Duty of Revenge

Quentin Dowse

Description

Retired Hull based Detective Superintendent Matt Darnley decides to tell the 'whole truth' about his biggest case; an investigation into a gang of ruthless armed robbers responsible for both kidnap and murder. Side-tracked by a local case involving a father avenging his daughter's rape, Darnley delivers his own justice and steps over the line. An ambitious local journalist and a rookie cop discover what he has done, forcing him to go even further out on a limb. This arouses the suspicions of a fellow Superintendent who sets out to ruin his reputation.During his investigation Darnley meets Debbie Pike, the cunning and manipulative wife of one of the gang and Graham Morley, a timid and lonely computer nerd. Both risk all seeking revenge for lives ruined by members of the gang.When he discovers the father of the rape victim is not who he seems to be, Darnley sees an opportunity to solve the run of robberies and murders but dare he go ever further beyond the rule of law?

Sujets

• Hull

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 13 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800468894
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2021 Quentin Dowse

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.

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ISBN 9781800468894

Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, buisnesses, organisations, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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

To all those friends and colleagues
who played real parts in the story
of my thirty years of policing


Contents
Foreword

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight


Foreword
Food for Thought
By the time any police officer has twelve months’ service under their belts, they will have a handful of sad, funny, frightening or just downright crazy tales to tell. By the time they retire, they’ll have hundreds – and they love to tell them. A large proportion of these tales extol the positive virtues of the central character as daring, astute, tough, cunning, funny – an amazing array of traits can help describe a “good copper”. Other tales, however, get repeated because the main player was useless, frightened, cynical, thick, a drunk, a bully or bent.
The stories always start in the relatively small geographical area where “it happened” – in or near the local nick. The best stories spread more widely – throughout several stations, the division, the force and further. They are recirculated over and over again – literally for years, subtly changing as things are added, new words said or even different people appear. Fiction built on fact. A few stories become part of local police folklore and their main characters legends, helping create a local policing culture. Ask any copper who has moved around stations and departments how many different cultures they have had to adapt to.
Then we come to a second set of stories.
These are played out in the endless diet of high-octane cop shows on TV, and in films and books. Many officers can’t bear to watch their TV counterparts, or if they do, ruin the experience for their families with a running critique of the shows’ plot holes and endless comments such as – “That would never happen.” The stereotypical modern TV cop, far removed from Dixon of Dock Green, may tarnish their own image of their chosen career – fashioned by that local folklore and culture. A few others actually identify with and mimic their TV heroes. Whatever the effect on serving officers, there is little doubt that this drip-feed of fictional crime, criminals and cops fuels a wider cultural view of policing.
Finally, there’s a third set.
Stories that can only be told by the people who actually played a part and who must promise to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. The storytellers are even cross-examined to ensure accuracy. A story recorded word for word, backed up by sworn documentary evidence and scientific fact.
These stories appear in the newspapers, on the radio and TV news, with some even ending up as documentaries or films. For the most controversial, only a public inquiry can be seen to get to the “whole truth”. Think of the Yorkshire Ripper, Brady and Hindley, Fred and Rosemary West – an endless list of true crimes, with a cast of real characters etched into the nation’s subconscious.
These stories help shape the nation’s view of our police officers and their forces. Who hasn’t formed a view of The Met through the murder of Stephen Lawrence, or of South Yorkshire through the Hillsborough Disaster? But even under this intense scrutiny, we are always left with question marks. What really happened? Where is the body? Who gave the order? Why didn’t she speak up sooner? Was the “confession” lawfully obtained? Whose fault was it?
In reality, is it even possible to answer all of the questions? Where do the answers lie?
In any well-investigated, serious and complex crime, there will genuinely be some unanswerable questions. Not every conundrum can be explained. But sometimes the truth is deliberately hidden. Dodgy deals and sordid secrets do exist. Those “secret” parts of major crimes are told – but only in hushed tones amongst trusted friends.
True justice can only be delivered within the rule of law and in my experience nearly always is. But this story is about revenge – justice taken, not delivered. As you will see, even the main characters involved never knew “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. Only I did.

Matt Darnley
Detective Superintendent (Retired)


One
That Night
02:00 Thursday, 10 th December 1998
Spitting did not come naturally to Anne Beedham. Her initial idea had been to try a head-butt, but even in her panic she’d worked out that would hurt her more than her attacker. Spitting was the only form of attack left, as she couldn’t move her arms or legs. Her spittle landing on the only part of the man’s face that was visible, his eyes, gave her a momentary sense of satisfaction, but the stinging slap that followed jolted her back to reality. Anne Beedham was a suburban, middle-class wife and mother, and being struck was as alien to her as spitting, but within the last hour she had found herself in a world she had only ever seen on the TV or films.
The man wiped his eyes with his free arm and then resumed where he had left off before she had decided she had had enough of being a placid victim. Pushing her back against the desk, he roughly thrust his right hand beneath the hem of her skirt and between her thighs. In doing so, he lowered his gaze to check out the action, allowing a now enraged Anne to sink her teeth into his right cheek and channel all her anger into trying to bite through it. Her jaws locked and the man howled as she flung her arm around his neck and pulled him closer, determined he would not escape her already aching jaws. Just for a moment, despite his size and strength, Anne had him overpowered and was on the verge of tearing half his face off.
Through her fury and his screams of pain she heard footsteps pounding up the stairs before a second masked man burst into the room. Anne growled like a cornered animal and ground her teeth yet more tightly, encouraging further screams of rage and pain, and watched the tall, powerfully built man she had already identified as the leader of the gang take stock of the situation. He pulled a handgun from the pocket of his blue overalls as he strode across the small office towards them and then viciously grabbed a handful of Anne’s dark hair. Instinct made her bite even harder.
Then came a command in a tone that was incongruously calm and polite in such a situation: ‘Let go… Now.’
The barrel of the handgun was then placed gently against her temple. The refined delivery of the instruction made the implications of not obeying all the more menacing.
The man with the well-chewed cheek howled again as Anne delivered her final effort to make her teeth meet before letting go. For the second time in ten seconds she spat – a mixture of the man’s blood and wet fibres from his balaclava. He staggered unsteadily away from her, clutching his face, growling with his pain and anger, while keeping his eyes on the man with the gun. Anne was similarly transfixed, seeing the armed man as her saviour and seeking a message from the narrowed dark eyes staring through the slits in his olive-green balaclava. He waved the gun to indicate that she should sit in the padded leather chair behind the desk. She did as instructed, continuing to dare to look him in the eyes, scarcely able to believe how defiant she felt. Now judging her to be compliant, he turned to his injured accomplice and brutally thrust the muzzle of the gun into his injured cheek.
‘Stay here. Do not touch her again,’ he commanded in the same calm, cultured voice. He then strode from the room.
The injured man cringed like a whipped dog, leaning heavily against the wood-panelled wall of the office, cradling his damaged face in his gloved hand.
‘Not so tough now, are you?’ she sneered at her captor. ‘He’s got you shit-scared.’
Emboldened by the adrenaline that coursed through her, Anne felt anger more than fright, although her head and her heart were pounding. For the last hour she had been terrified, but now she felt inexplicably aggressive, with every emotion, nerve and sinew seemingly on high alert.
Reacting to her scorn, the man moved to