THE DCI BLIZZARD MURDER MYSTERIES: Books 1 to 3

by John Dean

  Reaching the main road, the driver took a risk and sent his truck lurching into the stream of traffic. Not caring that he had forced other motorists to brake, the driver pushed his pedal to the floor and the lorry juddered and started to gather pace. Ray Heskey was later to tell police that he glanced down and started fiddling with the heater on his dashboard and failed to notice that the car in front of him had slowed to let Janice Garbutt and Emily cross. When he looked up and saw the car’s brake-lights, it was too late and the truck was upon the slowing vehicle in a moment. The lorry driver slammed on his own brakes but it was too late and he lost control of his vehicle. The truck veered to its left, clipped the school crossing sign then collided with a garden wall. With the driver battling desperately to regain control, the lorry bounced back onto the carriageway, slammed into a car and ended up embedded in a wall on the other side. When the shaken lorry driver climbed out of his cab, it was to see Emily Garbutt lying motionless in the middle of the road, her sobbing mother cradling her bloodied head.

  ‘I was just behind when it happened,’ said Georgia quietly, tears starting to run down her cheeks. ‘I ran over to help but the poor little thing had already gone.’

  She looked at the chief inspector, who, starting as if shaken awake, nodded and reached for his tea, surprised to discover that it had grown lukewarm during the telling of her story. Time, it seemed, had run on apace without him.

  ‘There’s something else I want to ask you about,’ he said. ‘There’s a note in the file that seems to suggest that Janice believes someone else was driving that truck.’

  ‘I am sure there is.’

  ‘I take it you know who she thinks killed her daughter?’

  ‘What comes around goes around,’ she said. ‘We all have to die sometime.’

  ‘Indeed we do, Georgia,’ said Blizzard. ‘Indeed we do.’

  * * *

  That afternoon found Blizzard and Colley at Hafton Cemetery once more. It took a lot to disturb the sergeant but as he and Blizzard stood at the grave of Emily Garbutt, coat collars turned up against the flecks of snow that had started to fall, David Colley’s thoughts were in turmoil. The eight-year-old had been buried in a dark corner of the cemetery on the other side from the Galston grave and, as the officers stood silently surveying the picture of a smiling curly-haired child on the gravestone above the words Safe in the arms of the angels, the sergeant felt tears welling up. It was the thought of another dead child that had done it. He knew that with children, all the rules changed, that suddenly it became personal for officers working on cases, experiencing as they did a strong sensation that something this terrible should not happen to one so young and innocent. However, on previous cases he had managed to suppress those thoughts with relative ease: the revelation that Jay was pregnant had changed everything for the sergeant. Inevitably, his thoughts turned to the little one yet to be born.

  Like Blizzard, the sergeant had vague memories of the tragedy that had befallen Emily Garbutt. Colley had been able to track down the traffic officer that dealt with the case. Recently retired, Charlie Rankin told the sergeant that it was one of the investigations that always rankled with him. Ray Heskey had been charged with careless driving and fined £600, the traffic officer’s pleas for a tougher charge rejected by the prosecuting lawyer. Rankin told Colley that, in his opinion, the incident warranted a jail sentence and Colley had agreed. Now, staring at the flecks of snow beginning to settle on the gravestone, the sergeant could not banish the mental image of Emily Garbutt’s crumpled body from his mind.

  ‘Penny for them?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘You’ll need more than that.’

  ‘Is there something you want to tell me, David?’

  Colley shook his head.

  ‘When you’re ready, then,’ said Blizzard. ‘Are you sure mum will be here? On a day like this.’

  ‘Neighbour reckons she never misses.’

  ‘So, what’s your view on this? Was Danny Galston driving the truck?’

  ‘Charlie Rankin reckons it’s a load of cobblers. I’m tempted to go with his judgement on it.’

  ‘Not sure it matters if Galston was driving or not, does it? As long as Janice Garbutt believes he killed her daughter, it gives her a very strong motive to kill him.’

  ‘Maybe, but like you say, there are plenty of others with strong motives as well. Half the hauliers in this city, for a start, and we should not dismiss Wendy’s gun-runners. And Brian Graham seemed pretty angry at the way Danny treated his wife when she was ill.’

  The officers stood and stared at the gravestone once again. Neither spoke for a minute or two until Blizzard turned to his colleague.

  ‘So how come Charlie Rankin never mentioned about Danny being the driver?’ asked the chief inspector.

  ‘Says he told Harry Roberts.’

  ‘Harry never mentioned it.’

  ‘They both agreed it was rubbish. Filed it away in the NFA drawer.’

  ‘Well it’s just come out,’ said Blizzard.

  Looking round, he saw a middle-aged woman approaching. They both recognised her from the headscarf, which they had seen during the protest the previous morning. She momentarily stopped in her tracks when she saw them standing by her daughter’s grave but did not seem surprised.

  ‘I wondered when you would come,’ she said, walking towards them.

  ‘Mrs Garbutt,’ said Blizzard. ‘I think it is time that we had a little chat, don’t you?’

