The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set

by Phillip Strang

  ‘No.’

  ‘She contacted me,’ Upminster said. ‘Nothing serious, more of an insinuation.’

  ‘You gave her money?’

  ‘Some, but it was more of a donation. She said she was struggling to pay a bill, and would I help. Nothing more than that.’

  ‘You’re protecting a devious woman. Why?’

  ‘There’s no more to say.’

  Tremayne could see everyone going around in a circle, being obtuse as usual. He needed to raise the ire of those in the room. He looked over at Clare. She knew what to do.

  ‘Desdemona, why did you kill Bert Blatchford?’ Clare said.

  ‘How dare you accuse my wife,’ Hamish Foster said.

  ‘We have a photo of Desdemona holding Bert Blatchford’s hand. They are both young, in their teens.’

  ‘I thought the contents of the box were about Margaret,’ Desdemona said quietly.

  ‘We’ve addressed that. Were you romantically involved with Bert Blatchford?’

  ‘My father was a tyrant. He would have beaten me if he had known, but yes.’

  ‘Does your husband know?’

  ‘Yes, but it was a long time ago, before I married Hamish.’

  ‘So why did you kill him?’

  ‘He was going to tell everyone. He wanted money, a lot of it, more than we could spare. I couldn’t deal with the shame.’

  Tremayne realised that, as so often happens, the need to confess comes at the most unexpected moment.

  ‘We’ve always had you as a weak and timid woman.’

  ‘I am, but Hamish doesn’t deserve to be embarrassed by my past.’

  ‘It’s not a reason to kill someone.’

  ‘If you had known my father and what he beat into me, it was. I saw Bert there with his pigs, and I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t budge. Either I paid, or he said that he’d make me out to be the local tart. I couldn’t allow that.’

  ‘The knife?’

  ‘I had it in my hand. I was going to threaten him with it. It was an accident, I swear it, but he turned his back on me, called me some offensive words, and then the knife was there in his back, and he was on the ground with the pigs.’

  ‘We found no proof that you had been there.’

  ‘I was careful to conceal the evidence, and I took my time to check. Sheila wasn’t there, so it was Bert and me.’

  ‘And how did you feel afterwards?’

  ‘I felt nothing, only relief.’

  ‘My wife doesn’t realise what she’s saying,’ Hamish Foster said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Desdemona said. ‘The truth is important.’

  ‘Hamish Foster, you killed Sheila Blatchford,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘I tried to reason with Sheila who had figured out that it was Desdemona. She was as heartless as Gloria. Sheila wanted money, more than Bert, for her silence. I couldn’t let it continue.’

  Another confession, as unexpected as the first one. Both Tremayne and Clare were pleased that their time in Compton had concluded; sorry that yet again decent people had committed terrible crimes for which they would have to pay.

  ‘The chainsaw?’

  ‘I knew where Woodcock kept it, and I knew how to get into his barn. Two days after I had confronted Sheila, I found her in the barn. I strangled her, but anger at what I’d done, and then revulsion, made me decide to hide the evidence.’

  ‘Why take a chainsaw if you hadn’t intended to use it?’

  ‘I had, and then I changed my mind, but when I saw her looking at me with her eyes wide open as I killed her, I knew I had to complete what I had originally set out to do. I changed my clothes and placed them outside the back of the barn. I then went back and did what I had to.’

  ‘We never understood how you cleaned yourself up afterwards.’

  ‘There’s a small stream not far away. I washed there and put on the clothes that I had left outside of the barn. It rained heavily that night, so I suppose any sign of my walking across to the stream was washed away.’

  ‘Weren’t you revolted by what you had done?’

  ‘I had saved Desdemona from embarrassment. I felt numb, but nothing more.’

  Tremayne stood outside the pub. The Fosters had been charged and were on their way to the cells at the police station. Eustace Upminster was getting cosy with Linda Wilson. The Woodcocks were back with their children at their farm.

  ‘Superintendent Moulton will be after your retirement now,’ Clare said as Tremayne lit up a cigarette.

  ‘Death holds no fear, retirement does,’ Tremayne said as he took his first puff.

  The End

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  Death by a Dead Man’s Hand – A DI Tremayne Thriller

  A flawed heist of forty gold bars from a security van late at night. One of the perpetrators is killed by his brother as they argue over what they have stolen.

  Eighteen years later, the murderer, released after serving his sentence for his brother’s murder, waits in a church for a man purporting to be the brother he killed. And then he too is killed.

  The threads stretch back a long way, and now more people are dying in the search for the missing gold bars.

  Detective Inspector Tremayne, his health causing him concern, and Sergeant Clare Yarwood, still seeking romance, are pushed to the limit solving the murder, attempting to prevent any more.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Death at Coombe Farm – A DI Tremayne Thriller

  A warring family. A disputed inheritance. A recipe for death.

