BURIED LIES
A gripping detective mystery full of twists and turns
DI Tom Mariner Book 6
CHRIS COLLETT
Revised Edition 2018
Joffe Books, London
www.joffebooks.com
FIRST PUBLISHED BY SEVERN HOUSE IN 2013 AS “BLOOD AND STONE”
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this.
We hate typos too but sometimes they slip through. Please send any errors you find to [email protected]
We’ll get them fixed ASAP. We’re very grateful to eagle-eyed readers who take the time to contact us.
©Chris Collett
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THERE IS A GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH SLANG IN THE BACK OF THIS BOOK FOR US READERS.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Epilogue
DI MARINER SERIES
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Glossary of English Slang for US readers
CHARACTER LIST
To former DI Alan Crouch for the many years of invaluable expert advice, and to his wife Linda for her immeasurable patience. Thank you both.
Chapter One
Day One
Every now and again, there comes an exquisite moment in one’s interactions with other human beings that hits the sweet spot dead centre. Capturing a split-second of pure, unadulterated surprise on the face of a loved one is such a moment; like the joy of a young child on the Christmas morning when his parents, against the odds, have succeeded in providing a desperately wanted toy. Too fleeting and transient for any lasting pleasure, the next best thing is the anticipation, which can, in its way, be more of a thrill than the moment itself. Glenn McGinley had that feeling now. It electrified every fibre in his body, making his nerves tingle the way they did immediately after a hit of cocaine, and temporarily anaesthetized his pain. McGinley was a firm believer in heaven and hell. The idea had been sold to him early on and its simplicity had always made perfect sense. Logic therefore dictated that in the not-too-distant future he was going to burn in the fiery furnace. He’d done enough bad things in his life to make it a certainty. But thanks to a chance conversation, he had seen the light. Not the kind of light strong enough to redeem his corrupted soul, but the kind of light that made him want some company when he got there. There was no harm in that, was there?
He had the minicab driver drop him and his bin bag off a couple of streets away: no sense in announcing his arrival when his sole purpose was to surprise her. Night and day, for weeks now, he’d lain on that iron-framed cot picturing the expression on her face when she saw him again, and the prospect evoked an intensity of feeling close to euphoria. But, like Christmas morning, everything had to be orchestrated perfectly; he couldn’t afford to screw anything up, so the important thing right now was to remain focused. Concentration had never been one of his strong points. Right back in nursery school, that much had been obvious. But if he could just keep it together for a bit longer, he knew that it would be worth the effort.
Dusk had turned to night hours ago, leaving the cold and windy streets deserted, which suited him fine. He approached number twenty-two from the narrow alley running between the gardens of the back-to-back rows of post-war social housing. Good old Kirkby. True, the place had moved on from being the grim sink estate it had been in the 1970s. Since then, tower blocks had been ripped down to make way for more respectable mixed-economy housing. In a defiant gesture, Liverpool FC had even relocated their training academy out here. But it was still a shit hole. McGinley was headed to the old part; the place they’d moved to thirty years ago, away from the back-to-back slums and into a spanking new slum, the widow and her sons. It was all part of the fresh start that didn’t turn out to be quite what any of them expected. Even now, in the three-bedroom house, there was a room set aside for him, in case he ever chose to ‘return to the fold’ (her words). But she’d laid down too many conditions for that ever to happen. He’d been back plenty of times since he’d left for good, but always under cover of night and always without her knowledge. She would never have suspected a thing. Sometimes it was useful having an old girl who’d become a trusting and naïve religious nut.
McGinley’s senses were heightened as they always were on re-entry; the feel of the cool evening air on his skin, the sharp smell of a recent rain shower that accentuated the sour notes of rotting refuse each time he passed a cluster of wheelie bins. As expected, there were no lights on at the house. She’d followed the same strict routine for years and he had no reason to believe anything about that would have changed. Whilst other middle-aged women might have been at the bingo or in the pub, most of her evenings were spent at the mission, helping those less fortunate than herself while making every effort to educate them about where, in their miserable lives, they were going wrong. She’d been doing it for years, ploughing doggedly on as her own family slowly disintegrated in the background.
The back gate was locked as usual, but McGinley had always been spare and lithe, and now, with the additional weight loss, he was practically skeletal. It took him a matter of seconds to scramble over — his traditional mode of entry — swinging the plastic bag ahead of him and dropping lightly onto the path on the other side beside the garden shed. No longer in use, it had been erected when they’d first moved here to accommodate Dad’s old tools and belongings, and she couldn’t bear to part with it. Fumbling for the padlock, he stuck in his key. Ice-cold in his hand, it was stiff from lack of use and took some effort to turn but then, as far as he knew, he was the only one to have come in here in twenty years.
