Divide and Rule

by Solomon Carter

  Divide & Rule

  Long Time Dying

  Private Investigator Crime Thriller series book 6

  Solomon Carter

  Great Leap

  The Long Time Dying series

  by Solomon Carter

  Thrilling adventures featuring Eva Roberts & Dan Bradley, private detectives

  Series list - in reading order

  Out With A Bang

  One Mile Deep

  Long Time Dying

  Never Back Down

  Crossing The Line

  Divide and Rule

  Better The Devil

  On Borrowed Time

  The Dirty Game

  Only Live Once

  Behind The Mask

  Want more Long Time Dying? Sign up for the mailing list and receive the free “inside story” to Eva and Dan’s adventures at www.solomoncarter.net

  Divide & Rule, Long Time Dying 6

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Great Leap

  Kindle Edition January 2015

  Copyright © Solomon Carter 2015

  Solomon Carter has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction and except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this e-book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Want more Long Time Dying? Sign up for the mailing list and receive the “inside story” of Eva and Dan’s adventures at www.solomoncarter.net

  One

  Late Autumn, 2014

  "No, please, no!"

  Will Burton held the gangling frame of his teenage son's body so tight that his hands trembled. His pride and joy, his future... All these years he'd been working to provide his son with a legacy, an inheritance, a name and a face to be proud of... but as he knelt in the yellow electric light with son's limp body, he could think of nothing else but his legacy fading to nothing. Jerry, was far more athletic than Will Burton had ever been. His son was heavy but he wasn't letting go. The boy’s eyes were open but rolled back, exposing only the whites with eyelids flickering. Blood seeped from a gash immediately beneath the hairline on his pale face. Dark blood pooled on the tiles around Burton’s patent-leather shoes. A glistening dark slick, pulsed over his eyes, nose and lips. The front door was ajar, creaking in the night air.

  "Jerry...? Please..."

  Will remembered Jerry helping out on the campaign trail, following his father's political speeches and watching his interviews on the local news. Jerry had even started showing up at his press conferences. They had never been close in the last few years, but the election battle had changed things. Yes, the boy was becoming far more like him. Will foresaw the potential for a Burton dynasty. Far-fetched, maybe a fantasy even. After all, he hadn't been elected yet. The by-election was set to contest the provincial seat of Southend East after the sitting Conservative MP quit Parliament citing ‘family reasons’ thereby sparking a by-election. Family reasons? It was nothing of the sort. The man had dropped his trousers and posted intimate photographs on Twitter. The images made the National tabloids of course. In autumn 2014, anything was possible. Politics was a strange territory. This was the time of the Right. The Middle East Jihadists stoked nationalist debate with their machete wielding decapitations on the internet. The Scots roused all kinds of questions about nationhood among the English with their referendum on leaving the United Kingdom. The country seethed with ill-feeling and suspicion everywhere towards men and women with dark skin or foreign tongues. The press emphasised a daily theme: money was tight, and the foreigners were soaking it up in excess. The opinion polls had Burton a clear winner in the by election. Even the national red-top newspapers said the election was a done deal, with Burton set to be the first ever Member of Parliament for UKFirst - the newest political force in the nation And once the people had listened to what Burton had to say, it was only a matter of time until the second, third and fourth UKFirst MPs were elected. Yes, Government beckoned and Will Burton was going to be the triumphant pioneer. Burton was media savvy, and everyone knew it. He was slick. The country had taken its fill of namby-pamby do-gooder politicians content to draw a wage while they let the place go to rack and ruin. This era was ready made for UKFirst. Now was the era of patriotism, the Union Jack, and send 'em back. This was Burton's destiny, scary, and beautiful and perfect... Was. Until this stark and terrible moment, with blood leaking from his son's head, and the terror he had brought upon his own family. The anarchists. The left-wingers, the trashy leftists who hid behind balaclavas and threw rocks through McDonald’s windows... this was their kind of act. The bastards. They would try to ruin him, try to destroy Will Burton and UKFirst before the party even got started on their democratic revolution. Unmanly tears poured down Will Burton's face. He struggled to breathe, and felt like he was stuck in a bad dream. Will Burton put his fingers into the warm mess of blood, gathering the skin around the split on his son's head and pinched the flesh back together, yet the blood flow would not lessen.

  "Dawn. Dawn!" Burton screamed, pointing his face towards the stairs, calling for his wife. Burton was in the downstairs hallway of his large Rendon home, the dark blood pooling on the terracotta tiles beneath his feet. "Dawn!" he shouted again, louder than ever. The tall woman came down, her feet thudding down the stairs.

  "Jerry's hurt, Dawny. The door was open- Jerry's been attacked at the door. Call a bloody ambulance! Call the police! The bastards hurt him to get at me..."

  Dawn. Oh, Dawn. How she annoyed him by not being the woman she once was. Once pretty and funny, she was now dour and ignorant. She slapped a hand across her mouth and looked at them with widening eyes. "Dawn. Pick up the phone. Dial 999. Do it!"

  The woman looked at her son and shook her head with her hands still over her mouth. Shock. Stupidity.

