BLOOD MONEY
A gripping crime thriller full of twists
CHARLIE GALLAGHER
Langthorne Police Book 3
First published 2017
Joffe Books, London
www.joffebooks.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this.
©Charlie Gallagher
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THERE IS A GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH AND POLICE SLANG IN THE BACK OF THIS BOOK FOR US READERS.
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BODILY HARM
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An edge-of-your-seat crime thriller starts with a vicious stabbing of a pretty teenage girl and her boyfriend on a local bus. She happens to be the mayor’s niece. It’s the final straw for the community. The police are desperate to get results and decide on a risky course of action involving undercover infiltration of the notorious Effingell Estate.
Detective George Elms knows this hellish place extremely well, and his sharp investigative mind is put to work to solve the crime. The police are under immense media pressure and conveniently a local lowlife confesses to the attack. But George is not convinced. There are many layers of criminal and police motivation, and few people are what they seem.
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PANIC BUTTON
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Someone is killing the officers of the Langthorne Police one by one. And in a sadistic twist he makes each victim push their radio panic button before they die, thus broadcasting their last moments to the entire force.
CONTENTS
Author’s Note
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
LANGTHORNE POLICE SERIES
FROM CHARLIE GALLAGHER
VOCABULARY
CHARACTER LIST
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For my wife, who suffers this obsession every day.
Author’s Note
I am inspired by what I do and see in my day job as a front-line police detective, though my books are entirely fictional. I am aware that the police officers in my novels are not always shown positively. They are human and they make mistakes. This is sometimes the case in real life too, but the vast majority of officers are honest and do a good job in trying circumstances. From what I see on a daily basis, the men and women who wear the uniform are among the very finest, and I am proud to be part of one of the best police forces in the world.
Charlie Gallagher
CHAPTER 1
Something was wrong. Tony Robson had been here more times than he could remember and the routine had always been the same. They saw the same people, did the same things. Daniel received his treatment. And Tony and his son never left each other’s side the whole time.
And now Tony was all on his own, sitting on a black leather chair with polished metal frame. The consultant sat opposite. Doctor Ngaye was sitting on an identical chair and he was fidgeting. Eventually he seemed to settle on leaning forward, just like Tony. He looked concerned.
‘Is there a problem, Doc?’ Stupid question.
He was in the specialist wing of the hospital, a place for people with rare genetic disorders. His seven-year-old son had developed one of the least known forms of muscular dystrophy. In fact, it was so rare that no one in the UK had ever seen a case like it. It had been terrifying for Tony, taking his little boy to the hospital, only to be met with shrugs and bemusement. After all, that’s what you did when your kid got sick, you took them to the hospital and the doctors made them better. But they hadn’t made Daniel better. Instead, they had been brutally honest, admitting they’d never seen this disorder manifested in quite this way before, and they didn’t really know where to start.
Tony had found the answer in America. He had spent hours online, finding out everything he could about the shadow that was threatening to engulf their lives and, through forums and chatrooms with people just like him, he’d found that doctors in the States were much further ahead with this sort of thing. Hell, some of them had even heard of Daniel’s condition. Somehow he got speaking to a pharmaceutical company who thought they might be able to make a difference. They made no promises, but they would eventually be offering a new drug that might just be a breakthrough. America and the UK’s NHS then spoke to each other, and Daniel was on the trial.
It had been a breakthrough. The expectation for Daniel at the time of his diagnosis was that he would suffer muscle wastage in all the key areas. He’d be confined to a wheelchair within just a couple of years and then the disease would continue its attack on his mobility, his speech, the very process by which he breathed in and out. His quality of life would be gone, maybe even his life altogether. Daniel would reach this stage before his eighteenth birthday. Death would likely rob him of his twenty-first. Tony couldn’t let this happen. It was his doing. He and his wife, and their genes, had cursed him with this awful, degenerative disease.
That was four years ago. These days, Daniel looked no different from other seven-year-old West Ham-supporting kids. He was doing well at school, he was in three football teams, he picked on smaller kids occasionally, and then at the end of the day he got a bit more tired than most. The drugs had all but halted the disease, stopped it dead in its tracks. Their son was doing fine.
Now the consultant looked concerned. What was happening? Dr Ngaye took his time, appearing to choose his words carefully. Then he just said it.
‘The trial is over.’
Tony swallowed. Initially he was confused, then came hope. ‘You mean Daniel’s cured?’
‘Mr Robson, we know that Daniel may never be cured.’
‘But this drug, this breakthrough, you said that if they can halt it, then maybe they can stop it altogether? So how can the trial be over?’
