Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set

by Tony Hutchinson

  She had sobbed on the phone when she told him about Julius and young boys, and how she’d been dumped by Billy Skinner.

  But a face to face reunion was different.

  And he wasn’t expecting her.

  She walked up the track, wondering if she knew the mothers of any of the children playing in the distance. She smiled. The girls she grew up with were probably grandmothers.

  Fifty metres.

  She stopped when she saw him.

  He looked older but she knew it was him.

  The cigarette fell from his lips, dropping in what seemed like slow motion to the dirt.

  Neither moved.

  This is it. Rejection or affirmation.

  His smile broke out and she had her answer, her father’s 61-year-old legs carrying him as fast as they could to greet her.

  She ran towards him.

  They were like actors in a heart-tug movie but the tears were real, not faked for the camera. He flung his arms around her, picked her up and swung her full circle, just like he did when she was a child.

  Feet back on the floor, she took a step back. ‘Hello Dad.’

  ‘Oh Elizabeth.’

  He threw his arms around her again.

  She had never seen him cry. She doubted anyone had seen him cry. Men like him didn’t.

  Not men like Declan Doherty.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Luke and Mark Skinner stared, speechless, out of the windscreen as they headed up the road towards the pub.

  The place was a boiling mix of yellow flames, acrid smoke and flashing blue lights.

  Firefighters seemed everywhere, ladders high and water jets powering from thick hosepipes. The throb of the fire engines and tenders was a constant soundtrack. Police were diverting traffic and keeping the growing crowd behind the cordon; ambulances were stationary, on stand-by.

  They parked as close as they could and got out of the car. The smell and the sting of smoke hit them and they rubbed their eyes. They saw firefighters pulling on breathing apparatus, preparing to go in.

  ‘Jesus,’ Mark said, as they walked towards the crowd at the cordon.

  Luke was already thinking about revenge.

  ‘Whoever did this will wish they were going inside that building with nothing but a fucking hankie.’

  He pushed his way through the crowd, Mark close behind.

  Charlie Sneddon, a skinny, ginger, low-life with a reputation for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, didn’t disappoint.

  ‘Talk about watching your business go up in smoke.’

  Luke didn’t break stride. His right hand shot towards Sneddon faster than a snake strike. The punch landed flush on the side of Sneddon’s jaw and he was unconscious before he hit the pavement.

  ‘Remind me to send someone round to see that little shit,’ Luke said, turning to Mark.

  They stood and watched for a few minutes. Nobody spoke to them; nobody even looked their way, too scared of following Sneddon. They all knew his troubles had only just begun.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Luke said. ‘Nothing we can do here.’

  Back in the car Mark asked: ‘Is it insured?’

  Luke shook his head. ‘Nope. Dad didn’t believe in insurance. Our name was the insurance. He always said nobody would dare attack our property.’

  ‘Well they are now,’ Mark started the car and drove off. ‘And it can’t have been Harry or Stuart or Geoff or Mat. So who is it Luke?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know?’ Luke shouted, the palm of his right hand slamming into the dashboard.

  This time Mark shouted back. ‘How the fuck do I know doesn’t cut it Luke!’

  He took a breath and lowered his voice. ‘We need to find out. What did Tonks say apart from the pub’s on fire?’

  Luke pressed his head against the headrest.

  ‘A gang of about thirty rushed in,’ Luke said. ‘He fought a few off, injured a couple before they dragged him out. Too many of them. They hit a few of the punters and dragged them out as well.’

  ‘Did they speak to each other?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Not that he can remember.’

  Mark stopped at the lights and stared at his brother.

  ‘Does he know any of them?’

  ‘Says not.’

  ‘Recognise any of them again?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Mark had just moved off on amber when Luke’s phone rang, the number withheld.

  ‘You might want to go to Pussycats,’ the slow-speaking voice said.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Luke snapped into the mobile.

  Silence and the call was ended.

  ‘Pussycats quick as you can,’ Luke said, voice shaking, a wash of fury and fear across his face.

