THE DCI BLIZZARD MURDER MYSTERIES: Books 1 to 3

by John Dean

  ‘What do you think, David?’ asked Blizzard, glancing over to his sergeant, who had resumed his vigil at the window.

  ‘At the moment,’ said the sergeant, ‘I’d believe anything of her.’

  There was another roll of thunder, much closer now, and the first drops of rain flecked against the glass, gently at first but within seconds driving much harder. A uniformed officer walked into the room, holding a copy of the evening newspaper.

  ‘I think you’d better see this, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Have we run out of toilet roll?’ asked Blizzard.

  Colley and Ross exchanged amused glances: the inspector’s disdain for the media was legendary. Dealing with journalists had always been the part of the job he liked least.

  ‘I think you will want to see it,’ said the uniformed constable. ‘Spotted it when I was looking for an in-memoriam for my mother.’

  Blizzard took the paper and saw that it was open at the deaths page. His attention was immediately drawn to an entry half-way down the third column and his eyes widened in astonishment.

  ‘What does it say?’ asked Colley.

  ‘Guthrie,’ read Blizzard. ‘William James. Died August 30, 2017.’

  ‘But he was only found three hours ago!’ exclaimed Ross. ‘There’s no way they would have had time to get it in that quick, surely.’

  ‘Unless whoever placed the ad knew what was going to happen.’

  ‘Have you read the rest, sir?’ asked the uniformed officer.

  ‘Gone and now he can be forgotten,’ said Blizzard. ‘Rest in pieces, Billy.’

  ‘A misprint?’ asked Ross, looking over the inspector’s shoulder. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’

  ‘Somehow,’ said Blizzard, ‘I think not.’

  ‘Oh, before I forget,’ said the uniformed constable. ‘The super’s looking for you.’

  ‘On a Saturday?’ asked Blizzard, getting to his feet. ‘Now why do I think that can only be something bad?’

  Chapter six

  The storm having blown over, Blizzard and Detective Superintendent Arthur Ronald sat in the latter’s office, the sunshine streaming in through the window and bathing the room in a golden light. For a few moments, neither men spoke amid the easy silence as they sipped at their mugs of tea. Ronald, a balding, slightly portly man, had long been Blizzard’s closest friend in the job. Their relationship went back to days spent working together as rookie detective constables, learning the trade on the housing estates of Hafton. After that, the men’s careers had taken different paths. Blizzard remained in CID but Ronald went back into uniform, his consummate people skills ensuring that he rose rapidly through the ranks.

  The friends were reunited at Abbey Road when Ronald assumed command of CID in half of the constabulary’s area and immediately demanded that Blizzard be moved from the drugs squad and promoted to Detective Chief Inspector for the Western Division. It was a controversial suggestion because Blizzard’s ability for ruffling feathers in the corridors of power had made him plenty of enemies at headquarters. However, the results had spoken for themselves: in the years that Blizzard had run Western CID, the previously spiralling crime rate had halted then dropped and the chief constable’s beloved market research surveys had shown an increasing confidence in the police among local people. Some people said that it was the fact that kept John Blizzard in a job.

  ‘So, what brings you in on a Saturday?’ asked Blizzard, taking a sip of tea. ‘Your good lady wife threatening to take you shopping again?’

  ‘I wish it was that easy,’ said Ronald. ‘Besides, she has made it abundantly clear that the only thing she wants to accompany her on her shopping trips is my credit card.’

  ‘Surely it’s not our murder then?’

  ‘It has certainly intrigued me. I always wondered what happened to Billy Guthrie. I was in charge of Burniston when it all kicked off at the Queen’s Head, you know. Nasty business. I heard that David brought someone in. A young girl, apparently?’

  ‘Megan Rees.’

  ‘The daughter?’ said the superintendent, raising an eyebrow. ‘Can’t see that, John. Surely she’s not the type.’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘I saw at her father’s funeral. She was only a kid when he died.’

  ‘What about him? Did you know him?’

  ‘I met him a couple of times at official do’s for the Licensed Victuallers’ Association. Pie and peas.’