  He nodded to Colley, who allowed her to place flowers on the grave then led her gently away. Blizzard watched them for a moment or two then looked around, half-expecting to see the strange little girl amid the gravestones, but there was no one there and the cemetery was deserted.

  * * *

  As the detectives were leaving with their charge, Cara Galston was standing outside their intended destination, Abbey Road Police Station. She took a deep breath and walked up the path, acutely conscious of the thumping of her heart. The news that Barry Lawson had been found floating in the canal had shaken her to the core and she had suddenly found herself overwhelmed with a desire to see the chief inspector immediately. With her plan unravelling around her, and a strong sense that she was in danger, Cara instinctively knew that Blizzard was the only man who could help her carry months of planning to fruition.

  She knew further delays could be costly. Barry Lawson’s death had come as a terrible shock. No one was supposed to die in the scenario that Cara had rehearsed for several weeks yet now Danny was dead and Lawson was lying on a mortuary slab. Cara had only met Lawson once when he came to their home to see Danny some years previously, the two men disappearing into the kitchen to hold a hurried conversation behind the closed door. Cara had strained to make out the words but remained none the wiser about what brought Lawson to her home. What she did know was that when the two men emerged some minutes later, it was to glance at her with strangely guilty expressions. It was only recently, when Danny told her everything in a drunken moment, that she had been able to fit the pieces of the jigsaw into place.

  Hesitating at the police station door, Cara wondered if she was doing the right thing. It had all sounded so easy when she played it through in her mind but now that the moment had come, she was crushed by a sense of import, that things would never be the same once she talked to John Blizzard. Taking another deep breath, she pushed open the door. Cara knew the time had come to tell police and, her mind made up, she walked into the reception area.

  ‘Can I help you, madam?’ said the duty officer, looking at her bruised cheek and bandaged hand.

  ‘I would like to see Detective Chief Inspector John Blizzard.’

  ‘I am afraid he is not available. Can I take a message?’

  ‘No.’

  She turned to go. Cara was determined that she would only tell Blizzard about her secret. Danny may not have trusted him but there was something about the way Blizzard had looked at her when the detectives told her Danny was dead that convinced her he kne
w more than he was prepared to let on. Cara hesitated, uncertain as to what to do.

  ‘Can I take a message for Mr Blizzard?’ asked the desk sergeant.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Are you in trouble, ma’am? Can I be of assistance?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, if you have been assaulted, I can have a female officer talk to you. You look as if you have been the victim of a severe beating there.’

  ‘No, it’s alright. I just walked into a door.’

  ‘I’ve seen those kind of doors before, ma’am. They tend to do it again if you’re not careful. Please, if you would just let me help you, perhaps we can…’

  ‘No,’ said Cara again, more firmly this time.

  She walked hurriedly out of the police station, watched by the officer. He was trying to remember where he had seen her before.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Cara Galston was back home, standing looking out of her kitchen window as the rain swept across the garden, spattering on the pond and creating little puddles down by the vegetable patch. As she looked round at her shattered kitchen, her eyes filled with tears and her body was wracked by the sobs that had come so easily over recent days. Amazing as it might have felt to her at one point, she missed Danny, missed the way she felt safe when he was around. He might have had his failings – the anger was with him always – but he was always apologetic after he struck her, always contrite, always in tears.

  Cara knew why he lashed out and why he cried. Danny Galston had lived in fear of losing another loved one and each time he struck her, he was gripped by a terror that she would walk out and he would be left alone once more. The couple had never talked about the events of 15 years before, but she had known that the loss of his young family played on his mind more and more with each passing day, bringing with it a deepening sense of guilt at all that had happened. It had made Danny even more determined to protect her. Caring for her was a way of keeping the depression at bay. It was rather sweet, she had always thought.

  Then, of course, when she discovered the truth, it all changed. She had listened in mounting horror as it all poured out of his mouth, making terrible sense of his life. Even Cara, a woman who always looked out for number one, had felt revulsion at what she was hearing. However, once she had recovered from her initial shock, her mind began to work out ways in which Danny’s misdemeanours might be made to work to her advantage. Lenny Rowles had wrecked all that and, as Cara continued to stare across the window, she instinctively raised a hand to her gashed face. Danny had deserved to die, of that she had no doubt, felt no guilt at believing it, but suddenly, without him, Cara Galston felt more alone than she had ever been in her life.

  Chapter twenty-two

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Janice Garbutt, eying the detectives calmly, ‘but I have not done anything wrong.’

  ‘We never said you had,’ replied Blizzard.

  It was late afternoon and she was sitting in the interview room at Abbey Road Police Station, the chief inspector and Colley at the other side of the table. Ever since being apprehended, Janice had exhibited little concern about the predicament in which she found herself. Closer inspection of her without the headscarf had revealed a once-handsome woman whose straggly greying hair and lined face told the story of the difficult years she had experienced since the death of her daughter. But the most striking feature was her ice-blue eyes, which now surveyed the detectives keenly, as if she was challenging the detectives to confront her with their suspicions. Here was a woman not disturbed by the situation in which she found herself.

