A Shot In The Night (John Harper Series Book 2)

by Edward Holmes

“There are plenty of kids out there who only have drugs as a prospect. Children are raised with it in their homes. When I was a boy my father drank, now you get kids growing up with crack addict parents,” Fraser added.

  They were moving me away from the topic of Saul and I was surprised by the subtlety of it from two hardened boxers. I shook my head, “Say you’re right and it was someone random. Say you’re right about Morrison not being the shooter; it leaves us with a mystery shooter or shooters. And it also does me no good getting the boy off the hook for this one. I don’t know the area, I don’t know the people or the players so how about you help me help Morrison?”

  “I’ve got twenty in my gym right now who need my attention. It’s tough enough keeping the gangs out of here trying to hire my boys as heavies. Why should I care about one kid?” Fraser asked.

  I had thought that playing on his sense of local pride would have worked but he was showing the same resolve that his fighter had had, “Because I think you two feel somewhat responsible for what Saul does, you trained him after all.”

  “Screw Saul, he does what he wants. We gave him direction if Tony and myself hadn’t brought him in here he would have been worse. We gave him structure and discipline,” the gym owner said.

  Tony piped up as well, “If you’re looking for someone who could have done it then it won’t be one of our lads. This is one of the few places kids can go after school or whenever. The Tories shut it all down and have let the area rot. Hell it’s a surprise we are still going.”

  “Yeah you want to find a shooter you ask Matthew Thompson and his lot.”

  “And who is he?” I enquired feeling like there were finally giving me some information I could use.

  “Thompson is a social worker at the centre down the road and part time in the schools in the area. The boy does the best he can with the kids round here and he has less than us to work with. If there has been someone to fall through the cracks, he’ll have met them,” Fraser said with a certain amount of respect in his voice.

  It wasn’t what I was expecting to hear but my job was to hunt down the leads that would give me the facts I needed. If I had to work harder for that and continue in that pursuit then I would, “I guess I’ll go see him as well but I do need help here.”

  “You earned my time by winning in the ring and you earned my respect with the way you handled yourself during it. It doesn’t mean I’m going to help you send anyone I know to the clink,” Fraser said folding his arms, “Copper or not that’s not how we work.”

  “I respect that and I don’t want you to break any confidences. What I am asking for is just a little help in relation to this shooter, for the good of your community.”

  Fraser looked across at Tony who shrugged and then nodded slightly, “I don’t wanna see that Morrison kid go to prison for something he didn’t do, Max. We both know he’s innocent and it can’t hurt to help.”

  The boss seemed to take the counsel onboard when he answered, “There’s a fight event coming up at the weekend I’ve got a couple of boys involved, come to it and speak to me there. We should have something for you by then, just don’t bother coming around here again.”

  “I think I’ve had enough already.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I drove back to my hotel room after leaving a card with Fraser and Tony in case they wanted to contact me. I had plenty of time before I was due to see Richard but I was however in absolute agony. My body was bruised and beaten and I wasn’t used to it. It had been months since I was last taken a battering like that, not since I was in Hollingswood. I knew that when I left the force and began working for myself that it wouldn’t be easy. I didn’t have the protection from physical violence that a badge provided, sure I could lie and people might believe me enough not to attack but I was still on my own now.

  Soaking in an ice cold bath was never enjoyable but it was needed. Whilst there I rang Harrison; which he took great offence to, I think it was the thought of me being nude. Something that had been said in Fraser’s office had clicked in my mind. I wanted Harrison to do a little online digging for me to see if he could find out how the gym was managing to pay its bills. His searches wouldn’t be technically legal but I was confident he could get the job done. It also meant that I wasn’t paying him to just sit in the office.

  The two old boxers had confused me somewhat in relation to Big Saul. I wasn’t looking to bring down a drug kingpin or even interfere in his operations; that wasn’t my job anymore. No, I was looking to help out one young man and it seemed that this Saul character was in the background. Not that it mattered at all, if I could prove that he didn’t shoot then all the better but with Morrison confessing I needed to have physical evidence to get him to change his testimony. The bloody kid was making it hard for me.

  Once dressed in the jeans and a new shirt I lay on the bed and took out my trusty notebook and wrote down as much as I could remember from the meeting. Richard was picking me up in twenty minutes and I had no idea where he wanted to go or how long for. It gave me enough time to go downstairs and grab a sandwich from a convenience store but left me wondering when I could go meet Matthew Thompson. If he could point me in the direction of a suspect for the shooting this would be so much easier. I also suspected because he worked in the area he wouldn’t be beholden to the same code of silence.

  Richard was punctual arriving in a rented black saloon car. He pulled up to the kerb and got out to shake my hand and give me a warm embrace with a slap on the back. Rich isn’t as tall as me nor is he physically as imposing but he carries himself in such a way that he seems to loom over you. His jaw is ruggedly chiselled and his eyes sharp and a very dark blue as if close to black. Every woman I had ever met in his company thought him attractive, with his quick to smile mouth and hair that somehow made him look boyish in his forties.

  “John it’s a delight to see you again, been far too long,” he said with that quick smile of his.

