Bristol Thrillers

Jeff Dowson

Description

Closing the Distance "I want you to find someone," Deborah said. "I want you to find me." Jack Shepherd takes on this bizarre commission and his client disappears. The body of her therapist surfaces in the Severn Estuary. And a second-string villain comes out of the woodwork, also looking for Deborah. The search takes a series of dark and brutal turns. Shepherd battles to stay on the right side of the law, and in the process unearths a story which goes back 15 years to a bloody massacre in a Kosovan village. Changing the Odds "Syme Park millionaire disappears... The story of the Bristol PI and the blood-stained parquet floor grows curiouser and curiouser" As the headlines grow more cynical by the day, Jack Shepherd realises his search for a retired bookie can only end in misery. In accepting May Marsh's commission to find her husband, he is pitched into a world of ruthless exploitation, unbending violence and a heart stopping confrontation with the city's criminal royalty - the Settle family.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Diamond Crime Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 11 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781915649034
• Langue: English

Extrait

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 
Jeff Dowson began his career working in the theatre as an actor and a director.
 
From there he moved into television, and after early Channel 4 commissions he became an independent writer/producer/director. Screen credits include arts series, entertainment features, drama documentaries, drama series and TV films.
 
Turning crime novelist in 2014, he introduced Bristol private eye Jack Shepherd in Closing the Distance . The series developed with Changing the Odds , Cloning the Hate and Bending the Rules .
 
The Ed Grover series, set in Bristol in the years following World War 2, opened in spring 2018 with One Fight At A Time . The second book, New Friends Old Enemies , was published in 2021.
 
Born in northeast England Jeff now lives in Bristol. He is a member of BAFTA and the Crime Writers Association.
 
 
Visit: www.jeffdowson.co.uk
 
 
Cloning the Hate and Bending the Rules
originally published by Williams and Whiting
 
This edition published in Great Britain in 2022
 
by
DIAMOND CRIME
 
ISBN: 978-1-915649-03-4
 
Copyright © 2022 Jeff Dowson
 
The right of Jeff Dowson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
 
All rights reserved.
 
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
 
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
 
Diamond Crime is an imprint of Diamond Books Ltd.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thanks to…
 
 
Caroline Montgomery, Fen Oswin, Mike Linane, Peter Nash, Rowland Jones, Andy Hickling, Jim Knight
 
Steve Timmins, Phil Rowlands and the team at Diamond Crime
 
All the people in the Bristol locations of Bedminster, Southville, Redland and Clifton whose advice helped to inform these stories
 
Staff at Bristol Central Library
 
All the places in the West Country whose names and locations the stories have plundered
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Book Cover Design: jacksonbone.co.uk
Cover photograph: Matt Boyle/Unsplash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Also by Jeff Dowson
 
 
The Jack Shepherd Thrillers
Volume One
 
Closing the Distance
Changing the Odds
 
 
The Ed Grover Series
 
One Fight At A Time
New Friends Old Enemies
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
For information about Diamond crime authors
and their books, visit:
www.diamondcrime.uk
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To Mary … Each and every day
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CLONING THE HATE
 
 
 
Jeff Dowson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PRELUDE
 
Alfie Barnes was found a few minutes before 8 o’clock, by a Red Setter who galloped up to investigate the shape lying on the grass. The dog licked Alfie’s bruised and battered face, got no response, and sat down beside the body. His owner called the police.
Alfie didn’t have an enemy in the world, so why the hell would anyone would want to beat him to death? Most of the time he was in his own loop, apparently unaware of the world outside its orbit and listening to music the rest of us couldn’t hear. And that made him the kind of person you had to look out for, not stumble over before breakfast in a copse of trees on the Downs.
Alfie was extra-ordinary. 26 years old, fifteen years younger than his sister Linda. A late addition to the Barnes family, arriving when his mother Joanna was 39. A mistake, but loved to bits nonetheless, even though living his life was a complicated process. He lost vital moments of oxygen during his birth, which left him with sensory disorders and some speech problems. Five days before his death he had stopped using sentences and instead précised them into phrases. He had taken to repeating actions over and over again. But he listened intently when someone spoke to him and took time to process what was being said. He smiled readily at those he knew, eyes that glowed with recognition and lips that revealed sparkling white teeth which he cleaned and polished and flossed for twenty-five minutes each morning.
Nobody saw what happened. The dog and his owner knew who Alfie was – the trio met regularly during their early morning exercise. A uniformed constable wrote down all the man could tell him. Then in the company of a detective from Redland Police Station, he knocked on the Barnes’ front door at 10 minutes to 9.
Joanna and Patrick were devastated by the loss. Both in their mid-60s, they had embraced retirement and the long-anticipated joy of being at home and close to their beautiful, vulnerable son, around the clock. Their world was blown apart in a handful of brutal moments on a warm September morning. Alfie was taking the walk he did every day at 7.30, winter or summer, rain or shine.
Half an hour later, Linda was visited by two uniforms in a patrol car.
When the police left, she took the few steps from her office door to mine and paused on the threshold. The lady is 43 years old, beautiful, smart and funny. She was my wife’s closest friend and her empathy with Emily’s cancer was instinctive. Emily battled hour by hour to stay alive and spent eight months dying. Linda supported the Shepherd family day after day, right down to the wire. Today it was my turn to be friend and counsellor.
I looked up from behind my desk. She stared at me as if we had forever. I got to my feet.
“Jack…” she said.

