Colour Coded: The Black Bullet
Page 1
Colour Coded: The Black Bullet
Katy Jordan
Austin Macauley Publishers
Colour Coded: The Black Bullet
About the Author
About the Book
Copyright Information ©
PrologueMonumental Murder
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
About the Author
Katy Jordan was born and raised in Stirling, Scotland. Since an early age she has dreamed of becoming a writer and/or actress, and for the last six years she has been pursuing both.
Official website: www.katyjordan.net
About the Book
Having a dark past, she left it all behind… At least she tried to. When Bullet moved from Prismatic to Colour Coded, her previous boss, Neon, did everything in his power to win her back. But, knowing the kind of man he was, she did not accept any of his pleas. After his begging turns into threats, Bullet and the rest of Colour Coded are forced into a dangerous chess game as a means of not only protecting their own, but protecting their pasts. In the end, a choice must be made. What means more to her, her Colour Coded family… or her horrific history she has shielded for so many years?
Copyright Information ©
Katy Jordan (2019)
The right of Katy Jordan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528958547 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
E.D.M
I’m the most powerful woman I know because of you. I miss you, and you’ll always have a place in my heart.
J.P.H
My favourite little superhero. This book exists thanks to you. You are loved endlessly and unconditionally.
Lesley and Philip
I told you about a story I had in my head, and you weren’t so sure about it. I decided to have a go, see how things went, and you still weren’t so sure… and then I wasn’t so sure. I let you read the first draft, I asked for your honest opinion, and you said: “Go for it!” So, I did. And here I am thanking you in my first-published novel. Two people who have never wavered under my weight, never faltered in supporting me, and always believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. My heart and my soul swell with the longing to repay you while knowing I’ll never be able to. Thank you.
Prologue
Monumental Murder
It was a cloudy Saturday afternoon over the city of Stirling in central Scotland, as Chief Inspector, Claire Marshall admired the scenery of the Ochil hills that towered over them while they travelled along Hillfoots Road. Marshall was in her early forties, her long dark brown hair clipped up into a bun.
The car journey was silent as she had to look past Inspector Matthew Ingram, who drove at top speed to their destination to see the hillside. Marshall decided to look out her own window, houses flying behind them in a blur, and views over open fields welcoming her.
“So, what plans did you have this weekend?” Ingram asked.
“When you work in the Specialist Crime Division for as long as I have, you learn not to make plans on your on-call days,” she replied smugly, not once pulling her gaze away from the scenery.
“Yeah, I’m learning that the hard way; I planned to go see my nephew’s football game. My sister was livid when I told her this morning that I couldn’t go.”
“How old is your nephew?” Marshall pried.
“He’s twelve,” said Ingram, “but, he’s more like a son than a nephew. I tried to stay close after my brother-in-law died two years ago.” Marshall stayed quiet, not knowing what to say.
She wasn’t a family woman.
Marshall grew up as an only child, and she didn’t really understand all the hype of family outings and get-togethers.
“I’m sorry,” she forced out, awkwardly.
A horrid silence ensued.
After their unresolved fight a couple of days ago, meeting up for this case was the first time they had spoken since.
As they passed by the tiny village of Blair Logie, Ingram, a tall, thin man in his late thirties, noticed two helicopters circling the ever famous Wallace Monument.
“Ma’am.”
Marshall leaned forward to look up at the scene of the monument that stretched high above the trees grazing the overcast sky.
“Step on it,” she ordered, leaning back in her seat.
Ingram planted his foot heavily on the accelerator, the sirens wailing loudly, as they continued along their route towards the monument. Ingram turned into the visitor’s car park and pulled in to the side.
“What’re you doing?” Marshall asked judgementally.
“Stopping to go up,” said Ingram.
“I am not climbing that hill in these heels. This is a murder investigation; we’re investigators, not tourists. Drive the road,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ingram replied, rolling his eyes at her.
Marshall gave him a deadly stare.
“I saw that.”
Ingram said nothing, turning on to the narrow slope and crawling carefully up the Abbey Craig.
As they reached the top, the nosey crowds had already gathered. Ingram honked his horn for them to step aside, with uniformed officers assisting them in getting through. They reached the peak of the hill, the monument cordoned off with blue and white police tape.
Marshall and Ingram exited the car, and a police constable greeted them.
“Officer, what have we got?” Marshall enquired.