  If it hadn’t been for the circumstances, Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne would have said the view was outstanding. Up high, overlooking the farmhouse in the valley below, the panoramic vista of Salisbury Plain stretching out beyond. The only problem was that near where he stood with his sergeant, Clare Yarwood, there was a body, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Death and the Lucky Man – A DI Tremayne Thriller

  Sixty-eight million pounds and dead. Hardly the outcome expected for the luckiest man in England the day his lottery ticket was drawn out of the barrel. But then, Alan Winters’ rags-to-riches story had never been conventional, and there were those who had benefited, but others who hadn’t.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Death and the Assassin’s Blade – A DI Tremayne Thriller

  It was meant to be high drama, not murder, but someone’s switched the daggers. The man’s death took place in plain view of two serving police officers.

  He was not meant to die; the daggers were only theatrical props, plastic and harmless. A summer’s night, a production of Julius Caesar amongst the ruins of an Anglo-Saxon fort. Detective Inspector Tremayne is there with his sergeant, Clare Yarwood. In the assassination scene, Caesar collapses to the ground. Brutus defends his actions; Mark Antony rebukes him.

  They’re a disparate group, the amateur actors. One’s an estate agent, another an accountant. And then there is the teenage school student, the gay man, the funeral director. And what about the women? They could be involved.

  They’ve each got a secret, but which of those on the stage wanted Gordon Mason, the actor who had portrayed Caesar, dead?

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Death Unholy – A DI Tremayne Thriller

  All that remained were the man’s two legs and a chair full of greasy and fetid ash. Little did DI Keith Tremayne know that it was the beginning of a journey into the murky world of paganism and its ancient rituals. And it was going to get very dangerous.

  ‘Do you believe in spontaneous human combustion?’ Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne asked.

  ‘Not me. I’ve read about it. Who hasn’t?’ Sergeant Clare Yarwood answered.

  ‘I haven’t,’ Tremayne replied, which did not surprise his young sergeant. In the months they had been working together, she had come to realise that he was a man who had little interest in the world. When he had a cigarette in his mouth, a beer in his hand, and a murder to sol
ve he was about the happiest she ever saw him, but even then he could hardly be regarded as one of life’s most sociable people. And as for reading? The most he managed was an occasional police report, an early morning newspaper, turning first to the back pages for the racing results.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Murder of a Silent Man – A DCI Cook Thriller

  A murdered recluse. A property empire. A disinherited family – All the ingredients for murder.

  No one gave much credence to the man when he was alive. In fact, most people never knew who he was, although those who had lived in the area for many years recognised the tired-looking and shabbily-dressed man as he shuffled along, regular as clockwork on a Thursday afternoon at seven in the evening to the local off-licence. It was always the same: a bottle of whisky, premium brand, and a packet of cigarettes. He paid his money over the counter, took hold of his plastic bag containing his purchases, and then walked back down the road with the same rhythmic shuffle. He said not one word to anyone on the street or in the shop.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Murder in Room 346 – A DCI Cook Thriller

  ‘Coitus interruptus, that’s what it is,’ Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook said. On the bed, in a downmarket hotel in Bayswater, lay the naked bodies of a man and a woman.

  ‘Bullet in the head’s not the way to go,’ Larry Hill, Isaac Cook’s detective inspector, said. He had not expected such a flippant comment from his senior, not when they were standing near to two people who had, apparently in the final throes of passion, succumbed to what appeared to be a professional assassination.

  ‘You know this will be all over the media within the hour,’ Isaac said.

  ‘James Holden, moral crusader, a proponent of the sanctity of the marital bed, man and wife. It’s bound to be.’

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Murder in Notting Hill – A DCI Cook Thriller

  One murderer, two bodies, two locations, and the murders have been committed within an hour of each other.

  They’re separated by a couple of miles, and neither woman has anything in common with the other. One is young and wealthy, the daughter of a famous man; the other is poor, hardworking and unknown.

  Isaac Cook and his team at Challis Street Police Station are baffled about why they’ve been killed. There must be a connection, but what is it?

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Murder is the Only Option – A DCI Cook Thriller

  A man, thought to be long dead, returns to exact revenge against those who had blighted his life. His only concern is to protect his wife and daughter. He will stop at nothing to achieve his aim.

  ‘Big Greg, I never expected to see you around here at this time of night.’

  ‘I’ve told you enough times.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Robertson replied. He looked up at the man, only to see a metal pole coming down at him. Robertson fell down, cracking his head against a concrete kerb.

  Two vagrants, no more than twenty feet away, did not stir and did not even look in the direction of the noise. If they had, they would have seen a dead body, another man walking away.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Murder in Little Venice – A DCI Cook Thriller

  A dismembered corpse floats in the canal in Little Venice, an upmarket tourist haven in London. Its identity is unknown, but what is its significance?

