Blood and Stone

Alan Jones

Description

Jennifer Ormiston, a lively and controversial local radio presenter, is found dead in an antique bath in her upmarket flat, an apparent suicide.Three weeks earlier, we meet a number of very different characters, all of whom are connected in some way to Jennifer Ormiston: the mother of a traumatised child, her husband and brother-in-law, both respected professionals, a newly-appointed Catholic priest and a woman with a troubled past, recovering in a secure psychiatric hospital.A series of threatening letters, dark memories from the past and fraught relationships play their part in the inquiry by Detective Sergeant Tim Laughland into a mysterious disappearance and what turns out to be the murder of Jennifer Ormiston, all the while navigating his own relationship with his on-off partner and fellow officer.As the possible suspects mount up, Laughland and his superior officer are plunged into a fast-moving investigation, the conclusion of which is both shocking and unexpected.

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 06 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800466890
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Alan Jones read English and French at university, going on to complete a Masters and a Doctorate in Education. He has extensive experience of teaching creative writing and literature. He is also an enthusiastic jazz drummer. He lives in Canterbury and is married to that precious thing, a Librarian.




Also by Alan Jones


Surrogate (Matador, 2020)







Copyright © 2021 Alan Jones

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 9781 800466 890

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Contents
Part One Aftermath
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen

Part Two Distraction
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve

Part Three Repercussion
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen



No need to panic, Molly Harrington told herself.
Actually, as she well knew, there was every need to panic.
Jennifer Ormiston, host of the morning show on Digital City Radio and part of the station’s DNA, hadn’t shown up this morning. There’d been no call, no text or email, nothing on social media. She’d cut it a bit fine before but never failed to show. Deborah, the morning show’s producer, had suggested re-running the previous Tuesday’s programme, but pointed out to Molly that Jennifer was also down to carry out an interview at 11.15 with Councillor Stella Delaney about the widely criticised plans for a new multi-storey car park. They both knew that only Jenny could carry that off.
Hence the panic, and hence Molly’s decision to drive out to Jennifer’s place of residence to see what the hell was going on.

As she got out of the car, Molly looked up at the block. Nice flats but, from what she’d heard, a bit overpriced, especially out here, way beyond the city limits. Since taking on the stewardship of Digital City, she couldn’t remember having to drive to the home of any presenter to drag her out to work, yet here she was. Of course, managing Jenny Ormiston had never been easy; she’d had to speak to her more than once about the odd colourful phrase, the odd inappropriate come-on to a guest. If it weren’t for that interview with Delaney…
She got out of the car and looked around the car park. Four other cars, all neatly parked in their bays, and that one there, next to the wall… She walked over to the red Mini Clubman she recognised as Jennifer’s car. As she approached, the alarm went off at a startlingly loud volume. Inside, the glovebox was open, and a pair of leather gloves had been left on the flap. In the back seat, Jenny’s famous bright yellow jacket had been thrown hastily down.
She walked over to the entrance to the block and pressed on the button next to Flat 41. Nothing. Pressed again. Still nothing. She heard a car draw up behind her. The sound of a rapid exit and clattering heels as a woman in her mid-thirties approached the main entrance.
‘Excuse me, I’m looking for Jennifer…Jennifer Ormiston. Flat 41.’
The woman looked her up and down.
‘You police? You don’t look like police.’
‘No, not police. I’m the station manager at Digital City – you know, the radio station.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Can you let me in? I need to contact Jennifer urgently. She should be conducting an interview in…’ She looked at her watch. ‘In something like twenty minutes.’
‘So that’s what that bitch up in the top flat does, is it? I’m more Classic FM myself. I’ve tried passing the time of day with her, but all she ever does is brush past with a tired smile on her face.’ She paused, as if weighing up what she should do. ‘You got a business card?’
‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She fished out a card from her shoulder bag. ‘Here.’
‘Thanks; just in case, you know…’
‘Of course, that’s fine.’
Inside the building, she took the lift, just catching the ‘Good luck’ from the echoing stairwell. Emerging at the fourth floor, she pressed the bell of Flat 41, heart pounding as though she’d climbed the stairs. It emitted a tinny version of Jennifer’s breakfast show jingle. She pressed again but, as she did so, noticed the narrow gap between the door and the jamb. It was obviously on the latch. She pushed the door open and took a single step inside. Keys on the hall table to the left.
‘Jenny?’ Nothing. ‘Jennifer?’
As she moved further into the hall, a strong feeling that she really shouldn’t be doing this came over her, but a glance at her watch told her there were only seventeen minutes to the interview. She could detect no noise from anywhere in the flat, no streamed music, no radio or TV on in the background. She walked through into the lounge, a spacious, sparsely but tastefully furnished room with panoramic views but no evidence of Jenny’s recent presence. The kitchen opposite was scrupulously clean and surprisingly large, its central island perched on expensive wood flooring, its units blindingly white and glossy, with dark red wall tiles behind. It could have been installed yesterday, ready for the first to view.
At the end of the hall, the door to the main bedroom was open. Inside, the sliding doors of the fitted wardrobe gaped wide, something like twenty pairs of shoes neatly stacked under an array of colourful dresses and tops and a rack of blue jeans. The quilt had been turned back neatly on the bed. As she approached the door to the second bedroom, down a corridor to the left, she saw it was closed.
Jenny was clearly not in the flat, and Molly’s visit was turning from the professional to the purely inquisitive. Time to go and, reluctantly, cancel the meeting with Stella Delaney at the last minute and think of some way to fill the air-time. Then, later, she would have to consider the matter of where Jenny actually was. She’d done a bunk, but why?
Molly wondered if she had time to use the loo before she left. Surely, thirty seconds wouldn’t hurt, would it? A short way further along the corridor, she could see the open door of what she took to be the bathroom, the frosted glass of the window above the basin clearly visible. As she approached, she could hear for the first time a noise, the drip-drip of water from a half-closed tap. This merely intensified her need to pee, and she entered the bathroom with both hands already reaching up under her skirt.
She was thus completely unprepared for what she saw. To her left, in a curvilinear white bath tub entirely detached from the wall and raised from the floor on Queen Anne legs was Jennifer Ormiston. Her face was turned towards the door, as if in challenge, the eyes staring. Her right arm was hanging loosely over the side and a pool of water had accumulated on the floor.
Molly was drawn, despite herself, towards the bath. Three or four feet from it, she stopped, no longer needing to come any closer. Frozen where she stood, she took in the odd pinkness of the water, the mess of Jennifer’s left wrist, the sheer bulk of her naked body, half-submerged. Then she felt the wetness between her own legs and the room circling and growing dim. As she dropped, her head struck hard wood and one of her arms sent something scuttering across the floor.
An antique bath tap continued to sound in the echoing, abundantly tiled space – drip, drip, drip. But now there was no-one at all who could hear it.


Part One
Aftermath


Three weeks earlier


One
It’s all over now, she thought. Finished. In the past.
Louise Bryant was sitting in the café opposite the church, her church, the church where that man had had control of her life for so long. As she looked across at the forbidding darkness of the building, now seeming squeezed in amongst retail units and town centre flats, she wondered whether, now he was gone, she would be able to return to the church itself and resume her active faith with the new, younger priest. He would surely reach out positively to her, wouldn’t he?
The café itself brought back memories of another time, a time before the whole of her life had turned inside-out, before the idea she had been thinking about in this very place, at this very table, had turned sour. Of course, it was not the same in here now, she thought; there were new owners and they had brought with them a new look, a new splash of bright blue paint, work by local artists on the walls, b