Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set

by Tony Hutchinson

  Mark touched his mother’s arm, told her they would talk inside.

  ‘So what’s this all about?’ Marge said, as soon as the front door was closed. ‘First the pubs are set on fire, then you two get rammed off the road and before you ask, there were plenty of bizzies at the hospital. Most of the bastards were just there to gloat.’

  She threw her woollen coat over the kitchen table.

  Luke stiffened and adjusted his sling. ‘The truth is we don’t know who’s behind it.’

  Marge ran and pushed him against the sink. He screamed out in pain.

  ‘You said it was sorted,’ she shouted, taking a step backwards. ‘So it can’t be Harry or his nephew or McFadden this time, can it?’

  She yanked open one of the wall units, took out a bottle of Poetic Licence gin, and poured a large measure.

  The fridge light threw the lines on her face into sharp focus as she grabbed the tonic. Ice and lime added she sat down with the drink.

  ‘So who is it?’ Marge said, voice tired but back under control. ‘Unless it’s our Mat, come back to burn down the family jewels and crash into you two. Attempted murder the police reckon.’

  ‘There’s no attempt murder,’ Luke said. ‘We’ll not be cooperating. If the police want to crack on investigating it, fine, but they’ll get nothing from us.’

  ‘Are you stupid?’ Marge glared before taking two large mouthfuls. ‘Your dad’s been murdered. They’ve had a go at you and Mark. Two of our places have been burnt down. The police won’t just walk away. So you will cooperate.’

  She drained the glass, the gin hit making her dizzy.

  ‘So what are you going to do now?’ the words a challenge. ‘The pair of you need to get a fucking grip here and sharpish.’

  Mark sat next to his mother.

  ‘We need to see John Elgin.’

  Her laugh was short and a stranger to humour.

  ‘John Elgin!’ Marge shouted. ‘He’s the least of your worries.’

  She stood up, stormed across the kitchen, and refilled the tumbler.

  Marge took a deep drink as she returned to the kitchen chair.

  ‘I know all about the planning applications but you need to sort this first. Your dad never took his eye off the ball. It’s why he lasted so long.’

  She looked down at the table, lost in the moment. When she looked up at Luke her burning eyes cut through him like a grinder attacking metal; the sparks might not be visible, but they were there.

  ‘If you’ve sorted your dad’s killers, they must have had help and the help is still out there,’ Marge said. ‘So I’ll ask again. Who?’

  ‘The answer’s still the same mum,’ Luke told her. ‘We don’t know.’

  He walked to the table and sat down.

  ‘Well I suggest you find out quick,’ Marge said. ‘Otherwise everything your dad built up is going down the pan.’

  She suddenly started to sob.

  ‘I can’t even give him a funeral yet,’ snuggling into Mark when he put his arm around her. ‘The police are keeping him until they’ve done all their tests.’

  Luke thought better of telling her about the threat to burn her alive. Violence and retaliation was the world he lived in, but this was different. The rules of the game no longer applied. His mother had been threatened and he had no idea who was behind it. He was fighting ghosts and he didn’t know where they would attack next.

  Maybe they could all live the lie he had made up about Mat, sell and move to Spain, move anywhere where there was sun and safety. Money wouldn’t be an issue.

  Linda Pritchard had hidden behind the curtains in the caravan when she saw Ed Whelan. The whisper that police were on the site had moved at light speed, only taxi drivers matching travellers for the best intelligence systems in the country.

  She had watched Whelan talk with her father, watched them wander off with that policewoman. She had made her excuses and left when her father returned and the police were gone.

  In the public toilets on the promenade she changed back into Linda Pritchard.

  John Elgin was waiting for her on the pier. It was 6.05. She was five minutes late.

  ‘How did it go?’ he asked, the two of them walking further out to sea.

  ‘Alright with mum and dad,’ Linda told him. ‘Better than I expected. But Whelan showed up.’

  ‘Did he see you?’

  Linda said no but a few minutes earlier and he couldn’t have missed her.

  ‘I liked the outfit you just had on,’ Elgin brought the image into his mind. ‘Very…’

  ‘Slutty?’

