THE DCI BLIZZARD MURDER MYSTERIES: Books 1 to 3

by John Dean

  ‘We know all this,’ said Blizzard. ‘I’m not sure why you had to come down here to tell us.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s not all. See, I did some checking and it seems that Terry Roberts was a known associate of your friend Eddie Gayle.’

  ‘Ok, Chris,’ said the inspector, eyes gleaming. ‘You’ve got my undivided attention. How does Gayle fit into this?’

  ‘Well, you know that the rumour is that he part-owns that scrap yard down Elvington Street?’

  ‘Only to fence knock-off stuff. That’s why he never goes near the place, in case we catch him at it. His name does not even appear on the company records.’

  ‘Which is exactly the point. See, if Gayle and his cronies are selling things like lead, copper pipework, cabling from railway sidings, through the yard, is it not possible that Roberts and his mates were supplying it?’ Ramsey held up the second folder. ‘And to make it even more interesting, that is exactly the kind of thing that Billy Guthrie used to do when he was in Hafton.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. It turns out that Guthrie appeared in court eighteen months before he vanished. Two churches and a pub in Burniston and a railway yard in Hafton – over on the east side. Daft really because he’d worked at the yard. He was fired after his arrest.’

  ‘At least someone gave evidence against him,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘He got unlucky, a passing bobby spotted him.’ Ramsey waited for a nurse to walk past. ‘Anyway, I was wondering if maybe Guthrie was still into his old racket and had come back to Hafton because of it. What do you think?’

  ‘I think that’s excellent work, Chris.’ Blizzard patted him on the shoulder. ‘Not least because it also links Guthrie to The Spur. No need for purple dinosaurs after all.’

  ‘Purple dinosaurs?’ said Ramsey in bemusement.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ replied Colley. ‘Look, I hate to piss on your bonfire, Chris, but why would Guthrie come back for a bit of lead off the railway museum roof?’

  ‘Maybe he was after the governor’s train.’

  ‘I keep telling you,’ said Blizzard, walking back out into the busy corridor, ‘she’s a locomotive. They only become trains when they are hooked up to rolling stock.’

  ‘Yes, well whatever you want to call it,’ said Ramsey as the officers headed for the front entrance. ‘Maybe that’s what Roberts and his mate were doing on the roof. Casing her out. She’s worth a lot of money one way or the other.’

  ‘But how on earth would they get it out of the building?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘I don’t reckon they were trying to nick her, guv.’

  ‘Yeah, they’d never get it in the bag,’ nodded Colley sagely.

  ‘If we could be serious for a moment,’ said Ramsey. ‘The Silver Flyer has got lots of valuable metal on her. She’d make for good scrap.’

  ‘Scrap!’ exclaimed the inspector in horror.

  ‘It’s just a thought. Maybe they were up there casing the place out and planned to come back later.’

  ‘Well, right or not,’ said Blizzard as they emerged out into the afternoon sunshine, ‘when you put it all together it means that we have a good excuse to play nice on The Spur.’

  As the detectives watched him striding away across the car park, Ramsey looked at Colley and shook his head.

  ‘I sometimes think that guy has got a death wish,’ he said. ‘He knows what the Chief said yet here he is talking about going onto The Spur, all guns blazing. It’s crazy.’

  ‘It is but, admit it, Chris, don’t you just love working with the guy?’

  Ramsey watched the sergeant follow his boss across the car park and gave a half-laugh, almost of surprise.

  ‘Damn me if you’re not right,’ he said.

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Blizzard and Colley were on their way through the light late afternoon traffic back to the police station.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the inspector as he negotiated his way round a stationary bus.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For wrecking another evening in with Jay and the baby. It’s looking like it could be another late one. If I could find a way round…’

  ‘Don’t worry. Jay knows how the job works.’

  ‘I know, but these are precious times, David.’

  The sergeant looked at him with surprise.

  ‘Is it possible,’ he said, ‘that John Blizzard might just be going soft in his old age?’

  ‘If you say that when we get back, I will have to kill you. Oh, and less of the old, thank you.’

