by P. F. Ford
Dave Slater Mystery Novels Box Set Three
P.F. Ford
This collection:
© 2019 P. F. Ford
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events in this book are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real life counterparts is purely coincidental.
Cover Design by Kit Foster Design
Editing by KT Editing Services
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
What’s In A Name?
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
A Puzzle Of Old Bones
34. Chapter 1
35. Chapter 2
36. Chapter 3
37. Chapter 4
38. Chapter 5
39. Chapter 6
40. Chapter 7
41. Chapter 8
42. Chapter 9
43. Chapter 10
44. Chapter 11
45. Chapter 12
46. Chapter 13
47. Chapter 14
48. Chapter 15
49. Chapter 16
50. Chapter 17
51. Chapter 18
52. Chapter 19
53. Chapter 20
54. Chapter 21
55. Chapter 22
56. Chapter 23
57. Chapter 24
58. Chapter 25
59. Chapter 26
60. Chapter 27
61. Chapter 28
62. Chapter 29
63. Chapter 30
64. Chapter 31
65. Chapter 32
66. Chapter 33
67. Chapter 34
68. Chapter 35
69. Chapter 36
70. Chapter 37
71. Chapter 38
72. Chapter 39
73. Chapter 40
74. Chapter 41
75. Chapter 42
76. Chapter 43
77. Chapter 44
A Fatal Deception
78. Chapter 1
79. Chapter 2
80. Chapter 3
81. Chapter 4
82. Chapter 5
83. Chapter 6
84. Chapter 7
85. Chapter 8
86. Chapter 9
87. Chapter 10
88. Chapter 11
89. Chapter 12
90. Chapter 13
91. Chapter 14
92. Chapter 15
93. Chapter 16
94. Chapter 17
95. Chapter 18
96. Chapter 19
97. Chapter 20
98. Chapter 21
99. Chapter 22
100. Chapter 23
101. Chapter 24
102. Chapter 25
Wrongly Convicted
103. Chapter 1
104. Chapter 2
105. Chapter 3
106. Chapter 4
107. Chapter 5
108. Chapter 6
109. Chapter 7
110. Chapter 8
111. Chapter 9
112. Chapter 10
113. Chapter 11
114. Chapter 12
115. Chapter 13
116. Chapter 14
117. Chapter 15
118. Chapter 16
119. Chapter 17
120. Chapter 18
121. Chapter 19
122. Chapter 20
123. Chapter 21
124. Chapter 22
125. Chapter 23
126. Chapter 24
127. Chapter 25
128. Chapter 26
129. Chapter 27
130. Chapter 28
131. Chapter 29
132. Chapter 30
133. Chapter 31
134. Chapter 32
135. Chapter 33
136. Chapter 34
137. Chapter 35
138. Chapter 36
139. Chapter 37
140. Chapter 38
141. Chapter 39
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Books By P.F. Ford
About the Author
What’s In A Name?
© 2017 P. F. Ford
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events in this book are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real life counterparts is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Prologue
Wednesday 24th August, 2016. 7.19 am
Joe Dalgetty was sixty-two years old, but he looked like a man in his eighties. This was partly due to the arthritis that was slowly destroying his mobility, but if anyone had asked – and been given an honest reply – he would have told them the biggest cause of his early ageing was worry – and loneliness. Not that anyone ever did bother to ask. Joe kept himself to himself, and apart from his neighbour and friend Rosie Hewitt, he rarely spoke to anyone. Becoming a loner had been an unforeseen – and unavoidable – price he had had to pay. It wasn’t the only thing he had come to regret, and it was these burdens from his past, added to his enforced loneliness, that had aged him so.
Joe was in the habit of doing his shopping very early in the morning to avoid meeting too many people. There was a supermarket about half a mile away from his house, and he made a point of being there at seven o’clock in the morning, as soon as the doors opened. He had it down to a fine art now, and he could be in and out in less than fifteen minutes. He had worked out the quietest days to go, and by avoiding eye contact with any member of staff who tried to engage him in conversation, and going to a different cashier each time, he was quite confident he was more or less unmemorable, which was exactly what he wanted.
That morning, the doors had opened a few minutes early, and as he had been in there barely ten minutes, he was back at his own front door just before seven twenty.
***
It would be fair to say Kerry Jones had lost his way. Just two years ago he had been a kid with a bright future, but now, at just eighteen years old, he seemed to have no future at all. His parents were in despair. They had no idea why their son had suddenly gone from hard worker to non-worker. He hadn’t just dropped out of school; he seemed to have dropped out of everything. They didn’t know where he got his money from, but they were quite sure it wasn’t in ex
change for an honest day’s work. There had been a spate of burglaries locally targeting older people, and although they had no proof, they feared the worst.
That morning, Kerry was breaking into the house of an old guy he had identified as an easy target. The old man went shopping early in the morning at the same time, on the same days, every week, and he moved pretty slowly, like he couldn’t walk properly. Today was the day Kerry had selected to rob this particular victim, and he knew this was going to be really easy. He looked at his watch as he reached the old man’s back door. It was almost seven twenty. He should have at least ten minutes. That would be plenty of time.
He tried the handle of the back door to the old man’s house and gently leaned against it. The silly old fool hadn’t even locked it. This was good. The old guy was inviting someone to come in and rob him, and Kerry was only too happy to oblige. It wasn’t his fault if people didn’t lock their doors, was it?
He eased the door open and slipped inside.
***
Joe Dalgetty pushed the key into his front door and twisted. The key turned with almost no effort on his part. The old lock had become so stiff he could hardly turn it, but this new lock he’d paid to have fitted was as smooth as silk. It had been worth every penny. He pushed the door open and stepped painfully inside. His knees were bad this morning, but in a minute or so he would be able to sit down and take the weight off them. Silently, he closed the door behind him and turned to walk down the short, narrow hallway into the kitchen. An unexpected movement caught his eye, and he realised there was someone standing in his kitchen staring at him.
