Winder

John Hunter

Description

A watched clock never movesThe church clock in this unassuming South Midlands village has stopped, and for good reason. The oldman who wound it up lay lead in the tower, decapitated.Dr. Jackson (Jacko), a local historian, becomes drawn in to the police enquiry, but not before there aremore unexplained deaths, including one at the home of a local MP. Then the vicar vanishes into thin air.Is there a common thread? Why are the Intelligence Services involved. And why is there hushed talk ofcannibalism in the police enquiry?Growing tensions within the police enquiry make matters worse. Jacko wished he'd never taken the job,especially after an attempt on his life. He knew too much, which is ironic as he had no idea what it washe was supposed to know. Drifting unwittingly into a network of serious crime, can Jacko put togetherthe pieces before the killer strikes again?

Sujets

• Midlands (Inglaterra)
• Midlands

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800467873
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 John Hunter

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Matador
9 Priory Business Park,
Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,
Leicestershire. LE8 0RX
Tel: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
Twitter: @matadorbooks

ISBN 9781800467873

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
In fond memory of Lyra McKee (1990–2019) for her enthusiasm and support in what I was trying to achieve
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
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 1
Jacko stood glumly at the side of a field while a mechanical excavator stripped away the turf and weeds between two carefully positioned lines of red marker poles. He knew there’d be nothing there. Murderers didn’t bury their victims in open spaces, even if they were in a hurry. Next to the hedge there wasn’t much in the way of concealment either. Still, it had to be investigated. The police officer in charge knew they’d find nothing too but had to go through the motions, seeing as a statement had landed on his plate. The witness had told the desk sergeant that he’d seen a body being buried in that very spot, he couldn’t remember quite when of course. Probably about twenty years ago. He didn’t know who it was either. Very helpful. They were always the same, these walk-ins, they alleged some murder had happened years ago, but there was never a missing person to go with it. Not that the witness was a liar or anything, he obviously believed what he was saying, but there had to be some other explanation. Jacko had worked on several of them, just like this one. It wasn’t a matter of finding a body, more like showing there wasn’t one there in the first place.
The machine bucket slid under the topsoil exposing a smooth, almost sensuous red surface, nothing whatsoever indicating the ground had been disturbed since the last Ice Age. Another no brainer, another wild goose chase, another allegation refuted. Having waved the driver to stop he walked across to report back to the officer in the unmarked police vehicle.
‘Nothing, Dunc. It’s home time. I’ll write the usual statement and email it over. You’ll need some scene photos for the record.’
Detective Sergeant Duncan MacBrayne was enjoying a cushy number sitting in his car talking into his mobile. He switched it off having made some hasty farewell comments in a soft tone that suggested he’d not been talking to either his boss or his bank manager, and wound down the window. ‘Well, we had to make sure,’ he said, looking out rather sheepishly, and then shouted across to the photographer who was also recumbent in a small white van marked ‘CRIME SCENE SUPPORT’ parked nearby.
Jacko climbed into MacBrayne’s passenger seat, slightly out of breath through being a little overweight, and gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from a flask. It was sunny outside, but not warm. Standing about in the cold, either waiting for someone to arrive, waiting for something to finish, or waiting for something to happen was the essence of scene of crime work as far as he could tell. He’d come to expect it. The hot coffee slid down inside. He shut his eyes as its warmth did its work and he could have happily fallen asleep with the sun filtering through the windscreen, the gentle hissing of MacBrayne’s car heating system and the barely audible music playing through the radio. All he needed was a ginger biscuit to dunk in the coffee.
‘Any other police jobs afoot?’ MacBrayne asked, looking across from writing down some notes.
Jacko stretched as well as he could in the confines of the passenger seat and stared blankly at the dashboard. ‘A couple of searches for Thames Valley – both lost causes like this one. Otherwise just civilian jobs. Usual stuff, council advice, assessing the archaeology ahead of housing developments, planning enquiries. Not very exciting.’ He looked mindlessly out of the window as he watched the scene photographer climb up a pair of step ladders, take a shot, check the image in the back screen, then move the steps to another position.
‘I’ve been asked to see the coroner tomorrow, though. Not sure why. Seems a bit odd. Something to do with a pensioner found dead up the church tower in Middle Belford. Can’t for the life of me see what he wants to talk to me for.’
MacBrayne looked at him suspiciously, ‘You sure that’s what it’s about?’
‘That’s what I was told on the phone. Some issue, is there?’
MacBrayne’s face took on a slightly puzzled expression, ‘Better let the coroner tell you. I thought the Middle Belford job had been sorted, but presumably it hasn’t. The boss won’t like that.’
‘Won’t like what?’
‘DCI Flett’s signed it off, so he won’t like it if the coroner’s cranking it up again, stirring things when he’s already put them to bed.’
‘Bit of a hot potato is it then?’
‘Well it wasn’t, but it looks like it might be a warm potato right now. You ever met DCI Flett?’ Jacko shook his head. MacBrayne breathed a loud sigh and looked at him with an expression that managed to combine both exasperation and pity. ‘Huh. I expect you will soon then.’

