Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set

by Tony Hutchinson

  Debs told him a home-help came to Jayne Cully’s twice a week and Ed made a note to ring social services. She might need more than that.

  ‘Has Mr Scott lived there long?’ he asked now.

  Debs took a quick sip of her tea.

  ‘Longer than us,’ she said. ‘He used to be a teacher at a boarding school in the south, so the Greens told us, but that was years ago.’

  She opened a cupboard door.

  ‘Biscuit?’

  ‘Lovely,’ Ed thanked her and asked about Scott’s family and friends.

  ‘I haven’t seen anyone calling,’ Debs told him. ‘I don’t know if that’s because he has no family or whether they have nothing to do with him. He really wasn’t a nice man. Always writing letters to the Seaton Post complaining about this and that, moaning about the council, local GPs, bus services, and of course, the police. That man must have filled the paper.’

  Ed said he knew the type, finished his tea, and thanked her.

  ‘If we need anything else we’ll be in touch,’ he said.

  Moments later he was back at Scott’s front door. He didn’t expect a reply but knocked anyway before pushing down on the handle.

  Ed found the unlocked door swinging open onto a hallway colder than his wife’s shoulder. He shouted into the silence, at the same time glancing automatically for post on the floor. There was none. Ed walked to a door on his right, wood-stained to the point of being black, pushing it open and stepping into a living room where warmth replaced the hallway’s chill.

  Ed felt he had stumbled into the set of a television show from the seventies; the brown and gold swirled patterned carpet fighting the red velour settee for attention; a stacked music centre with a tape deck and radio tuner; a pre-remote-controlled TV set as deep as a wheelie bin. Hard-backed books filled the floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a polished black piano waited elegantly in the alcove next to the leaded bow window.

  Heat pumped out of a gas fire and on the windowsill was a letter rack holding opened utility bills. Ed flicked through them. No red letters, each in date order.

  He went into the kitchen. He had already seen the pie and tomato and was struck again by the care that had gone into the cutting. Now his eyes rested on a mug still full of tea or coffee. There was no sign of a struggle but it looked like Scott had left in a hurry.

  Upstairs, the main bedroom of three had a double bed, dark wooden wardrobe and a wicker basket full of dirty clothes. A gay porn magazine was on the table next to the bed. Ed flicked through it and shook his head. Each to their own.

  Back in the hall he saw a typed note on small table telling Scott he was the lucky winner of a TV but to Ed, the note looked amateurish. Nothing glossy, not even in colour, just a sheet of A4 pulled from a basic printer.

  The delivery date specified Thursday 11thth December. In that case, Ed wondered, where was the shiny new TV?

  Ed found a set of keys in a drawer in the same table and locked the front door behind him.

  ‘He got in the back of a van.’

  Ed looked over his shoulder. Jayne-with-a-Y was back at her fence.

  ‘Who did Jayne? Was it Johnny?’

  Jayne Cully’s eyes mocked him.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Johnny’s dead. No, I mean Mr Scott. I saw him walking down the path with a man then the man pushed Mr Scott into the back of the van.’

  Ed walked to the fence. ‘Was it a big van?’

  Her face turned blank and she looked straight through him.

  He waited then asked her again.

  Jayne Cully knitted her brows. ‘What van?’

  She turned around and shuffled slowly away.

  Chapter Six

  Sam’s fingers bashed away at the keyboard as she checked her inbox. Emails fell into three categories: reply, bin after a cursory look, or delete without opening.

  ‘I’ve got you a bacon sarnie,’ Ed said, walking into her office. ‘Not that you deserve it after leaving me with Curtis Brown.’

  He put the plate on her desk and sat down. ‘Extra crispy seems to be the order of the day...ha ha.’

  Sam opened the white baguette, peered at the pink rashers and translucent rind. ‘It looks disgusting.’

  ‘I know,’ Ed nodded, taking a bite of his own. ‘It tastes better than it looks, though. I got in the canteen early. Another hour under the lamps and it wouldn’t even be bacon anymore. This is the mouth-watering non-nuclear option.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Sam pulled the rind off the bacon, spun her chair, threw the rind into the bin and put what was left of the bacon back in the bread. She bit into the sandwich.

