by J. E. Mayhew
“There are many things I’d like to say about it and about the way this whole day was encouraged by shoddy reporting and emphasising social media over actual investigation. I’d love to say that the fact that your colleagues are interviewing that man over there and making a hero of someone who caused this chaos speaks volumes but that’s just my opinion. I’ll wait for the Media and Communications Manager to tell me what I can and can’t talk about.”
Blake dragged himself to his feet trying not to groan in front of the reporter and shuffled across to the ambulance where a paramedic sat him down and started looking at his injuries.
Vikki came back. “Nicola Norton is seriously injured, sir and in need of urgent surgery. We’ll know more about how she is in a few hours. White has sustained head injuries but otherwise seems okay. They’re taking him to A&E…”
“Get a shitload of officers to go with him. All big, anyone who can handle themselves. I don’t want him walking out of hospital on us.”
“Yes, sir.”
Blake looked up at the paramedic. “Will I live?”
Chapter 43
In the bright light of the hospital ward, Terry White looked pale and weak. It was hard to imagine that he had powered through so many people and picked up Nicola Norton as though she weighed nothing. A large bandage covered his forehead and his face and neck were black with bruises. Blake sat by his bedside on a plastic chair that reminded him of his own injuries every time he moved.
“You’ll be charged with the attempted murder of Nicola Norton, Terry, you do understand that, don’t you?”
White nodded. “Is Noel okay?”
“Noel Roscoe. Was he the man who helped you, Terry?”
“Yes. He kept me safe for a couple of days and gave me a lift from Quentin’s house. Is he okay?”
“He’ll pull through. He was hit by a car when he got out suddenly. Nothing the driver could do to stop in time…”
“He was trying to get away from me,” Terry said.
“You’d better wait until you have a solicitor with you Terry before you start telling me…”
“I hit him because he was saying that the commander on the phone was my enemy but he was right wasn’t he? It was Nicola Norton.”
“Yes, Terry, it was. She was trying to frame you so she could get away with murder and theft.”
“I thought I’d killed Paul and Quentin.”
“We think it was Nicola, Terry. We’re trying to find any kind of physical evidence to link her to the deaths but she was clever.”
“I was there that night,” Terry said, quietly.
“When Paul was murdered?”
Terry nodded. “I was told to go to the war memorial just before midnight. I saw Paul was dead then I ran away. I think I stood in the blood…”
“You did, Terry. It’s not your fault, mate. Nicola was setting you up. You have to remember that.”
“But it looks like I did it.”
“What evidence we do have is a load of Pro-Vets money in an account linked to her, so that’s a start. We also have the mobile she used to contact you and we can pinpoint where she was using that.”
“Will she go to prison?”
“She’s regained consciousness after her operation and is recovering now but eventually, I’m sure she’ll get some kind of prison sentence, yes…”
“I don’t ever want to see her again,” Terry whispered. “I trusted her. I thought she was my friend…”
“Don’t worry, Terry, I don’t think you’ll be seeing her again. She’s made quite a few enemies round here, some of them on the wrong side of the law, I suspect.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Mr Blake,” Terry said. “I was scared. I wasn’t thinking right.”
“It’s all right, Terry, I understand. You weren’t well. Hopefully, the doctors here will help you get your condition back under control, yeah?”
Blake stepped out of White’s side ward and nodded to the guards that stood at the door. “Keep an eye on him, poor bastard,” he said. “He’s been through hell.” He frowned at the figure stepping out of another side ward further down the corridor.
“Laura?” he said, hurrying towards her.
Laura Vexley turned and smiled at Blake. “Well, fancy meeting you here. You look terrible.”
“Thanks,” Blake said, touching his bruised cheek. “Do you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing in Nicola Norton’s room?”
“I know her. She tutored me when I was studying Psychology at university. I didn’t know she was such a bad apple or I’d have steered clear.”
“You’re being sarcastic, I presume,” Blake said, raising one eyebrow. “So what brings you here now?”
“Professional curiosity, a link with the past. She was quite surprised to see me.”
“Really? There’s a surprise! She’s at the centre of a murder investigation. Are you trying to jeopardise the whole case?”
“No. If you’re that worried about me being here, you’d better let me go.”
“I should arrest you…”
“What for? Visiting a friend? Or do you think I’ve interfered in some way? In which case, please do arrest me and then let’s see how that plays out. Not in your favour, Will. It was nice to see you, Will. I hope you heal. In all ways.”
Laura stuck her hands in her pockets and sauntered up the corridor. As soon as she was out of sight, Blake hurried into Nicola Norton’s room.