  ‘Jesus Luke.’

  Mark yanked the wheel to his right, U-turned, ignored the blaring car horns and sped towards the industrial estate. The black smoke was already pluming high into the distant sky.

  Again they parked as close as they could.

  Same script, different location, the club already an orange inferno, windows fire blasted and flames winning the fight against the water jets.

  Nobody was daft enough to do a Sneddon as they pushed through the crowd, but to one side a group of excited middle-aged women seemed to be shouting a chant in celebration.

  ‘What are they shouting?’ Luke said.

  ‘Leave it,’ Mark told him. ‘They’ll be the ones who protested years ago coming to gloat.’

  Luke dipped his shoulder, turned his mouth down.

  Mark, who had seen it all before, pulled him back by his collar. ‘What are you going to do?’ he said. ‘Attack a group of women? Really clever.’

  Neither spotted John Elgin. He kept his head down, didn’t want to be seen, worried they would catch him laughing.

  About time you got some grief

  He had reserved his biggest laugh for the tape. No way had that survived.

  ‘I’ll ask again,’ Mark said getting into the car. ‘Who’s behind this?’

  ‘And I’ll tell you again, I don’t know.’

  ‘Well who has your mobile number?’

  ‘Plenty of people have that.’

  ‘That’s two places torched,’ Mark said.

  ‘I can fucking count!’ Luke right on the edge. ‘Just drive. I need to think, get lads at our other pubs.’

  He scrolled through the contacts in his phone.

  Had Mark been concentrating he would have seen the red pick-up with no number plates tailgating them, the big, green ex-army Bedford truck revving its engine, waiting to emerge from a left hand side street up ahead.

  But he wasn’t concentrating.

  His own red mist had descended and he was driving on auto-pilot, instincts blinded. He was angry with Luke, who never took him seriously, and shaken by the arson attacks.

  The ex-army truck had been used for decades to collect washed up sea coal at Seaton Carew, to the south of Seaton St George, before the council banned vehicles from the beach. Now it was on a different mission, billowing diesel fumes as it began to roll.

  The Skinners heard it before they saw it and by then it was feet away from impact with Luke’s passenger door.

  Luke tried to throw himself sideways towards Mark but his seat belt held firm.

  There was a deafening bang as the Bedford rammed the BMW side on, the air thick with the crunch of metal, glass and debris flying then crashing all around.

  Behind, the pick-up had slewed across the road blocking it to oncoming traffic.

  The Bedford pushed the BMW across the road as easily as a snowplough clearing a mid-winter dusting. Mark, coughing and fighting the wheel, hit down hard on the accelerator but got no traction.

  The Bedford pushed the BMW against the red-bricked wall of a supermarket car park, inching forward until the wall collapsed. The Bedford backed up, hit the BMW again and finally roared away.

  The pick-up followed, slowing as it passed, the faces inside laughing.

  Mark was blee
ding from a gash to the right side of his head where he had smashed into the driver’s window. The airbag had scorched his right wrist and singed the hairs on his forearm.

  Luke, dazed, was struggling to move his left arm. Blood seeped through his left trouser leg, a shard of metal protruding from it.

  He shuffled in his seat, leaned forward, and searched the footwell for the ringing mobile. The impact had thrown it from his hands. He found it, picked it up.

  He blinked repeatedly trying to focus. Through blurry eyes he read the screen. Number withheld.

  The caller was aggressive and abrupt.

  ‘Now fuck off altogether unless you want your mother to do a Joan of Arc.’

  ‘So tell me more about this Cat,’ Sam said, biting into a chicken wrap, the first thing she’d eaten all day.

  ‘Not a lot more to tell really.’

  Ed was sitting, elbows resting on Sam’s desk.

  ‘Hampshire. Went into CID. Worked as a DC with Ray Reynolds. He told me when we met up that time. He was never interested in promotion but said Ray wanted it from the off.’

  Sam paced the office, her thoughts interrupted by the desk telephone.

  ‘Sam Parker.’

  She listened.