  “Always is my friend. How long are you in the area?”

  “As long as I need to be of help to you. Should we get going? You can fill me in on the way,” Rich said opening the car door.

  I got in the passenger seat and nodded to him, “So you’re here for just me?”

  “One of the perks of being freelance John, I do what I want when I want. Well most of the time. There’s something of interest in the area for me and although I wouldn’t normally have taken it on I thought it would be good to see you, catch up and all.”

  See it is gestures like that which make it difficult to dislike the man, “I take it the work is along the lines of the cloak and dagger stuff you were up to in Ireland?”

  “And if it was I wouldn’t be able to tell you about it now would I?”

  “Of course. That being said anything I tell you is under the same protection.”

  “Well not as legally binding with the implications one would expect from certain documents etcetera etcetera.”

  “No I’d just kill you myself,” I said with a laugh. I quickly told him who had hired me and the situation I was in. Rich could be trusted more than anyone I knew and he just nodded and listened. He had a memory as good as mine if not better. When I finished he finally spoke.

  “Seems you’ve got yourself in a bit of a pickle fella. I think I can help on the shooting front. Rifle owners are registered unless you have got one illegally and there isn’t much call for weapons like that.”

  I nodded since he was just confirming what I already knew, “You telling me you can get that information?”

  “Not so much at the moment. What I can do however is introduce you to some people. Liverpool isn’t far from a military rifle range called Altcar. There’s a couple of shooting clubs that use it and I’m cleared there so I thought we could have a word or two with them see if they have any information of use for you.”

  “You think they will speak to me? People in the North tend to keep things close to their chest, not betray anything and I don’t have a badge to
encourage them anymore.”

  Rich laughed, “John you say it like I’m not from these parts.”

  “Are you?”

  “You don’t have the clearance to know. If you’re worried about them talking then leave it up to me, I’m pretty good at finding out things people don’t want to share.”

  “I’ll follow your lead Major.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rifle ranges in England are a rarity. Altcar has been used as such a place for over one hundred and fifty years and is unique in the fact it is owned by the Territorial Army Association. The Ministry of Defence presence is well felt when you go through the checkpoints; Richard showed his credentials and we drove onto the base. That early evening a couple of local rifle clubs would be in attendance on the ranges. Driving towards them took me back to my early days undercover out of the country.

  My time in Ireland had been an interesting but demanding experience and I had grown used to seeing military bases. That, coupled with the fact Rich was there, made me think even more on my past. He seemed supremely confident and at home with the men carrying longarm weapons. Some of them knew him by sight and nodded to him which might have hinted that he was a regular but with Rich you never really knew.

  We stood on the B range which was only three hundred yards. My friend had told me that there was a massive one thousand yard range on site as well but had less than ten lanes. The range we stood behind had over thirty lanes and the men were going about their past time with gusto. They were fighting against the fading winter light and wanted to get as many rounds down range as possible. It is strange to think that it is only the equivalent of someone practicing golf or any other solo sport, just a lot louder and much more deadly.

  I stood apart watching them go about their business which was interesting and gave me the urge to try myself. I’d handled firearms before but I doubted I was anywhere close to the standard those men were. Rich on the other hand could probably hit every target dead centre at every range blindfolded, such was his amazing prowess.

  He beckoned me over to a trio of men, all of them wearing the same sort of clothing; trousers of brown cloth and green shirts but with an assortment of jackets covering them. The air was cooling quickly and I envied two of the men their long thick beards, “Ah John let me introduce you to some of my friends here. This is Sean, Robert and Clarence each of these men runs a rifle club in the area and they have been more than kind enough to help us out.”

  They each shook my hand in turn, “We’re more than happy to help out Rich here,” Robert said a small man with a stomach that must make it difficult to shoot from the prone position.

  “Yeah anything for the best shot on the range,” added Sean who was more of a medium height and build and the only one with a clean shaven face.

  I turned to my friend and raised my eyebrows inquisitively, he in turn just shrugged, “I’ve told them we’re looking for a rifleman who might be slightly unhinged. The shot he made judging on the short amount of distance we estimate isn’t the hardest in the world.”

  “Hell my mother-in-law could make that shot and she’s twice the size of Robert here and ten times as blind,” Clarence joked as he patted the other man’s stomach. It was playful banter but I could make out even from behind the facial hair that the rotund shooter wasn’t happy.

  “Still you’d have to be fast and well practiced to make that shot from a standing position. Even if he used a car roof as a rest it would be ballsy to try it in a residential area,” Sean offered.

  Rich stood there with his arms folded and nodded, “So you’re suggesting that maybe he was more hidden say like John Allen Muhammad? I mean it wouldn’t take much to outfit a vehicle like he did.”

  Sean nodded at the mention of the Beltway sniper who had terrorised the Washington DC area back at the turn of the millennium. Most people remembered the fear that he and the young Lee Boyd Malvo, his accomplice, created as they shot people from their converted sedan. Still I didn’t think the trajectory matched shooting prone from a car and told them such.

  “Well if he shot standing then all the better it narrows it down a little. Some people don’t like it at all since it is the least stable position,” Clarence said.