“I wondered when you’d turn up,” she said, feebly.
“Laura Vexley. What did she want?”
“She was just passing. Called in to see how I was. I tutored her…”
“Yeah, yeah, cut the bullshit, Nicola. What did she say to you?”
“These painkillers,” Nicola said. “They play havoc with your memory but she was curious about why I killed them…”
“Curious?”
“The psychology of it. I told her that it was purely a practical decision. Paul Travis had realised that money was going missing from Pro-Vets and he was putting pressure on Ufford. So I took him out of the picture and set Terry up…”
“And Ufford?”
“He was weak. He started to panic because George Owens was breathing down his neck. I could have killed George but actually, it dawned on me that killing Ufford would render me anonymous. Or so I thought. The truth is, they were all so weak, weren’t they? You men are, though, aren’t you? You’re vain, violent, and greedy.”
“That’s a rather grim assessment,” Blake said. “There are plenty of good men in the world. Vain or not, Travis gave lots of people a helping hand.”
“Are you one of the good men, Mr Blake? I keep looking for them. I’ve killed before. Put men out of their misery on the battlefield after they been chewed up and spat out by politicians’ wars. It’s easy to be dispassionate about killing when it’s a means to an end. The rent on my office in Heswall was a fortune and it needed a complete refit. I was broke when I stumbled across Pro-Vets. Maybe it was meant to be.”
“And that’s what you told Laura?”
Nicola Norton smiled but she looked at Blake with dead eyes. “No. I said I didn’t kill them. That Terry White murdered them and that I had nothing to do with it.”
“Then why are you telling me that you did kill them?”
“Because you’re DCI Blake and I want to make a full confession. If you’re quick and look in my next-door neighbour’s bin, you’ll find a bag of plastic soldiers. I tried to handle them carefully but you’ll probably find my DNA on them somewhere. I threw the knife used to kill Paul in the Mersey but the sales assistant at the kitchen shop in Heswall will remember me. I think he had a thing for mature women and I flirted with him a bit. Probably shouldn’t have, come to think of it but there you go.”
“Why are you confessing?” Blake said. “I don’t understand.”
Nicola looked tired. “Remorse, DCI Blake,” she said flatly, without a hint of emotion. “I’m overcome with guilt for everything I’ve done.”<
br />
“What about Richard Ince?”
“Poor Richard. Quentin had been skimming off money from Pro-Vets for some time. He went boozing with Richard and inevitably got drunk and started bragging about it. Richard told me during a counselling session at Pro-Vets sometime last year. If he had gone to Paul then Ufford would have been sunk. I was desperate for money. Close to bankruptcy then. So I suggested we blackmail Quentin Ufford together.”
“But you realised you could make more money by teaming up with Ufford and cutting out Ince altogether.”
“Yes. Quentin couldn’t believe his luck. He thought he was going to spend the rest of his life sunning himself on a Caribbean beach next to me. Then I sent Terry to get Ince drunk and waited at Ince’s flat for him to come back. He thought I’d come with some blackmail money from Ufford. Once I was inside he drank himself unconscious. I just had to administer the heroin and leave the note.”
“But why the plastic soldier?”
Nicola sighed. “Once I’d had to plan Ince’s murder, I realised that other people might ultimately get in the way. It seemed quite clever to leave a ‘calling card’ and link it to Terry. It certainly distracted you and your team for a while.” She yawned. “I’ll make a full statement later but I’m very tired now and want to sleep.”
“I can’t believe you’d confess so freely. Especially when Terry White is in the frame for all the killings. What did Laura say to you?”
“Nothing much, Mr Blake. We were just catching up and she told me how well she was doing now, where she was living and who with. That was all. You don’t mess with people like that, and you don’t steal their money, do you?”
Chapter 44
The house was quiet and dark when Kinnear got home. After the initial excitement, he’d spent the rest of the day taking statements and talking to so many different colleagues that he hardly noticed the time. It was only when shadows began to fall that he realised the time. At that moment, he had felt weary and longed to go home.
Blake’s words still tugged at Kinnear’s heart as he got out of the car. He let himself in and savoured the quiet. In a few weeks’ time, this place would be full of noise and love. A child was coming to stay, and he’d welcome her with all his heart and soul. It felt as though he got up the stairs in two bounds, he was so eager to tell Chris.
Life was precious. Life was to be lived.
*****
Serafina lay curled on Blake’s lap, purring like a Rolls Royce engine while he sipped a steaming mug of tea. He sat in the living room enjoying the Spring sunshine that streamed through the window. It was clear and still cold outside, but the sun felt warm through the window. A promise of Summer.
