Gaslighting: A British Crime Thriller (Doc Powers & D.I. Carver Investigate Book 3)

by Will Patching

  ‘Nah. I’ll only be a few minutes. You can wait here and flex that giant brain muscle of yours while I’m doing my first interview as a DCI. Unofficially, of course. At least I look the part this morning.’ The jacket, shirt and tie Jack had selected from Doc’s wardrobe made him feel more business-like too.

  Jack entered the cab office and took in his surroundings – it didn’t take long. The business premises were about the size of an average bathroom, though the smell was more reminiscent of a public lavatory. A plate glass window with a phone number and the word Taxi stencilled on it faced onto the street, overlooking their car, and Jack could see Doc, now slightly reclined with his eyes closed, no doubt reviewing everything related to their budding investigation. Jack could just about walk between the few brown plastic chairs lined up against the back wall, also mud coloured, and a desk, only just big enough for the computer screen and telephone console crowded on to it. Everything in here seemed to be designed to fit into the limited space, including the dwarf sitting behind the mini desk, shouting into a telephone headset.

  Not dwarf. Small person.

  Jack mentally corrected himself, wondering if he would ever get the hang of the politically correct language he was expected to use, especially now he’d been promoted.

  When the shouting finished, the small person looked him up and down, and said, ‘You don’t need a cab. What can I do for you, officer?’

  ‘Something very simple.’ He flashed his brand-new warrant card – thankfully still dry thanks to being stashed with his wallet in Doc’s guest room when he went for his impromptu swim – and introduced himself. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Jack Carver. I’m hoping you can help me. Yesterday afternoon or early evening, did any of your cabs pick up a cyclist in this area? Without his bike?’

  ‘Cyclist?’

  ‘Yeah. Dressed for the Tour de France. All in yellow I think. Definitely wearing a canary coloured top.’

  ‘Hang on.’

  The small person made a call to all his active cabs, relaying Jack’s query, and immediately had a response from one. He tapped a button on his console and Jack could hear the cabbie’s voice crackling with static through the miniature speaker.

  ‘Took him to a house on Bucklebury Common and then back to the bridge over the river. Young lad. Said he’d had a bike accident. There was quite a bit of blood on his clothes and legs, but he didn’t want to go to hospital.’

  Jack took a few more details, thanked the small person and bounced into the car beside Doc.

  ‘It was him?’ Doc pulled his seat back upright, and clicked his safety belt into place. ‘Your lemon boy?’

  ‘It was indeed, my friend. I think it’s time we had a little chat with Billy Leech, don’t you?’

  ***

  ‘What are you planning to do with all this, Billy?’

  ‘I told you. It’s for my birthday celebration on Wednesday.’ The wooden slats of Smith’s gigantic garden shed exuded a chemical odour, absorbed over the years from the gases produced by numerous experiments, and Billy always associated the scent with exciting possibilities. Like this latest creation. ‘Fireworks, with an added kick.’

  ‘This much ANFO is not a firework!’ Smith struggled as he dragged the plastic sack containing the mixture he had prepared to Billy’s specifications towards his pupil’s feet. ‘With the added ingredients you asked for, it’s a high-powered incendiary bomb. If you aren’t careful, you could blow yourself up.’

  ‘I’m always careful.’ He booted the bag and chuckled. ‘It’s just fertilizer, diesel oil, some aluminium powder and a few other bits and bobs that’ll make it pretty.’

  ‘Pretty? Are you insane? There’s enough here to turn this place into a giant fireball. You’re not making fireworks, are you?’ Smith’s grotesque lips, slimy and wet, pouted at Billy as he demanded to know, ‘What are you planning to blow up?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m going to make lots of small packages and create a display for my mum and gran. Like last year. Anyway, ANFO’s harmless enough, without a detonator.’ Billy had already created one of those, using powder from several of Gramps’ old shotgun cartridges, and had much bigger pyrotechnics in mind than a firework display to celebrate his sixteen years on the planet. Fortunately, his tutor remained ignorant of his plans. ‘You can come and watch if you like.’ Smiffy would have a front seat view, whether he wanted one or not.