  ‘You’re right,’ Sam said, chewing slowly. ‘Anyway, updates.’

  Ed brought her up to speed on his visit to Scott’s and the neighbours.

  ‘I’m going to check out the company who said he’d won a TV,’ Ed told her. ‘What time’s the PM?’

  ‘Half ten.’

  ‘No sweat. Oh by the way. Can you do me a favour? Get in touch with Vulnerable Adults. See if we can do anything for Jayne Cully. She needs more help than she seems to be getting and she’d be easy money for the rip off merchants. I’d hate to see her taken for a ride.’

  Back at his desk Ed examined the flyer.

  Congratulations Mr J Scott.

  You have won the annual Christmas Postcode Prize Draw.

  To claim your prize of a 52” Flat screen TV be at home between 4pm and 6pm on Thursday 11th December when one of our couriers will call. Please have proof of identification.

  Ed looked at the registered address for the company on the bottom of the page and noted the listed telephone number.

  A phone call to the Intelligence unit in Nottingham confirmed his suspicions...the area code was wrong; the trading estate didn’t exist.

  He walked into Sam’s office, waving the piece of paper like Neville Chamberlain at Heston Aerodrome in 1938.

  ‘This is fake.’ Ed said. ‘And it may have told us when Scott went missing.’

  Sam decided to add two questions to the door-to-door team’s list, one asking if anyone had seen a suspicious van in the area at any time over the last few days; the other if they had noticed any callers to Scott’s house.

  ‘I don’t want to be too specific about the TV,’ Sam said. ‘It might be a wild goose chase and I don’t want the door-to-doors concentrating on the TV at the exclusion of everything else.’

  She stood up and moved her plate onto the top of the filing cabinet.

  ‘Look at that,’ she grimaced at the pool of cold, grey fat. ‘My stomach’ll be all over the place.’

  ‘I know,’ Ed said. ‘It’s enough to convert you to Islam.’

  Sam’s eyes locked onto Ed’s, her look as cold as the grease on the plate.

  ‘Your mouth will really drop you in the shit one day,’ she told him. ‘You’ll say something in the wrong company.’

  Ed held up his hands.

  ‘It’s a one-liner, not a racist slur.’

  ‘And we all know the law,’ Sam was serious. ‘It’s not necessarily what you mean, it’s how others perceive it.’

  Ed’s shoulders dropped.

  What the hell has happened? How did we ever get to this?

  ‘I’m pleased I was a young lad when I was,’ Ed said, meaning it. ‘When you could have a laugh without somebody kicking off or stoking it up with Professional Standards.’

  Sam moved towards the door and reached for her coat.

  ‘Times change,’ she said. ‘Come on, it’s PM time.’

  Dean Silvers sat on a wooden bar stool drinking coffee, a white t-shirt tight around muscular tanned arms and head shaved clean above his huge neck. Dean loved three things in life...bling, his RS Focus, and himself, not necessarily in that order. Today was a big day, the day he decided it was time to move up from street dealer to major player.

  The barmaid was in early, cleaning last night’s mess, getting ready for opening time. She was another east European but he didn’t know her name
; he couldn’t keep track of the staff these days.

  ‘I got a visit last night from Mat Skinner,’ Harry Pullman said, leaning over the bar, resting thick forearms with fading Fred Flintstone and Top Cat tattoos between the real ale pumps.

  ‘Accused me of skimming, the cheeky twat. I remember when he was just a snotty-nosed kid. God help us when he takes over from his old man.’

  He wiped his thick black-framed glasses with a bar towel.

  ‘Mat Skinner couldn’t run a bath,’ Dean said. ‘Luke will take over, provided they’re still in business.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Harry’s whisper was snare drum tight. ‘These walls have ears and they’re not all friendly.’

  Harry adjusted his glasses. They looked tiny on his huge bulldog head.

  Dean watched the barmaid walk down the stairs behind the bar into the cellar. ‘How much does he know?’