  “Shame you don’t have the bullet or calibre I mean that would really help,” Sean added as well, “I mean we don’t all fire the same sort of round.”

  Rich again nodded before saying, “From what John has told me and from what I’ve been able to see I’d think it was a full metal jacket to do the damage without shattering his skull everywhere.”

  “Are there any of your members that you think aren’t particularly grounded or someone who has recently lost their licence for example?” I questioned, the semantics of the bullet used was of insignificance to me at the moment especially since it had been removed from the crime scene.

  The three men looked at each other and laughed at some shared joke. Sean spoke first as he seemed the most talkative, “Asking questions like that isn’t going to create a small pool of suspects for you. There aren’t that many people who shoot these days so you are bound to get some weirdos.”

  “He’s right, there are what did you call it ‘unhinged’ men in all of our clubs but that doesn’t mean they would go out and shoot people. Well some would but they’d have to be pushed,” Clarence said hurrying to add the second part of the answer when I looked at him.

  “Losing your licence is ridiculous as a way of creating a list of suspects the system is a joke. I’ve known people lose it for the silliest of reasons. One of my friends got threatened so called the police because of the nature of those threats and when they finally did arrive that person got treated like a criminal. Two days later in a dawn raid they hit the house and took the weapons and revoked the licence,” Robert said incensed at the memory.

  Sean was quick to chime in again, “Then you get people who are mentally ill keeping their licence it’s an absolutely ridiculous. You want to see injustice just look at the types who have kept their firearms licences. Thomas Hamilton the scumbag murderer got his repeatedly renewed when the police were constantly investigating him over his conduct towards little boys.”

  “We all know the true conspiracy there,” Clarence added which brought eye rolls from the rest.

  Sean held up a hand, “Let’s not go there hey. The detective here might think you’re a lone gunman nut.”

  I smiled, “No it’s fine you hear the same sort of stories everywhere you go. Back to the case at hand though is there anyone you can think of?”

  They stood there for a moment and then conferred in hushed tones before Sean their spokesman broke the silence, “We’d have to do a bit more of a check on our lists but there was a guy none of us took a liking to. He had all the right recommendations but I didn’t want him in my club. Robert knows him best of all of us.”

  The bearded man glared at the other gun club chairman as if he was suggesting there was some sort of nefarious connection between the shooter and him, “He’s talking about Lionel Ambrose. Leo was something of a gun nut as it were. He liked to shoot but it was the targets he liked most of all. When he first joined he kept asking about deer hunts in Scotland and the like and he was connected to a pheasant shoot as well.”

  “So he liked a bit of a challenge with moving targets, no harm there,” Rich said in a calm voice.

  “No, Leo was a little out there. He managed to get a single shot AK-47 and said it was because it fired the same ammunition as his CZ 527,” Robert informed us lowering his voice when he talked about the man.

  “Was he a collector then?” I asked very much interested in finding out more about this man but not getting my hopes up.

  “I wouldn’t call him that,” Sean laughed getting another deadly stare from Robert.

  Clarence, obviously aware of the situation, decided to speak, “Leo just likes guns in any shape or form. He even drove to Cumbria when Derrick Bird was on the rampage and was there for the Raoul Moat siege.”
/>   “Sounds like a nutter to me,” Rich said.

  “Excellent observation there,” I let slip but smiled to my friend who just smiled back and nodded.

  “Alright then smart arse do you think this gentleman is worth investigating?”

  I rubbed my chin and then replied, “Yeah sounds like a plan. If you gentlemen could help me with some personal details on the man it would help. I would also like you to go through your member lists and see if there are any more names that you think could be dangerous.”

  Not surprisingly it was Sean who spoke first, “We’re happy to help out Richard here, but that is going a little far don’t you think?”

  “Yes we do have a duty to our members,” Robert added.

  “Now come on fellas you said you would help. We’re not asking the world just some information to make sure an innocent young man doesn’t go to jail,” Rich pleaded with them but his words were stern as well.

  For a moment I thought there would be some sort of scene like that which had played out in the gym; a test of ability to gain favour with the men and prove yourself worthy of their help. Luckily commonsense prevailed and their respect for Rich helped them see the light. It didn’t stop Rich from making me wait another hour as he showed off his skills. I was asked if I wanted to see if I had any proficiency with the weapons but with my body in the bruised state it was I decided against lying on the ground and suffering the recoil of a rifle to my injured shoulder.

  By the time Rich dropped me off back at the hotel I was completely shattered physically and emotionally and had to promise the ex-army officer I would see him the next day. When he left me it was however still only early evening and although fatigue was setting in I still had a job to do and was quickly back on the case.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I had a cup of tea in my hotel room, not the stuff they provided but my own loose leaf tea. After my big win at the bookmakers back in the summer I had treated myself to a number of objects I had wanted for a long time. I’d travelled to Munich for the Oktoberfest beer festival indulging one passion, I bought a couple of bottles of my favourite bourbon, one of which is locked away in my safe in the office, and other than my new house I bought a supply of my favourite tea. When I had worked on the police force I had drank copious amounts of coffee and tea but now I had to look after my body a bit more.