  Before Colley could reply, a voice crackled over the radio.

  ‘Control to DCI Blizzard,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Message from DS Tulley. The boxing club in Railway Street has opened – he wondered if you wanted to be there?’

  ‘Tell him we’re on our way,’ said the inspector.

  Chapter ten

  Blizzard pulled the car into a back street a short distance from the city centre. As the detectives got out, the inspector glanced around him. Railway Street stood in what had once been a commercial area full of offices constructed by the city’s railway company. When the company ceased to operate in the 1920s, the offices had been taken over by other businesses but Hafton’s prolonged post-war economic decline had taken its toll and most of the terraced buildings now stood derelict, their windows boarded up, the doors defaced with obscene graffiti and roofs with gaping holes where the tiles had come off. There was a faint smell of smoke in the air and Blizzard noticed that one of the houses had recently been burned out, its scorched rafters gaunt and skeletal in the late afternoon sunshine.

  ‘This place was once the commercial heartbeat of the city,’ said the inspector as they started to walk across the street. ‘See that building on the corner, the one with the green door? That is where Archibald Galsworthy founded the Hafton Railway Company in 1848.’

  ‘I heard they were going to demolish the whole lot,’ said Colley, trying not to look bored. ‘I read in the paper that they fancy a bowling alley here.’

  ‘No respect for history,’ snorted Blizzard.

  ‘I dunno, it sounded quite good. Quite fancied taking Laura when she’s big enough.’

  Blizzard said nothing and together they walked down the street towards Tulley, who had been leaning against a lamp-post and watching their conversation with a wry smile. Colley arrived ahead of the inspector and Tulley winked at his colleague.

  ‘You been getting the history lesson then, Dave?’ he said.

  The sergeant nodded bleakly.

  ‘Hey, you’ll like this, guv,’ said Tulley in a louder voice, gesturing to a door bearing the words Hafton Railway Boxing Club. ‘Apparently, the club was set up by the railway company in 1910. There’s a plaque on the wall over there.’

  ‘There is indeed. This place would have been started when Archibald Galsworthy’s grandson was running the company. He was a great sportsman, you know. In fact, I seem to recall that he was a keen boxer. Anyway, is Lawrie Gaines in there?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Roly Turner is, mind.’

  ‘How come we have not been able to find him this weekend?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘He’s been away for a couple of days.’

  ‘Where’s he been?’

  ‘Nothing sinister about it, as far as I can see. There’s a poster on one of the windows about a tournament in Scotland. I reckon that’s where they’ve been.’

  Blizzard led the way through the door and into a large, if somewhat shabby, gymnasium, with plaster peeling off the walls and several light bulbs having failed, giving the room a dim appearance with shadows in the corners. Half a dozen teenagers were going through their exercises in a corner, a couple of young men were working at a punchbag and in the ring a couple of fighters in their late twenties were sparring, watched intently by a wiry, white-haired man in his early seventies. He turned to watch their arrival calmly.

  ‘The lads said you were hanging around,’ said Turner. ‘Reckoned you were Plod. Can I h
elp you?’

  ‘DCI Blizzard,’ said the detective, flashing his card. ‘I am leading the inquiry into the murder of Billy Guthrie.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard he was dead.’

  ‘How come you know if you have been away?’

  ‘It was on one of the radio bulletins. Besides, doesn’t take long for news like that to do the rounds.’ Turner glanced at the payphone hanging on the wall. ‘We’ve had half a dozen calls already.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘Folks who knew him. Not that I imagine many people will mourn his passing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was a psycho.’

  ‘A psycho you trained,’ said Colley. ‘Why do that if you knew what he was like? And why let him loose on a kid like Archie Gaines, for God’s sake?’

  Turner rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

  ‘Money,’ he said then looked over at the boxers, who had stopped sparring and were listening to the conversation. ‘Get back to work!’

  They started fighting again.

  ‘Why do you want to talk to me anyway?’ asked Turner.