“One body, unidentified male, looks to be mid-to-late thirties according to the medical examiner,” the constable replied, walking them to the entrance of the monument.
“Dr Munro?” asked Marshall.
“No, it’s Dr Prim today, ma’am.”
“Where’s the body?” Ingram asked.
The young constable gave them a rather sheepish smile.
“Right at the top, sir,” he said, as he lifted the tape for them to duck under. They began to climb the stairs, Marsha
ll leading the way.
“Well, this is cosy,” Ingram joked.
“Yeah, you’re not lying there.”
“You ever been here before?”
“Oh, when I was about nine or ten. You?”
“Never. So, this is an interesting first visit for me.”
“It’ll be interesting to see if you’ll ‘visit’ again once this case is over with,” Marshall scoffed.
Ingram smiled at the comment as they reached the top of the monument, the wind taking them by surprise.
The medical examiner, Dr Leanne Prim, awaited them at the centre of the top platform. Marshall looked rather confused as she scanned the platform to see no male victim.
“Have you moved the body already?” she shouted to Prim over the noise of the helicopters.
“Didn’t one of the constables tell you about the body?” Prim asked, walking past them and down the steps to the edge of the monument.
“Aye, he said it was right at the top,” Ingram shouted to her.
“Yeah… right at the very very top,” Prim replied, pointing upwards.
A look of horror filled Marshall’s face, as she went to join Prim at the edge of the platform.
“What… the hell?”
As Ingram joined the ladies at the edge of the top level of the monument, they were all looking up to see an arm and a leg dangling over the top of the monument, impaled on the topmost spike of the landmark.
“How the hell do you know he’s in his mid-to-late thirties from down here?” Marshall probed. “You can’t even see his face.”
“My assistant’s in one of those helicopters. He sent me this,” Prim replied, holding her phone up to the two inspectors. A zoomed-in photograph of the victim was displayed on Prim’s screen.
“May I?” Ingram offered, holding out his hand.
Prim gave him her phone, and he looked closely at the picture.
“You know him?” Marshall asked, studying him.
“No, I don’t recognise him, but I do recognise that tattoo on the underside of his forearm,” Ingram explained. “That’s an identifying tattoo for a gang in Glasgow called the Lion’s Den. No one’s ever been able to convict them of anything criminal.”
“Well, we can get back to the office and look into them,” Marshall stated. “Good luck getting him back to the morgue, Doctor.”
“Yeah, thanks, it’ll be so much fun,” Prim replied sarcastically as she took her phone from Ingram and walked away to make a call.
“If this is a gang killing, that’s one hell of a way to make a statement,” Marshall said, as they headed back towards the stairs. “Do you think they were trying to send a message?”
“I don’t know, but I doubt he feels on top of the world right now,” he replied, extremely content with his pun.
They pulled into the Randolphfield headquarters in Stirling, and Ingram swung the car into a space. The pair made their way into the building and climbed the stairs to the third floor.
“How sure are you about that tattoo?” Marshall asked him, breaking the silence.
She passed through the door that he was holding open for her.
“One hundred per cent. I was chasing that gang for years as a sergeant,” he assured her, “I’d recognise that tattoo with a blindfold on.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” she replied. “Well, we’re not going to get an I.D. until Prim gets him down from there, so, for now, we’ll start working on how our John Doe actually got up there.”
They entered a very plainly designed room which was surrounded with whiteboards and corkboards, a group of tables pushed together in the centre of the room. Two officers in uniform stood in front of a television, watching the news discussing the case they were about to work on.
“Hi,” said Marshall.
“Hi there. You must be Chief Inspector Marshall and Inspector Ingram?” The young man enquired, pointing to them the wrong way round.
“As much as he would relish in that state, I’m the Chief Inspector, Claire Marshall, and this is Inspector Matthew Ingram,” Marshall corrected him.
“Oh sorry… I just assumed… you know…” the officer stuttered.
“No, I don’t know, why don’t you explain that…”
“It’s an easy mistake to make, officer,” Ingram interjected, clearly annoying his superior officer. “And you are?”
“I’m Officer Tucker, and this is Officer Jamieson,” Tucker shook Marshall and Ingram’s hand.
“We’re here to assist you in any way we can,” Jamieson said.
“Thank you very much,” said Marshall, trying to ignore the clear stereotyping of Officer Tucker, "we’re most likely going to need as much assistance as you can muster up."
“Do you have anything so far?” Ingram probed.