  ‘Your words not mine,’ Elgin said with something unpleasant in his smile.

  Linda told him to forget it, there were more important things in play. ‘Firstly, two of the Skinner boys were rammed off the road.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Elgin asked her.

  ‘Dad told me.’

  ‘They’ll be bricking it,’ Elgin said. ‘The pub and club burnt down. Then the demolition derby.’

  He saw her quizzical look.

  ‘I’m showing my age,’ Elgin said. ‘Stock car racing back in the day. Always ended in a demolition derby. Last car standing.’

  He watched a shadow of impatience or irritation move over her face and felt foolish.

  ‘Whatever it was, the Skinners must be running scared,’ Linda said. ‘But you’re sorted. No tape to upset your lovely wife and your abuser burnt to a crisp.’

  Elgin stopped and turned to face her, taking in the hair, the clothes, the makeup. Nothing sleazy from the street now.

  ‘You haven’t done so bad yourself,’ he said. ‘Paedo husband dead, nice house now in your name, and I’m sure there’ll be a decent pension in the pipeline.’

  ‘A husband who also abused your grandson,’ Linda threw in.

  Elgin gave that a nod in recognition.

  ‘And let’s not forget, the gangster who dumped you has also met his maker.’

  ‘We’d make pretty good suspects if they linked all of it together,’ Linda said. ‘Just as well Ray Reynolds is retired.’

  She leaned against the railings, staring out to sea, and smiled at the memory. Ray Reynolds, her knight in shining armour all those years ago. She was a gypsy runaway when he found her and helped her forge a new life as Linda Avery only for her to run into the arms of a gangster. She had started delivering drugs in a car Billy Skinner provided but was soon enough living rent free in one of his flats. Flat? Who was she kidding? It was just a shag-on-demand pad, Skinner liking to keep her close.

  When he’d finished with her after a couple of years she was turfed out to make way for the next one.

  She was bitter, angry and apologised to Ray Reynolds, knew she had let him down. She did try to help him with bits of information on the Skinner empire but it never came to anything. Skinner was too smart. He was surveillance conscious, a master at covering his back, and always had at least 20 SIM cards for his phone, all of them pay-as-you-go.

  But now he was dead and his arsehole sons were running scared. That much she had picked up in the caravan.

  ‘So what happens now?’ Linda asked, turning her head towards Elgin.

  ‘What do you want to happen?’

  ‘I’m too old for games John,’ she told him, meaning it. ‘I spent too long on my back after that twat dumped me on the street.’

  Elgin put his arm around her, pulled her into him.

  ‘I think it’s time I was honest,’ he said. ‘I’ll take whatever shit comes my way but I want to be with you.’

  She kissed his cheek and stepped away. ‘You’ve only known me a few months and what about Jill?’

  Elgin was surprising himself, something about the moment, the beat of the water, the way Linda was looking at him.

  ‘A few months is long enough to know what I want,’ he told her. ‘I could tell you Jill was just about sex but I loved her, loved her for years.’

  He stopped and wiped his eyes.

  ‘But I could n
ever be with her after what she did, all the years never knowing I had a son. I would have stood by her if she’d told me but she wanted to save face more than let the two of us be together.’

  Linda saw his hurt and hugged him, said she liked that they had a future but they would have to wait while she played the grieving widow.

  ‘People will talk if we’re together too quick,’ she said. ‘And Ed Whelan is nobody’s fool.’

  They walked up the path. Ed knocked.

  The hall light came on and Jayne Culley opened the door, glassy eyes blank, devoid of recognition.

  Ed smiled. ‘Hello Jayne, it’s me, Ed Whelan.’

  No response, Jayne leaning heavily on her black walking stick, looking lost.

  ‘The policeman,’ Ed said gently.

  Suddenly the empty face lit up.

  ‘The policeman!’ Jayne remembered. ‘Come in Mr. Whelan, come in.’

  Jayne had still been confused, still walked slowly, but Ed was happy to see she wore matching slippers this time.

  Dignity seemed way down any political agenda, he thought.

