by Penny Grubb
‘There you are, Annie. I’ve kept a distance while you’ve been here.’ He could say that again. ‘I wanted to see how you shaped up before I made any decisions. Now I’ve made my decision. I know you don’t have all the bits of paper, but I never thought much to bits of paper. You’ve shown what you can do.’ He paused as though expecting her to speak. When she said nothing, he went on, ‘You’ve courage and a good instinct. It’s a useful combination. You’ve earned yourself a place in the team. Good basic salary, good bonuses if you earn them. Have a long weekend and come down to the office middle of next week. Take the car down to London and pick up your stuff if you want. In fact, you may as well keep the car. You’re going to need one anyway.’
A vision reared up in front of Annie. She thought of all the people who’d told her to grow up and look for a proper job. Not for the first time, she played out a fantasy of returning in triumph in a tailored suit and a flash car. The sleek BMW was the fantasy made real. It’s just a small agency. Good salary plus bonuses … The car? Yes, it’s mine. Goes with the job.
She felt the smile creep across her features. Vince was still talking, saying he felt he’d come to know her … liked her style …
‘I’ve learnt a lot about you,’ he said.
She mustn’t let him go on. ‘I’ve learnt a lot about myself over the last week.’
Vince laughed, the first friendly laugh she’d heard from him. ‘I’ll bet you have. You never thought you could face down a homicidal maniac, did you?’
Annie looked up at him and thought about a seven or eight hour round trip just to lord it over past acquaintances. No way. She had a life to live. But maybe a trip to see her father would be a good way to start this new chapter and tie some loose ends from the past. It was time she found the courage to ask him how her mother died.
‘No, it wasn’t that,’ she told Vince. ‘It was other things. Personal stuff. I always knew I had it in me to meet a challenge. Now I want the chance to build on it. I want something that inspires me; that I really have to work for. But I don’t want to stagnate. The bits of paper, as you call them, are a part of it. They mean digging deeper into how things work, getting to grips with the detail. Matching theory to practice. You might not care about them, but they’re important to me.’
‘If it’s a matter of funding …’ Another first. An edge of uncertainty to his tone.
‘No, it’s not the money. As I’m given the choice, I want to be in on building something from the start, facing the real challenge of risking everything on it. So I appreciate the offer but I have to turn it down. And if your offer’s still open, Pat … Barbara … I’d like to accept.’
Vince looked round at them all. Pat on the settee feeling for the tag to open her biscuits, Barbara with her all-purpose surface cleaner spray held up like a weapon, Annie standing in front of him. There was no hostility in his expression and his voice was friendly as he said, ‘You’ll be out of business in six months.’
Annie walked with him to the door to see him out, a gesture that this was her territory now more than his.
‘We might indeed,’ she said, ‘but that was just another challenge they could offer and you couldn’t. No hard feelings.’
His look of complete bafflement made her laugh as she walked back to the living room to rejoin her new team.
The end
Book two: The Jawbone Gang
Her man, Joshua, is a convicted murderer, but Brittany Booth has never lost faith. Declaring Joshua’s innocence, she is determined to save him from incarceration by flushing out the witness who failed to come forward at his trial. Meanwhile the murdered man’s lover is equally determined to see his killer declared insane.
Unluckily for private investigator, Annie Raymond, both sides come to her.
With her ex’s new fiancé in a position to make life very difficult, with a boss grabbing credit when things goes well and laying blame when they don’t, this tangled nightmare is the last thing Annie needs as she fights for a way out of a stalled chapter in her own life.
The Jawbone Gang – What the critics say
“The title is intriguing and unique, and you will not be disappointed when you discover why.”
“A vividly drawn cast who drive the story along, keeping the reader on their toes.”
“Deals with real life issues, eschewing gloss and glamour to give insights into experiences closer to home.”
“The denouement is expertly handled.”
“The explosive outcome includes some subtle twists and moments of breath-taking suspense.”
