THE DCI BLIZZARD MURDER MYSTERIES: Books 1 to 3

by John Dean

  Gayle glowered at him.

  ‘Look, Eddie,’ continued the inspector. ‘I am perfectly prepared to be generous and believe that your boys went too far, that you did not mean for Guthrie to be killed. Maybe it was the same with Roly. The pathologist says he died of a heart attack. Maybe all you wanted was him roughing up and it went wrong.’

  ‘Now why would I do that?’ said Gayle innocently.

  ‘Because it’s what you do.’

  ‘This is all nothing but supposition,’ said D’Arcy dismissively. He stood up and clipped closed his briefcase. ‘Wild guesswork as usual and unless you have any firm evidence, myself and my client are leaving. And my guess is that you don’t.’

  Blizzard did not reply.

  ‘Besides,’ said Gayle, also standing up. ‘Why would I want to kill someone over twenty-five grand? It’s nothing to me, Blizzard, do you hear? Nothing.’

  ‘It sounds a lot to me, Eddie,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘Maybe it does to a plod,’ said Gayle and held out his arm to reveal a watch, ‘but this cost more than that.’

  And with that, Eddie Gayle walked out into the corridor. His mocking laughter hung in the air long after he had gone.

  * * *

  It was early evening when Megan Rees stood among the lengthening shadows in the street outside Abbey Road Police Station and stared silently at the building. She glanced down at the newspaper cutting in her hand, reading the article telling the story of Fee Ellis being commended for disarming a man with a knife. Ellis, the article said, had been described as ‘extremely courageous’ by the chief constable. Megan Rees carefully folded the newspaper cutting and returned it to her coat pocket.

  Chapter fifteen

  Dusk was falling as Blizzard sat in his office, deep in contemplation, ignoring the rapidly cooling mug of tea clasped in his hand. He glanced at the pile of reports on his desk and sighed: the team had been working hard to link Eddie Gayle with the murder of Roly Turner – to link anyone with it – but had failed so far. Blizzard picked up the top document. It was from Graham Ross: the inspector could hear the DI’s apologetic tone in every word as the report indicated that there was nothing definite to point to the killer of the boxing trainer. Blizzard flicked through the other reports. Blank, blank, blank. And yet, he sensed that they were tantalisingly close to breaking the case wide open. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. There was a light knock on the door.

  ‘You still here?’ asked Blizzard as Colley walked in.

  ‘No, I’m a hologram, the real David Colley has got a life.’

  Blizzard gave a weary smile.

  ‘Actually, I’m just off,’ said the sergeant, dragging up a chair and sitting down. ‘Not sure there’s much we can do now.’

  ‘Ramsey reckons we are not getting much further on Roly Turner?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Hargreaves?’

  ‘Waiting for some calls back but it’s certainly interesting. The whole thing has been a beggar, though – so many people had reason to see Billy Guthrie dead.’

  ‘OK,’ said Blizzard and wafted a hand at the door. ‘Go on, go home. What you and Laura watching tonight?’

  ‘Hill Street Blues,’ said Colley, getting up and heading for the door. ‘Good night, guv.’

  ‘Good night, David,’ said Blizzard.

  He was about to head for home himself when the phone on his desk rang.

  ‘Blizzard,’ he said, picking up the receiver.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ said a woman’s voice.

  ‘Wendy Talbot, how the devil are you?’ said the inspector.

  Blizzard had worked with the Detective Chief Inspector from the Regional Organised Crime Unit before and, sitting in his office now, visualised the deceptively slight woman with her short brown hair starting to grey at the temples and narrow, angular features. Blizzard knew that when it came to solving crime, there were few better. A call from Wendy Talbot offered much promise.

  ‘Still at the office then,’ said Talbot.

  ‘As are you, by the sound of it. What can I do you for?’

  ‘It seems that you and I might just have a joint interest. Saw the picture you circulated of William Guthrie. You wanted to know where he has been for the past few years.’

  ‘Certainly do,’ said Blizzard, leaning forward and reaching for a pen and notepad.