  ‘Because you were in Guthrie’s corner the night Archie was injured,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ said Turner but they noticed that a more cautious look had come into his eyes. ‘Surely what happened to the poor lad has nothing to do with the murder of Guthrie. I mean, it was years ago.’

  ‘Actually, we really want to talk to his brother,’ said Blizzard. ‘Thought you might know where we can find him.’

  ‘Ain’t seen Lawrie for ages. Don’t look like that, Mr Blizzard, it’s the God’s honest truth. He ain’t really much of a friend.’

  ‘But that’s not true, is it?’ said Tulley, who had wandered across to a noticeboard where he was examining a series of photographs.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The sergeant pointed to a recent picture of Turner and a burly shaven-headed man, arms round each other in what looked like a civic function in a hotel dining room.

  ‘You seem to be pretty friendly here,’ said Tulley, peering closely at the caption. ‘When was this taken? Looks pretty recent to me.’

  ‘OK,’ said Turner, ‘so I do see Lawrie from time to time. That was the Eastern Counties boxing awards night in Grimsby a few months back.’

  ‘So why lie about it?’ asked Blizzard, fixing him with a steely look.

  ‘You know what it’s like – didn’t want to get myself involved in anything. Never been a great fan of the police.’

  ‘Another one,’ murmured Blizzard.

  ‘Anyway, so me and Lawrie are friends, there’s nowt strange in that.’

  ‘Nothing strange?’ asked Colley in astonishment. ‘After what your fighter did to his brother? For God’s sake, Roly, because of Billy Guthrie, that young lad had no chance, no life! How would you feel if he was your bloody son?’

  The other detectives glanced at the sergeant in surprise: such emotional outbursts, once unusual for David Colley, had occurred several times in recent weeks. Turner also looked taken aback by the vehemence of the comments and nodded, his expression suggesting a tone of respect that had not been there before.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I can understand how you think that. Anyone who’s not part of the fight game would struggle to understand it. But Lawrie knew how the game worked, and so did his brother. Anyway, even if Guthrie had not disappeared, I would have dropped him. I’d seen enough. The man was a loose cannon and felt really bad about what happened to the kid.’

  The detectives watched him for a few moments: there was something in his tone of voice that suggested he was telling the truth.

  ‘Anyway,’ asked Turner, ‘why do you want Lawrie? He’d not see Guthrie for years. No one had.’

  ‘Well someone saw him because he’s lying in our morgue,’ said Blizzard. ‘I assume you know that Archie Gaines died three weeks ago?’

  ‘I heard,’ said Turner. ‘Very sad indeed. He was a nice kid.’

  ‘We need make sure that Lawrie did not take out his grief on Billy Guthrie. Maybe he heard that Guthrie was coming back to town, decided to settle things once and for all?’

  ‘Lawrie’s not like that.’

  Noticing that the room had fallen silent and that all the fighters were now listening to the conversation, the coach nodded to a door.

  ‘Can we talk in the office?’ he said, then turned to the boxers. ‘You lot – get back to work, like I said!’

  ‘If you don’t mind, guv,’ said Tulley. ‘I’ll have a word with the lads out here. Maybe some of them know something.’

  Blizzard nodded and they followed Roly Turner into the cluttered little office where he made them tea in cracked mugs then sat down behind the desk. He noticed the detectives studying the pictures on the office wall, images of young men clutching trophies.

  ‘Despite what you may think, we do a lot of good, you know,’ said Turner, looking at Colley. ‘Without us, some of these lads would have ended up in prison.’

  ‘And Archie?’ said Blizzard. He gestured to the pictures with his mug. ‘Was he like that? Could he have gone bad?’

  ‘Na. He was different. If Guthrie hadn’t… well. If he hadn’t – Archie could have gone all the way. Such quick hands. That’s him in the picture at the end. Next to his brother.’

  The detectives looked at the image of a young boxer standing in a ring and holding aloft a trophy as he was surrounded by an excited throng, including a track-suited Lawrie Gaines. Archie, a willowy, pale man with short, fair hair, eyes ice blue, his face spotted with freckles and a mouth that seemed to be about to break into a smile, somehow exuded a sense of vulnerability. Turner noticed the officers’ looks.