“An engrossing read, highly recommended.”
THE JAWBONE GANG
Prologue
Night-time mist lay over the vegetation at the sides of the lane, blurring the contours where the fields melted into darkness.
Peering into a murky landscape that had largely swallowed the light, the woman punctuated the silence with urgent whispers. ‘There, Ronnie. What did I tell you? Just look. It’s her … No, it’s him … Is that a wheelbarrow…? What are they doing, Ron…? Can you see…? Oh God! Keep down. They’re coming this way.’
A grumbled response snapped her attention to the man at her side. ‘Ronnie!’ She grabbed his arm and shook until he jerked awake and glared at her through bleary eyes.
‘Uh … Sheryl … for God’s sake … what time is it?’
‘I don’t know … two o’clock. They’ve seen us, Ron. Quick, get the van started.’
He yawned, infuriatingly calm. ‘Where? I can’t see anything.’
‘Quick, Ron. They disappeared into that shed. And if–’ She stopped on a gasp and leant forward to stare hard. ‘What if there’s a door the other side? Oh my God! They’ll see us.’
He laid his hand on her arm. ‘Take one of your tablets, Sheryl. You’re getting in a state.’ He sat up straight and yawned again. ‘No one can see us from over there. We’re in shadow.’
‘But, Ron…’
‘I’ll start the engine if you want. That’ll get their attention. A car out here in the middle of nowhere. D’you want me to try?’
‘Don’t you dare touch that key!’
‘Now tell me what you thought you saw this time.’
‘I did see something this time. I saw a shape move out from over there.’ She strained forward again to peer out. The low light painted a gleam to the maroon-patterned nail of her index finger as it choreographed her tale. ‘Both of them, I’m sure it was. That means he’s in it too. And they had something. A wheelbarrow, I think.’
‘Sheryl, listen to me. They’re tucked up in bed in that house sound asleep. Maybe it was dogs you saw. They probably leave them loose in the yard at nights.’
‘It was too big for dogs, Ron. It was people.’
‘Then cows or something.’
‘Cows! Who has cows walking round their yard at night?’
He turned to look at her and didn’t speak until she faced him. ‘It’s a bloody farm, woman, and you’ve seen the bloody cattle walking about. Now, let’s settle down and get some rest if we can.’
‘It wasn’t cows,’ she muttered.
‘All right then, deer.’
‘Deer? Come off it. We’re in East Yorkshire not Scotland.’
‘Plenty of deer round here, Sheryl, you ask anyone. Now for God’s sake, get some sleep.’
She threw him a glare as he settled back in his seat. The house and yard lay quiet, but she felt tension in the air as the breeze from the estuary sent ripples through the grass.
‘I can’t sleep now,’ she thought she said, but a moment later realized she had, as she woke with a start, blinking in bright sunlight.
She made no attempt to wake the man by her side who lay head back, mouth half open, his snores reverberating through the vehicle.
Twisting the mirror towards her, she smoothed her hair and brushed down her jacket before clicking open the door of the van and stepping out into a morning that had swept away the landscape’s sinister gloss.
From where she stood, the house was almost hidden behind the big shed. Just its roof showed. She wondered if houses learnt to sleep and wake with their owners. If it was a farm, this was the time the house and its inhabitants would be up and awake, bustling about, but she sensed no movement, saw no sign of life.
She pushed her arms straight, stretching the night-time out of them, bending her hands up and admiring the patterned gleam. Her favourite shade of maroon glinted back at her from her finger ends. For hands approaching their half century, they weren’t in bad shape.
‘I know what I saw, Ron,’ she murmured. ‘It wasn’t cows. And they’re not real farmers.’
Chapter 1
The row of buildings started life as overspill from the big warehouses that held prime positions by the river. Never close enough to the centre of Hull to catch regeneration grants and just too far from the waterway to become fashionable apartments, conversion work had been sporadic and always on a shoestring. The owners of the shabbiest building of all, having converted it to office space, had commandeered the best of it for themselves, which was all the downstairs except for a shared lobby, and rented out the poky upstairs rooms that no amount of effort could make anything other than seedy.
