THE DCI BLIZZARD MURDER MYSTERIES: Books 1 to 3

by John Dean

  ‘I work here because it’s cheap. Besides, image isn’t everything. You should know that.’

  Blizzard ignored the comment.

  ‘So,’ said Brauner returning to his chair behind the desk, the only one in the room. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Danny Galston.’

  ‘He ain’t here.’

  ‘Don’t play clever with me!’ snapped Blizzard. ‘He’s dead and I want to know if you had anything to do with it.’

  ‘I just take photographs.’

  ‘You do a damned sight more than that. You’ve been harassing him.’

  ‘I prefer to describe it as nurturing a contact.’

  ‘And we know you were trying to get pictures of him at the grave,’ said Blizzard.

  He wandered over to the window and watched a couple of drunken men lurching their way towards the Red Lion.

  ‘So?’ said Brauner.

  ‘So maybe Danny told you to sling your hook,’ said Blizzard, talking in a deliberately distracted way as he watched the drunks. ‘Maybe you grabbed the first thing at hand and hit him.’

  ‘Na, you got it wrong. I wasn’t even there when he was killed.’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough, won’t we?’ said Blizzard. He walked over to the desk. ‘If you did get a shot at the grave, it’ll be all over the papers, will it not?’

  ‘OK, OK, so I got a pic. But that’s all that happened.’

  ‘You expect us to believe that? I mean, look at it from our point of view, Gerry. You turn up and lo and behold, look what happens – poor old Danny Galston gets killed. Whoops.’

  ‘Now hang on, Blizzard,’ protested Brauner. ‘All I did was hide behind a tree and get my shot of him dumping the flowers with a long lens.’

  ‘Such a noble profession,’ murmured Blizzard.

  ‘I never killed him. Honest.’

  ‘Now there is a word you wouldn’t expect to hear a journalist use,’ said the chief inspector. He gestured towards the door. ‘Shall we?’

  And the detectives led Brauner out of his office.

  Chapter six

  ‘This does not look good,’ said Blizzard, tossing The Sun onto the interview room desk the next morning. ‘It really does not.’

  ‘Actually, it looks very good,’ replied Brauner.

  He viewed with satisfaction the front page, which was dominated by a large colour image of Danny Galston sprawled by the gravestone. A killer’s final farewell, said the headline.

  ‘A few thousand quid’s worth of good, to be precise,’ added Brauner. ‘Any of the others gone with it on the front page?’

  ‘The Star and the Mirror as well,’ said Colley, who was sitting at the table.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Brauner, glancing at his lawyer, a sallow besuited man in his fifties. ‘It’ll pay your extortionate fees anyway, Richard.’

  ‘Start talking seriously about this, will you?’ exclaimed Blizzard, sitting down next to his sergeant and stabbing the paper with a finger. ‘Danny Galston gets his head stoved in and you are there taking his sodding picture – what the hell is that supposed to make us think, Gerry?’

  ‘I believe,’ said Richard Burns, in a slightly nasal voice, ‘that my client has made it abundantly clear that all he wanted was a picture. It may be somewhat distasteful but the last time I checked, it was not against the law.’

  ‘It is if you kill him to get it.’

  ‘I really do think this has gone far enough,’ said the lawyer. ‘Are you sure this is not really about your well-known dislike of journalists?’

  Blizzard said nothing; he realised that becoming involved in a slanging match with the solicitor would achieve little.

  ‘So,’ continued Burns, ‘unless you have some evidence to link my client to this murder, I feel that this interview is at an end.’

  ‘What did you want with Ralph Cargill?’ asked Colley, looking at Brauner. ‘I can understand why you were hassling Galston but where does his business partner come into it?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Sounded liked a lot for nothing,’ said the sergeant. ‘According to uniform, it got quite nasty.’

  ‘OK, OK. I offered Cargill a few quid if he would persuade Danny to go for a picture by the grave.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He went ballistic, called me some names, grabbed my camera bag. One of the lenses got smashed. It was no big deal.’