  "DO IT NOW!" he shouted. Louder than he shouted at anyone. Louder than when he shouted at Serge the other day. Louder than he shouted at any of his brigade. Louder because, look at her - the pathetic bitch deserved it. Tears slid down her face, and Dawn Burton disappeared back up the stairs in the direction of the phone. Pure panic quivered in her voice. "Ambulance. Ambulance, please, it's urgent. It's my son..."

  Will Burton's own tears fell into his son's blood. He made a vow. There would be hell to pay. The beginnings of a plan were forming. Plans for revenge. Plans for safety. Plans for victory. Yes, victory. Somewhere deep inside his volcanic rage, Will Burton was still destined for success. The bastards would never beat him. Instead, success was even more definite now. Will Burton of UKFirst believed in destiny. It was his only friend.

  Two

  Five miles away, three workmates were locked in heated debate.

  "Halliwell said the figures all matched. The paperwork doesn't show any discrepancy in the numbers, because the cheating bastard was an accountant," said Dan.

  "He was a bookkeeper, actually," said Jess, looking pleased to be interjecting.

  "Bookkeeper. Accountant. Same thing Miss Pernickety," said Dan. "The point is we can't go using the paperwork from Halliwell's office as proof against him, because he has already doctored every document in every file in his sweaty little office. Trying to use those files as evidence is like asking a murderer if he is guilty of the crime. It's not gonna happen."

  "Agreed- to an extent. But Halliwell is greedy, and greedy people get sloppy. He will have made a mistake somewhere in those ac
counts. If money's being siphoned off you can't hide it forever with smoke and mirrors. There's a hole in those files somewhere."

  Jess nodded, giving Eva the warm sunshine of her smile, and every bit of encouragement she could muster. The girl loved it when Eva disagreed with Dan. It had been the same ever since they returned from Hammersmith that fateful summer night when the odds against them said Gypsy King Brian Gillespie was going to wipe them out for good. But against those staggering odds Eva, Dan and Jess got away. And three months down the line, Gillespie was still nowhere in sight. And Eva worried Gillespie left them alone so long only to make them complacent, to make his revenge much easier, whenever he chose to take it. Not that Eva would ever let that happen. Rest and ease were against her nature. Stress, logic, and pragmatism, being prepared, looking at all the angles, and looking damn fine in a tweed suit, these things were her nature. Eva knew what Jess was up to. For six weeks or more the girl had been proving her mettle, and trying to upstage Dan to do it. These shenanigans would blow over in time. Dan could out-immature anyone. So if anyone was going to stop these silly games, it would be Jess, as soon as she realised she could never beat Dan things would settle down and the agency would move on. Just as soon as they agreed on the Halliwell case. Which strictly speaking wasn't Halliwell's case at all. It was the case about Halliwell, a man good with numbers, especially relating to other people's money, and he was a bit too good at spending it. This time, Leonard Halliwell got greedy, and now Eva, Jess and Dan were busy chasing their client's money like an elusive rabbit all over Halliwell's complicated financial logging system. One spreadsheet led to another, which in turn led to another, and the spreadsheets needed to be viewed together to help decide which figure related to which name and date. Halliwell had not set up an accounting system. He had created a mission impossible catch-me-if-you-can fraud engine. But Eva knew diligence would provide a way to break it down. Diligence had never been Dan's favourite word and these last few months Dan was antsier than ever. He was still thin from the weight he lost during his year on the streets and living in the hovels of Southend. And since his 'setback' - Jeez, what an insane euphemism for being tortured and maimed in a dungeon - Dan had seemed to age some. He was still rugged and gorgeous, of course, but now with his lines and stubble he looked more like a girl's favourite bit of rough stuff instead some well-polished arm candy. Who could blame Dan for his slight decline? No one. But he wasn't quite the same. And to acknowledge their year apart, this was to be a time of adjustment both before they rushed back into a full blown relationship. Yes, they'd slept together a few times since May. But Dan had not moved into his old home above Eva's office. No. He lived in something a little way beneath Dan's old standards. And he drove something a little beneath the old Dan too. But he wasn't as well-off now. Give it time, she said. Give it a year and everything would be the way he wanted it. But a part of Eva wasn't so sure. Dan was Dan, sure. But he was different, that's all. And as long as these two argued and competed and scored points against each other, there was comfort still existing in the old Dan. And there was another reason Eva wanted her independence. Dan and Jess were fantastic. But together they were annoying. Eva was desperate for peace between them, but more, this was her business now. She wanted to show them she was boss.

  "Diligence, Dan. I know it's not your bag. So Jess, I want you to go through Halliwell's spreadsheet files again. Spot some anomalies. Spot anything which makes you have questions. Anything at all."

  Jess nodded, and held back a frown, but Eva saw it and didn't care. She looked at Dan. Dan wore a smug smile.

  "And you Dan. You can do something useful too."

  "Like what? Look dashing?"

  Eva shook her head. "Put the coffee on."

  "I knew you loved me."