It was late morning as Annie arrived, swapping a ‘how do’ with the postman who left the building as she entered. He’d left three letters in their tray, which she grabbed before taking the stairs two at a time, relieved to feel the vibration of heavy footfalls from the small upstairs office that signalled her boss’s presence.
She pushed the door open, calling out, ‘Hi, Pat, I can’t hang about. I want to leave some info for Barbara.’
No reply.
Annie felt her insides scrunch tight. Pat would have answered at once. The elephantine tread must be Pat’s sister, but the error was irretrievable. Sure enough, Barbara lumbered in from the back office, her bulk filling the doorway, her hand outstretched, her expression thunderous.
‘What info? What are you doing interfering in my cases? I don’t want you messing things up.’
Annie bit down on a surge of annoyance. ‘I’m not. I just stumbled over something. It’s important.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that. What is it? Hand it over.’
‘It’s something I saw. I was in Mellors’ HQ this morning, and–’
‘What were you doing there? You’ve no business visiting them.’
Annie struggled against the temptation to blurt out that she was trying to retrieve something from the mess Barbara was making of the Mellors’ case, and said instead, ‘Delivering stuff for Pat.’
‘Oh … well, I don’t see why she couldn’t go herself.’
Annie looked at the woman in front of her. Eighteen stone, she judged, and rising, but able to kid herself she didn’t carry too much excess weight because her sister was even bigger. At least Pat made the effort to climb the stairs to the office on a regular basis. Barbara’s presence here on a Friday was both unusual and unwelcome.
‘Those guys putting the screw on your client,’ she told Barbara, ‘they claim they knew nothing about the original property deal till everything was well underway?’
Barbara nodded.
‘Well, it turns out they knew about it last November. They wrote a letter about it. I have the date and the recipient’s address.’ Annie pulled a scrap of paper from her back pocket and held it out. ‘So you need to write and demand a copy of that exact–’
‘Don’t tell me how to do my job,’ snapped Barbara, grabbing the paper. ‘I’m already on to it.’
Annie looked down at the mail in her hand. One letter was addressed personally to her. Without a word, she skimmed the other two on to the desk top, turned on her heel and went back down the stairs. Tell her how to do her job! Someone should. Without that address and date, Barbara would have blundered into a settlement that would make the client wonder why on earth he had wasted his money on a private investigator. Now, with that under her belt, she would close a brilliant deal for a good client and end up with some useful recommendations. And because Pat hadn’t been here today, Barbara would take all the credit.
As she stepped on to the street, Annie ripped open her letter and ran her eye down the few lines. It was from a woman who ran a riding school out in Holderness, inviting her to come and judge a fancy-dress competition.
Perfect for you as a detective, the scribbled lines ran. It’s a mythical warriors theme. You can bring an advertising banner. Let me know if you can’t make it. Otherwise, see you on the day.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Annie fought an urge to scrunch the paper and throw it into the road. A years-old case had forced her to feign a temporary interest in the workings of the riding school and she’d been pestered with these sorts of invitations ever since.
She glanced at the page again. Advertising banner? Even supposing they had such a thing, why would they advertise at a horsey fancy-dress do? With an exasperated sigh, she rammed the letter into her pocket. Another irritation adding to a day that had begun to turn sour. Some risky sleight of hand had gathered that information for Barbara and the world at large wanted to fob her off with fancy-dress shows.
She marched smartly through the streets of Hull, skimming the old town and cutting through Dagger Lane towards the dual carriageway. Castle Street, a fog of exhaust fumes, pulsed with traffic noise. Annie eyed the main road as she emerged from the side street. A block of traffic at the tree-lined roundabout was just revving for the off, so she broke into a run, taking the first triplelaned carriageway in a few swift strides. A single long blare sounded behind her as she vaulted the central fence, but she ignored it. Cars streamed off the wide sweep of Myton Bridge, stopping her briefly, before she saw a gap and was at the other side heading for the quayside pub where she often had lunch.