  ‘Maybe the same thing happened when Danny saw you in the cemetery yesterday morning,’ said Blizzard. ‘Maybe things got out of hand then as well.’

  Before Brauner could reply, there was a knock at the door and the chief inspector made his excuses and walked out into the corridor. He was met by Detective Inspector Graham Ross, divisional head of forensics at Abbey Road, dressed immaculately as ever, in a pressed grey designer suit with red silk tie and expensive, shiny black shoes. Blizzard, crumpled as usual, viewed the DI’s attire with his customary sour look.

  ‘This had better be good, Versace,’ grunted Blizzard, ‘because at the moment we have nothing against this guy.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint, guv, but there’s nothing to suggest he attacked chummy.’

  ‘For God’s sake, he was hiding behind a tree taking his bleeding picture!’ exclaimed Blizzard. ‘How much more do you need?’

  ‘A lot more, I am afraid. One of our lads has looked at the pictures Brauner wired to the papers and they were definitely taken with a long lens. He was probably twenty or thirty metres away. We can’t find any that suggestion that he got any nearer.’

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Blizzard, turning to walk back into the interview room. ‘Bloody marvellous.’

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Gerry Brauner walked out into the bright winter sunlight, a broad grin all over his face; he had some invoices to write. The chief inspector, for his part, headed back to his office and sat in moody silence for a few minutes, turning over the interview in his mind. He had known right from the start that it was far too easy hauling Gerry Brauner in. If he had been talking to a colleague, he would have called it lazy policing, grabbing the obvious option without thinking it through. As Colley had pointed out more than once, Brauner had earned plenty of money off Danny Galston’s back down the years, why on earth would he kill him now when everyone knew the nationals kept coming back to the story time and time again? It made no sense. Maybe the lawyer was right, thought Blizzard sourly, maybe he was letting personal antipathy for the media influence his thinking.

  As the chief inspector stared out of the window at the bare trees in the police station car park, his mind went back again to the murder of Jenny Galston and her young daughter. Perhaps he was looking in the wrong place, perhaps the death of Danny Galston was not about Brauner or Cargill, perhaps it was really about what happened that night 15 years ago. Perhaps this was the unfinished business that had preyed on the chief inspector’s mind for so long.

  The chief inspector’s reverie was disturbed by the return of Colley, who walked into the office and slumped into a chair.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Slippery customer, our Mr Brauner.’

  ‘Yeah, but there’s no way he killed Danny Galston.’

  There were a few moments’ silence then the sergeant looked at Blizzard uncertainly.

  ‘I wonder if I can have a chat.’

  ‘The weather or the rugby results?’ said Blizzard, sensing that this was the moment Colley was going to unburden himself about Jay’s pregnancy.

  ‘Neither,’ said Colley, managing only the weakest of smiles. ‘Something a bit more important than rugby.’

  ‘More important than rugby?’ said Blizzard, feigning amazement then, on seeing the sergeant’s uncomfortable expression, becoming serious again. ‘Go on, David, spit it out.’

  ‘Well,’ said the sergeant, taking a deep breath. ‘Three months ago…’

  There was a knock on the door and in walked Arthur Ronald.

  ‘Morning, gentlemen,’ said
the superintendent, settling himself down in a seat. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Later, David,’ said Blizzard, giving Colley a reassuring smile. ‘We’ll talk about it later. I promise.’

  The sergeant nodded and left the room.

  ‘Did I come in the middle of something?’ asked the superintendent when he had gone.

  ‘Just a discussion about the weather,’ said Blizzard.

  ‘I won’t ask,’ said Ronald, looking bewildered. ‘How did it go with Brauner?’

  ‘There’s no way he killed Danny Galston.’

  ‘Pity. The chief is never off the phone about it and the press are hassling us for something new. Anything in mind?’

  ‘I reckon we should re-open the investigation into the Galston deaths.’

  ‘Keep it uncontroversial, why don’t you?’ said Ronald bleakly. ‘Why do you want to re-open it?’

  ‘I think we both know the answer to that, Arthur.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Ronald, ‘but I’ll need a better story than that.’