  ‘Ah, the glamour of high command.’

  Ronald gave him a pained looked.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Blizzard. ‘So, what was he like?’

  ‘Just a regular Joe. What happened to him was a real tragedy. But how come you’ve got his daughter in? Clutching at straws, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not when she was the one who found the body.’

  The superintendent gave a low whistle.

  ‘Difficult coincidence to explain,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, but it still doesn’t feel right,’ said Blizzard, draining his mug and placing it on the desk. ‘All too easy, Arthur.’

  ‘Sometimes they are.’

  ‘No. There’s more to this one. I can feel it – and Ross says there is no forensic evidence which links her to the attack. Besides, how could a slight young woman like that be capable of smashing the living daylights out of a man like Billy Guthrie?’

  ‘Maybe she had help.’

  ‘Or maybe she didn’t do it. Anyway, if our Mister Guthrie is not the reason for your appearance on a Saturday, might I ask what is? As if I didn’t know.’

  ‘The Spur.’

  ‘Wondered if I might get the call actually.’

  ‘I think the chief felt that your diplomatic skills would be unsuited to keeping a lid on things,’ said Ronald bleakly. ‘Given your innate capacity to pick a fight when you’re in a room on your own. Besides, you’re hardly the estate’s most popular human being.’

  ‘I hear uniform are livid about what went off. The word is that they wanted to go in mob-handed.’

  ‘The chief blocked it. I’ve just been at an emergency meeting at headquarters and it all got rather heated. Uniform are still adamant that they should be allowed to go in.’

  ‘What did the chief say to that?’

  ‘Have you ever seen a man disappear up his own jacksie?’

  ‘I take it he’s got cold feet then?’

  ‘If he has, I imagine it’s because they’re sticking out of his arse.’

  Blizzard roared with laughter; Ronald gave him a rueful look.

  ‘This is not a laughing matter,’ he said but could not disguise his pleasure at the way the joke had been received.

  ‘I take it that you reminded our beloved chief that we are here to nick villains?’

  ‘Of course, but he went into his usual spiel. Risk of major disorder, blah blah, risk assessments, blah blah, public safety considerations, blah blah. I glazed over at that point.’

  ‘Don’t blame you,’ said Blizzard, walking over to the kettle. ‘Top up?’

  ‘No thanks. Anyway, the upshot was that we cannot go in without good intelligence.’

  ‘I’m sure if we asked the lads on the estate they would let us have the block of concrete back,’ said Blizzard as he rooted round on the windowsill for the teabags. ‘In fact, coming to think of it, isn’t it embedded in one of our patrol cars?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Can you explain one thing to me?’ said Blizzard, turning with the box of teabags in the hand. ‘The chief didn’t object when we went in to The Riverbeck last month. There must have been fifty officers that night. Colley reckons the joiner’s still fixing the doors. So how come the chief’s so twitchy about The Spur?’

  ‘Kenny Jarvis.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, I was surprised as well. I didn’t realise before today but the chief was hit really hard when Kenny died. As uniform were having a go at him this afternoon, he suddenly said he did not want another dead officer on his watch. Took the wind out of everyone’s
sails, I can tell you.’

  Neither man spoke as both officers recalled the young constable stabbed and left to die in the stinking stairwell on The Spur. The chief inspector remembered the anger he had felt as he led the investigation into the murder, and the savage satisfaction he experienced when he brought a gang of three youths off the estate to justice for the killing. But he also remembered, as always when he cast his mind back to those dark days, the sense of frustration that a lot of people on the estate knew a lot of things, decent people among them, but that none of them were prepared to tell the police. The inspector recalled the way people could not wait to close their doors on his detectives as they conducted their inquiries. At the time, he had even tried to persuade Ronald that several people should be charged with obstructing the course of justice, but his plea had fallen on deaf ears.