Speed had taken her away from the poisonous bulk of Pat’s elder sister and had calmed her. It solved nothing to risk life and limb on busy roads. She must either confront Pat again over the problems of the business, or she must cut free and strike out on her own. The bits of cases they took on could keep them ticking over forever. The sisters were satisfied with that: Annie wasn’t.
She pushed open the door and entered the bar; a dark cave after the brightness of the street, its usually loud music a dull background beat behind the jingle of gaming machines rippling patterns across their square glass faces. As Annie’s eyes adjusted, she saw the place was all but empty. She’d beaten the lunchtime rush.
The barman clocked her entrance with a nod of recognition and signalled to a woman at the far end of the counter. Annie ignored the exchange. He was forever telling people she would solve their problems. Stolen car … broken window…? Ask Annie … she’s in the business … she’ll sort it for you …
And she was forever telling him, ‘We don’t do that stuff. Tell them to call the police if their car’s gone missing.’
She ordered half a pint of smooth and a cheese and onion sandwich which she carried to a table in a corner. The bread was fresh, the cheese chunky and the onion crisp between her teeth. She savoured the sharp taste and watched the place fill up. She was aware of the woman at the bar throwing glances her way, and avoided looking across in case accidental eye contact should be interpreted as an invitation to come over and talk. Then the woman’s glances stopped abruptly as a short stocky man came in. Annie watched the mime of conversation between them as the woman drained her glass before linking arms with the man as they made for the door.
They strolled past, looking neither right nor left. Annie heard the woman say, ‘Aw, leave it out, Ron,’ as she draped her hand over his arm, displaying exquisitely-patterned maroon nails.
For a moment, Annie stared, fascinated at the intricacy of the design, then a familiar face appeared and she felt her mouth curve to a smile of greeting. Jennifer Flanagan came in as the couple left. This was a turn up. Jennifer’s shift patterns rarely gave her time for lunch.
‘Hi.’ Jennifer looked pleased to see her. ‘I hop
ed I’d catch you.’
Annie watched her stroll across to the bar to get herself a sandwich. Jennifer Flanagan had been her first friend when she’d arrived in Hull. Sort of. They’d both been rookies: Jennifer in her police probationer’s uniform towering over most of her colleagues; Annie newly arrived to work for Jed Thompson’s agency in her first proper PI job. Shared blundering through a case that offered complexities neither of them could have imagined had forged a bond.
‘How was your trip home?’ Jennifer asked, as she sat down.
‘Yeah, good. I stayed with Aunt Marian. She’s well.’
‘And your father?’
‘Busy as usual. A real workaholic. But he was pleased to see me.’ Not. ‘Can’t wait for me to get a proper job, of course. So what’s up?’
‘It’s nothing official, but I wanted to run something past you. Is there any chance of you taking on a case for someone who doesn’t really have any money?’
Annie looked at Jennifer but kept her expression neutral. ‘Not usually, but tell me more.’ No one knew the stagnant state of the business. It was one area where she and the two sisters were bang on the same page. Any hint they were an ineffective outfit going nowhere would drive away the custom that kept them afloat. The future’s bright, was the official line.
‘Have you followed that vigilante case? Yates and Walker.’
Annie nodded. The case had been big news; its major players were from the local area. The court case had been rerun in pubs across the town. The bones of it were that 30-year-old Joshua Yates had killed 33-year-old Michael Walker, a man he didn’t know. His only defence was an allegation he could not back up that Walker had abused a young girl and must be stopped. Yates was found guilty of murder and the court awaited psychiatric reports before sentencing.
Annie was puzzled. Jennifer had occasionally passed people on to her, but only a handful and only where there was no question that the case belonged outside official territory. Surely this was on the wrong turf.