  ‘Just tell the chief this is a chance to solve the crime without worrying about injunctions.’

  ‘Not sure he will buy that.’

  In the years since he had become CID chief for the area, the superintendent had broached the matter several times with the chief constable but each time had found himself rebuffed, and never with a straight answer.

  ‘Besides,’ continued Ronald, ‘I may have something that could change your thinking. I have just come off the phone from the Regional Organised Crime Unit. Some DCI called Wendy Talbot. From West Yorks. Says she knows you.’

  ‘Only a little,’ said Blizzard, shifting in his chair and feeling a sudden shot of pain from his back.

  ‘Still having problems?’

  ‘You could say that,’ said Blizzard. ‘Anyway, yeah, I know Wendy Talbot. Decent cop. What did she want?’

  ‘Seems Colley turned up at Galston’s depot early this morning.’

  ‘How come the Regional Organised Crime Unit know about that?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. What was he doing there?’

  ‘I sent him round to have a chat with Ralph Cargill about the dust-up with Gerry Brauner but he was out on a run. We’ll try again later.’

  ‘Might I suggest you don’t.’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean? And how come the Unit are sticking their nebs in?’

  ‘Their surveillance team saw Colley arrive,’ said Ronald.

  ‘What sodding surveillance team?’ exclaimed Blizzard.

  ‘They’ve been watching the haulage depot for two months.’

  ‘Nice of them to tell us! I thought we’d sorted this out after that balls-up on the Greentree estate last year.’

  ‘It seems old habits die hard,’ said Ronald.

  ‘Clearly. Why are they interested in the haulage depot?’

  ‘They reckon Galston and Cargill have been using their lorries to bring in guns.’

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Blizzard. ‘So, Colley could have had his head blown off?’

  ‘There’s a link to some gang in Moscow, apparently. According to Wendy Talbot, they’re pretty sure one of the guns was used to kill that security guard in Leeds this summer.’

  ‘I remember it. Bank job.’

  ‘Yes, it was. Guard fought back and they shot him. Anyway, Wendy is coming over to brief us this afternoon. How come you know her?’

  ‘I met her when you forced me to go to that crappy seminar in Nottingham last year.’

  ‘Such an enlightened attitude to career advancement,’ said Ronald. ‘Anyway, I want you to keep Colley away from Ralph Cargill until then. Softly-softly and all that. Oh, and behave yourself when Wendy turns up.’

  ‘Would I let you down?’

  Ronald decided not to answer.

  ‘One more thing, Arthur,’ said Blizzard as the superintendent headed for the door. ‘The Galston case? Can I re-open it?’

  ‘If you must,’ said Ronald. He turned back and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘But these are dangerous waters, you know that more than most. Make it look like it’s part of the inquiry into Danny’s death, eh? Subtlety, John, subtlety.’

  ‘I’ll look it up in a dictionary,’ promised Blizzard solemnly.

  Chapter seven

  Cara Galston had been enjoying a good morning. The stream of well-wishers who had been regularly turning up to irritate her with their platitudes – few of her friends liked Danny – had dried to a trickle, Georgia had undertaken to organise the funeral and her accountant had confirmed that her share of the haulage business would be worth well over £10m. It had struck Cara, as she spoke to him on the phone that morning, that the accountant was uneasy at being asked the question so soon after Danny’s death but if he had concerns, he kept them to himself. Cara hoped he would also keep his mouth shut if the police came calling. Such a revelation would not look good at a time like this. Nevertheless, she thought, as she sat in the lounge, feet up on the pouffe and sipping a cup of mid-morning peppermint tea, everything was going very well, all things considered. Indeed, Cara had never realised grief could be this enjoyable.

  She sighed as her reverie was interrupted by the door bell and she padded her way through to the hallway and opened the front door, expecting to see one of her so-called friends clutching a bunch of flowers and bearing a fixed expression of what they believed to be sympathy. Instead, she was confronted by an unshaven man who looked like he had not been to bed.

  ‘Where have you been?’ said Cara irritably as Brauner walked in. ‘I’ve rung loads of times but there’s been no answer.’

