Landslide

by David Menon

  LANDSLIDE

  A NOVEL featuring DSI JEFF BARTON

  by DAVID MENON

  Silver Springs Publications 2017 – all rights reserved.

  This edition – December 2017 – all rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real person, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This is for Maddie … I’ll never forget you … and the landslide brought me down the day

  you passed away.

  Also by DAVID MENON

  DSI JEFF BARTON series - Sorceror, Fireflies, Storms, No Questions Asked, Straight Back, Thrown Down, No Spoken Word.

  ‘When I See You Again’ will be out early 2018.

  PI STEPHANIE MARSHALL series

  What Happened to Liam?, Could Max Burley Be a Killer?

  ‘Finding Answers for Stacey’ is coming soon.

  DCI LAYLA KHAN series

  ‘In the Shadow of the Tower’.

  ‘The North Shore Murders’ will be out during 2018.

  DCI SARA HOYLAND series

  Fall from Grace, Beautiful Child, Best Friend Worst Enemy.

  OTHER TITLES

  The Wild Heart, The Murder in His Past, Murder at Broken Ridge.

  SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  Short Cuts to Murder.

  www.amazon.com

  David was born in Derby, England in 1961 and has lived all over the UK, but after a few years of living in Paris he’s now returned to the north west of England for the time being. After giving up a long career in the airline industry he now writes full-time and takes a great interest in politics and international current affairs. He loves travelling, TV, films, theatre, books and music. He’s a devoted fan of the American singer/songwriter and poet Stevie Nicks who he calls ‘the voice of my interior world’. He loves all kinds of cuisine especially Indian and French, he enjoys a g and t of an evening and a glass or three of red wine. Well, that doesn’t think that makes him a bad person.

  This period in my life is proving to be very difficult and I’d like to thank all my friends and family who’ve wrapped themselves around me in a support system that is somehow getting me through. It’s devastating to lose someone you’ve built your life around and the agony of going to the hospital every day and literally watching them slipping away is almost unbearable. So to anyone reading this book who’s going through the same bereavement process as I am I want you to know that my heart is with you because I know how broken it is.

  - David, February 2017.

  LANDSLIDE

  PROLOGUE

  Just like every other little girl she’d always dreamed of growing up and one day and walking down the aisle with her Daddy. The man of her dreams would be waiting to place a ring on her finger and everything would work out happily ever after. But it wasn’t going to work out like that. Even through the briefest moments of sleep she managed to grasp in the still of each night she knew that her dreams would never come true.

  But she wasn’t wicked. She’d tried to tell them time and time again that she wasn’t wicked. She wasn’t naughty. She wasn’t a soul that was beyond saving. She was a little girl who liked wearing her hair in pigtails and who liked wearing pretty dresses and going to see her friends. She missed them all so much. She wondered if they ever thought about her. She wondered if they could ever even imagine she’d end up in a state like this. She missed her Mummy so much. She missed her Daddy. She could still feel them. She could still feel them holding her so tight but then they slipped away and she couldn’t follow them. They held their arms out for each other but her Mummy and Daddy kept on slipping further and further away until she could no longer see them.

  Even at her tender age she resented being accused of being wicked and evil. These outbursts from her captors would then unleash what seemed like relentless outbursts of violence against her. That’s when she would scream for her Mummy and Daddy to come and rescue her. She didn’t know if she was ever going to see them again and the thought of never seeing them again filled her very soul with the most excruciating fear. She was terrified about what was going to happen to her. She didn’t know what to make of what was going on. They’d taken her away. She’d missed her tea. They’d driven her a long way and all the time she’d been screaming and kicking out against the tape they’d put around her wrists and ankles and across her mouth. They’d taken her to a big house and they’d shaved all her hair off whilst they held her down and she cried her heart out for her Mummy and Daddy. They’d slapped her repeatedly across the face saying ‘They can’t help you now!’ and ‘They don’t exist for you anymore so stop wasting our time!’ She didn’t understand. Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t have just thrown her to one side like when they put the rubbish out. They were here to protect her and look after her. What did all these horrible people mean?

  They threw her like a rag doll into a set of rooms underneath the house. She could barely stand up because the ceiling was so low. It was dark but there was a mattress in the corner. She curled herself up on it. She could barely see in front of her because of the darkness and her eyes that were still so full of tears. They said that tomorrow she would have work to do and she’d better get used to her new life. That’s the only way she’d be alright.

  She trembled with a terror that a little girl of her age should never know.

  LANDSLIDE ONE

  DSI Jeff Barton and his team were enjoying a few drinks in the pub after work and everyone was there to celebrate DCI Ollie Wright and his husband Richard who were about to become the proud adoptive parents of Alice, a little toddler of 14 months old. Erica-Jane was DS Joe Alexander’s girlfriend and desperate to get pregnant. Not that she was wanted to be a mother above all else but because it would mean she wouldn’t have to get a job. She was only just twenty and Barton knew that Joe’s ego got off on the fact that she was into him but it was clear to everybody that she was only really interested in the contents of his wallet and his ball sack. Barton could see her sitting there seething was resentment and was just waiting for the damn to burst. Her face dropped through the floor when Ollie and Richard made their announcement and had looked ever since like she was in no mood to play nice and join everyone else in being pleased for them.

