by Chris Simms
‘Come on!’ He screamed triumphantly.
Peering down from the roof, the surveillance officer said, ‘The male has just taken the vehicle! He’s proceeding towards the main road, turning right…no, he’s stopping…’
Fletcher pressed the button for the passenger side window. ‘Elaine! Get in!’
The officer on the roof spoke again. ‘He’s just picked up a female pedestrian. Vehicle’s now turned right, heading away from the station along Store Street. I repeat, away from the station.’
In the monitoring room, the suited man’s shoulders relaxed. ‘That’s fine by me. Calvacade status?’
‘We are nearing the junction of London Road. Train station is on our right.’
The camera operator pointed. ‘There they are. On number two.’ The screen showed the main road outside. Led by the two motorbikes, the state vehicles were slowly approaching.
Fletcher pulled the handbag out and tossed it onto Elaine’s lap. ‘Fuck me! Soon as I took it, every pig in that place was after me.’
Elaine was laughing with excitement. ‘I was sure they had you.’ She unzipped the bag, wondering what the smell permeating the van was as she reached straight for the purse.
‘Check this!’ A fan of notes was in her hand, all tens and twenties.
Fletcher was now turning off Great Ancoats Street into some waste ground behind a derelict mill.
As the suited man watched the motorbikes turning right, something needled him. The barriers at the end of the concourse had been raised as an officer waved the royal vehicles through. ‘Control Point to Obs Point Five. Had that van approached from the main road?’
‘No – it came along a service road which leads to some kind of commercial premises at the far end of the staff car park.’
Fletcher pulled to a halt. ‘What else is in there?’
The farm, Elaine thought. The smell reminds me of the farm. The mobile phone in the handbag’s inner compartment started to ring. Elaine took the call. ‘Yeah, yeah – tough shit: you’ve lost your stuff, Mrs.’ She tossed the handset onto the white bags piled up in the rear of the van.
The suited man in the monitoring room was frowning. ‘All deliveries to those shops were suspended. Can you still see the vehicle?’
‘Negative, visual contact lost when it turned off Store Street.’
Elaine looked over her shoulder at the sacks. That’s the smell, she realised. Fertiliser. She reached over her seat and opened the uppermost sack. Wires ran into the pale blue granules. And there was a little clock. Tick tock, tick tock. The thing was only a few seconds off twelve.
The royal cavalcade was half-way up the concourse when, just over a kilometre away, a dull whump reverberated across the city. The surveillance unit on the roof watched a massive old building collapse in on itself before a huge cloud of dust billowed up towards the sky.
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Killing the Beasts
So what’s Killing the Beasts, the first book in the Spicer series, all about?
Now just 99 cents on Amazon!
The Commonwealth Games have come to Manchester and the city is buzzing.
Caught up in the commercial feeding frenzy is Tom Benwell, an advertising executive. But the pressure is getting to Tom -- too many deals to make and lies to tell.
Meanwhile his friend, DI Jon Spicer, is on the fast track, showing a love for the job that borders on obsession, according to his girlfriend, Alice.
Then, in the aftermath of the Games, a string of brutal murders shatters the city's new-found spirit. Spicer gets the case. Each victim has been murdered in the same bizarre and grotesque manner, yet the lack of motive leaves the police utterly baffled.
With the race on to catch the killer, both men find themselves caught up in a nightmare where the most innocent action can cost the highest price.
‘Chris Simms has never shown any reluctance to chill the blood of the reader.’ (GOOD BOOK GUIDE)
Some Amazon reader reviews for Killing the Beasts
‘Just finished this book and it was brilliant! An unusual story line, written well, and the attention to details impressed me.’
‘This was an excellent read. It is well written and a real page turner. I stayed up all night to finish it, to be recommended.’
‘Wow, what a story, thought I'd worked out who did it about half way through the book but BAM I was wrong!!’
‘DI Spicer is a great find. Rough and tough. He also has some strange friends. I look forward to the next instalment.’
Look out for the rest of the Spicer series – coming soon to Amazon!
Killing the Beasts (Spicer series, book one)
Shifting Skin (Spicer series, book two)
Savage Moon (Spicer series, book three)
Hell’s Fire (Spicer series, book four)
The Edge (Spicer series, book five)
Cut Adrift (Spicer series, book six)
Sleeping Dogs (Spicer series, book seven)
Death Games (Spicer series, book eight)
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Tick Tock
Copyright © 2018 Chris Simms
This Kindle edition copyright © 2018 Chris Simms
The right of Chris Simms to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
About the author
Along with several nominations for the Crime Writers’ Association Daggers (for his novels and short stories) and the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year award, Chris was selected by Waterstone’s as one of their ‘25 Authors For The Future’. He continues to feverishly scribble away from a small hut in his garden.
Learn more about Chris at www.chrissimms.info.
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