DEAD BAD a gripping crime mystery full of twists

by Helen H. Durrant

  “I could give a few back,” Dane chanced. “Say I couldn’t get rid.”

  There was no way Calladine was going to let that happen. “These stay with us.”

  “Go on. Just a few should do it. A handful of Buckley blues to give back, and I’ll be sorted.”

  Calladine looked at the boy in surprise. The two words rang in his head. Buckley blues. Why that name?

  “What did you call the pills?”

  “Buckley blues. It’s what Newt said they was.”

  “Why did he say that?”

  “Dunno. Flake reckons Newt’s in with them at the factory up in the hills.”

  Chapter 25

  “It’s a tough decision to make,” Ruth said. “If we go, it means I give up the only career I’ve ever known.”

  It was a big deal for Ruth, but Jake was shaking his head. He obviously didn’t see the move as the huge wrench she did.

  “You can be a detective anywhere, Ruth,” he said. “Record you’ve got, the force in Sussex will snap you up. We go down there, I bet you make inspector in no time.”

  Ruth inhaled and moved the bedroom curtain to take a peek outside. There was the reassuring presence of two officers sat in a car. “That might be the case, but it isn’t what I want. I like working in Leesworth. We are a team and that hasn’t happened overnight. My relationship with my colleagues has grown over the years, with Calladine particularly.”

  “You don’t have to rush into things. Even if the Sussex force don’t want you, I’ll be earning enough to look after all of us. You might enjoy some time with Harry. Be a young mum for a change, instead of this frantic woman who never has a minute.”

  So that was it. Underneath all that talk of picking up her career in a new area was the hope that she’d opt for being a stay-at-home mum. “Now you’re being unfair,” she said. “I spend plenty of time with Harry. He goes short of nothing.”

  “True, but he’s very young and we’ll never get this time back.”

  “Jake, if you’re so concerned about Harry, you stay at home with him. And, frankly, even if the Sussex force didn’t take me, I’d stack shelves in the local supermarket before I’d stay at home all day.”

  “Now you’re being stupid.”

  “And you’re being unfair. You want me to give up everything. What are you prepared to sacrifice? If this was me with the job offer from a different area, what would your reaction be?”

  Ruth saw the look. He had never even considered it.

  “Now you’re twisting things,” he said.

  “I don’t want to leave here, Jake,” Ruth said firmly. “I’ve thought about it, but I’m afraid it just wouldn’t work for me. This is where I work, this is where I live. I see no reason to change anything.”

  “Not even for the sake of our relationship?”

  * * *

  It was getting late. By the time Calladine had finished with Dane Hamilton and his mother, it was almost ten p.m. From the reports coming in, the Hobfield was still bouncing. Uniform was bringing in a constant stream of kids, and then searching the town for their parents. As anticipated, Leesdon hospital was rapidly filling up with the causalities. All of it was important and needing sorting there and then. Calladine had a couple of names, at least — Flake and Danny Newton. But overriding everything was the need to find where the pills had come from. ‘Buckley blues,’ Dane had called them. This had to be a reference to Buckley Pharmaceuticals, the company Eve Buckley owned. Eve Buckley: Calladine’s birth mother.

  He couldn’t leave it. He would have to speak to her. He picked up the office phone and dialled her landline. The housekeeper answered and told him that Eve had gone to a reception in Huddersfield and would be back late. Whether he liked it or not, their talk would have to wait until morning. Manchester this afternoon, now Huddersfield. Was Eve avoiding him?

  Buckley blues. Calladine couldn’t get those two words out of his head. He couldn’t for the life of him think what Eve’s firm was doing mixed up in all this. He went through to the incident room and stared at the board. The drugs problem was one thing, but the team also had two murders to sort. The PM results were ghastly. These crimes were more than just echoes of the case he’d worked on with Boyd and the rest of them. They were dead ringers. Was it the same killer? Couldn’t be. Norbury was locked away. It had to be down to someone who knew the details, and knew them intimately.

  His head was pounding. It was time to go home. The drugs case was Long’s anyway. He scribbled a quick note and left it on Long’s desk, omitting the Buckley connection. He wanted to speak to Eve before he divulged that one. Calladine had had enough for one day.

  He was on his way out of the building when the desk sergeant called him back.

  “Sir, there’s been an incident.”

  “Not the bloody Hobfield again?”

  “No, sir. DI Long’s been the victim of a hit and run. He’s in Leesdon General, in a bad way.”

  * * *

  So much for going home. There was no way Calladine could do that until he knew Long’s condition.

  When Calladine arrived at the hospital reception, Layla was there. “We were first on the scene. It was me and my partner who brought him in. According to the witness, the car was parked up. When they saw DI Long, they drove straight at him, no hesitation.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Oldston Road.”

  Calladine knew that was where Long lived. Someone had been waiting for him. But why? “Do we know this witness’s name?”

  “John Denton. He stayed with Long until we arrived. He had the foresight to jot down the car registration number.” Layla handed him a piece of paper.

  “Thanks, love. What have they done with him?”

  “He’s in resus. They’ll assess his injuries, then more than likely take him up to theatre. He was bleeding pretty badly from a head wound, and I’d say his leg was broken.”