“We’ve left word with the RAF to see if they had any planes or choppers in the air over the last twenty-four hours, but we haven’t heard back yet,” Jamieson offered.
“Good,” Marshall replied with a smile, “check with any pilot schools nearby as well, see if any of their crafts were missing or checked out for any period of time. But, check for the last forty-eight hours, rather than twenty-four,” Marshall headed for a computer at the front of the room, as Jamieson and Tucker looked at one another, confused.
“They’d have needed to plan their route. Did you not take that into account, Officers?” Marshall clarified in a snide manner.
She typed on the keyboard rapidly, watching the screen intently.
Ingram went over to join her, making the smart decision to keep out of this one.
“Okay, there’s a fair few nearby,” Ingram began, looking over Marshall’s shoulder. “Pegasus in Kinross, Border Air in Cumbernauld, Air Service Training in Perth, Fife Flying Club in Glenrothes, and a couple more in Glasgow and Edinburgh.”
“Printing… Now,” Marshall announced.
The printer behind the office door sprung to life, as paper started being pulled in blank and spat out with information. Tucker lifted the two sheets with the different schools and clubs on it.
“We’ll get started with that now, ma’am,” he said.
Tucker and Jamieson left with the list.
“I like it when people assume I’m beneath you because I’m a woman,” said Marshall, who began typing again.
“No, you don’t,” Ingram jabbed.
“Sarcasm really sinks in well with you, doesn’t it, Matt?”
“Can we not do this now? They’re away doing their job, let’s just do ours.”
“Well, I’m trying to,” she retorted, “I don’t see you doing much.” Marshall was never considered unable to hold her own.
For the few times that she got along with Ingram, she disagreed and argued with him two times that. But, he was her partner, and they were a team.
He was good to work with. Sometimes.
The television announcing a breaking news report regarding the deceased at the Wallace Monument caught Ingram’s attention, and he took position in front of the TV to listen in.
“They’re getting the body off the top of the monument… That’s never something I thought I’d hear myself say,” he revealed, and Marshall joined him to watch the report.
The helicopter had lowered two rescue team members down to strap up the body, and John Doe was now being carefully lifted into the helicopter.
A knock at the door interrupted them.
“Ma’am, Margaret Peters from Stirling District Tourism is here,” announced Tucker.
“Great, put her in the interview room. We’ll be there in two,” Marshall instructed. Tucker left them once again.
“Do you think she’ll know anything?” Ingram asked.
“Probably not,” Marshall admitted, “but she can maybe shed some light on any suspicious behaviour.”
The interview room was cramped and plain.
A small window caused a glare against the polished wooden table in the centre of the room that a small middle-aged woman sat at.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs Peters,” said Marshall.
“Please, call me Margaret. This situation is serious enough as it is, so I hope you don’t mind skipping the formalities,” she replied.
“That’s absolutely fine, Margaret,” Marshall confirmed, as she and Ingram sat down in front of her.
“So, we just have a few basic questions for you, just to give us a general idea of the monument and how it’s run.”
“Absolutely,” Margaret nodded, keen to get going.
“Okay. First of all, Margaret, do you recognise this man?” asked Marshall, holding up the picture that Prim had sent to her in the car.
She had zoomed in on the man’s face to avoid the disturbing view of the rest of his body.
Margaret closed her eyes in discomfort.
“No, I don’t quite honestly.”
Marshall put her phone back in her pocket and scribbled on a notepad.
“Can you tell us how many volunteers you have working for you at the moment?”
“At the moment, we have twenty-two,” she answered.
“And how many were working at the monument yesterday and today?”
“Six yesterday, and eight today,” she said, going into her briefcase that sat at her feet, “I brought a list with me.”
“Thank you very much, Margaret,” said Ingram with a smile, taking the sheet of paper and scanning it over. “Who found the body?”
“It was the minibus driver, Stan Parker. Lovely man. He was getting ready for the morning crowds and he spotted it,” Margaret announced.
“He noticed it from the ground?” Marshall asked, stunned.
“He said he thought something looked weird, and he radioed one of my volunteers, Emma Hainey, who confirmed it. Such a shame, she’s only nineteen, and it was her first time volunteering for us,” she said.
“So, Mr Parker noticed something weird but couldn’t make it out, and it was Miss Hainey who found the body?” Marshall clarified.
“Yes.”
“Do you do any criminal background checks on people wanting to volunteer?” Marshall enquired.