  DCI Isaac Cook is baffled about why it’s there. Is it gang-related, or is it something more?

  Whatever the reason, it’s clearly a warning, and Isaac and his team are sure it’s not the last body that they’ll have to deal with.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Murder is Only a Number – A DCI Cook Thriller

  Before she left she carved a number in blood on his chest. But why the number 2, if this was her first murder?

  The woman prowls the streets of London. Her targets are men who have wronged her. Or have they? And why is she keeping count?

  DCI Cook and his team finally know who she is, but not before she’s murdered four men. The whole team are looking for her, but the woman keeps disappearing in plain sight. The pressure’s on to stop her, but she’s always one step ahead.

  And this time, DCS Goddard can’t protect his protégé, Isaac Cook, from the wrath of the new commissioner at the Met.

  Buy here: Amazon

  Murder House – A DCI Cook Thriller

  A corpse in the fireplace of an old house. It’s been there for thirty years, but who is it?

  It’s murder, but who is the victim and what connection does the body have to the previous owners of the house. What is the motive? And why is the body in a fireplace? It was bound to be discovered eventually but was that what the murderer wanted? The main suspects are all old and dying, or already dead.

  Isaac Cook and his team have their work cut out trying to put the pieces together. Those who know are not talking because of an old-fashioned belief that a family’s dirty laundry should not be aired in public, and never to a policeman – even if that means the murderer is never brought to justice!

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Murder is a Tricky Business – A DCI Cook Thriller

  A television actress is missing, and DCI Isaac Cook, the Senior Investigation Officer of the Murder Investigation Team at Challis Street Police Station in London, is searching for her.

  Why has he been taken away from more important crimes to search for the woman? It’s not the first time she’s gone missing, so why does everyone assume she’s been murdered?

  There’s a secret, that much is certain, but who knows it? The missing woman? The executive producer? His eavesdropping assistant? Or the actor who portrayed her fictional brother in the TV soap opera?

  Buy here: Amazon

  Murder Without Reason – A DCI Cook Thriller

  DCI Cook faces his greatest challenge. The Islamic State is waging war in England, and they are winning.

  Not only does Isaac Cook have to contend with finding the perpetrators, but he is also being forced to commit actions contrary to his mandate as a police officer.

  And then there is Anne Argento, the prime minister’s deputy. The prime minister has shown himself to be a pacifist and is not up to the task. She needs to take his job if the country is to fight back against the Islamists.

  Vane and Martin have provided the solution. Will DCI Cook and Anne Argento be willing to follow it through? Are they able to act for the good of England, knowing that a criminal and murderous action is about to take place? Do they have an option?

  Buy here: Amazon.

  The Haberman Virus

  A remote and isolated village in the Hindu Kush mountain range in North Eastern Afghanistan is wiped out by a virus unlike any seen before.

  A mysterious visitor clad in a space suit checks his handiwork, a female American doctor succumbs to the disease, and the woman sent to trap the person responsible falls in love with him – the man who would cause the deaths of millions.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Hostage of Islam

  Three are to die at the Mission in Nigeria: the pastor and his wife in a blazing chapel; another gunned down while trying to defend them from the Islamist fighters.

  Kate McDonald, an American, grieving over her boyfriend’s death and Helen Campbell, whose life had been troubled by drugs and prostitution, are taken by the attackers.

  Kate is sold to a slave trader who intends to sell her virginity to an Arab Prince. Helen, to ensure their survival, gives herself to the murderer of her friends.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  Malika’s Revenge

  Malika, a drug-addicted prostitute, waits in a smugglers' village for the next Afghan tribesman or Tajik gangster to pay her price, a few scraps of heroin.

  Yusup Baroyev, a drug lord, enjoys a lifestyle many would envy. An Afghan warlord sees the resurgence of the Taliban. A Russian white-collar criminal portrays himself as a good and honest citizen in Moscow.

  All of them are
linked to an audacious plan to increase the quantity of heroin shipped out of Afghanistan and into Russia and ultimately the West.

  Some will succeed, some will die, some will be rescued from their plight and others will rue the day they became involved.

  Buy here: Amazon.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Phillip Strang was born in England in the late forties. He was an avid reader of science fiction in his teenage years: Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, the masters of the genre. Still an avid reader, the author now mainly reads thrillers.

  In his early twenties, the author, with a degree in electronics engineering and a desire to see the world, left England for Sydney, Australia. Now, forty years later, he still resides in Australia, although many intervening years were spent in a myriad of countries, some calm and safe, others no more than war zones.

  Author’s Website: http://www.phillipstrang.com

  Email; phillip@phillipstrang.com