  ‘We believe that he has been living in Sheffield under the name Leonard Riley. He’s a bit of a mess in your picture but I’ve checked it with several of the team and we’re happy to say it’s him.’

  ‘A lot of people have been happy to say it’s him.’

  ‘Yeah, sounds like he’s got a pretty murky past. Anyway, to make sure, we did some discreet checking…’

  ‘You lot? Discreet? You mean you didn’t smash your way through their front door?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Talbot. ‘You try to help someone. Anyway, no one has seen Lenny Riley since Thursday afternoon. Although I have to admit that our officer could not hear very well because he was dangling out of a helicopter and strafing the street with machine gun fire at the time.’

  Blizzard roared with laughter.

  ‘Touché, Wendy,’ he said. ‘Why are you interested in Billy Guthrie in the first place?’

  ‘To be honest, we’re not. We’re more interested in his business partner. Actually, your guy Guthrie is a bit of a mystery. No one seems to know much about him before he arrived in Sheffield.’

  ‘Which would fit with him changing his identify when he left Hafton.’

  ‘What we do know is that a few years ago, he hooked up with a local businessman who owns a scrapyard in Sheffield.’

  ‘Bent, presumably?’ said Blizzard.

  ‘But of course. He’s got previous for handling stolen goods, including thefts from railway yards. Cables, pipework, oh, and lead from churches.’

  ‘One of Guthrie’s little peccadilloes when he was in Hafton.’

  ‘So I gather but, like I said, our attention has been mainly focused on his business partner. He’s the front man, the one swanning around in the flash car and wearing the flash jewellery. We think he’s the one running the gang, although I guess your guy must have known what’s happening.’

  ‘Why so interested, though?’ asked Blizzard. ‘It’s only a bit of knock-off gear, surely?’

  ‘The more we looked at it, the bigger it became. It seems that the scrapyard is at the centre of a major network with stuff brought in from all over the north.’

  ‘Our guy could have been the victim of a falling out between thieves, I suppose. On the other hand… Have you found anything out about Guthrie’s family, by any chance? We’re trying to find anyone who might have had a motive to murder him. We wondered about the wife and kid. Any sign of them during your inquiries?’

  ‘Seems she left him five or six years ago and took the kid with her. There was rumour that they went into a refuge because Guthrie was beating the wife up. No idea where they are now. Not that we have looked particularly hard. Maybe they changed their name to get away from him.’

  ‘Can’t blame them for that,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘Another reason we have not been particularly interested in Guthrie is that he seems to have become a changed man over the past two or three years. Lives with a local woman, a real stalwart from the local church. Guthrie even helps out with Sunday services. Damn it, Blizzard, I must be coming over all forgiving in my old age. Sorry.’

  ‘We heard that he was a bit of a reformed character as well. Before I forget, what was the name of Guthrie’s business partner? The one you fancy?’

  ‘Roberts. Barry Roberts.’

  ‘In which case, I might just be able to help you there, Wendy. In fact, we might just be able to help each other out.’

  * * *

  Half an hour later, there was a knock on the office door and in walked Arthur Ronald, for once not wearing a suit but dressed instead in a pale blue shirt and black trousers.

  ‘This
had better be good,’ he said, lowering himself heavily into the chair. ‘I was just about to take a bath.’

  ‘Too much information already,’ said the inspector.

  ‘So, what you got?’

  ‘Our calling card for The Spur. Just had Wendy Talbot on the phone. They reckon they can link The Spur to a major thieving ring. They are wondering if some of The Spur’s bad lads are involved in stealing stuff to order. The guy at the centre of it all just happens to be Barry Roberts, the uncle of our friend Terry.’

  ‘Not the kid who took a header off the railway museum?’

  ‘The very same. And that means…’

  ‘That we can go in mob-handed,’ said Ronald before his face clouded over. ‘Hang on, is Wendy happy with all of this? They normally carry on alarming if we try to piss on their bonfire.’

