police stormed out, several pulling out yellow X26 tasers as they did so. The man with the rimless glasses swore, looking around for Shaun, but the target had gone.

  ‘We’re done!’ he cried. ‘Go!’

  The two fake officers leapt into the car and a squeal of rubber it reversed at speed out of the car park, sliding into the early morning traffic, leaving behind a small gathering of incredibly confused policemen who were now wondering who the hell their late night guest really was.

  And two streets away, hiding in a doorway and holding his breath, almost as if the simple act of breathing would give his position away, Shaun Donnal waited for his heartbeat to calm down as one line repeated itself over and over again.

  ‘Just kill him now and be done with it!’

  They were really going to kill him. They’d given up on just scaring him. Shaun shook himself from the memory and was about to carry on walking, when one of the televisions in the window of the shop he was currently using as cover caught his eye. It was a news channel. The sound was off, and it was showing something to do with American politics on the screen, but the news ticker along the bottom of the screen tightened his chest.

  YOUTUBE PREACHER ‘ANDY MAC’ FOUND DEAD IN AVEBURY HOME – BELIEVED TO BE SUICIDE

  Andy was dead.

  Shaun would have been next.

  There was only one person who could have done this. And they would have had help. It was time to take the whole bloody lot of them down in one go. To cut the head off the snake, in fact.

  Shaun looked around. From the road signs he could see, he was in a suburb of North London; it would take a couple of hours to get back to Kings Cross, where his rucksack, gathered back up after his beating yesterday had been hidden somewhere safe before he’d made his way to Hurley and DI Walsh.

  And in that rucksack was the gun he had stolen from Francine Pearce’s car.

  The police weren’t going to be able to help him; they hadn’t even been able to keep him safe for twelve hours. No, it was time to end this, before Pearce and the man with the rimless glasses found a way to end him, and ensure that he was also nothing more than a line on a news tickertape, just like poor Andrew.

  Gathering his courage, Shaun stepped out onto the street and headed south.

  26

  Post Mortem

  Declan had woken up at 7.30am when the call came through from the North London police station that he had visited the previous night. It was muddled, but seemed to be that Shaun Donnal had manufactured some kind of escape, using fake police to distract the officers on watch.

  To be honest, there was no way that Shaun Donnal would had bee
n able to manufacture anything in his current state of mind, not to mention the fact that only Declan and Monroe had known where he was, but with Shaun now gone and nothing to be done about it until he either resurfaced or contacted the number Declan had left with him, Declan decided instead to shower and dress and, skipping breakfast grabbed his father’s file and drove into London before the Saturday morning traffic kicked in.

  He’d just passed Heston Services on the M4 when Monroe called to give him the news about Andy Mac. And because of this, it was a sombre and thoughtful Declan Walsh who arrived at Temple Inn at 9am that morning to find that even though it was a weekend, he was still the last officer in. Downstairs Doctor Marcos and her assistant, DC Davey; a tall, slim bespectacled woman with frizzy ginger hair were knee deep in microscopes, while on the first floor Anjli was poring through old files as Billy and Monroe were watching security footage on Billy’s monitor. Even Trix was in, strangely silent, working on some file entry in the corner of the room.

  Looking at the people in the office, Declan forced himself to smile, to look as if nothing was wrong.

  But everything was. Because there was a traitor right in front of him.

  Monroe, seeing him waved him over. ‘Come look at this.’

  The CCTV was from the police station car park. It was blurry, mainly because it was early in the morning and the lights around the station were turning off, but Declan could see two people; a man and a woman talking to a policeman while Shaun Donnal stood to the side.

  ‘He doesn’t even look like me,’ Billy snapped. ‘Christ, his suit looks like it’s polyester.’

  Declan looked to Monroe.

  ‘Shaun Donnal didn’t break out, no matter what they say,’ Monroe explained. ‘Firstly, Donnal didn’t know where he was and secondly, he hadn’t made any calls. But at around five in the morning these two officers arrived to take him.’

  He pointed to the screen.

  ‘Meet DC Fitzwarren and DS Kapoor, as they identified themselves to the police on site.’

  ‘They used our names?’ Declan whistled. No wonder Billy was annoyed. ‘That’s ballsy, to walk right in.’

  ‘They had the paperwork and everything,’ Billy muttered. ‘Whoever did this was very well organised. Like James Bond organised.’

  ‘Except Shaun didn’t seem to believe it,’ Monroe pointed to the screen where, moving back from the car, Shaun was obviously distressed. There was no sound with the footage, but Declan could see a third man emerge from the car.

  It was blurry, but he’d recognise the man with the rimless glasses anywhere.

  ‘That’s the bastard that sucker punched me, and who was at my Dad’s house last night,’ he said. ‘Shaun mentioned he’d had a run in with him before as well.’

  ‘Well he definitely recognises him,’ Billy indicated the screen where Shaun stared at the new arrival. But it didn’t last long; the fake Billy struck the policeman as other officers ran out of the building with what looked like standard police issue tasers in their hands. Shaun took this opportunity to run, while the three imposters leaped into the car and drove off at speed.

  ‘Shaun said that bastard works for Francine Pearce,’ Declan said. Monroe nodded.

  ‘Well, we can have a chat with her when she eventually agrees to come in,’ he replied, noting Doctor Marcos and DC Davey emerging from the stairs. ‘Until then, let’s have a chat in the briefing room.’

  Nodding to Anjli to join them, Declan and Billy followed Monroe, Doctor Marcos and her assistant into the briefing room. Shutting the door behind them, Anjli sat down at the desk beside Declan, resting her head in her hands for a moment. He glanced to her.

  ‘Are you hungover?’ he asked. She threw back a weak grin.

  ‘Billy likes very expensive and very drinkable wines,’ she simply whispered.