  Calladine gave her a quick peck on the cheek and made his way along the corridor to the resus department.

  Chapter 26

  Day 6

  Calladine spent most of the night with Brad Long. The DI was badly injured. As Layla had thought, he had a broken leg and the scalp wound wouldn’t stop bleeding. After a CT scan, the medics decided that, despite the way his head looked, no really serious damage had been done.

  The following morning, Calladine related the sorry tale to the team.

  “Long’s current case was the drugs. I suspect that what happened to him is directly related. It’s an extremely lucrative business someone’s got going. Word must have got round that he was the detective in charge, and a decision made to take him out. That means whoever we are dealing with is one ruthless bastard. Any ideas?”

  “There are no rumours circulating,” Rocco said. “In fact, I’d say there’s a power vacuum right now. No one has taken over since Costello.”

  “Perhaps someone from out of town?” Ruth suggested. “Seen the area going begging and stepped in big time. How’s DI Long doing?”

  “He’s having surgery on his leg this morning. I’ll visit him later and ask him what he remembers. See what you can find out. We need to discover who is producing the pills, and quick.”

  “Do we know where they are being produced, sir?” Alice asked.

  What should he say? “I’m working on that one. I’ll be able to give you more information later.”

  Ruth reminded him about the murders. “We have two bodies in the morgue, don’t forget. We have an ID for the first one but not the second. That needs putting right.”

  “Missing persons?”

  “Nothing yesterday,” Rocco said. “And there was nothing on her that might help.”

  “She was about four months pregnant,” Ruth said. “I’ll follow up on that today. If she made herself known to the ante-natal clinic, they might be able to help us.”

  Calladine nodded at her. “Good call. Take Alice with you.”

  “What about the Norbury angle?” Rocco asked.
<
br />   “What about him?” Calladine asked.

  Rocco frowned. “Are we sure it was Norbury in the first place?”

  “We had evidence, a confession. The CPS were satisfied, and we had no one else in the frame at the time,” Calladine said, but in truth that case still bothered him.

  “You did voice doubts,” Ruth said.

  “I don’t know. There was just something about him. He’d chop and change his story so much it was hard to keep tabs. But then all that stopped. It was as if he’d been practising his confession and finally got the whole thing straight. In the end, he was word perfect.”

  “You think he was coached?” Ruth said. “Or bullied perhaps? I read in the log that after one interview, he turned up for the following one with a bruise on his face. Is that a possibility?”

  “I wasn’t here for most of the investigation. I don’t know who I’d pin that on if it was true. Norbury’s a strange character. If you read the transcripts, he said all sorts of things.”

  “If not Norbury, then who?” Ruth said.

  “We need to check who might know the details. The investigating team, maybe? Other prisoners Norbury could have told? I’ll have to speak to Birch. We don’t want to upset anyone.”

  “By anyone, you mean Angus Ford, I presume. He does appear to be a tad sensitive about the issue.” Ruth grimaced.

  Calladine smiled at her. “He’s sensitive about everything to do with his job. Mind you, it was a big case and he was a member of the team that cracked it. He was made up to DI not long after. The Norbury case was just one in a string of cases that he was party to solving that year. His career never looked back. He certainly wouldn’t want anything or anyone casting doubt on the Norbury or any other conviction he was involved in. Not that he had a big part to play. He was like me, off on a course for most of it.”

  “I’ll check out what became of the investigating team,” Rocco said, “particularly Boyd and Andrews, and as many of the others I can find who were involved at the time. There’s SOCO too.”

  “Good,” Calladine said. “We’ll have a case conference after lunch.”

  Rocco was already standing up. “What are you up to, sir?”

  “I have to go and have a word with someone urgently. It’s connected with the investigations, but I’ll say more about it later.”

  * * *

  Calladine had to see Eve. He needed to find out what she knew about the pills. It could not be simple coincidence that Dane Hamilton had referred to them as ‘Buckley blues.’ This time he didn’t phone first. He wanted to surprise her.

  Eve Buckley lived in a huge house halfway up one of the hills that surrounded Leesdon. It was built of stone and had stood resplendent in its situation, looking down over the town, for over a hundred years. Buckley’s factory, a former paper mill, was only a few hundred yards below.

  Calladine rang the bell and waited on the doorstep, wondering whether Eve knew what was going on in the town. If she did, what then? He couldn’t believe she was complicit in the manufacture of those blue pills.

  Eve’s housekeeper finally answered the door.

  “Is Eve in?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Come in. Mrs Buckley will be pleased to see you.”

  Calladine doubted that, not once he explained the reason for his visit.

  The housekeeper led him into a large sitting room. Eve was sitting on a sofa, sorting through a pile of paperwork. She looked up, surprised.

  “It’s all very well Simon going away, but it leaves me with this little lot to deal with.” She stood up and kissed his cheek. “Sorry about yesterday. I had appointments I couldn’t get out of. I wasn’t expecting you to visit. I was told you’d gone away for a few days. You’ve hurt your face.” She brushed her fingertips gently over the bruise. “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “It was something and nothing.”