The shock seemed to turn him to stone. He had always worried this might happen one day, and now it seemed his worst nightmare had come true. Somehow they had tracked him down, and now they’d come for him. It was a case of flight or fright, but flight was never going to be an option for Joe. It was fright that won through. In the same moment he realised he’d been found out, he felt a stabbing pain in his chest. He clutched at his heart as he fell, gasped once from the pain, and was dead before he hit the ground.
***
Kerry Jones stood, mouth agape, staring at the fallen man. He couldn’t quite believe his eyes, and a jumble of thoughts rushed into his head. What was going on? This wasn’t supposed to happen. What was the stupid old fool doing back early? He shouldn’t have been back for at least another ten minutes. And what was he doing on the floor, clutching his chest? Shit. He’d had a heart attack or something, hadn’t he? They’ll think I did that. But I don’t hurt people, I don’t even take their possessions, I only ever steal cash they leave lying around.
Knowing he was close to panic, Kerry focused on regaining control of himself. This was a serious and unexpected situation to have to deal with, but that just made it all the more important to keep calm. He wasn’t going to allow himself to lose it now. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and concentrated on his breathing, making sure to take long, deep breaths. Then, as he began to calm down, he opened his eyes and took in the scene again. Now he could assess the situation with a much more detached eye, it was easy to decide what he should do.
The old man hadn’t moved, and he didn’t appear to be breathing. A small part of Kerry suggested he should do something to help, but a much bigger part realised there would be a lot of explaining to do if he hung around. Almost reluctantly, he turned and quietly tiptoed back across the kitchen and out through the back door. It was a shame he hadn’t had time to find any cash, but at least he hadn’t left any evidence. With any luck, no one would even realise he had been there, and the obvious assumption would be that the old guy had suffered a heart attack.
As he slunk away from the unfortunate Joe Dalgetty’s house, Kerry sought to rationalise what had just happened. People have heart attacks all the time, and he couldn’t be held responsible for someone having a weak heart, could he? If the old bloke did have a weak heart, it would have packed up sooner or later anyway. So, really, when you think about it, there was no real harm done. In fact, he’d probably done the old bloke a favour, because it looked as if he was living a pretty miserable, lonely existence anyway.
But despite his attempts to justify his behaviour, Kerry experienced a strange, alien feeling. Most people would have instantly recognised it as guilt, but for Kerry this was a new experience, and its meaning was lost on him. He knew it made him feel uncomfortable, but he had no idea why. He was going to have to think about that.
Chapter One
It was a typically busy Monday lunchtime in The Brewer’s Arms, just a short walk from the centre of the small town of Tinton. The air was filled with the smell of good food and the voices of noisy punters trying to make the most of their all-too-short lunch breaks.
Unnoticed, a small, tidy, fair-haired lady pushed the door open and stepped inside. She looked around, taking in as many faces as she could, but as she didn’t really know who she was looking for, it wasn’t much help. Her resolve began to waver momentarily, but then she remembered exactly why she had come here and, drawing herself up to her full height of five feet three-and-a-half inches, she marched determinedly up to the bar.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to the barman, who looked up and smiled at her.
‘Yes, love, what can I do for you?’
‘I wonder if you can help me?’
She explained who she was looking for, and the barman looked around the busy bar. Finally, he pointed to two figures sitting at a table by a window on the far side of the bar. The lady looked uncertainly over her shoulder, following the direction indicated by the pointed finger. Then she thanked the barman, bought a glass of orange juice, and made her way towards the two figures. She had thought the barman must have been mistaken when he pointed out the two overall-clad figures, but as she approached, she could see one was clearly much larger than the other, which was what she had been told to expect.
‘Are you the two detectives?’ she asked as she reached the table.
The larger, rather roly-poly, man was the first to turn towards her, his curly hair making a valiant attempt to conform to some sort of style, but failing miserably and falling across his face as he turned.
‘That’s us,’ he said, sweeping the curls out of his eyes.
‘If you don’t mind me saying, you look more like decorators,’ she said.
‘Good disguise, huh?’ said the curly-headed man with a conspiratorial wink. ‘We’re undercover.’
The second man had turned towards her now, and he gave her a warm smile.
‘Don’t take any notice of him,’ he said. ‘We’re not undercover at all, we’re decorating our new offices. My name’s Dave Slater, and this is my colleague, Norman Norman. Here, come and sit down.’
***
Slater moved his own chair to one side and placed one for her between himself and Norman.
‘My name’s Rosie Hewitt,’ the woman said, sitting down. ‘I was told you were the best people to talk to.’
‘Oh really?’ said Norman. ‘Who told you that?’
‘A detective. I forget what he said his name was.’
‘DS Biddeford?’ suggested Slater.
She looked horrified. ‘It certainly wasn’t that ignorant so-and-so!’ she said, adamantly. ‘He didn’t even want to talk to me. No, this was a much nicer man. Smarter dressed, he was, too. He had a very smart suit. Pinstripes, you know? And he had nice manners.’
Slater looked at Norman, but it was obvious he didn’t recognise the description either.
‘We both used to work at Tinton,’ said Norman, ‘but we don’t recognise anyone like that. Then again, things are changing there, so maybe it’s someone new. Anyway, why would he suggest you came to us?’
‘All he said was the police couldn’t help me, but you two were retired police officers and maybe you could.’
Slater and Norman exchanged another glance.
‘Why don’t you tell us what’s bothering you?’ suggested Norman, before adding, ‘Don’t worry, we won’t charge yo
u for talking to us.’