  ‘Thanks for letting us know.’ She looked at Ed. ‘Pussycats is up in flames.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Ed said, sitting up straight. ‘Game on.’

  She chewed another bite from the wrap, swallowed, and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin.

  ‘Who’s taking the Skinners on Ed?’

  ‘God knows. But they’re hitting them where it hurts.’

  Sam took a mouthful of sparkling water. ‘We’ve got enough on our plates without this shit. Everybody in this place will be trying to link the arsons to Billy Skinner’s death and pass it all onto us.’

  Ed said: ‘No problem if they give us more men.’

  Sam stared at him, raised her eyebrows.

  ‘You mean more officers.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Ed said.

  ‘I do, but there’s a way of saying it these days,’

  Sam sat down, rubbed her eyes, felt the lack-of-sleep-grit scratching her eyeballs.

  ‘So this Cat…he knew Ray Reynolds, what else?’

  Ed said he didn’t really know, he had hardly spoken to him since they’d left training, save the time Cat made contact.

  ‘He got that award and he must have been on a job up here when he got in touch,’ Ed said.

  ‘Wonder what that was?’ Sam took another bite of the wrap, Ed watching, feeling the hunger pangs.

  ‘Like you he did a bit a sailing,’ Ed told her. ‘Quite a lot really. At training school he seemed to be racing every weekend from what I can remember, even sailed to France one weekend I think. Brought up in Hamble-le-Rice. I remember thinking what a great name.’

  Sam wiped her mouth and stood up.

  ‘Sailed the Solent then,’ she said. ‘Same neck of the woods that the Transit was stolen from and you said Pritchard’s abductor walked like Cat.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a leap of faith,’ Ed seeing it but not convinced.

  ‘What would Cat be doing up here dispensing vigilante justice? If he was going to do it, and it’s a massive if, why not in his own neck of the woods?’

  ‘You said yourself he was awarded for his work with paedophiles,’ Sam said, leaning against the windowsill. ‘He wouldn’t be going undercover in his own neck of the woods and he’d more than likely have Intel on ones who got away from him in the areas he was undercover, maybe peripheral players they didn’t get the evidence on before the job was pulled.’

  Ed had to concede it was possible but why now, why when Cat had been out 10 years or more?

  He jumped up. ‘Shit, I said I’d go and see Jayne-with-a-Y.’

  Bev Summers appeared at the door. ‘You need to see these. The background checks into Jeremy Scott.’

  She put the papers on Sam’s desk. ‘I’ve gone through the court transcripts for his trial.’

  ‘Thank God for the courts,’ Ed said. ‘Best record keepers in the land. Well, them and the Church.’

  ‘Hark at our little historian,’ Sam said, sliding onto her chair.

  ‘In this case he’s probably right,’ Bev said. ‘Look at the interviewing officer who gave evidence at the trial.’

  She pointed to the relevant entry.

  Sam stared at it. ‘Oh my God.’

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Elizabeth Doherty, aka Linda Pritchard nee Avery, was sitting in the twin-axle caravan with her parents, sister, nephew and nieces.

  The years were rolled back, the years before she ran and ended up in the clutches of Billy Skinner, the years before she married a paedophile.

  There were no accusations, plenty of tears and hundreds of questions. Linda listened and answered while she took in the brightly coloured interior. The caravan was different to the one she grew up in, but the garish colours, a world away from the pastels of her home, were not.

  She had her own questions about their life but everyone apart from her knew the answers to those. Her questions would have to wait.

  The teapot in the middle of the table was permanently full, topped-up by her mother, sister or nieces.

  As word somehow circulated of her return, distant relatives formed a queue at the door.

  She wanted to ask what had happened to the people of her own age. She really wanted to ask what had happened to the boy who was always pulling her at The Grabbing. But those questions could keep for later.

  Her dad looked out of the window, stood up and walked outside. Nobody questioned his departure.

  She looked out of the window. Doherty was in deep conversation with a dark haired man. A group were standing behind them, posing and preening, silently leaning against the four pick-ups.

