Blackmail

Michael Stokes

Description

In crime and thriller novel, Blackmail, Michael explores the lives of a group of criminals who pull off a daring robbery. However, one of them becomes involved in a struggle with a security guard who is shot and seriously injured.The gang leader, Michael Doyle, establishes a seemingly perfect alibi to escape, but their carefully prepared plans begin to unravel when the DNA of the robber who struggled with the injured guard is detected. The investigators are able to link him with Doyle through CCTV and both of them are arrested. Clever lawyers seek to exclude the DNA evidence but Doyle's girlfriend, who has some legal knowledge, is sceptical that the ploy will work. Desperate measures become necessary...Then, things take a turn for the worse when a judge's home is raided and his wife and young son kidnapped. It turns out they will only be released if he rules against the prosecution. Will the judge do what the kidnappers demand? Will Blackmail reveal who was behind the kidnapping? Was it Doyle's girlfriend or someone from his past? Someone he had crossed? Only time will tell...Blackmail will appeal to fans of chilling crime and thriller novels.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 22 mars 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785898266
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2016 Michael Stokes

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.

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ISBN 978 1785898 266

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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For

H. C.

“Never Forgotten”

&

in memory of



Police Dog Troy



“I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is the benefactor so long unknown to me.”
“That is the man”, said Mr Jaggers, “in New South Wales.”
“And only he?” said I.
“And only he,” said Mr Jaggers.
“I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible for my mistakes and wrong conclusions; but I always supposed it was Miss Havisham.”
“As you say Pip,” returned Mr Jaggers, turning his eyes upon me coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, “I am not at all responsible for that.”
“And yet it looked so like it, sir,” I pleaded with a downcast heart.
“Not a particle of evidence, Pip,” said Mr Jaggers, shaking his head and gathering up his skirts. “ Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule. ”


– Charles Dickens Great Expectations



“Say first, of God above or man below
What can we reason but from what we know?”


– Alexander Pope Essay on Man
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE
It was not yet light and bitterly cold when the man lifted his coat and squeezed the mobile phone into the front pocket of his leather overtrousers. He walked slowly towards the large wooden gates and opened them as wide as they would go. Flurries of snow were picked out in the beam from the torch he held in his other hand. Moments later, a light-coloured van pulled in quickly and drew to a halt, the tyres crunching on the frosted gravel. The driver signalled to him, smiled and drove the van into the old foundry building, disappearing from sight. The man looked at his watch. It was just 5.03 a.m. Everything must have gone to plan. He closed and bolted the gates, then pulling his scarf more tightly about his neck, followed the van inside. Taking one final look into the still darkened sky, he shut the doors behind him. Only the smoke belching from the chimney gave a clue that anyone was there.

* * * *
CHAPTER ONE
Thursday, 17 December 1998
‘How much?’
‘Nearly 2 million.’
Detective Chief Inspector Henry Hood shook his head in disbelief.
‘What’s the exact figure?’ he asked. ‘Do we have the exact figure?’
‘Well, according to the manager, 1.9 million pounds. He’s just confirmed it a few minutes ago.’
Detective Constable Wendy Knight winced as she spoke. ‘By the way, sir, the ACC has been asking after you. It sounds pretty urgent.’
‘I know,’ replied Hood despondently. ‘She’s left two messages on my mobile already. I’ll go and see her immediately after the briefing. Hopefully, I’ll have something positive to tell her, though I doubt it.’
‘There’s not much to tell at the moment,’ said Knight.
She had only recently been transferred to Hood’s team but already admired him both as a man and a detective. It was well known that he had endured a deal of jealous backbiting when promoted to chief inspector, some of it mildly racist in origin. He was the son of a West Indian bus driver and an English mother who hailed from a small village in north Nottinghamshire. Mrs Hood had established herself as a sought-after teacher of English literature after much study and a first-class honours degree from the Open University. Their son took a more orthodox educational path, thanks to their unstinting support. After obtaining excellent A levels from his comprehensive school in Mansfield, he graduated with upper second-class honours in English and philosophy from Leeds University and, to the initial consternation of his parents, went straight into the West Yorkshire Police Force on the graduate entry scheme. He had found it difficult to begin with but his natural talent marked him out as a likely high-flyer. His resolute work ethic merely served to underline the impression he had created with his superiors and promotion was rapid but well deserved. Of course, there were some who disgruntledly put his advancement down to political correctness and the seeming desperation of the higher echelons to identify and advance a police officer of ethnic or mixed racial origins.
For his own part, Hood relied on his well-established abilities. He refused, despite real pressure, to join the black police officers’ association and made no bones about his views of such organisations. Divisive he called them. More likely, he thought, to put up barriers than to remove them. Indeed, he had little time for political correctness of any kind. He regarded it as a device that caused people to express views they did not really hold and to reserve their genuine opinions for those they imagined held similar prejudices. Worst of all, it tainted what he still believed was the innate decency of the majority of his fellow citizens. Much better, he thought, if people said what they actually thought whatever the consequences, providing, of course, they acted within the law. It also made his job easier if everything was out in the open. It particularly annoyed him that one assistant chief constable under whom he had previously served thought his views on political correctness were in fact a deliberately contrived tactic to advance his career as a police officer – a sort of double bluff in which he happily relied on the already established requirement of the police service to genuflect before such totems while at the same time eschewing such views himself. And what a totem that would become when the Macpherson Report was published. No one expected it to do anything other than damn the Metropolitan Police which would have a knock-on effect on every other constabulary in the country. Not that Hood was one to seek advantage of such circumstances – but he had seen the leaks published in the newspapers and was a good enough politician to realise that Macpherson was unlikely to damage his professional standing.
But there were still the occasional digs that the accident of his birth assisted his rise and would go on doing so, and he never forgot the way his father had been treated and the vulgar abuse and worse to which he had been subjected on a few occasions at school. While he strongly approved of anti-discrimination legislation he was fervently against the imposition of quotas or the substitution of diversity for competence which he had dryly observed was fast becoming an unassailable dogma. Still, the world had changed since his father’s time and he was in many ways a contented man, happy in his work and enjoying, when he could, his wife and family. Although he had been with Mid-Shires for only four years, he was up for further promotion, providing nothing went wrong before the board assembled in the new year. The only drawback was that it would involve a transfer to the West Midlands as the vacancy was with the Birmingham Metropolitan Constabulary. He knew his wife would not want to move from their present home so it would mean a deal of commuting on his part. Still, he had done very well for someone who had yet to celebrate his thirty-second birthday. Only his superiors wer