  They followed her into the kitchen. ‘Do you want tea?’

  ‘Yes please,’ Ed said.

  ‘And your wife?’ Jayne looked at Sam.

  Sam and Ed glanced at each other and smiled. ‘Yes she would love some tea Jayne.’

  Ed watched Jayne struggle with three cups and three teabags, his shoulders slumping out of pity and anger.

  It was outrageous in modern Britain, one of the planet’s wealthiest countries, a woman who no doubt had played by the rules all her life was now left to God and providence.

  Jayne’s shaking hand passed Sam a cup.

  Sam smiled and thanked her. Like Ed she’d seen Jayne forget to boil the kettle.

  ‘It’s not too hot for you dear?’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Sam said.

  Jayne smiled.

  Ed spoke. ‘What did you want to show me Jayne?’

  ‘Do you want cake? I’ve got a nice sponge cake.’

  ‘No thank you Jayne,’ Sam said.

  ‘You had something to show me,’ Ed said again.

  ‘I did. What was it?’

  ‘Was it about the man who knocked on Jeremy’s door?’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ she sailed across the kitchen. ‘He was on the TV last night and in the paper.’

  She took the Seaton Post from the bench and held it up. ‘There.’

  She pointed to a picture of a suited man.

  ‘It was him,’ the paper waving in an imaginary breeze. ‘I told you he was a military sort of man. Take a close look at him.’

  They didn’t need to.

  They knew who it was.

  Ray Reynolds. Detective Superintendent. Retired.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  ‘What do you make of that?’ Sam said, when they were back in the car.

  Ed was sure Jayne Culley believed she had seen Ray Reynolds. Whether she had or not was a different matter.

  ‘We’ve both seen witnesses describe the same event in totally different ways,’ he said. ‘People recall different things, not always correctly, and Jayne is...’

  The words trailed away as Sam nodded, balanced her wrists on the top of the wheel and took a cigarette out of the packet.

  ‘There could easily be an element of auto-suggestion,’ she said. ‘She’s seen the photo and convinced herself that’s the man who was at the door.’

  ‘That’s why we had to show a witness12 different photographs in an album back in my day,’ Ed said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Sam agreed, conjuring up the photograph of Reynolds, the newspaper article about a convicted killer who was being released. ‘But don’t forget Cat and his links to Ray.’

  Ed whipped his head to face her.

  ‘Hang on Sam, there’s nothing to link Cat to this.’

  ‘Other than you saying the guy on the CCTV walks like him.’

  Sam put the cigarette between her lips and lit up.

  Ed said nothing. He pressed his nose against the window. Could this be down to Ray Reynolds and a bunch of vigilante cops?

  ‘We’ll go and see him tomorrow,’ Sam said.

  ‘Ray?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘And say what?’ Ed liked Ray Reynolds, wanted him far from the frame. ‘We’ve got a witness with dementia who saw your picture in the Post and says you were one of the men who abducted Jeremy Scott. He’ll eat you alive and feed what’s left to the wolves.’

  Sam bridled. ‘Maybe you’re too close to him?’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ Ed holding his ground. ‘But that ID is weak and you know it.’

  Sam was about to come back when Ed’s mobile rang.

  He answered and listened.

  ‘She asked for me personally?’ Ed said. ‘Okay, I’ll be there in ten.’

  Sam watched as he ended the call.

  ‘That sounded important,’ she said. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Sea View Palace.’

  Sam laughed, said she thought it had been condemned or bulldozed.

  ‘Not yet,’ Ed stared out of the window. ‘Why’s the owner asking for me? I think I’ve only met her twice and that was years ago.’

  Ten minutes later Sam pulled up outside a building so tired looking it could have been called Rip Van Winkle, salt-blasted paint work long missing in action, the net curtains faded sepia from tobacco smoke and time.

  The Sea View Palace, like the rest of the small hotels in the curved Georgian terrace perched above the sea, had been popular throughout the first half of the 20th century, a beach escape from the coalmines and shipyards.

  Now it housed contract labourers looking for cheap digs. Rooms at less than £15 per night left enough cash for beer and a fish supper from their accommodation allowance.