  The inspector’s mind strayed to the dead constable’s distraught parents sitting in their living room as he tried to talk to them, the mother constantly twisting and untwisting her sodden handkerchief in her lap. And he recalled hardened officers sobbing uncontrollably at the funeral. As ever when he thought back on those days, he felt the strong emotions once again. Standing there, realising that he still had the box of teabags in his hand, the inspector noticed Ronald eying him intently.

  ‘I guess I can understand that,’ said Blizzard with a grudging nod.

  ‘Maybe you’re not as different from the chief as you like to think.’

  ‘Just because we agree on this does not mean I agree with everything else the chief says.’

  ‘God forbid,’ murmured the superintendent.

  ‘You and I have had this conversation a thousand times, Arthur,’ said Blizzard, reaching out to check how warm the kettle was. ‘We should not allow ourselves to be deflected from the right course of action just because some little toerag from The Spur…’

  ‘Which is why you are here. You and I need to concoct a little plan.’

  ‘Plan?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the superintendent, lowering his voice even though they were alone in the office. ‘One so good that not even the chief can stop us going onto that estate mob-handed.’

  ‘Surely, you are not conspiring against your own chief constable, Arthur? Man of your standing in the community, member of the Round Table and all that?’

  ‘Just make it so good that not even the chief can refuse it.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said Blizzard.

  * * *

  Steve McGarrity stood on the front steps of the Railway Hotel, in Hafton city centre, and watched as Blizzard clambered out of the taxi. McGarrity sighed: knowing his old friend as he did, he realised that it would not be long before the inspector started asking awkward questions, special occasion or not. McGarrity also knew that Blizzard would not let friendship stand in the way of his investigation into the death of Billy Guthrie. Seeing the determined way Fee Ellis and her male colleague had worked their way round the museum that afternoon, asking questions, taking statements, constantly on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary, had been enough to convince McGarrity of that.

  Now, standing and watching his friend take a tuxedo off the back seat of the taxi before paying the driver, McGarrity heard laboured breathing behind him and turned to watch the approach across the foyer of Tommy Rafferty. McGarrity knew why he was breathing so hard: a life on the railways had taken its toll on many of the old railmen, the exposure to asbestos and coal dust relentlessly destroying the lining of their lungs. Rafferty’s health had been steadily declining in recent years: it was, McGarrity had always thought, a high price to pay for a lifetime of devotion. A cruel mistress indeed, he had always felt. Always a strong union man, McGarrity had never failed to be angered by such thoughts.

  However, tonight, other considerations occupied his mind as he watched Blizzard stop at the bottom of the steps to admire the large banner strung across the front of the Victorian hotel. ‘The Railway Hotel welcomes Hafton Railway Appreciation Society,’ it said. Even though its best days were far behind it, the hotel had been an appropriate choice for the organisation’s celebration dinner: built in 1847, it was only four years younger than Tenby Street railway station and the walls of its lounge were adorned with black and white photographs of old steam locomotives.

  ‘Has he said anything?’ asked Rafferty anxiously, coming to join his friend.

  ‘Not yet, but he will. You know what he’s like.’

  ‘Perhaps he won’t,’ said Rafferty hopefully. ‘He’ll know we won’t be dragged into something like this, not on a night like this. And we are his friends.’

  ‘That is unlikely to make any difference,’ said McGarrity, adding in a low voice, ‘Perhaps we should give him something that he wants to hear instead. Take the heat off.’

  Rafferty shot him an alarmed look.

  ‘Trust me,’ said McGarrity.

  * * *

  Taking a final look at the banner, Blizzard smiled broadly. Having freshened up at Abbey Road, he had headed directly to the hotel. Deep down, he knew that his place was with his investigators but the inspector had been looking forward to this night for months. His fascination with steam had started as a young boy but its roots stretched further back than that; Blizzard’s grandfather had worked as a shedmaster in the locomotive sheds of industrial Yorkshire in the pre-war years and his father worked for a while as a train driver.