  ‘Can somebody please explain to me why these two pair of freaks have got a baby to adopt into their so-called politically correct alternative lifestyle when me and my poor Joe still haven’t managed to conceive in the natural way that God intended?’

  ‘Now that’s enough, Erica-Jane’ Joe warned.

  ‘Oh no, it isn’t nearly enough’ Erica-Jane retorted paying no respect to the fact that she was kicking off in front of her boyfriend’s boss and all his colleagues. ‘And you can’t tell me what I can or can’t say because this is a free country again now after Brexit’. She then turned to Ollie and Richard ‘And you two had better get this adoption in quick because things are going to change now we’ve got our country back from that Europe’.

  ‘But none of this has anything to do with Europe’ said DCI Ollie Wright, irritably. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was Joe’s girlfriend he’d be tempted to treat her to the back of his hand. She was such an ignorant little bitch. The UK was one of the few member states of the European Union that allowed gay people to adopt children, meaning that the law on it had nothing to do with the European Union, but facts like that were inconvenient to the prejudicial beliefs of Brexit supporters like Erica fucking Jane. But there was no way she was going to spoil the mood of him and his husband Richard. They were going to be parents and they were beyond feeling mere happiness.

  ‘Rubbish!’ Erica-Jane snorted.

  ‘Erica-Jane, I said that’s enough!’ Joe chided as if she was some recalcitrant child.

  ‘But Joe it’s just so not fair, baby’ Erica-
Jane pleaded as the tears began to spill out of her eyes bang on cue. She’d sensed that the mood amongst the gathering was swinging well and truly against her so she now had to go for the sympathy vote.

  ‘I said enough’ Joe repeated. He turned close to her and lowered his voice. ‘Now apologise’.

  ‘No, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t lose face’ said Erica-Jane as she waved her hands about in a kind of defensive gesture.

  ‘You’ve already lost more than just your face’ said Joe who was exasperated by her. He’d lost count of the amount of times he’d tried to end things between them and he was reaching the point where he might just have to shout the words FUCK RIGHT OFF!

  ‘Alright, I’m sorry’ said Erica-Jane quietly.

  ‘Apology accepted’ said Ollie Wright though only out of respect for Joe and to avoid any further badness.

  ‘Well that’s more than she deserves’ said Louisa Pilkington, the team’s civilian admin worker. She’d never had any time for Erica-Jane. In fact she couldn’t stand her but she wasn’t alone in that. She felt sad for Joe because she thought he was one of the good guys and didn’t deserve all the embarrassment Erica-Jane caused him. But Louisa also came at it from a different angle. There was still nobody at work who knew that she was transgender except for her best mate DS Adrian Bradshaw. Nobody is perfect and she knew that Joe kept putting up with Erica-Jane for mainly carnal reasons but Louisa couldn’t bear to see bad women abusing good men when she would give anything to share her life with a man in a mutually supportive relationship. It was the same sort of thing as her friend who’d lost both his parents when he was a child and when he saw his friends take their parents for granted it made him crazy. They should appreciate what they’ve got and so should Erica-Jane. Louisa didn’t have any contact with her parents anymore. They’d basically wiped her out of the family when she proceeded with the transgender surgery. She missed them every day though. She missed her brother and his two kids. One day a miracle might happen and she’ll be reconciled with them but she wasn’t holding her breath. Rather she was beginning to try and embrace the heartache that she will never be part of their lives again.

  Once the Erica-Jane drama had begun to subside and she’d kept her mouth shut for more than ten seconds, the team’s attention was taken by the boss chatting up a girl at the bar. She was a tall and very elegant looking girl of Chinese ethnicity and when Barton first clapped eyes on her he said to DS Joe Alexander that she looked so much like his late wife Lillie Mae. She had the same shiny black hair and a slim body, the same dark red lipstick that Lillie Mae used to use and her breasts looked small but perfectly formed for Barton’s tastes. Her one piece light blue silk dress was short in the sleeves and the hem line but high at the neck and her black shoes, black stockings, and small black handbag completed her sartorial eloquence. Barton would have to admit that he was rather taken with her. She had her mobile phone in her hand and she was looking around the pub as if she was looking for somebody. Barton then caught her eye. It was reciprocated. They got talking.

  ‘I was due to meet a friend from work in here’ she revealed. ‘It seems like she stood me up’.

  ‘Well that’s no good’ said Barton.

  ‘She’s done it to me before. She’s not what you’d call reliable’.

  ‘It doesn’t sound like it’ said Barton who pointed his head over at his team. ‘I’m with some colleagues from work’.

  ‘And they’ll let you off to talk to some stranger?’

  ‘Well let’s start by putting that right’ said Barton, holding out his hand. ‘I’m Jeff. Jeff Barton’.