“So, what’ll happen to the young man who attacked you?” Ian Youde said. “Will he get a prison sentence?”
“Hard to say, Ian. He was badly manipulated. I don’t think he can get away from the damage he did to Ollerthwaite but his mental condition will have to be taken into account. The fact that Ollerthwaite is on the mend is encouraging and he’s not a vindictive man. So who knows?”
“The lad needs some kind of support, though.”
“Yeah, and hopefully, he’ll get that. Norton wasn’t treating him, she was manipulating him and making his condition worse. People call these ex-soldiers heroes and buy poppies every year but Terry White suffers every day. He shouldn’t have ended up in the state that he did.”
“True,” Ian said.
“Prepare your hearts for Death’s cold hand,” Blake muttered. “That’s Blake, my namesake. A War Song to Englishmen. Nobody prepares to end up like Terry, though, do they?”
“No,” Ian said, staring into the distance. “And what about Laura Vexley?”
Blake shook his head. “God only knows, Ian. I can’t decide if she’s gone back to her old ways for good or is up to something else. Either way, I can’t go anywhere near.”
“Best way, mate. Stay clear of that whole business.”
“I wish I could, Ian, but I think it’s going to come looking for me whether I like it or not, someday.” He looked down at Serafina. “Still, you seem much better… Jeez!” And to demonstrate her agreement, Serafina sank her sharp fangs into Blake’s hand.
The End
Author’s Note
My father joined the RAF in 1938 at the tender age of 18. Like many young men of his age at that time, he was patriotic and had no love for the Nazi regime that had taken power in Germany. He could see the writing on the wall and believed that war was inevitable. But his own father had died from wounds received in the Great War and he always told me that he wanted to be a trained soldier rather than a conscript.
To hear him talk, you’d be forgiven for thinking that my dad’s war was a comedy of errors. He’d tell stories of the various cockups that had blighted his service; the time the USAF filled the only plane to take him home with salt water instead of aviation fuel, getting drunk in Cyprus and falling off a donkey, breaking his ankle, ditching an Avro Anson in the Mersey and finding out that the emergency dinghy had no paddle, being sent to Iceland with full tropical kit. I could go on but I suspect that my dad talked about these things rather than his other experiences.
I can remember only two occasions when he spoke about the horrors he’d seen. Once he told me about travelling up through Italy and described the rotting bodies of fallen soldiers. Another time, he described the RAF’s policy of designating aircrew with what we would now call PTSD as Lacking Moral Fibre. He and his mates thought it was a disgrace. Needless to say, Remembrance Day was always observed in our household.
That last story resonated with me and I still think we, as a public, don’t always recognise the traumatised and brain-injured amongst our veterans. I don’t know what it must be like to be caught in violent conflict. I can imagine but I don’t suppose it comes anywhere near the real thing.
About the Author
Jon Mayhew lives on the Wirral with his family and has done all his life. A teacher for many years, he enjoys traditional music and plays regularly in ceilidh bands and sessions. Jon is also an award-winning author. His dark children’s books are published by Bloomsbury.
Find out more at www.jemayhew.blogspot.com
Find JE Mayhew on Facebook and twitter.
To keep in touch with Jon and get news about upcoming publications, what he had for dinner last night, and how his dogs and chickens are faring go to https://dl.bookfunnel.com/gs5oc6n68k There a free prequel novella waiting for you there, too…
Order No Time for Sorrow, book 7 in the continuing adventures of DCI Will Blake and his team. http://mybook.to/NoTimeForSorrow
Also by JE Mayhew:
http://mybook.to/PoisontreeBlake
http://mybook.to/FearsomeSymm
http://mybook.to/Bonesofdead
http://mybook.to/CrueltyHumanHeart
http://mybook.to/Allthelies
http://mybook.to/DeathsColdHand
Get a free DCI Will Blake prequel on Bookfunnel:
https://dl.bookfunnel.com/gs5oc6n68k
Waiting for the next DCI Blake? Why not try DCI Boyd?
Silent Tide
A sinking boat is spotted a few miles off the south coast. Waiting onboard, is a grisly discovery. DCI Bill Boyd - recently relocated from London to Hastings - is now with the East Sussex CID and his first case is that of a local business man and his new young wife, missing in the English Channel. All that remains of them is a grisly discovery aboard their half-submerged yacht and a digital trail that could put Boyd and his daughter, Emma, in danger.
Book 2 – Old Bones, New Bones
Table of Contents
Contents
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
&nb
sp; 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
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Author’s Note
About the Author
Also by JE Mayhew:
Waiting for the next DCI Blake? Why not try DCI Boyd?
