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

Noel ever committed was a kidnap. In his mind, it hadn’t been that bad because the victim was a known drug dealer who had been filtering takings from his boss. They kidnapped the dealer to get the money back. He’d just been hired to drive but he remembered the boss using that kind of voice disguiser. Even though it had been deepened, he could tell it was a woman’s voice.

“I-I’m in…” Terry looked helplessly at Noel. “Where am I?

“You aren’t alone? That’s against regulations, Terry. You’ve compromised the mission. There’s only one option…”

“No, please…”

Noel was sick of listening. “Who is this?” he said. “Why do you have to disguise your voice from Terry if you’re on his side?”

“Endgame, Terry. Endgame.”

“No,” Terry sobbed.

“It’s a woman’s voice, Terry. Who is she that she can tell you what to do? Your mum? Do you have a boss who’s a woman? Think Terry. Why does she hide from you if she wants to help you?”

“Endgame, Terry. Endgame.”

“Please,” Terry whimpered, curling into a ball.

“Is this Nicola?” Noel said through gritted teeth. “Cos if it is, we’re nearer than you think and we’re coming for you.”

“Endgame. That’s an order.” The phone went dead.

“Shit,” Noel hissed. “Terry, we’ve got to…” He didn’t manage to get another word out because a fist slammed into the side of his head, filling the world with stars and pain. Another blow fell on his shoulder but Terry was restricted by the cab of the van and his side-on position. Noel grappled with the door handle and fell out into the road on his hands and knees. A car blared its horn and Noel just had time to glimpse the red of its skirting and bumpers, a few letters of the registration plate before it ploughed into him, crushing him against the open van door before ripping it off and coming to a halt.

The world swam before Noel’s eyes. He could feel the van door under him, digging into his back. Oddly, there was no pain as he lay there. That might come later, he thought. If there was a later. Terry White looked down at him, his face pale. “Run, Terry,” Noel gasped. “Run, lad.”

He heard Terry’s voice as though through a thick blanket. “I-is that you, Graves?”

“No,” Noel sighed. “Go and get the bitch. Get Nicola. She’s your enemy now.”

Terry vanished from view and darkness began to shroud Noel’s vision. All he could hear was the slap of Terry White’s boots on the tarmac as he fled the scene.

*****

Irked might have been one way to describe DI Kath Cryer’s feelings as she approached Nicola Norton’s office in Heswall. She didn’t want to feel that way, but she felt side-lined by Blake. It was a stupid reaction, she knew, childish and unhelpful; the Heswall office was as important an element in this investigation as anywhere else but why didn’t he send Vikki Chinn here?

Alex Manikas didn’t seem bothered by the fact that they were driving away from where all the action was likely to be. Kath shook her head. Why did she want to be near a source of potential danger anyway? She’d had enough excitement when she faced a shot-gun-wielding psychopath last year. She’d only just about recovered from that. She’d even tried to short-circuit the need to come out to Heswall by phoning but the number for the business just gave a continuous beep, suggesting it no longer existed. Under the circumstances, she had to go out and check.

They stood outside the mobile phone shop beneath the office. “Vikki said that the door to the office was round the back,” Alex said.

“If she’s so familiar with it, she should have come herself,” Kath muttered. They walked round the back but the door was locked.

“Should we ask in the shop?” Alex suggested.

The shop was dingy and full of glass cabinets containing old phones, video games and keyboards. Kath wasn’t a gambling woman but she’d lay a month’s wages on some of this stuff being stolen. A balding, middle-aged man with thick glasses and a brown cardigan leaned on the counter watching them. Kath swore that he flinched when she produced her warrant card.

“I’ve got receipts for all of this stuff, I promise,” he said. “If it’s knock-off, then I wasn’t to know, honest.”

“Don’t worry, sir, we’re not here for you, we’re looking for Nicola Norton. She has an office upstairs…”

The man looked even more despondent. “Yeah, well you won’t find her up there, will you?”

“You tell me.”

“No, you won’t because she’s moved on. I’m the landlord and she handed in the keys on Thursday. Shame, really, I quite liked her.”

“She closed her office on Thursday? Did she say why?”

The man shrugged. “Said she was going away for a while. Didn’t say where.” But Kath and Alex were out of the door and heading back to their car.

*****

Blake hissed with frustration at the cars lined up in front of him. “Why are so many people still intent on going to this rally? It’s for nothing.” They’d been stuck for half an hour and were still not that far out of the tunnel entrance.

“I think it’s touched a nerve, sir. I bet a lot of people going along just want to show that they respect what it stands for,” Vikki Chinn said. “It’s not so much the terrorist rumour as the idea of a murder on such a place that seems to have got people so exercised about it.”

Kinnear sat in the back staring out of the window, lost in his thoughts.

Blake rubbed his forehead. “I sometimes think people care more about monuments than people. I know it’s important but Paul Travis was a father and a husband. He wasn’t a saint by any stretch but he was loved and will be missed. That should count for more. If people protested like this every time someone was unlawfully killed, we’d live in a better world. Maybe if they just picked up the phone to help us every now and then, I’d have