  ‘They were just about ready to move anyway. When they found out Guthrie had been murdered, they decided to bring everything forward before it spooks the rest. Wendy is quite happy for us to do our stuff at this end while they do Sheffield. It’s got to be better than trying to convince the chief that we’re after Barnie.’

  Ronald looked bemused.

  ‘Barnie?’

  ‘The purple dinosaur,’ explained Blizzard, tapping the side of his nose conspiratorially. ‘You really do need to keep up to date with the villains working our patch.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Ronald, standing up to go, ‘I wonder if you shouldn’t take more holiday. Oh, while I’m in, I hear that you’ve released Eddie Gayle?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because his solicitor has been onto HQ, demanding to talk to the chief. They rang me instead. I take it we can’t charge him with anything?’

  ‘Sorry, Arthur. Usual story, nothing to tie him to anything. Like he says, so he fixed a couple of boxing matches, so what? It happened twelve years ago, who would care?’

  ‘Someone cared enough to kill Roly Turner.’

  ‘I can’t see Eddie Gayle doing it. He as good as admitted he fixed the fights. If he did kill Roly to keep him quiet, why admit that? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘So, we’re no further forward?’ said Ronald, heading for the door,

  ‘Actually, we might just be. See, there’s this old fellow called Joe Hargreaves. Doesn’t say much but when he does…’

  Chapter sixteen

  The last embers of evening sunshine were fading through the belt of trees ringing the police station when John Blizzard arrived at Abbey Road the following night and walked slowly through deserted corridors to his office. He had deliberately arrived early to compose his thoughts before everyone else started to gather. Once in his office, with the room illuminated by the little table lamp, he sat in the shadows and considered the events which were about to unfold.

  The call from Wendy Talbot the previous evening had been a welcome one. So engrossed had the inspector become in the murders of Billy Guthrie and Roly Turner that his attention had wandered from The Spur. Now, John Blizzard was grimly satisfied that his attention could turn once more to the estate. The inspector knew that, despite the involvement of the Regional Organised Crime Unit, Arthur Ronald had still been forced to put his neck on the line to persuade the reluctant chief constable to sanction the raid on The Spur. The call had not come until early afternoon. When it did arrive, Blizzard was in his office.

  ‘It’s Arthur,’ said the superintendent. ‘The man from del Monte, he says yes.’

  ‘How did you swing that?’

  ‘I suggested that raiding The Spur would be good PR.’

  ‘Surely, it’s all the bad PR that spooked him in the first place?’

  ‘That’s why we can’t afford to fuck it up, his words not mine,’ Ronald had said.

  Sitting in his office now, Blizzard knew why he felt so uneasy as the superintendent’s words reverberated round his head: the cost of the operation going wrong would be high for both men. If Blizzard’s relationship with the chief constable was poor, Ronald’s was little better. It had started to deteriorate the moment Ronald was chosen to head up CID in the force’s southern half and immediately announced that he wanted the outspoken John Blizzard to lead Western CID, an utterance that appalled the chief constable.

  However, faced with the embarrassment of his new superintendent declining the promotion, the chief constable had reluctantly backed down. There were those who believed that Ronald’s card was marked from that day but his ensuing success in bringing crime down and pushing detection rates up, helped by a revitalised Western Division CID under John Blizzard, had long since vindicated the superintendent’s judgement.

  Blizzard had always deeply appreciated his friend’s unstinting support. Now, walking over to the window and staring out into the gathering darkness, he felt the enormity of the moment. He knew the feeling was about more than the personal risks that both men were taking with their careers. No, he knew that the real reason he felt anxious was the memory of that night when Kenny Jarvis died, an evening never far from the inspector’s thoughts. Even though Blizzard had hardly known the lad – it had taken him six months after the constable transferred to Abbey Road to discover his Christian name – he had nevertheless felt close to him as he began the investigation into his murder. Had felt close to him many times since, felt close to him now as he stood silently in his office. He was assailed by the strong sensation that Jarvis was standing behind him. Feeling the hairs standing up on the back of his neck, the inspector resisted the temptation to turn round for the best part of a minute. Eventually, he gave in and turned but there was no one there.