  ‘Just be careful. I don’t want your mother suing me. As you well know, I’ve had enough trouble with the law as it is.’ Smith’s ears waggled and his cheeks joggled as he shook his head. A hint of saliva leaked at the corners of his mouth. ‘And this is the last time I make anything for you. I know you’ve been burning things, Billy. I’m not stupid. Your old school gym, for a start.’

  Smiffy had finally worked it out.

  Too late.

  ‘That place was a fire hazard. Hahaha! Nothing to do with me.’ Billy’s ironic tone said otherwise. He didn’t care what his tutor thought. Smiffy couldn’t do anything about it. ‘Where’s the oxidising powder I asked for? You’d better have cooked it for me?’

  Smith closed his eyes and put his head back as if praying to heaven above, then muttered, ‘What am I doing?’ He let out a mournful sigh, shuffled over to a bench in the corner of the shed and picked up a package about the size and shape of a bag of sugar. He flipped it in the air a few times, as if thinking about what to do with it, but finally chucked it at Billy who caught it with one hand. ‘Here you go. And now I’m out. This is the end of it, kiddo.’

  ‘It ends when I say so–’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, Billy. I’ll take my chances, even with those photographs you created while I was unconscious. And believe me, if I get collared for those bloody fakes, I’ll be giving chapter and verse on everything I’ve done for you. Every bit of powder I’ve mixed, the fireworks I taught you to make, your unhealthy fascination with the properties of gasoline and other accelerants. I’ll tell them about your experiments making restricted substances–’

  ‘Our experiments!’ Billy had not expected this. The bastard was threatening him. He’d finally grown some balls. ‘You’re the one who encouraged me, allowed me to do all that. My brilliant chemistry teacher, poisoning my innocent young mind.’ He snickered as Smiffy gritted his teeth, the noise audible as his molars ground.

  ‘I’ll hold my hands up to it all – just not the abuse you fabricated. I’ll even confess to the LSD and meth you forced me to make for you – everything. I have all the dates, too. You can stand there grinning at me like you don’t give a fuck, but you won’t be so smug when the police arrest you for all the previously unexplained conflagrations in your local area, will you?’

  ‘You don’t need to threaten me.’ This’ll be the last time, he thought, trying to keep his voice light. ‘You won’t have to see me again after this week. I promise.’ Billy knew he sounded genuine enough. After all, he wasn’t lying. He kept his voice level, despite how he felt inside. ‘I’ll find a new tutor. No worries.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yup. One last thing to do.’ Smiffy was about to object, but Billy held up his hand for silence, got it, and continued. ‘Just drive us back to my place, we’ll pop this lot in the cellar where it’ll be safely out of the way. While we’re there I’ll destroy the incriminating photos. And we’ll both forget everything about each other.’ Billy thrust his right arm at his tutor, palm open. ‘Deal, Smiffy?’

  ‘Deal!’ Smith shook the outstretched hand, his ugly jowls wobbling with relief.

  ‘You can leave a note for my mother too – she’s out with my gran for the day. I’ll tell her you were called away at short notice. We’ll say you had an emergency to deal with. A dying relative up north needs you urgently, and you don’t know if or when you’ll be back.’ Billy grabbed a corner of the plastic sack with one hand, still holding the pack of powder in his other, and said, ‘Let’s chuck this lot in your car, and we’ll get going.’

  ‘This’ll be the last time I need to
come to your home?’ Billy expected to hear suspicion in Smith’s voice after all that had passed between them, but instead heard only gratitude at finally being let off the leash. Billy nodded his agreement, and Smith grabbed the other corner of the bag with enthusiasm. ‘Great. Let’s go.’

  Billy detested being threatened. Had been through enough of that during his silent pupa phase, being abused, bullied and made to eat shit. He had managed to hold his anger in check during Smith’s outburst, the threat to talk to the police, but it was still smouldering in his belly as they made their way to the car.

  Thanks to their conversation, Billy had rapidly revised his plans for his tutor. And that was the one thing keeping his fury in check.

  It wasn’t just the bag of ANFO that would be residing in his cellar tonight.

  ***

  ‘The cabbie brought him here, watched him disappear down the side of that house. Then he reappeared a few minutes later, with bolt cutters under his arm.’