  Dan made in the direction of the coffee pot, the same place the coffee pot always was, right at the back of the office beside the filing cabinet, when the fragile office peace was jarred by the sound of two phones ringing at once. The office phone started and Eva's mobile started trilling at the same time. Dan froze and turned to look at Eva. Jess shook her head and tutted at him. Dan laughed. The girl had been spending a lot of time with Eva. Eva was the master of the shaking head and the queen of tut-tut.

  Eva pointed Dan to the landline while she took her iPhone from her handbag. Dan nodded. "Eva Roberts Private Investigator," said Eva at the same time as Dan said "Roberts Bradley Agency, private detectives." Eva glanced at him but said nothing. The voice at the other end of the line was too urgent to interrupt.

  Eva sat down, took out a pad and found an old biro. Surprise, surprise, the pen still worked. She listened hard through the emotional quakes of the voice, through the haste and the background noise on the other end of the phone. Eva interrupted only once or twice to seek clarification. To make sure she'd heard him right. "Of course. I'll be there in twenty minutes." Eva turned off the handset and looked at Dan. His face was a picture of surprise, seriousness, and shock. He looked like she felt. "No problem. We'll be there very soon." Dan took the handset away from his ear and took time to place it in the cradle. Dan was not the careful type, Eva realised he was hamming it up because the suspense would irritate Jess.

  "Come on! What's going on?" said Jess. Eva waited a second longer for Dan to speak, but he enjoyed making Jess squirm a little too much. The slightest glimmer of a smile passed over Eva's face too. Eva had always been a little too serious, she knew it because in a decade of living with Dan he'd always told her so. Even after what they'd heard, Dan was able to act a little dumb. Eva looked at Jess and saw the girl watching her. The feisty blonde didn't look impatient, she looked set to explode. Jeez, people. Who needed to work with other people...?

  "Jess, have you ever heard of Will Burton?"

  "Of course I have. He's all over the national news, let alone the local news at the moment. He's going to be the new local MP."

  "Yes. He's also king of the scumbags. He represents a political party which is doing a pretty good job of fooling half the country into thinking it’s not a bunch of Neo-Nazis. You've got to hand it to Will Burton. He's the slickest politician the ultra-right have ever had."

  "Ultra-right? Come on, Dan, don't you think that's a tad extreme? They want us to get out of Europe and reduce immigration, that's what I've read." Eva was playing devil's advocate. She disliked Dan's constant over-simplification of life.

  "You of all people, Eva! I expected you to read the small print, Eva. Or between the lines. They don't want out of Europe, Eva. They want to shut it out. They want to stick Africans and Eastern Europeans on planes and boats and ship them out to anywhere but here. They may look slick in their braces, pinstripes and brogues, Eva, but these guys are skinheads."

  "Some say so. But the press you're quoting are as prejudiced as the ones you're not. There's two sides, Dan. If you want the truth, this could be the best chance you'll ever get. The inside truth."

  Dan nodded. "Will Burton's son has been hurt. It's serious and he's in hospital."

  Eva nodded back. "Yep, and Burton wants us to find the attacker."

  "Seems odd for a politician to want help from private investigators."

  "Not necessarily, Dan. Think about what you just said. Half the world are against Will Burton because of what they thinks he stands for."

  "Correction, Eva. What he DOES stand for. Once they got all the foreigners out, they'll go back a generation like the Nazis did. You're half Czech. You'll be out next."

  "You digress. Burton wants to use us to double his chances of finding the culprits. The police are an institution, Dan. They care about politics as much as politicians. On this case they may be too busy worrying about PR rather than catching the attacker. With Burton's money it would make sense to double up."

  "Yeah... besides, he's worried the attacker might return to finish the job."

  Eva's face changed. She hadn't heard that part from Burton, but the man had been in a state on the phone.

  "Who did you speak t
o?"

  "A man called Peter Serge

  "I know the name. Somehow."

  "Yeah, sounds familiar to me too."

  "They have stationed security with the family at Southend Hospital in case any radicals try anything. Serge says he thinks this is an attempt to derail Burton's election campaign, and scupper UKFirst's attempt to get their first seat in Parliament."

  "Surely they don't think this is political sabotage."

  "Sounds that way."

  "What else did Serge say?"

  "He wants to hire us."

  "That's what Burton said. What did you say, Dan?"

  "I said yes."

  "Why?"

  "Because although I don't like the scumbag, it's a paying job and we're in business."

  "My business, Dan, remember."

  "Does your business still run on money? What did Burton want?"

  "He wanted to hire us."

  Dan nodded.

  "I said yes."

  "There you go," said Dan.

  Jess was watching them. She stood and listened and walked away from her desk. She looked out of the window through the blind. Finally, when they stopped talking, she walked back to her desk, picked up her handbag and jacket. Her face was red, her eyes serious. Now she had their full attention.

  "What's the matter, Jess?" said Eva.

  "You. Both of you. You both answered the phone. That's my job. Then you ignore me. I'm the admin girl. If you're not even going to let me answer the phone, and then you barely inform me what's going on... then what's the point?" Jess rolled her jacket in her arms, and stomped out through the front door.