 
CHAPTER ONE
 
When you open a can and there are prunes in it, it’s a can of prunes. Confirms all your expectations. But open a can of worms and your expectations go viral. Especially if the can is offered to you by Danny Malone.
“I don’t like you Shepherd, but I trust you.”       
He had walked into my office without knocking. It was a Saturday morning and I was attempting to spend time with my accounts. My financial year runs September to August and Linda had been threatening to send me a bill this time, unlike last year and the year before, if I didn’t get my arse in gear.
“How did you get in?” I asked.
“I told the Security Man I was an old friend and I wanted to surprise you.”
The Saturday man was a locum. I made a mental note to take this up with Harbour Security .
Fifteen years ago, I had helped take Danny Malone down. Hard as nails and seriously disturbed, he left the Special Crimes Unit squad room with his belongings in a cardboard box, swearing to get even with me. Not prosecuted for the odious bastard he was – charged with having sex with a fifteen-year-old girl he had frightened into not testifying – he was simply kicked out onto the street. The last time I’d heard of him was eighteen months ago. He was in the bodyguard business, working for a local captain of industry with an inglorious disregard for straight dealing, protocol, and compliance. But then due diligence was never Danny’s forte either. And right now, he looked as if he had stumbled into a rigid steel joist. Six feet four tall and at least two thirds of that wide, he was standing on the other side of my desk, with a face like a yard of bad road and his neck in a whiplash collar.
I stared at him.
“Car accident,” he offered.
“I’m not wondering about your welfare,” I said.
“No hard feelings though?”
“I’ve got the nightmares down to one or two a month,” I said.
He sat down in one of my client chairs, clearly in no mind to quit the field. I looked at him again, endeavouring to convey my distaste at this unscheduled reunion. If he hadn’t been swathed in bandages I’d have heaved him out of the chair and back into the corridor. Although, on reflection, maybe not. Even if he had slowed down a bit over the past decade, he could still out-reach and out-thump me.
“You look to be in good shape,” he said.
A little under six feet, still with my own hair, my own teeth and thirty-two inch waist. I run a couple of miles round the Ashton Court Estate three times a week. I eat sensibly and battle daily to keep away from biscuits and chocolate between meals.
He shifted his position in the chair and got to the point.
“I want to hire you, and I can pay,” he said.
“I don’t want your money.”
“It’s clean.”
“Maybe now. But it probably didn’t start out that way.”
There was a beat. Malone took a moment to measure his reaction to the insult, decided to ignore it and changed tack.
“I hear you’re not exactly snowed under with clients.”
Privately, I had to acknowledge that was true
“Give me ten minutes of your time,” he said.
I decided I could extend him that much courtesy, especially if the alternative was a month in traction. I asked him what he did for a living these days.
“Whatever my employer asks,” he said.
“And he is?...”
“Gerald Gaghan. At least he’s the boss of the firm. They specialise in -”
I interrupted Malone. “I know what they do.”
Gaghan Nash hired muscle. Legal muscle. Acted as an agency for High Court Enforcement Officers – lawfully sanctioned bailiffs on speed. If A has a county court judgement against B for anything from £600 upwards, and is unhappy with the way the Court Bailiffs are working, he can instruct an HCEO to take it on. They are enforcers authorised by the Lord Chancellor’s Office and work as freelancers or for private companies. They have a much tougher approach than bailiffs, who have no financial incentive to collect and tend to be more sympathetic to the debtors. As a result, HCEOs have a significantly higher collection rate. Anyone called upon to assist them, even the police, must do so. Chasing down debtors, reclaiming property, evicting squatters... it’s all in a day’s work.
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