  ‘I would not be here if you did not believe me guilty of something, Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘I imagine you think I killed Danny Galston.’

  ‘The thought had crossed our minds. You had more reason than most to hate him.’

  ‘Maybe so, but I did not kill him.’

  ‘His family’s gravestone had paint thrown over it,’ said Colley. ‘I suppose you are going to tell us that that is nothing to do with you either, Mrs Garbutt?’

  ‘Oh, no, I did that, Sergeant. Mea culpa. I did them all.’

  The admission, and the casual nature in which it was delivered, stunned the detectives. In the car on the way to the police station, she had maintained a strange calm and the detectives had prepared themselves for a verbal fencing match requiring all their interviewing skills. Her demeanour had led them increasingly to believe that they were dealing with a woman who was hiding secrets and this new turn of events took them aback.

  ‘Would you care to tell us why you attacked the gravestone?’ asked Blizzard. ‘To many people, there are few more abhorrent crimes than desecrating the memories of the dead.’

  ‘It seemed the only thing left to do. Revenge, Chief Inspector. Revenge.’

  ‘I think you had better explain exactly what has been happening.’

  ‘My doctor said that after Emily died, I suffered a nervous breakdown,’ began Janice, her voice exhibiting the first break in her composure, ‘I just sat around the house, doing nothing, thinking nothing, being nothing. I would not even go into Emily’s room. Could not bear to see her things. Gradually, though, I began to pull myself together and started to think more rationally about what happened on the day of the accident.’

  ‘I think you believe that Ray Heskey was not driving the lorry?’ said Colley.

  ‘It took a long time for the idea to form but now I believe that the driver was Danny Galston. According to my doctor, my mind blotted out the events of that day but gradually, over time, they started to come back.’

  She paused as the memories of that terrible morning crowded in on her once more; despite her calm exterior, tears were never far away with Janice Garbutt.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘as the lorry came towards us, I had a momentary glimpse of the cab. Just for a fraction of a second but it was enough. There were definitely two men inside it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Blizzard. ‘I mean, there was a lot happening and my experience of eyewitnesses is that they tend…’

  ‘I remember every single second of what happened. It is like a film that runs time and time again. I wish I could stop it but I can’t. After the lorry struck Emily, I have this vivid recollection that the second man jumped out of the cab and ran back towards the industrial estate.’

  ‘Yes, but he could have been the passenger. Ray Heskey could still have been the driver.’

  ‘That’s what your PC Rankin said, Chief Inspector. However, there is no doubt in my mind that the man jumped out of the driver’s side. I accept that by the time the police arrived, Ray Heskey was the only one in the lorry, but I believe he was told to stay there and take the consequences of the other man’s actions.’

  ‘But…’ began Blizzard.

  ‘And Ray Heskey was in no position to resist because he had run up considerable debts on the horses. All Galston had to do was threaten to sack him and he would have done anything.’

  ‘But surely the company had several drivers,’ said Colley. ‘Perhaps it was one of the others?’

  ‘They had eight at the time but one of them was off on long-term leave with a back injury and the rest were out on deliveries elsewhere.’

  ‘So why are you so convinced that it was Danny Galston?’

  ‘Because whoever it was had the power to order Ray Heskey to remain in the cab. Only two people could do that – Danny Galston and Ralph Cargill.’

  ‘So why not Ralph?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘He was bringing a load back from Germany. Danny was the only one left.’

  ‘You seem to have done a lot of research,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘I have and I am right.’

  ‘But PC Rankin checked all of this out,’ said Colley. ‘There was nothing at all to support what you are saying. Not a shred of evidence.’

  ‘Danny Galston was guilty of killing Emily. Of that I am in no doubt and as far your PC Rankin is concerned, I would not e
xactly say he conducted a thorough investigation. He’d made his mind up right from the start. Danny realised that I knew what he had done. Whenever I saw him in the street in the years that followed, he always averted his gaze.’

  ‘But why throw the paint over the Galston family’s gravestone?’ asked Blizzard. ‘I mean, this all happened 15 years ago.’

  ‘And you think the pain dims?’

  ‘No. No, of course not, but why not do it when you decided that Danny had killed your daughter. Why wait?’

  ‘I did it because of what happened a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Because of my legal action against CG Haulage.’

  ‘Which is why you know so much about the company, presumably,’ said Colley.

  ‘Indeed so. You see, about five years ago, when I realised what Danny had done and the way the company had covered things up, I consulted a lawyer. As time went on, I had become more and more angry about what happened and I wanted to secure justice for Emily.’

  ‘And money for yourself,’ said the chief inspector.

  ‘I appreciate that your job is to see the worst in everybody but please believe me when I say money was not what motivated me. If you ask my lawyer, she will tell you that I had already committed in writing to donate all the compensation to St Margaret’s Children’s Hospice, in Burniston. Emily would have appreciated that, I think. Her father died there. It seemed somehow appropriate.’

  Blizzard nodded without realising he had done it. Harry Roberts had died in the same hospice and the chief inspector himself had made several donations down the years. Despite his suspicion about Janice Garbutt, he felt his attitude towards her softening slightly.