  ‘So we have some new developments,’ Monroe said. ‘Andy Mac has committed suicide, which obviously puts a massive crimp into our case.’

  ‘How so?’ Declan asked. ‘I mean, obviously, but surely we have more from Baker and Donnal’s testimonies?

  ‘Because he apparently had a full confession on his person when he hanged himself in his gym,’ Monroe replied. ‘Stating that not only did he kill Sebastian and hide the body, but also giving the location of where he hid the Land Rover. And while he was at it, he also admitted to the murder of Victoria Davies, and even threw in the murder of Sarah Hinksman as well, claiming that this was why Sebastian had attacked him.’

  Declan scratched at his chin. ‘He wasn’t suicidal when I left him,’ he said. ‘If anything he was looking like he wanted a fight. He genuinely thought he could beat this, or at least keep it going long enough to find some other escape route. Not this.’

  ‘Well we’ll need to work out what was going on in his mind pretty damned quick,’ Monroe said. ‘The case is being mothballed again.’

  ‘What?’ Now it was Billy’s turn to reply. ‘You can’t be serious!’

  ‘I am, laddie. Sebastian Payne’s murder was never ours. It was Newbury plod’s. We were following the murder of Victoria Davies, and one of our main suspects killed himself after confessing to it. Powers that be are happy to let this pass.’

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ muttered Billy as he slumped back into his chair.

  ‘Oh, I agree,’ Monroe said. ‘And that’s why I said it’d take us twenty four hours to tie everything up.’

  ‘Does that really work?’ Declan looked around. ‘I mean, that just sounds like a movie plot.’

  ‘Of course it never works,’ Monroe replied harshly. ‘They gave us six hours. Which means that we have until football kicks off this afternoon to work out who killed Victoria Davies, who killed Sarah Hinksman, who tried to abduct Shaun Donnal this morning and now who killed Andy Mac, because that’s the dodgiest suicide I’ve seen in thirty years.’

  ‘It could have been Charles Baker,’ Doctor Marcos suggested. ‘DI Walsh’s suggestion to check the DNA was right. Baker was Payne’s father.’

  ‘Too flimsy. We need more,’ Monroe was pacing now. Declan raised a hand. ‘You don’t need to ask permission here, laddie.’

  Declan rose, walking to the front. He turned to look at the others. Through the glass he could see Trix, still on her phone, music in her earbuds as she rocked along.

  ‘I think I’ve worked it out,’ he said. ‘But I need to check something. And I wanted to do it when everyone was here.’

  ‘Christ, it’s bloody Hercule Poirot,’ Monroe muttered. Declan looked to him.

  ‘Could you phone Anthony Farringdon, please?’ he asked. ‘And could you put it on speakerphone?’

  ‘Well this is a bit odd, but okay.’ Monroe pulled out his phone, dialling.

  He waited.

  ‘Anthony,’ he eventually said into it. ‘I was—you were? Oh.’ He turned the speaker on.

  ‘I emailed the photo that Billy sent to me over to Mister Farringdon this morning,’ Declan explained, nodding to Billy. ‘Could you put it on the screen?’

  Billy nodded, tapping on the computer tablet beside him. The photo of the 1997 Election’s new members of Parliament and their aides appeared on the screen.

  ‘Billy sent this to me as it showed Baker and Hinksman getting chummy,’ Declan said, tapping on the area where Sarah and Charles were seen laughing. ‘But we were so busy looking at them, we didn’t look at the others. Mister Farringdon, the woman on the far left, with the black hair and the cap on. Do you remember who she was?’

  There was a pause down the line as Farringdon examined the image.

  ‘Frankie Wilson,’ he eventually said. ‘Hinksman’s assistant.’

  ‘Thanks, Anthony, you’ve been a massive help,’ Declan said, indicating for Monroe to disconnect. Walking to the wall, he used the touch screen of the plasma to enlarge the image of Wilson.

  ‘This is Frankie Wilson, the assistant to Sarah Hinksman,’ he looked to the officers in the room. ‘She booked the rooms for Hinksman and Donnal, she arranged the adoption
of Sebastian. We’ve seen her before in other photos of Sarah, but we’ve never had a clear view of her face.’

  Tap. He brought up another image. A stern, older woman with black hair.

  ‘This is Francine Pearce, taken from the Pearce Associates website.’

  Monroe looked at the images. ‘Jesus, it’s the same woman.’

  Declan nodded. ‘We’ve been looking at the wrong women,’ he said, tapping the screen again and opening a file image. The photo that Derby police station sent the previous night appeared. ‘This is the mugshot of Susan Devington that was taken the night that Victoria was murdered. As you can see, it’s close, but it’s not her.’

  ‘She used a double to give her an alibi?’ Anjli was surprised at this. ‘You think Susan was the killer? Why would she want her own sister dead?’

  Well, I wondered that too,’ Declan replied. ‘Until I realised after reading the arrest file that it was Francine Pearce that bailed her out the next day. We all missed it because she used her other name back then. Frankie Wilson, as Frankie is a common nickname for Francine.’

  ‘She changed her surname?’ Billy was already looking through the files. ‘We have no knowledge of that.’

  ‘That’s because our reports and files were tampered with before we received them,’ Declan said. ‘My father’s ones, however were still intact. Francine Pearce had recently divorced before starting with Devington Industries, where she began her affair with Michael Davies. Her married name was Wilson.’

  ‘Frankie Wilson, Sarah Hinksman’s loyal assistant,’ Monroe said. ‘Wait, what do you mean, our files were tampered with?’

  ‘Oh that’s simple,’ Declan said. ‘We have a mole in the department. Someone who’s been working for Pearce from the start, who ensured that we’d get the letter, and who led us by the nose to where Pearce wanted us.’