A Breath on Dying Embers
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The lives of the ship’s passengers and the residents of Kinloch, as well as the country’s economic future, are soon in jeopardy. And as Daley faces a life-and-death struggle of his own, D.S. Brian Scott – reluctantly back at sea – comes to the fore.
Could this be Daley’s last throw of the dice?
One Last Dram Before Midnight: The Complete Collected D.C.I. Daley Short Stories
Published together for the first time in one not-to-be-missed volume are all Denzil Meyrick’s short stories and novellas.
Discover how DCI Daley and DS Scott first met on the mean streets of Glasgow in two prequels that shed light on their earlier lives. Join Hamish and his old mentor, skipper Sandy Hoynes, as they become embroiled with some Russian fishermen and an illicit whisky plot. And in present-day Kinloch Daley and Scott investigate ghosts from the past, search for a silent missing man, and follow the trail of an elusive historical necklace that still has power over the people of Kinloch.
All of the DCI Daley thrillers are available as eBook editions, along with an eBook-only novella and the short stories below.
Dalintober Moon: A DCI Daley Story
When a body is found in a whisky barrel buried on Dalintober beach, it appears that a notorious local crime, committed over a century ago, has finally been solved. However, the legacy of murder still resonates within the community, and the tortured screams of a man who died long ago still echo across Kinloch.
Two One Three: A Constable Jim Daley Short Story (Prequel) Glasgow, 1986. Only a few months into his new job, Constable Jim Daley is walking the beat. When he is seconded to the CID to help catch a possible serial killer, he makes a new friend, DC Brian Scott. Jim Daley tackles his first serious crime on the mean streets of Glasgow, in an investigation that will change his life for ever.
Empty Nets and Promises: A Kinloch Novella
It’s July 1968, and fishing-boat skipper Sandy Hoynes has his daughter’s wedding to pay for – but where are all the fish? He and the crew of the Girl Maggie come to the conclusion that a newfangled supersonic jet which is being tested in the skies over Kinloch is scaring off the herring.
First mate Hamish comes up with a cunning plan to bring the laws of nature back into balance. But little do they know that they face the forces of law and order in the shape of a vindictive fishery officer, an exciseman who suspects Hoynes of smuggling illicit whisky, and the local police sergeant who is about to become Hoynes’ son-in-law – not to mention a ghostly piper and some Russians.
Single End: A DC Daley Short Story
It’s 1989, and Jim Daley is now a fully fledged detective constable. When ruthless gangster James Machie’s accountant is found stabbed to death in a multi-storey car park, it’s clear all is not well within Machie’s organisation.
Meanwhile Daley’s friend and colleague DC Brian Scott has been having some problems of his own. To save his job, he must revisit his past in an attempt to uncover the identity of a corrupt police officer.
A taster of Denzil Meyrick’s seventh D.C.I. Daley thriller, Jeremiah’s Bell, due out in the summer of 2020.
Prologue
The old woman stood on the jagged promontory, the strong wind catching her plaid shawl and sending it flapping round her shoulders. She drew it tightly over her bony frame and shivered in the late November chill. The sea was pale green, almost luminous in the gloom of the day. A storm had hit hard the previous night, and high above its tail was curling like a celestial whip, ready to crack its full wrath once more before the next dawn.
In the distance, a fishing boat struggled through the turbulent swell, a determined prow cloaked in the white crash of waves, the safety of port still to be gained. The silhouette of a lone gull rode the gale almost motionless under the pale glimmering disc of a shrouded sun. Framed by it, the bird hung like a dark crucifix in the lowering sky – the absence of benediction. The thrash of the tide as it crashed over the Barrel Rocks called to the ghosts of the many mariners who had perished on them through the ages; a desperate lament for the departed, ripped from the world like leaves from an autumnal bough, lost souls never to settle or rest, but to rot unremembered.
She hefted the bell in her right hand, and with no little difficulty swung it to and fro. This was far from a call to prayer; more like the toll summoning children from their play in the schoolyards of long ago. Its peal caught on the wind and the modulated chime cried plaintively against the tumult all around. Nonetheless, three figures stirred against the dark rocks and the pale sea, their ears long since attuned to the urgency of its call. Slowly, begrudgingly, they turned in the direction of the bell’s insistent demand, swaddled arms laden with driftwood bleached white like old bones by the unforgiving wind and waves.
Satisfied, the old woman let the bell swing loose in her bony hand, then turned for the weatherbeaten cottage that rose behind the dark rampart of seaweed forced into the cove by the sheer ferocity of the storm. Here it would stand sentinel before the low dwelling until the spring tides ate away at its wasted, rotting edifice.
She trod on, her worn boots sinking into the soft black cleft of the weed until the rough shingle afforded surer footing. A brief turn of her head was enough to register the lurching shapes in her wake, quite indistinguishable now, slouching forward, almost as one foul beast heading to an ancient little town.