  ‘The police lifted me last night.’

  ‘Do they know about us?’ she said quickly.

  ‘That’s the least of our problems. Lenny’s back.’

  The blood drained from Cara Galston’s face and she felt her legs shaking.

  Chapter eight

  ‘Look, I don’t want this to turn into a slanging match,’ said DCI Wendy Talbot as she sat in Arthur Ronald’s office that afternoon.

  ‘I am just saying,’ remarked Blizzard, ignoring the superintendent’s disapproving expression, ‘that we are supposed to be on the same side yet now we hear that your lot have been skulking about for weeks without telling us.’

  ‘I hardly think skulking is the right word,’ said Talbot. ‘This is a major surveillance operation.’

  ‘So why not tell us about it then? I mean, it is our patch, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I appreciate that, John, but we could not risk word getting out.’

  ‘Are you saying we cannot be trusted?’ asked Blizzard sharply, ‘because that is certainly…’

  ‘Enough,’ said Ronald, holding up a hand. ‘We’re getting nowhere slagging each other off.’

  Blizzard muttered something that neither of the officers heard but Wendy Talbot did not reply; she knew better than to get into a fight with John Blizzard, particularly when she needed his support. Aged in her late-forties, she was a deceptively slight woman with short brown hair starting to grey at the temples and narrow, angular features which gave her a sharp appearance, an image she fostered among colleagues. Those who knew her well saw the softer, more human, side – mother of two teenagers, wife of a workaholic businessman recovering from a mild stroke and a keen golfer who despaired of ever finding the time to play – but within the Regional Organised Crime Unit it was a side she kept well hidden. Wendy Talbot had experienced too much resentment from successful senior women officers down the years to risk showing any signs of weakness.

  There were some female officers who would put John Blizzard in the misogynist category, who would describe him as man unable to cope with high-flying women, but Wendy Talbot read him differently. Having spent a day with him on a training course and listened to his common-sense words amid the senior officers’ jargon, it seemed to Talbot that she and John Blizzard were not that different, that all they did was tell it as they saw it.

 
Talbot also knew that on several occasions down the years, Blizzard had rebuffed approaches to join the Unit. The chief inspector’s persistent refusals intrigued Wendy Talbot and now she resolved to be conciliatory.

  ‘I am prepared to admit we got it wrong,’ she said. ‘We should have told you what was happening. It’s just…’

  She hesitated. Could she really afford to be totally honest with them? For all her admiration for Blizzard, she had only met him once and had only just been introduced to Arthur Ronald. Reputation said the superintendent was a decent and honest man but Wendy Talbot had learned to trust only her own officers. And then not even all of them. She studied the expectant detectives for a moment. Time to take the risk, she decided.

  ‘We think they may have someone on the inside,’ she said.

  ‘With the police?’ asked Blizzard.

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Now, come on, Wendy,’ said Ronald, reacting the same way he always did whenever such suggestions were made, ‘I cannot really believe that…’

  ‘Hear her out, Arthur,’ said Blizzard.

  Talbot gave him an appreciative look. As she began to talk, Blizzard’s thoughts went back to Harry Roberts’ subtle intimation that someone powerful was protecting Danny Galston. He leaned forward in his chair to listen closer.

  ‘We believe the guns are being brought into the UK by a Leeds gang,’ said Talbot. ‘We think they have linked up with a Russian who is buying weapons from demobbed soldiers. Moscow police have been watching him for a while.’

  ‘It’s a long way from Moscow to Hafton,’ said Blizzard. ‘Any proof?’

  ‘We thought so. Two months ago, we raided a warehouse in Leeds where our informant said the gang were storing the weapons. It was supposed to be the end of the operation. Once we had gone in, the Russian police were going to make the arrests at their end. But, surprise, surprise, the place was empty.’

  ‘Your information could have been wrong,’ said Ronald.

  ‘Our contact was definite about it. Besides, the place had been cleared out in a hurry. Twice since then, we have tried to mount ops only for the gang to change their plans at the last minute. I am sorry, but we have to consider the possibility that someone is feeding them information.’