‘As you know, the NHS took Daniel on as a trial patient in conj
unction with an American pharmaceutical company at considerable expense and with some trepidation, to see if we could further our understanding of these types of conditions—’
‘And we know it works,’ Tony cut in, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Doctor Ngaye was a large part of the reason the NHS had even considered the trial in the first place. Tony knew he was on their side. ‘I’m sorry,’ he continued. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Doc, but we’re doing well here — Daniel is, I mean.’
‘We are. The trial has been a success for Daniel but, as you know, this was a wider trial and the other patients that were put on this drug have not responded.’
‘But Daniel has.’
‘Mr Robson, this will not be easy to hear and it is not easy for me to say about an organisation I have dedicated my life to, but Daniel’s treatment costs three thousand pounds a month. It has halted the progress of his condition, but he is the only person in the country who has benefited in this way. We knew the challenge right from the start, when we realised just how rare your son’s condition was.’
‘So Daniel’s life on its own isn’t worth saving? They’re just going to take it away and let him die slowly and with total loss of dignity, when there’s a way they can prevent it?’
‘The NHS will continue with conventional treatment, Mr Robson, as we would have done had we not been given this opportunity—’
‘But we were, we were given an opportunity and we know it works. Conventional treatment? You people might as well stand over him banging a wok — it would have the same effect as your conventional damned treatment. It’s painful and it’s a waste of time and we both know it.’
‘I hear you, I do. But the NHS has been cut to within an inch of its life, Tony. This government really isn’t on our side, and the people who control our budget have looked at what they can do with three thousand pounds a month. It could make a massive difference to many, many more people if put to a different use.’
‘But Daniel will die.’ Tony couldn’t even begin to comprehend what he was being told. Surely, if you got ill, you went to the hospital and they did what they could to make you feel better? Now he was being told that they wouldn’t do what they could. They were about to stop lifesaving treatment for a seven-year-old boy, his seven-year-old boy, because of money.
‘I’m very fond of Daniel, you know that. I can assure you I didn’t take the news well either, and we will do what we can with the resources we have.’ The doctor shook his head. ‘I wanted to be the one to tell you.’
Tony’s mouth was dry. He pursed his lips tightly to stop them quivering, and looked down. He took in a rushed breath. This couldn’t be it, couldn’t be the end. ‘Now you’ve told me,’ he said, and his eyes lifted to meet with Doctor Ngaye’s, ‘Who’s going to tell Danny? And his mum?’
‘I’ll talk to them if you want me to.’
Tony shook his head. ‘How? How are you going to tell Danny? What can you say to him? We’re sorry but we’re going to have to let you die? This is crazy.’
The doctor leant back into his chair, and the leather creaked a little. ‘You have the contact at the pharmaceutical company. I spoke to them briefly before speaking to you, so they are aware of the situation. The drugs were already heavily discounted for the NHS.’ The doctor expelled air in a sigh. ‘They said to me that they will continue to discount the treatment directly to you, and they will contact you to tell you how to make that possible. If you can secure the drugs for Daniel we can continue to manage him here.’
‘Three thousand pounds a month?’
‘Yes.’
‘Or my son wastes away to nothing.’
‘There are websites. You can set up these JustGiving pages, spread the word on social media. People are very generous with—’
‘You want me to beg month on month for my son’s life?’ Tony lifted his hands, clenched in fists, and brought them back down onto the table. He found his feet and the leather chair slid backwards. He was a big man. Previously he’d trained his body hard, using the regimen of a powerlifter, but he’d used it to wrestle, and at a good level. Then Daniel had come along, with his health problems, and there hadn’t been so much time, but he was still muscular, with broad shoulders.
‘It’s not like begging,’ offered the doctor, his voice soft.
Tony’s anger started to ebb, replaced by an emotion he rarely experienced — fear. ‘People will help, I’m sure, but for how long? He’s seven now. A few years maybe, but then he’s a teenager and then a man. He’ll not be a poor little boy anymore, and people won’t want to know. There’ll be an earthquake or a tsunami somewhere and he’ll be forgotten, left to just waste away.’
‘I’m sorry. Really I am.’
‘I know that.’ Tony started pacing, talking fast, thinking out loud. ‘Three thousand a month. I can earn that if I get back to being busy, back like it was when things were good. I can make it up with Lorraine. We’ll have to sit down and have a talk, but if we get back together, under the same roof, split the bills, maybe we can do it. I’ll eat jam on toast for the rest of my life if I have to. I like jam.’