The air inside the shed was undisturbed, thick with the pungent smell of dust and creosote. This was, in truth, the only space on this earth McGinley could call his own and the territory was so familiar that the faint light streaming in from the street lamps allowed him to locate exactly what he needed almost straight away. As he retrieved the camouflage rucksack from the far corner, something scuttled lightly over his hand and he had to stifle a cry. Shit! His heart pounded for a few seconds, then he shook his head in disgust. After everything he’d endured, to still be scared of sp
iders. It took him a matter of minutes to transfer his stuff from the bin bag to the dusty canvas sack, and after that he reached up on to a high shelf, behind a row of cobweb-strewn paint tins, and took down a steel toolbox. This too had an ancient padlock, for which McGinley was the sole key holder. The contents of the box were functional enough, but unlike most things in this shed, they were designed not for construction but destruction.
Removing a couple of items from the top tray, he pushed them deep into the pack. They might prove useful later on. But what he lifted out last, and with reverential care, would come into its own very soon. He wondered what his mum’s pals would think if they knew what she had been harbouring for years in her own back yard. Resting it in his palm for a moment, he savoured the comforting weight of it and felt his heart begin to pump a little harder. He checked the mechanism, which operated as smoothly as, well — he allowed himself a smile — a well-oiled gun. Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be . . . Charles Bronson in Death Wish II. From his inside jacket pocket, McGinley took the gift his cellmate had given him two nights previously and screwed it on to the barrel. It was a perfect fit. Astonishing what could be obtained in a Category C if you knew who to ask.
Finally, pulling on the latex gloves acquired at his last medical appointment, McGinley emerged from the shed, closing the door quietly behind him. He waited for a moment in the shadows, reassessing the houses on either side. He’d already noted a presence in each property, but as long as he was careful there would be no need for anyone to register what was going on next door. The illuminated kitchen to the left was still empty; and the lights in the house to the right were upstairs, behind curtains drawn shut. He walked softly up the footpath and tested his key in the back door. This one turned easily and he stepped into the hallway and back into the 1960s, an atmosphere made up of furniture polish and abstinence. Locking the door behind him, McGinley groped his way in the darkness along the hall, past the open kitchen door, where the light glinted back at him from various old-fashioned appliances, and into the lounge. She’d had a shift-round since he was last here, and amazingly the room now contained new furniture. He dragged one of the heavy armchairs in a half circle so that it faced the door and settled into it. It was quite comfy actually; one of those reclining ones. To amuse himself for a few minutes he played with the mechanism, firing off an imaginary bullet each time he slammed up the foot rest, until he got bored. By now he was desperate for a drink or a fag or both, but he needed to keep a clear head and the smell of smoke would immediately announce his presence, so the only thing left for him to do was to wait. Tucking the gun down out of sight between his outer thigh and the armrest, he leaned back and closed his eyes.
Chapter Two
Tom Mariner paced the confines of his canal-side home, polishing his left shoe with a kind of restless fervour as if, somehow, the effort could hold in abeyance the cloud of grief that was approaching like a vast unstoppable weather front. Shoe-cleaning had been his first responsibility as a small boy. ‘A man’s job,’ his mother had called it and since he had been, even at the age of four, the man of the house, the task had fallen to him. Ever since, he had found a comforting familiarity in the evocative smell of the wax polish and the simple, repetitive task, and it had become his last desperate hiding place. Mariner knew all about the cycle of grief; the unplanned voyage through shock, denial, anger and sadness, and he knew too that it was inevitable. Until now work had been his salvation. The last weeks had been chaotic, with several major cases hitting the courts at the same time, commanding his full attention and demanding that he be attentive and objective. There was no place for raw emotion. But tomorrow reality would come crashing in and already he could feel the edges beginning to fray.
His mobile rang; it was Tony Knox.
‘Boss. How’s it hanging?’
‘Oh, you know, down and slightly to the right as usual,’ Mariner said, irritated by the expression.
‘You okay for tomorrow?’
Mariner could hear the diffidence in his sergeant’s voice, everyone treating him like a fragile piece of porcelain. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, feeling anything but. His charcoal-grey suit hung on the door in its plastic dry-cleaning cover and the tie he’d chosen, one that she’d bought for him, was looped around the hanger like a careless noose. Everything ready, except for him.
‘I’m picking up Millie at quarter to; we’ll be at yours at about ten,’ Knox said. ‘See you then.’