* * *

‘What? You mean the old man was decapitated?’ Jacko said loudly, sitting upright so quickly that the beer slopped out of his glass. ‘That part wasn’t in the newspaper.’ He’d felt uncomfortable even before that snippet of gory news, not relishing this meeting with Her Majesty’s Coroner in the first place. They sat opposite each other in the Red Horse, the only surviving hostelry in Middle Belford, now filling up with lunchtime drinkers from the local farms. What was all this cloak and dagger stuff, anyway? More to the point, what did it have to do with him?
‘Do please keep your voice down,’ this thin-faced, serious-looking man whispered across the table. ‘I’ve formally opened an inquest, but adjourned it for the time being until the specific circumstances of death are clearer.’ He glanced nervously out of the window, watching a group of middle-aged cyclists dismounting in the road. With his grubby dark suit which emphasised a bad case of dandruff, greasy black hair and piercing little eyes he looked emphatically out of place in a bar usually frequented by dungaree-clad farm hands. More suited to a dingy office in a Dickens novel, Jacko thought.
‘Turns out the deceased was the local clock winder,’ the man went on. ‘He was up the clock tower when one of the sets of weights that he’d just wound up came down on his neck, a bit like a guillotine I suppose – had the same effect, unfortunately. No-one seems to have any idea why, or how.’
He stopped again as the cyclists appeared through the bar door. They looked hesitantly around, then dumped their helmets on one of the tables and tugged at their lycra crotches before sitting down. He waited until they’d ordered and were engrossed in bicycle talk.
‘His torso was only discovered when the bell ringers went up for their weekly practice and noticed a bad whiff. One of the women climbed up to the clock chamber to see what it was, then fell over the body while she looked for the light switch. Turns out it was an old chap called Tommy Johnson, a local octogenarian who’d been winding up the clock for years. He usually wound it on Mondays, then went off to play bowls with his mates, regular as clockwork, if you pardon the pun.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Last Monday, the fifteenth, he never turned up for his bowls.’ He paused to take a sip of his orange juice and brush some dandruff off his shoulders.
‘Of course the woman who found the body the following Thursday was hysterical. Terrible sight, by all accounts. We thought it must be some industrial accident. The health and safety people crawled all over the place looking for non-compliance on fire hazards, unstable access ladders, unguarded machinery, pigeon vermin – the usual stuff – but couldn’t find anything amiss.’
‘And the police?’ Jacko asked, somewhat indifferently, still wondering why he was being told all this.
‘Not very helpful. Initially they designated it as a crime scene to be on the safe side, kept the details out of the press, then decided it wasn’t a crime scene. All a bit of a mess. The tower keys were in the old boy’s pocket so he must have locked himself in for some reason, goodness knows why. The only other set hangs on a hook in the vicarage and the housekeeper swears no-one’s touched it.’ He took another sip of orange juice while Jacko shuffl