  Her name was Rita and she was twenty-seven. She’d come from Beijing to study at Manchester university and once she’d graduated she decided to stay for a while until her English could be described as fluent. She worked as an administrator for a Chinese government agency that facilitated the investment of Chinese companies in the northwest and had set up its UK base in Manchester. Barton couldn’t help glancing down at her shapely long legs that he wouldn’t mind being wrapped around his neck. Discovering the moistness between them with his tongue would be the most wonderful treat. He just knew she’d taste good.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ asked Rita who could well see the look of the devil in Jeff’s eyes and was being equally flirtatious with him. She had quite a thing for Caucasian men, especially when they were as handsome and had such a great smile as this one. She never saw any when she growing up in her then grey and lifeless Beijing suburb but now she was living in a Western country she was like a kid in a sweet shop.

  ‘Nothing I should tell you about until I know you better’ said Barton who was surprisingly himself with how well this was going. It had taken him years to even think of going out with other women after Lillie Mae had died so suddenly. He just hadn’t been able to even contemplate being with someone else. Then along came Collette Ryan from Australia who woke him up into believing he could dance the dance with women again. Before he met Lillie Mae he’d been quite a player and it was almost as if he was now going back and meeting himself from those old days. It was all still there. He could feel it. And Rita was making him think that those old days might just be coming back.

  Rita downed her glass of white wine. ‘Better get me another and get to know me better then’.

  The pathologist June Hawkins wasn’t in the best of moods as she drove into work. If it wasn’t for the fact that she needed her car at work she’d take the train in. She envied all those people reading their kindles or listening to music or catching up on last night’s TV that they’d downloaded onto their tablet, whilst letting the train take the strain. She didn’t like driving. She never had. She gave good grace to it and was a polite motorist but she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all, especially when it was taking forever just to get out of her neck of the woods on the outskirts of Macclesfield before heading north towards Manchester where she worked. And that’s when the fancy took her. What was to stop her from selling up her detached modern pile within the clutches of the Cheshire set and finding herself one of those trendy, fancy apartments in the centre of Manchester? Perhaps one of these warehouse conversions with tall ceilings and massive windows that gave a view across the city to die for? Maybe that was just the change she needed? She should be getting in with the city crowd whilst she was still young enough and fit enough to keep up with them. If today turned out to be a quiet one she’d have a look at some of the websites of the city estate agents. She’d also have a chat with some of the boys and girls at work nearly all of whom lived in the city centre.

  The early morning mist was beginning to lift. She could just about see the early arrivals going into Manchester airport from the West. The new single from the American rockers Bon Jovi came on the radio and hearing her favourite band was usually enough to lift her spirits but this new stuff from them carried a double edged sword for June. It was the first album they’d made without guitarist Richie Sambora and he’d been God as far as June was concerned. Nobody outside of the band could possibly know exactly how or why Richie left and if it had more to do with the ego of band founder and lead singer Jon Bon Jovi than anything else. It was rumoured that Bon Jovi wanted to prove that he could hold the centre stage by himself just like it was also rumoured that Richie was badly in need of rehab and was too much into partying to the extent that the rest of the band had had enough. Whatever, she’d listen to the new stuff and try to keep an open mind about whether it was good or not without Richie. Her friends and family all told her she was too old to be a rock groupie but she couldn’t give a shit about what they thought.

  It was at that point that she decided to take a little detour. If she cut through the thinly used country lanes to the west and then headed north through the quintessential upper middle class Cheshire suburb of Hale Barns she could enter the Greater Manchester metropolis from a different direction to usual and possibly save herself a lot of time and frustration.

  Or so she thought.

 
Whenever anybody had told her before that they didn’t see it coming there was always a small part of her that didn’t believe them. If you’re driving your vehicle and have your eyes open then how could you have not seen a possible impending disaster? But now she knew fine and well what they mean. She looked up ahead and saw two cars come speeding down the hill along the road from the left. She could’ve sworn that it looked like one was following the other and not in an altogether friendly way but she was thinking more of their necessity to stop and give way before turning either left or right onto the road she was on at the t-junction. But it didn’t look like they were slowing down. She thought about stopping to let whatever was happening pass her by. But someone who normally calculated all the threads of consciousness in her mind with the speed demanded of her profession suddenly didn’t think beyond what was immediately in front of her.

  The first car crashed into her rear left hand side sending her spinning round and round out of control and plummeting headlong into the ditch on the other side of the road.

  For a moment or two June was completely out of it.

  It took Terry a few moments to come out of the initial shock but then he was raging. ‘Jesus Christ, you fucking imbecile! I should never have let you drive’.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ asked a panicked Gary. He’d always known that Terry had no respect for him in the gang and this would just prove him right. He pulled his hands free of the steering wheel and gasped with pain as he did so. He must’ve broken or at least strained some of the bones in his fingers when the crash impacted. ‘I didn’t see her coming, Terry. I swear to God I didn’t see her coming, man’.

  ‘How could you not have seen her? Are you fucking blind as well as stupid?’