  ‘Billy? Nothing really. I just need to be more careful.’

  ‘What pisses me off is that he takes all the rewards and none of the risks,’ Dean picked up his mug.

  ‘You planning a take-over?’ Harry asked, his tone teasing, almost taunting.

  Dean Silver looked over his shoulder and back at Harry Pullman.

  ‘You know his suppliers, the system for his distributors...’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve got it all sorted,’ Harry polished a pint glass. ‘One big problem though. Billy Skinner and the Apostles.’

  ‘Let’s just say they weren’t a problem anymore,’ Dean pushed. ‘Then what would you say?

  ‘Big market for whoever had the balls to take them on,’ Harry conceded. ‘But ask yourself why they’re still running the show? Then check what you’ve got in your Calvin’s.’

  Dean finished his coffee as Harry walked around to the punters’ side of the bar and joined him.

  ‘CID’s swarming around Bill O’Grady’s old garage,’ Harry said. ‘Found a body.’

  Dean Silver’s arms grew tense, the muscles twitching.

  ‘That fucker Curtis Brown better not drop me in it.’

  ‘Forget that little smackhead,’ Harry said. ‘One word and it’ll be his last.’

  John Elgin sighed at the sink full of dirty dishes, food stains, crumbs and empty packaging covering the benches, the air coated with the stale smell of cigarettes. Twenty-odd years ago this kitchen was show-house new, chrome fittings gleaming, sink sparkling. Now, like his wife, it was an unloved, shabby wreck.

  He sponged his pink tie and patted his shrinking stomach - the high cholesterol warning had sparked a low fat diet and lower lager intake. He opened the grubby fridge and saw more stains than food...half a bottle of rose wine, a piece of mouldy cheddar harder than concrete. He took out his yoghurt and blueberries.

  Two more empty wine bottles by the door told him his bloated wife would be in bed until noon. Thank God for Pussycats. Thank God for…what did they call them?’

  He conjured up an image of the two lithe young women and smiled. What were their names? He nodded when he remembered. Zara and Chloe.

  He spooned the yoghurt into his mouth and contemplated another visit to Pussycats tonight. Billy Skinner was always a good host.

  A blueberry burst in his mouth as he pondered whether Zara and Chloe found him attractive. He never paid them; they said they’d enjoyed it for what it was.

  He looked in the wall mirror and stroked his pencil thin moustache. Maybe he should check out a tanning salon, give himself a bit of colour. He’d looked like a ghost next to the girls.

  The ringing mobile interrupted his mental rerun of their time together, the caller ID telling him it was a private number.

  ‘Councillor Elgin speaking.’

  ‘John. It’s Billy Skinner.’

  ‘How have you got my mobile number?’

  ‘You left it in your jacket pocket when you were entertaining Zara and Chloe,’ Skinner’s voice was friendly, pleasant. ‘Easiest thing in the world for one of them to pass it outside and have someone ring one of our numbers.’

  ‘That’s theft.’

  ‘We didn’t steal your phone we put it back,’ Skinner laughed. ‘Can you steal a number? Anyway, business. I need a favour.’

  John Elgin felt a creeping panic in the pit of his empty stomach.

  ‘I’m in no position to grant favours, and certainly not to you.’

  ‘Not to me?’

  The voice that had sounded harmless was suddenly laced with aggression.

  ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ Skinner snarled. ‘You come into my establishments, avail yourself of all the facilities, accept them for free, on-the-house so to speak, and then give me the bum’s rush when I ask for a favour.’

  John Elgin’s forehead was suddenly leaking a sickly sweat.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘That’s better John.’

  There was a pause. Elgin waited, the beginnings of a headache thrumming like a drum roll at his temples.

  ‘I want a few planning applications approved, new licensed premises.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Elgin spluttered. ‘There’s a committee...’

  ‘John, John.’

  Skinner’s speech was slow, precise, a teacher explaining to a child.

  ‘Listen. You enjoyed yourself the other night. We enjoyed watching you.’

  John Elgin dropped onto one of his kitchen chairs. His hands were shaking.

  ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch John,’ Skinner said. ‘You had your fun. Now it’s pay-back.’

  ‘But I can’t.’

  ‘You will,’ Skinner’s voice was mild again. ‘You don’t want your Pussycat performance going on the Internet do you?’

  The shaking in Elgin’s hands had spread to the rest of him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All those mirrors in the Green Room,’ Skinner turned the knife. ‘Cameras, John, cameras. You get turned on and so do they.’

  Councillor John Elgin, the factory worker who had talked his way up the political ladder, was speechless.

  Billy Skinner laughed into the stunned silence.

  ‘I knew you’d understand,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch to give you a list. Let me down and you’ll be going viral on YouTube faster than you dropped your fucking trousers.’

  Elgin heard the line click and stared at the mobile in his trembling hand, the sound of Skinner’s laughter still rippling through his head.

  Was there really a film?

  The sickness in his stomach told him he couldn’t chance it.

  And there was no way he could allow it to get out.

  Chapter Seven

  There was something grimly unique about the sight and smell of a burned body. Victims left lifeless by knives, bullets and beatings often looked like they were sleeping but this one did not, a blackened, shrivelled thing with a smoke-heavy stench that thrashed even mortuary disinfectant into submission.

  Sam winced at the gunshot-like-crack that echoed around the room as the dentist used bolt croppers to force open the jaw. She looked at the dentist, a young man used to taking impressions to repair the living not identify the flame-blackened dead.

  Bev had traced Jeremy Scott’s dental surgery by a ring-round process of elimination. Sam felt sorry for the dentist. Maybe the senior partners had tricked him into doing it; he was the building site apprentice sent to buy a tin of tartan paint or the bubble for a spirit level. A piss-taking reception, Sam feared, awaited him back at the surgery.

  Two hours later and they had their confirmation. The body was Jeremy Scott and he had been very much alive when he was set on fire.

  Sam stepped outside. The fresh air was welcome, but sometimes the smell of death hung around you for days. She felt she would be tasting this one for weeks.

  Opening the passenger door, she spoke to Ed.

  ‘We need that house to house team out there,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s see if we can get a definitive last sighting of Jeremy Scott. If it is something to do with that
television prize, somebody has put a bit of time and effort into it. How has a retired schoolteacher landed an enemy like that?’

  She was still talking as she fastened her seatbelt, telling Ed to get Bev working on the victimology.

  ‘I want next of kin, associates, habits and beliefs,’ Sam rattled off. ‘We won’t go public with his name until next of kin have been notified but there has to be something in his background. Retired teachers don’t normally attract that sort of enemy.’

  Jill Brown’s mouth dropped when she opened the front door, her fingers instinctively tightening around the handle.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about Jill,’ Ed said. ‘I’ve seen Curtis. Just thought I’d pop round.’

  Jill relaxed her grip, her knees bent just enough to notice and she blew out hard.

  ‘Thank God. I dread your lot knocking on my door, and when I saw you…’

  ‘I didn’t mean to scare you Jill.’

  ‘I know Ed. Come in, come in, how was he, Curtis?’

  She was already walking down the hall of her 1930’s semi. Ed followed her into the kitchen.

  ‘No better, no worse Jill to be fair. He’d found a dead body.’

  ‘Oh my God, one of his friends?’

  She turned away, gripping the Belfast sink with both hands and shaking her head.

  ‘Listen to me, talking about his friends as if everything’s normal. Talking about his junkie mates is what I mean.’

  She flicked the switch on the kettle. ‘Where did it all go wrong Ed?’

  They had known each other since school and Ed could close his eyes and see her back then, giggling and pretty and safe from the things that would soon enough unfold.

  ‘Lot easier wandering around the school yard looking for somewhere to smoke and hoping for a snog than bringing up kids,’ he said gently.

  ‘A lifetime ago,’ Jill poured hot water into two mugs. ‘Who did you want to snog anyway? Mandy Reeve?’

  ‘She was bonny,’ Ed smiled. ‘There was Mandy, Evie and you, the three everyone fancied, including a few of the girls I suspect.’