  Blizzard had never forgotten the sight of retired locomotives left to rot in railway yards as the golden age of steam came to an end, and had long since resolved to do what he could to keep their memory alive. It was while investigating a serious assault that took place on wasteland a short distance from the Railway Hotel, that he had stumbled across the Silver Flyer, rusting away in an old shed. He had contacted a number of local retired railmen and together they formed the Hafton Railway Appreciation Society – McGarrity the chairman, Blizzard the secretary and Rafferty the treasurer. After two years of fundraising, they bought the locomotive and embarked on the restoration.

  Now, Blizzard surveyed the front of the hotel; he knew that once he got up to his room at the rear of the building, he would be able to look out over the wasteland and see the shed, empty, cold and silent now as it awaited the arrival of the society’s next project. The inspector noticed his friends at the top of the steps and bounded towards them, extending a welcoming hand.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Good to see you on an occasion such as this.’

  The three men walked into the hotel where the receptionist directed them down a gloomy corridor. Blizzard paused to look at one of the pictures, a series of locomotives lined up in a large workshop at the city’s railway works. Standing next to them were rows of men with flat caps and clipped moustaches staring into the camera.

  ‘A fine sight,’ he said approvingly. ‘The city lost so much when the works closed.’

  ‘I keep telling you, it were a dirty, cold place to work,’ grunted Rafferty.

  ‘No romance,’ said Blizzard as they started walking down the corridor. ‘Hey, Tommy, some fun and games at your place last night?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Rafferty suddenly looked guarded.

  ‘You know exactly what I mean. Someone tried to kill a couple of our officers on The Spur.’

  ‘I keep out of it,’ said Rafferty, wheezing hard and already lagging behind the other two. ‘Don’t make sense to get yourself involved. Don’t want me windows smashing through.’

  ‘God knows why you still live there then.’

  ‘I’ve lived there thirty years, John,’ said Rafferty, stopping and stretching out a hand against the wall as he caught his breath. ‘No low-life is going to drive me out.’

  ‘Then help me.’

  ‘It’s bad enough that folks know that you and me are friends.’

  Rafferty’s body was suddenly racked by coughs and he bent double as he fought for breath.

  ‘That enough romance for you?’ murmured McGarrity.

  Blizzard gave him a sharp l
ook but said nothing.

  ‘I’m alright,’ said Rafferty as the coughing eased. ‘Come on.’

  They resumed their walking.

  ‘I really do need to know who dropped that concrete block on our car last night,’ said Blizzard as they arrived at the door to the room in which the meal was to be served.

  ‘Do you know how I have managed to live so many years in The Spur?’ said Rafferty, making a zipping movement across his lips. ‘I keep it shut.’

  ‘In which case, what about the death of Billy Guthrie. Surely you…?’

  ‘And what’s more,’ said Rafferty, pushing his way into the room, ‘you know better than to ask me.’

  Blizzard sighed and looked at McGarrity, who shrugged. Over the next few minutes, the room filled up until there were more than 40 men ready for their celebration meal. Blizzard, sitting at the top table alongside McGarrity and Rafferty, surveyed the gathering affectionately. As the meal wore on, though, he was assailed by a dark thought. Surveying the weather-beaten faces whose lines told a thousand tales, he could not push aside the idea that someone somewhere in their midst knew more than they were letting on about the death of Guthrie.

  Blizzard dreaded the moment when he would have to destroy the happy atmosphere: did he have the right, he asked himself, to ruin an occasion which meant so much to all of them? Thought of his officers still working, of Colley missing another bath-time, Ramsey working his ninth late night in a row, brought the inspector to a sudden decision as the waitresses left having delivered the coffee. The inspector stood up and clinked on his wine glass with a fork to attract their attention. The murmur of conversation died away and the room fell silent.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Blizzard, ‘this is indeed an occasion of which we should all be proud, and Steve has asked me to say a few words, which my sergeant, a Philistine when it comes to such matters, would no doubt describe as “sentimental shite”.’

  A ripple of laughter ran round the room.

  ‘And I promise not to use the word romance in case you resort to similar profanities about me.’

  More laughter and there were a few claps. McGarrity grinned and reached up to pat the inspector affectionately on the shoulder.