  “Would you like some tea or coffee?”

  “No thank you.”

  Eve’s hair was dark, cut into an elegant bob, and the clothes she wore were casual but expensive. She looked her usual smart self. But there was something about her. It was in the body language. She seemed ill at ease, like someone waiting for questions she didn’t want to answer.

  After an uncomfortable silence, she cleared her throat. “I had Zoe on the phone asking about you. I had no idea what to tell her. The few days away, to re-charge your batteries was it?”

  He shrugged again. “Not really.”

  “Work then?”

  “It’s work now.” Calladine was growing impatient with the small talk. “Are you aware of what’s going on in the area? Do you know anything about the drug dealing that’s taking place?”

  “Why would I know anything about that?” She looked genuinely puzzled at his question, and her tone was indignant.

  Calladine scratched his head. She had to know something. Her factory and staff couldn’t be part of this without her knowledge.

  “I don’t even read the papers,” she said. “They print rubbish, the lot of them.”

  “Leesdon and other areas have been swamped with a drug that’s being manufactured locally.” He paused, waiting for a response that didn’t come. “I believe that these drugs are being made in your factory, Eve.”

  “That can’t be right! If that were true, I’d know about it. My staff would never allow anything illegal to happen.”

  “The evidence is building. If you know anything, or suspect anything, you have to tell me.”

  She turned her back to him. “It’s not that easy, Tom.”

  “What do you mean? Has something happened?”

  She faced him, her expression troubled. Was that fear he saw in her eyes? “Yes, and more will follow if I talk. They’ve already hurt you. They promised me you’d be safe, that you wouldn’t be harmed.”

  Calladine stared at her. She meant his kidnap. “We’ll talk about that shortly. I’m here about these.” He took out his phone and showed her the photo of the blue pills. “Can you tell me anything about them?”

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. “No, what are they?” She stepped through the French doors, out into the garden.

  Calladine followed her. “The pills, Eve. This is important. What do you know about them? The kids on the Hobfield are calling them ‘Buckley blues.’ From the name, they must have something to do with your company.”

  “What sort of pills are they?”

  “Speed.”

  All colour drained from Eve’s face. “This is all my fault. I should have done more when it first started. Instead, I went along with what they wanted. But I was frightened. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”

  “You knew about the drugs?” Calladine could hardly believe what he was hearing. The community trusted this woman. She employed dozens of them, and now he was finding that she was overseeing the production of drugs that threatened their health, their very lives!

  “Last night,” he said, “a colleague of mine, the detective investigating the drug dealing, was deliberately mown down by a car and badly injured. You have to tell me what you know before someone gets killed.”

  The look on her face said it all. She was devastated. “I’ve been an old fool. But I was so scared, Tom. I was told that if I didn’t do as I was told, they would harm you, Zoe too and then they’d start on the families of your team.”

  “Harm me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “They weren’t joking. It was a very real threat. And then when you disappeared . . .” She shook her head.

  Suddenly it all fell into place. “That’s why I was kidnapped!”

  “Yes. They took you and then blackmailed me. They wanted access to one of the factory outbuildings, the one further up the hill. Not only that, they wanted chemicals delivered and invoiced to Buckley’s. If I refused, they said they’d kill you. I couldn’t take that risk. When you suddenly vanished, I was frantic, but they assured me that you’d be set free once they’d finished. I had no idea what they were
up to. When I saw what was on the list of stuff, I should’ve realised. But even if I had, I dared not risk your life.

  “They set things up to make it look as if I’d run out on everyone. Taken a bribe.” Calladine nodded sombrely. “That got me into no end of trouble.”

  “I did leave you clues.” She gave him a half-hearted smile. “You are a detective. I thought it was worth a shot.”

  “Clues?” Calladine frowned.

  “Heights Industrial? My company was Heights Pharmaceuticals before it became Buckley’s. I just used false names for the directors. This house is called ‘The Heights.’”

  Calladine closed his eyes for a moment. He should have realised. “The money?”

  “I put that in your account. They made me. I think they wanted the police to believe that you’d taken a bribe. I have no idea why. I can only presume that they wanted you and your disappearance to keep your colleagues busy. It gave them time to get production of those pills set up without hindrance from the police.”

  “Surely your staff must have known what was going on?”

  “No, they didn’t. I told my manager, Alan Landseer that we’d let the building out. It’s an old building and, as a rule, no one goes up there. Alan is too busy with his own job to stick his nose in elsewhere.”

  “Do you know the place they took me to?”

  “Moortop Manse? Yes. It’s Buckley property. Years ago, when my husband was alive, it was used for corporate events. Shooting weekends when the grouse were in season. Nowadays, it’s rented out to hiking clubs, and none of the family ever go there. I said they could use it to keep you in. I was worried that the alternative would be a damp cellar somewhere.”

  “Who is blackmailing you?”

  Eve didn’t reply. Instead, she set off in the direction of a summer house at the bottom of the garden.

  Calladine followed her. “You must tell me. I have to put a stop to it.”

  “They know you’re on to them. Don’t you see? That’s why your colleague was targeted. The next one on their hit list will be you, Tom. I can’t take that risk.”