‘There you are, Tony. This is bad news, I know, but with a bit of time maybe you can come up with a plan.’
Tony put his hands to his head. Realism hit back. ‘I’m a carpenter, Doc, self-employed. I was doing three grand a month once when Lorraine was pregnant — worked every hour God sent and it damn near killed me. I took it easier when my little man was diagnosed, you know, to spend time with him. I didn’t want to miss a thing. Not when I thought I mightn’t have him long.’ Tony paused to compose himself but it was too late. He did nothing to wipe his tears away. Tears were a new thing to him.
‘What do I do now, Doc? What do I do now?’
* * *
Daniel had been outside the office playing football with a ball of scrunched-up paper. He’d roped in one of the nurses who was playfully kicking it back at him. He’d been a slow starter but his confidence was increasing all the time. Daniel was just starting to become the person he was supposed to be.
They walked to Tony’s car in silence. It was an electric blue Skoda Octavia Estate, the sporty vRS model with ‘vRS’ stitched in an angry red on the front seats. Daniel was turned towards his dad, feeling the raised lettering with his finger, like he always did. He loved this car. It was getting old now, but Tony could never get rid of it, not while Daniel was so obviously in love with the turbo whistle and the power, the suspension so hard that a pothole would have them yelping, then giggling out loud. They’d bought this car together. He had driven the car home with Daniel in the booster seat in the front, his mother making do in the back. She didn’t mind a bit. They had smiled all the way home. The car was a celebration. It was a time when everything looked like it might just be all right. They had been so desperate at the start. The doctors hadn’t held back with their worst-case scenarios and Tony had taken a few weeks to accept what he had been told. But eventually, with the new treatment, they had been able to control it, even almost forget about it at times. Four years later they were back to square one, but even worse. This time he knew the answer: three thousand pounds a month. That was what his son’s life would cost.
Tony sat up straight. There was a general election next April, just half a year away, and the politicians were starting to show their faces. An episode of Question Time was being filmed today at Canterbury University, five miles away, tops. He’d heard it on local radio this morning. He thought he’d heard that it was a big deal, senior politicians, people who could reverse the decision maybe. If he could just get to talk to them.
‘Are you okay, Dad?’ Daniel looked concerned but his face softened with a smile as his dad turned to face him.
‘Yeah, fine, son.’
‘Can we go to McDonald’s before you drop me back at Mum’s? I think she’s cooking shepherd’s pie tonight,’ Daniel said, checking around him before continuing in a whisper, ‘And she doesn’t make the best shepherd’s pie.’
&
nbsp; On any other day, Tony would have laughed with his son. Today, he managed a tense half smile.
‘We need to go and see someone quickly, then we’ll think about food,’ he said. He reached down and switched the radio on, turning the volume up loud enough so Daniel wouldn’t try to make any conversation.
They drove to Canterbury University in silence. The car park was full, Tony couldn’t see any actual spaces. He opted to bump the Skoda up onto a small grassy verge close to the front of the building. He was watched by two stocky men standing on the steps up to the entrance.
Tony hadn’t been thinking straight. He hadn’t reckoned on security staff. The first man wore an expression that told Tony he wasn’t getting past.
‘Sir?’
The other man stepped in closer too. They were cut from the same block. They wore the same uniform and the same defiant, if slightly bored, expression.
‘I need to get in. I need to speak to the politicians about my son. He’s seven and without their help he’s going to die.’
Tony flicked a glance back at Daniel. He had left him in the car and he had already moved to the driver’s seat and was pretending to steer. Tony screwed his face a little and rubbed at his forehead with frustration. It was such a long story. He wanted the men to understand, then they might help. But that wasn’t going to be possible. He saw the two men exchange glances.
‘Sir, the minister is currently committed to a debate. Following that, he will be leaving and is on a tight schedule. There are proper channels if you want to make contact with him and we can—’
‘The minister in there might be my only hope. Please, he can save my son’s life. And he might . . . you just need to let me talk to him!’
‘Sir, I’m sorry but—’
The steps to the glass doors of the entrance were so close Tony could almost reach them with his foot. He made a rush for the gap between the two men, but they closed it quickly. The man who had been doing the talking took hold of Tony by his left forearm and bent it up behind his back in a neat move that took Tony off balance and bent him forward, so he was staring wide-eyed at the ground. Tony was beyond pain. The frustration, the injustice, the desperation reared up inside him. He planted his feet and snapped his head upwards. The doorman was caught a little by surprise and was forced to take a step away, releasing his hold, and Tony saw another opportunity.
BLOOD MONEY a gripping crime thriller full of twists Page 1