  ‘Must be cracking up,’ he murmured.

  Staring into the night, the darkness thickening by the second, the chief inspector recalled the sense of shock that had pervaded the police station for months after the murder of Kenny Jarvis, a shock replaced by anger. He recalled the growing tension in the days leading up the crown court case. When the jury returned their verdicts of guilty on all three men, it had brought about a sense of relief that the inspector had rarely experienced. He smiled slightly as he recalled the drunken night that followed with just about every officer in Western Division heading for their local pub, a cavernous hostelry standing on the corner of Abbey Road. Much ale had been consumed – the latter stages of the celebrations were a little bit of a haze for Blizzard although there had been suggestions that he had danced at some stage. However, what Blizzard remembered most was the way the room fell silent as the dead constable’s parents had arrived unexpectedly and his mother had issued halting and heartfelt thanks for the efforts of all the officers who had brought her son’s killers to justice. Blizzard remembered now how Kenny’s mother had walked up to him, supported on her husband’s arm, and had reached up and gently kissed him. Blizzard’s hand went instinctively up to his right cheek now.

  He glanced up at the clock and sighed. Still an hour to go and the minute hand appeared not to have moved since he last looked at it. In an effort to make himself busy, he sat down behind the desk and reached for the top document in his in-tray. It was from the HR department and he sighed. There was a knock on the door and Colley walked in. Something about the sergeant’s demeanour alerted the chief inspector that something was wrong. Badly wrong.

  ‘Got those names you wanted from Mick Evans,’ said Colley quietly, handing over a piece of paper. ‘The ones in the frame for attacking Matty Hargreaves. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Blizzard scanned them and looked up sharply at the sergeant.

  ‘We sure about this?’ he asked.

  ‘We double checked them with him. Not saying they are right but we have to ask the question.’

  Blizzard stared down at the sheet of paper again and did not even notice when the sergeant left the room. The chief inspector was still staring at it when Ronald entered the office ten minutes later.

  ‘Ah,’ said the superintendent, lowering himself into a chair and noticing that the inspector was
still holding the document. ‘Doing the paperwork. How commendable.’

  ‘Just keeping myself busy,’ said Blizzard, screwing the sheet up and shying it at the wastepaper bin.

  ‘And there was me rather hoping that all my lectures on the importance of administration in the modern police service had finally achieved the desired effect,’ said Ronald wistfully. ‘One can but dream.’

  Ronald noticed the inspector’s distracted air. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just… well, you know.’

  ‘I know. You ready?’

  ‘As ready as I ever will be,’ said Blizzard. ‘I’ve had Ramsey draw up a list of target addresses.’

  ‘Well make sure he’s got the right ones.’

  ‘He has. Oh, and Colley has come up with some interesting stuff as well.’

  ‘Did I hear that you sent him home earlier?’

  ‘He’s back now but yeah, I gave him a couple of hours off – told him to make sure he did the baby’s bathtime.’

  ‘The softer side of John Blizzard,’ said Ronald with a disbelieving shake of the head. ‘Who would have thought it?’

  ‘Yeah, but make sure it does not get out.’

  ‘Your secret is safe with me, sunshine,’ said Ronald with a smile. ‘Good to hear that you are looking after David, though.’

  ‘Told him to take a few day’s leave when this little lot is done and dusted. The lad’s out on his feet.’

  ‘You’ll be the same when you have a little ’un.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Blizzard. ‘I get enough of it at home.’

  ‘Why be like that? Kids are a joy, an absolute joy – apart obviously from the cost. Do you know, I read a newspaper article the other day that said that having a kid costs £184,000 once you have taken into account university and food and their accommodation and all the other expenses. Actually, what we did was set up a special building society account at a fixed interest rate, then transferred some of the money to … what?’

  ‘You make fatherhood sound such a delight,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘Well, it is,’ said Ronald and gave his friend a rueful look. ‘Just a bloody expensive one, that’s all.’