  ‘Do you want me to come in?’ Sam asked.

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ Ed said, getting out of the car. ‘If it’s anything I’ll let you know.’

  He pushed open a wooden gate that might once have been red, walked up the path and through the door. The name-plate had begun life as brass but was now a sickly blue-ish green, the chemical reaction between the copper and the atmosphere left unchallenged since its last, distant polish.

  There were no tourist plaques, no stars or rosettes. Trip Adviser wouldn’t have heard of this place.

  He pressed the bell on the tiny reception desk and a shoulder length peroxide blonde appeared behind him. Jeannie Jackson looked as tired as her hotel.

  ‘Jeannie,’ Ed said, as he turned. ‘How are you? It’s been ages.’

  ‘Long time Ed, a long time.’

  Ed saw the memory of the pretty woman he remembered. For the second time that day he felt a jab of sadness.

  ‘You wanted to see me?’

  ‘Not me,’ Jeannie said. ‘Harry. He’s in the room down the hall.’

  ‘Harry who?’ Ed asked, nonplussed.

  ‘Harry Pullman,’ Jeannie told him. ‘Who do you think?’

  The Harry Pullman who’s supposed to be on his way to Argentina?

  ‘What does he want?’ Ed’s mind racing now, playing catch up.

  ‘I’ve no idea, other than he thinks only you can sort out his problem.’

  ‘Well I can’t build him a new pub.’

  Now it was Jeannie’s turn to be lost in the dark.

  He followed her down the hall, watched and listened to her knuckles giving two quick taps on the unpainted door of room 2.

  Harry Pullman answered.

  Ed thought he looked like shit.

  ‘Cheers for coming,’ he saw Ed look him up and down, eyebrows heading for the mildewed ceiling.

  ‘Jeannie got me some clothes off the other residents,’ Harry’s explanation.

  The shirt was too small, the trousers too big.

  ‘All a bit cloak and dagger,’ Ed said, walking past Harry into the room.

  ‘Thanks Jeannie,’ Harry said, closing the door behind Ed.

  Ed sat on the
bed. ‘Is this the best you can stretch to Harry? It’s an absolute shit hole. I know Scaramangers’ gone up in smoke...’

  ‘What?’ Harry interrupted.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  Harry’s wide-eyed stare gave Ed the answer.

  ‘Burnt down earlier this afternoon Harry,’ he said. ‘Sorry to be the bearer and all that.’

  Harry had his back against the door.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t planning on going back.’

  Ed asked again what Harry was doing holed up in a toilet.

  ‘Shitholes are sometimes the last places people look for you,’ Harry told him. ‘And I can trust Jeannie to keep her mouth shut.’

  ‘Who’s looking for you?’ Ed said, taking in the room’s joyless decay, like something slowly dying. ‘Luke and Mark Skinner for a kick-off.’

  Ed gave Harry his full attention.

  ‘Luke said you and Deano were heading for Argentina,’ he said. ‘Some bull about your fascination with escaping Nazis and Diego Maradona.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Harry looking a million miles from amused. ‘Those bastards killed Dean and tried to kill me.’

  Ed was working this on the hoof, trying to hold the unfolding story together, looking for gaps he could fill in the jigsaw.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ he said.

  ‘I want to go into that witness thing,’ Harry dropped next to Ed. ‘You know where you get a new identity.’

  Ed smiled but he was watching Harry Pullman, watching a man who was scared and playing the last ace in his hand. He wouldn’t be the first frightened criminal to bring down an empire.

  Ed puffed out his cheeks and slowly blew the air from them. It was becoming a habit.

  Putting someone into witness protection wasn’t easy and there were strict criteria to be fulfilled. Not only that, but as the police had a duty of care until the person on the scheme died, it was a huge financial undertaking.

  ‘Witness protection,’ Ed whistled softly. ‘What have you witnessed to qualify?’

  Harry licked his lips and leaned forward, chin in his hands and elbows on his knees.

  ‘Everything the Skinners have got up to in the last thirty years,’ he said slowly. ‘The drugs, prostitution, extortion, murder.’