  ‘Nothing to look at, was he?’ said the coach. ‘But I tell you, his appearance was as misleading as they came. By God, could he fight. Reminded me of a young Sugar Ray Leonard. Always dancing round the ring then bang, bang!’ Turner flicked out his fists. ‘Lightning quick, he were.’

  ‘So, did you coach Archie as well?’ asked Colley.

  ‘Just for a few months when he were a kid before I started to concentrate more and more on Billy Guthrie. I know what Guthrie did was unforgivable but in his day he was a brilliant boxer, he really was.’ He shook his head. ‘What a waste.’

  ‘And Lawrie?’ asked Colley, walking over to examine the picture. ‘Did he fight?’

  ‘Not in the ring.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that the only fights he got into were ones to protect his kid brother.’

  ‘Did he need to?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Archie was a terrific fighter but away from the ring he was meek as anything. Trouble was, some folks fancied their chances against him so Lawrie did the big brother thing. Archie could fight but Lawrie could scrap. There’s a difference.’

  The detectives exchanged glances.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Turner. ‘But that was all years ago. Lawrie was a real hothead then but he’s calmed down a lot now. What happened to Archie hit him hard. After it happened, it looked like Archie might not be too bad then he had some kind of stroke or something a few weeks later. That were the end. Changed Lawrie. Changed us all. I know it sounds kind of corny but I think we came to appreciate life a bit more. As far as I know, Lawrie never got into any more scraps. He felt terribly guilty about it.’

  ‘Guilty?’

  ‘Think about it,’ said Turner. ‘There’s Lawrie doing the big brother thing, defending the kid, taking the punches, but where is he when the kid gets mashed up? Standing on the sidelines. Powerless. That never left him. Never left any of us.’

  Silence settled on the room. Turner had changed. The unwelcoming front had gone to be replaced by a somehow gentler man, a man who they sensed was struggling with strong emotions. After a few moments, Turner continued talking in a low voice.

  ‘There ain’t a day when I do not relive what happened to that poor kid. He was nothing more than a vegeta
ble at the end, needed everything doing for him. I sometimes used to drive Lawrie over to Nottingham to see him at the home. The home was brilliant, don’t get me wrong, them nurses were proper angels, but it was pitiful. Lawrie and Archie would sit there for hours, neither of them saying owt, then we’d come back and Lawrie would be in tears in the car. One time he said it would have been better if the kid had died in that ring.’

  ‘And now he has died,’ said Blizzard softly.

  Turner nodded.

  ‘Virus or something,’ he said. ‘You should have seen the funeral. Grown men crying. Big brutes of men with tears pouring down their cheeks. Never seen anything like it. That was the last time I saw Lawrie. He was distraught. I was pretty upset myself. We all were. Kid was only thirty-one. Such a waste. Fastest hands I ever saw.’

  Was it their imagination or did the officers notice a tear glistening in his eyes?

  ‘Exactly what happened that night at the Victoria Hall?’ asked Blizzard.

  It took three men to carry the lifeless body of Archie Gaines into the dressing room, the young man’s head lolling to one side, his eyes having rolled into the top of his head. Frantically, the doctor tried to revive him, watched by a group of concerned officials. Lawrie Gaines burst into the room, the tears starting in his eyes as he watched the desperate battle to revive his kid brother. Gaines turned furiously to Roly Turner.

  ‘How the hell could you let this happen?’ he demanded. ‘Why didn’t you stop him? Throw in the towel?’

  ‘It wasn’t meant to happen,’ said Turner, almost as if he could not believe what he was witnessing. ‘Honest, Lawrie, it wasn’t meant to happen.’

  The door opened and in walked a squat man in a sharp black suit. Two burly men minders followed him in and all three stood watching the doctor at work.

  ‘Where’s Guthrie?’ asked the little man, his voice hard-edged.

  Turner shrugged.