  A toddler ran into the caravan, shouted ‘boo!’

  Everyone laughed at the boy who was bare-foot and naked except for a disposable nappy and an oversized gorilla mask.

  Sam and Ed travelled in silence, both thinking about Jeremy Scott’s interviewing officer and the implications, if there were any.

  Coolio’s ‘Gangster in Paradise’ broke the silence.

  Ed answered his phone and listened.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, and ended the call.

  He glanced at Sam.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Traffic giving us the heads-up, he said. ‘Luke and Mark Skinner have had their car rammed by an army wagon, shunted twice into a wall.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Sam muttered.

  ‘Both carted off to hospital but the injuries aren’t life-threatening, more’s the pity,’ Ed smiled. ‘What a day this is turning out to be.’

  Sam didn’t share his enthusiasm.

  The last thing Sam needed was an all-out gang war on her plate.

  Approaching a set of lights, she grabbed the gear-stick and changed down to third with more speed and thrust than necessary.

  Ed had worked with her for long enough. This was not the time for a one-liner.

  ‘Let’s get back to the beginning,’ she said. ‘Jeremy Scott’s first, then Julius Pritchard and Hans van Dijk and then Billy Skinner.’

  She slowed for a roundabout, came to a stop.

  She turned and looked at Ed. ‘All killed in disused buildings, all snatched with a lot of planning and now two Skinners rammed off the road.’

  Ed took it on. ‘By a truck who witnesses said was revving its engine at a junction as if it was waiting and the Skinners were being followed by a pick-up with no registration plates.’

  Sam moved off.

  ‘But why?’ she said. ‘The Skinners aren’t connected with sex abuse, not of children anyway.’

  ‘But they’re all connected with John Elgin,’ Ed said.

  Sam looked to her right, moved onto the roundabout, Ed still talking.

  ‘Elgin was a regular at their clubs, seemed close to them. So why kill them and how would he plan all of this neve
r mind execute it? And involve Curtis? I can’t see it.’

  Ed shuffled in his seat.

  Sam indicated left. ‘Linda Pritchard gets dumped by Skinner then discovers her meal ticket is a paedophile. Plenty of motive there.’

  ‘She couldn’t do it, but her childhood family?’ Ed said. ‘Torching and torturing would be right up their street and they’re in town.’

  ‘Are they?’ Sam said, edging slowly forward.

  ‘Yep and more coming daily,’ Ed told her. ‘Word is one of Declan Doherty’s granddaughters is getting married.’

  ‘Word from where?’ Sam glanced at Ed, irritated. ‘I never hear it.’

  He turned to face her.

  ‘Sam, I’ve worked this place longer than you, know more people than you. I’m bound to hear things you don’t.’

  That was true but Ed heard things no one else in the nick picked up.

  ‘Sign of a good detective,’ he tried a smile.

  Silence again.

  ‘But what’s their connection to Scott?’ Sam said. ‘Skinner yes. Pritchard and van Dijk yes. But Scott?’

  She sighed. ‘Everybody in the frame is always one body away from having the full set…unless we stop looking at people singularly.’

  ‘Go on,’ Ed looked at Sam.

  ‘No one person is linked to them all. But if you put Elgin and Linda Pritchard together...’

  ‘The cuddle?’

  ‘Yes, then between them they’re linked to every victim,’ Sam said.

  Ed saw how that would work, especially with Declan Doherty on the scene to pull it all together.

  ‘Would he be capable?’ Sam sounded unsure. ‘Even the attack on the Skinner brothers?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Ed had no doubt.

  Sam wondered aloud if Doherty would try to take over Billy Skinner’s empire but Ed said the travellers were too mobile.

  ‘Their motivation would be revenge but they’d take a few quid if someone offered. Pull over at the shops will you? I’m starving.’

  Sam nodded. ‘Like the guy at Scaramangers?’

  ‘Harry Pullman?’ Ed said. ‘Possibly but I’m not buying that bull from Luke that Harry’s just gone away.’