‘All right,’ Mariner confirmed. Somehow, while he wasn’t looking, Knox had conspired with DC Millie Khatoon that she would drive Mariner down to Herefordshire, not quite trusting the old man to do it himself, and taking yet another surreptitious opportunity for the close surveillance that he was failing to convince everyone he didn’t need. Underneath it all though, Mariner knew that their intentions were sound, so he didn’t complain. And this time tomorrow it would all be over, and both Millie and Knox would need to rethink their boundaries. Mariner glanced down at his shoe, which was by now polished to a varnish-like gloss. Placing it carefully down next to its partner he picked up the remote, switched on the TV, and dropped on to the sofa in another futile attempt at distraction.
Chapter Three
McGinley had been far from disappointed. In fact, the long-awaited moment had exceeded all his expectations. There must have been a lot of souls to save tonight and it was coming up to eleven when he finally heard the key turning in the lock. He braced himself for what was to come. A light flicked on in the hall. There was shuffling and voices; she wasn’t alone. He heard them go into the kitchen, a kettle being filled. His heart began to pick up speed. Finally her slight form, trussed up in that vile travesty of a uniform, appeared in the doorway and a sixty-watt bulb illuminated him in all his glory.
‘Hello, Mum.’ Despite the burning hatred that filled his chest, McGinley forced a smile and watched the domino effect of her facial muscles as they reacted in sequence. What was especially satisfying was the noticeable brief and transient hope that after all these years the prodigal son had returned; that he had finally come to his senses. In a way he had.
‘Glenn. What are you doing . . .?’ she managed to splutter. But in an instant she saw what he held in his hand and realized too late that he was not here for forgiveness but for retribution, and like snow thawing and sliding off a roof, he saw optimism mutate into disbelief, and then finally the recognition of what was to come.
Another face appeared beside hers, peering almost comically around the door frame. ‘What’s going on, Brenda?’ A man stepped into the frame alongside her, tall but stooping, his hair straggly and grey. He was frailer than the last time McGinley had seen him, swamped by the overcoat he wore over his identical uniform. Fuck me, thought McGinley, the Major, forgot about him, dirty old bugger. Well, he was going to get more than he bargained for too.
‘I’ve got something for you, Mum,’ McGinley said, ignoring him, ‘from me and Spence.’ And, his heart pumping with elation, he raised the gun, aimed it at his mother’s chest and fired twice; once to kill and once for luck. She crumpled to the floor with a dull thud, and the old man moaned in terror. ‘Your lucky night too,’ smiled McGinley, and before the Major could react, he shot him twice in the stomach. The old geezer toppled like a statue, writhed for a moment while something crackled unpleasantly in his throat and then he lay still, his eyes staring into some far-off place.
McGinley exhaled as with shaking hands he took out his cigarettes and lit one up, drawing on it deeply and taking great pleasure in blowing out the smoke into the uncontaminated atmosphere. In the light, the place looked stark and bare, with its basic furnishings and the marked absence of the decorative indulgences that were commonplace in most homes. There were no family photographs, especially not of the two sons who had each in their way brought such shame on the family. Without turning on any more lights McGinley went up the stairs and looked out of the darkened front and back bedroom windows. Everything was as quiet as it had been when he’d arrive
d, and there was no indication that anything he’d done had drawn special attention to number twenty-two. He would make his escape while it was still dark, but until then he had a few hours to find the rest of what he’d come for and to help himself to anything that he thought might come in useful to him over the days that followed.
The kitchen was stocked with the same stuff he’d been raised on, but McGinley’s appetite was for bland food these days so it suited him. He scavenged a few slices of dry bread, a small hunk of cheese and half a packet of biscuits that would sustain him in the short term.
Next he turned his attention to the sideboard in the living room. The keys to the car and lockup were easy enough to locate, thrown carelessly into an old ashtray, and easily identifiable by the fob. Going through the sideboard drawers, McGinley found a tin containing a bit of loose change and a couple of fivers, but the familiar old brown envelope was more elusive. He nailed it eventually, caught behind a pile of papers in the drawer, the faded number still written in biro in the corner. He gave it a shake to check that the keys were inside and stuffed it in his pocket. Lastly, there were facts to be checked. Sliding back the doors of the main cupboard, he sorted quickly through the pile of old magazines and papers, including endless copies of the War Cry. One carried the headline, ‘There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.’ Unoriginal, of course, but apt under the circumstances and impossible to resist. Tearing it carefully around the edges he placed the slogan beside the two bodies and it pleased him. But none of the rest of this stuff was any good, it was all too recent. What McGinley was looking for, the box files of old cuttings and mementoes she had preserved since they were kids, was gone. Maybe she had finally given up on him and thrown it all away. A tinny carriage clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven. He’d have to watch it. His mother had never been a party girl and the neighbours knew it. It wasn’t ideal, but to maintain the charade of normality he was going to have to continue the search by the light of his torch.
Buried Lies (Reissue) Page 1