  Doc had not been to Bucklebury Common before, a pleasant slice of rural England with some beautiful country homes surrounded by heathland, paddocks and genteel farms.

  ‘Doesn’t he live several houses down, going by the address Charlie’s sergeant gave us?’

  ‘Devious little toerag. Maybe he nicked the bolt cutters from the neighbour’s tool shed.’

  ‘Hmm…’ Doc was thinking differently, but just said, ‘Let’s go and ask him.’

  Jack pulled the car forward and then into the driveway of Billy Leech’s home. They waited on the doorstep for a couple of minutes, with Jack pressing the bell intermittently at first, frustrated, before jamming his finger on the button, ringing it continuously for a good thirty seconds. Then he gave up.

  ‘Bugger. Let’s go around the back, have a proper squint at his gaff.’

  They did, but there was little to see. The back door and patio entrance were locked, as was the stable block. Doc spotted a neighbour at a bedroom window off to the left, and nudged Jack who was peering into the annex, nose pressed up against the glass, cursing under his breath at the lack of occupants.

  ‘I think we should go, and come back when they’re in. The local Neighbourhood Watch will be calling your colleagues if we aren’t careful.’

  Jack glanced up at where Doc was looking before turning his attention back to the annex, peering through another window after stomping to the far end of the block. ‘Interesting place. Big lounge area, and a gym with bugger all in it.’ He waved at the nosey neighbour and smiled as he gave her a thumbs up. She disappeared behind her curtain. ‘Maybe we should have a word with her. She might know something about the lad’s nocturnal habits.’

  ‘Come on, Jack. Let’s not waste any more time here. Billy’s the one we need to speak to. Meanwhile, let’s go and see the Dooley lads.’

  Doc was itching to see the boy, but the place was deserted, and just being here filled him with a sense of impending doom. He couldn’t wait to get back in the car. Jack traipsed after him, then scribbled on his pad, ripped out a page and poked it through the letterbox.

  ‘Alright… Boss.’ Jack’s bad temper had not been improved by the wasted visit, but Doc let it ride. He sensed that his friend was suffering terribly over his daughter’s grief, and probably blamed himself for Felix’s death in some way, too. Jack blipped the car remote to unlock the doors and they slid inside simultaneously. ‘I’ve left his mother a note to call me when she gets home. So, let’s see the Dooleys instead, then.’

  He crunched the gears as he jerked the stick into reverse then swerved out of the drive before heading for Newbury.

  ‘That sergeant.’ Doc had been mulling over all the woman had told them, much of it new to him and Jack. Much of it rumour, too. ‘She really has a bee in her bonnet about the Leech family. I can see why her bosses have reined her in.’

  ‘Well, she was around when Billy’s dad and uncle were teenagers. Hardly surprising she recognised the pattern. Animal cruelty obviously runs in the family. Bloody psychos shouldn’t be allowed to breed.’

  The vicious night-time incidents sparked a thought in Doc’s mind, related to something Jack had complained about the day before.

  ‘Billy Leech’s home is on the Middleton lass’s road. Her parents’ property is further to the north, I believe. Correct?’

  Jack accelerated as he joined the A4 following the signpost to Newbury, and nodded, throwing Doc a questioning glance. ‘Yeah. What of it?’

  ‘Cameras, Jack.’ Doc had noticed that some of the more prestigious properties had them, overlooking their main gates, but as Jack had pointed out before, this was the countryside so they were few and far between. At best, there was a chance of them picking up a fleeting glimpse of Billy Leech riding by in the early hours. Even if they could convince the local constabulary to agree to spend their budget on collecting and scrutinising all the video records from such a vast area, it would still provide nothing more than circumstantial evidence. Doc knew the chance of that happening was non-existent, but there was one other possibility. ‘The parents of a princess, even one by marriage, would qualify for the Royal Protection Detail, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Yeah, SO14 will be keeping an eye on ’em. Low profile, but they’ll be watching. Why?’

  ‘The area around the house, the approach roads. Won’t they have hidden cameras? I’d have thought the immediate area would be bristling with them.’

  ‘Probably. I see where you’re going with this, but I’m not sure it helps us.’

