Death's Cold Hand, J.E. Mayhew [book club recommendations .txt] 📗

“It was like a short-circuit in my emotions. I became numb. After that, I could hurt anyone or anything and not feel anything. No remorse, no pity just nothing.”

“And you believe the incident with your pet rabbit was the trigger for all of this?”

“I know it for sure.” The light returned to Gambles’ eyes. “Just like I know other things, Jeffrey.”

“I’m warning you, Josh, I’m not going to continue coming here if you’re just going to play silly games. Now let’s talk more about this early memory. This is what readers want.”

But the old Gambles was back. “Don’t readers want a romance, Jeffrey? A lovelorn hero, a handsome bad boy and a whore with a heart of gold? Isn’t that what readers want?”

“You’ve lost me.”

“She’s back.”

Jeff shook his head. “Nope. You’re talking in riddles again. Who’s back?”

Gambles flared his nostrils and widened his eyes. “The girlfriend…”

“Laura Vexley? Will’s girlfriend? When?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know. Ah well, Jeffrey, it’s been nice talking to you but I’m feeling too tired to carry on. See you next week?”

“Come on, Josh, tell me. When did she come back?”

“Guards!” Josh called. Jeff watched, fuming, as they escorted the killer back to his cell. What was he going to tell Will?

*****

Rock Lodge lay in darkness when Blake finally reached home that night. It was late and he felt every aching muscle as he climbed out of his car, his feet crunching on the white gravel. The lights of Liverpool’s suburbs twinkled on the black waters of the River Mersey. The house had belonged to his parents and Blake had planned to sell up and move when Laura was with him. It was only two or three miles south of the Birkenhead Tunnel. Here, the A41 widened into a dual carriageway, hemming in the old Victorian villas of Rock Park against the banks of the Mersey. It also cut them off from the estates of New Ferry and Rock Ferry and gave it a shabby, but strangely exclusive feeling.

Blake’s house was small in comparison to some of the big properties in the area. His house had once been a gate house for a bigger property that had since been demolished. It had four bedrooms and an overgrown garden. The thick bushes around the tiny lawn meant that you’d easily miss it if you hurried past. But its relatively small size gave it a certain charm, given that it still boasted the ornate brickwork and tiling in the hall of the other, grander properties. To Blake, it was beginning to feel like a trap again.

For a brief few months, Laura had breathed new life into this place and into Blake himself. She’d woken him up from a nightmare and given him some hope. They’d started making plans and thinking about the future. Then she’d vanished, fleeing from her brutal ex-husband Kyle Quinlan. But Blake hadn’t slipped back into his old lethargy. His first instinct was to go after her but lately, he’d wondered at the wisdom of this. She was a grown up and her own person, after all. Blake wondered if his instinct to go after her was partly the same need for control that drove him to solve crimes. In a work context, it was valuable but in his relationship with Laura, it had caused them to clash. Laura was a free spirit and sometimes, Blake hadn’t taken account of that.

Blake let himself into the house and switched the light on in the hall. Charlie came bounding up to greet him. Youde had texted earlier to say he’d taken the dog out for a walk and Blake suspected that he’d been out for most of the day. Serafina lay curled up on his armchair. He checked in the kitchen, her bowl was empty and he just hoped that meant she had eaten her food and the antibiotics. It was just as possible that Charlie had helped her out but Youde would have watched out for that.

Blake scanned the fridge for anything edible and found a lump of cheese and some ham that was only three days past its use-by date. His bread was a bit mouldy but he picked the worst of it off and rustled up some cheese and ham on toast. “Hardly health food,” he muttered to Charlie who watched intently for anything that might drop on the floor.

The little dog turned his head to the hall and gave a brief ‘yip.’

“What is it, boy?” Rising from his seat, Blake followed Charlie who had scurried out to the front door and was scratching at it. He let him out and watched as Charlie bounded into the front garden barking into the dark lane beyond the bushes.

A dark BMW sat at the entrance to Blake’s drive, its engine idling. The moment he stepped towards it, the car pulled away and drove off. Charlie gave a final yelp and started sniffing the ground. A wave of disquiet swept over Blake. Rock Park was something of a dead end and not a place you drove through. Sandwiched between the river and the A41, it was a destination and hardly anyone came here at night unless they were visiting. Or keeping an eye on someone. Blake was pretty sure it was the latter and he had an idea who it was.

Chapter 11

Sun streamed through Blake’s bedroom curtains. His alarm clock bleeped frantically for the fourth time, this time loud and insistent, as though annoyed at having been ignored the last three times. Blake pushed an arm from under the duvet and jabbed an equally indignant finger at the clock. He leaned out and squinted at it. Then his eyes widened.

“Shit, shit, shit.” He was meant to be meeting George Owens in fifteen minutes. Leaping out of bed, he grabbed a shirt off a nearby chair and recoiled from it. “Jeez, smells like a dead otter.”

He thundered down the stairs, two at a time and scrambled through the pile of shirts awaiting the attention of