  ‘Surely they’ll have already checked and logged all movements around that house, twenty-four hours a day, going back years, since the girl became involved with royalty.’

  ‘Ah, right. You’re thinking we could ask SO14 to see if they have records of a boy on a bike, on the local roads, in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Yes. The nights that coincide with the recorded instances of animal torture and arson.’

  ‘Mmm.’ He sounded not at all enthusiastic. ‘It’s a long shot, but I’ll see what I can do. Here we are. The Plough.’

  Jack pulled into the car park at the back of a rundown pub fronting onto the busy main road, proudly advertising All day opening and Full English breakfasts. Doc didn’t need to use his imagination to work out the clientele. The numerous pennants decorating the place with hundreds of triangular flags, each printed with a red cross on a white background, fluttered around them as they approached the entrance. As if the Saint George’s theme decorating the exterior was not enough of a clue, the chalkboard by the entrance proclaimed the writer’s illiteracy, ignorance and racism:

  We don’t speek Polish or Muslim here! And we don’t serve no kosher or hallal meat – just propper English grub!

  Doc followed Jack into the gloomy interior, his nose wrinkling at the smell. Stale beer and sweaty socks came to mind as he glanced around. The ceiling was covered with full-sized flags, each pinned at the edges, the white and red emblems bellying down above his head, like enormous beer guts. The place was empty of customers, but still made him uncomfortable. Jack seemed unaffected, was already having a quiet word with the barman.

  Doc was beginning to think it was another wasted trip, but then Jack turned, gave him a grim nod and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  ‘Beer garden.’

  Garden was a rather optimistic term for what confronted them at the rear of the building. A concreted area, fenced off from the car park and lined with a few wooden beer kegs, each sawn in half and filled with dirt. Growing weeds. More patriotic bunting was strung above the six round cast iron tables, previously white but now dappled rust brown, each with a handful of matching chairs, all squashed into the area.

  Only two of the seats were taken and Jack sat down opposite the shaven-headed lads tucking into their giant plates of ‘propper’ English grub. Both looked to be in their early twenties, and the scrawny one, wearing tattered jeans and a black tee shirt with a cartoon British bulldog emblazoned on it, had half a sausage paused on its way to his mouth, h
is eyes slitted as he watched Jack sit and lean back without a word.

  Doc had him pegged as the follower, and the other as the alpha male. Or what might be considered one in this seedy dump. They didn’t look like they might be brothers, so Doc assumed one was a Richardson, the other a Dooley. From what Charlie’s sergeant had told them, Desmond ‘Dezzy’ Dooley was the gang leader, and the monster ignoring the two new arrivals fitted the description. A fierce redhead, with more freckles on his rotund face than pale skin, sported a thick pink scar running from above his left eye to his chin. Unlike the bony youth beside him, he had the build of a heavyweight boxer, with a thick neck and well-defined muscles bulging under his thin Union Jack tee shirt.

  Jack slid his warrant card across the table to the edge of Dooley’s plate, while Doc stood to one side, and leaned against the fence with his shoulder, observing.

  ‘I need a word with you, Dezzy.’

  ‘Piss off. I’m eatin.’ Dooley tossed his head at his mate, full of bravado, still not looking at Jack or Doc. ‘Can’t even eat in peace without some piggy snufflin round.’

  Jack slipped the warrant card back into his jacket pocket, leaned over and dragged the plate from under Dooley’s nose. ‘I said we need to talk. And I haven’t got all day.’

  Maybe Dooley was used to giving the locals the run around, but Jack’s manner pulled him up short. Any certainty he had displayed for his mate’s benefit dissolved, and Doc had to grin at the look of astonishment on Dooley’s face as he sat with his knife and fork in his fists either side of where his plate should have been, unsure what to do.

  ‘For fuck’s sake. Give me that back.’ Bluster wouldn’t work, and Jack had the plate firmly in his grip, not that Dooley had tried to repossess it. ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘You can have it back, Dezzy. After we’ve had a little chat about Billy Leech.’

  ‘Fuck off! I don’t talk to no pigs.’ The cutlery rattled to the table top, tossed there in disgust by Dooley as he sat back, and made a show of crossing his arms. ‘Why don’t you piss off back to London where you belong?’