Old School

C Dalby D.

Description

Following the brutal shotgun slaying of a local businesswoman and her children, Detective Sergeant Hazel Vernon finds a pair of major suspects in the form of the businesswoman's ex-husband, who is a man as soulless as the sex-bots in the factory where he works, and the business partner who is hiding far more than her past from the police.Hazel also meets up with ageing comedians, Neal Cooper and Norman Barrel, a pair of old school show business types who were hugely popular thirty years before and who are hoping for a comeback.A nightclub owner with more ex-wives than is good for his bank account and a pair of the stupidest criminals Hazel has ever met muddy the waters of a complex investigation.The detective has to use all her wits to solve this case.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528982412
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Old School
D. C. Dalby
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-10-30
Old School About the Author Copyright Information © 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
About the Author
The author, D. C. Dalby, is a Yorkshire-born writer. He has written several popular crime novels featuring Detective Sergeant Hazel Vernon. He likes old movies, cats and blue cheese.
A bit of an old hippie, he can often be found wandering the local countryside and taking pictures with a digital camera he doesn’t entirely know how to use.
Copyright Information ©
D. C. Dalby (2020)
The right of D. C. Dalby to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, 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.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528982405 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528982412 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter One
Dutchman’s Yard had been cordoned off for several hours when Hazel Vernon arrived.
Yellow police tape, backed up by plastic traffic cones, blocked off the main entrance and a police van was parked, side-on, across the street, preventing anyone from getting in or out. Residents milled around with uniformed police officers outside the media pointed cameras down the street. Someone let a flashgun off as Hazel stepped out of her car.
“Sergeant Vernon, Sergeant Vernon!” She blinked furiously trying to rid herself of the dazzling blue after-burn of the flashgun. “Sergeant Vernon, can you tell us what is going on?” She wanted to tell the reporter to go away. It was absurdly early; she’d had no breakfast and her morning had begun with a trip to the police station, and then immediately out here. The police canteen had beckoned but her orders were too important to ignore.
“No comment,” she blinked, attempting to identify the reporter. The flashgun had been too bright and she could just make out a fuzzy shape still bawling questions at her.
Hazel ducked under the tape, held up by a constable she probably knew but wouldn’t recognise until her sight cleared. She muttered a thanks.
It wasn’t hard to find the crime scene. There were six detached houses in Dutchman’s Yard. Six detached luxury homes, if she remembered the developers advertising when the houses were built several years ago. Temple Caneston had been subject to a lot of housing development in the past ten years. Almost all of it, such as Dutchman’s Yard, on the outskirts of town. Almost all of it of luxury housing type. Small, affordable houses and apartments were being created, but they tended to be in the town itself. They were also fewer in number.
Two houses on either side of the yard and two at the end. The one on the right, at the end, had all the police vehicles around it and a large white screen partially obscured the front.
She looked upwards. The sky was about as light as you’d expect for this time of day and as overcast as she expected for Temple Caneston. It looked like rain. It always looked like rain here. The weather was, as always, grey and miserable.
She didn’t see what she hoped to see. Any kind of CCTV cameras. There were signs warning that this was a neighbourhood watch area but Hazel couldn’t see anything to back it up She trudged past police officers she knew, those she didn’t know, and locals who, by and large, ignored her.
“We do have to get to work, Constable.”
“The kids will have to go to school.”
“How long are we being kept here?”
“Just give us your names and addresses. Once you’ve made a statement you can go about your business.”
No one was saying how awful this was. No one mentioned it was a terrible thing that had happened. No one seemed to be expressing any sympathy or, indeed, interest, in the victims.
“Bang!” It was like that. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” someone was saying, “Over and over. It was just like a TV show.” The general atmosphere seemed to be either annoyance at having the morning disrupted or excitement at all the shooting.
Bang, bang, sodding bang. Hazel walked down to the house. Several police officers had kept the area clear.
“Morning, Sergeant,” said a cheerful young constable.
“Curtis? What brings you here?” Constable Curtis was one of the computer geeks from police HQ. He normally worked in an office on the second floor of the police station. Hazel could never remember actually seeing him at a crime scene. “Lot of computers involved, Sergeant,” he seemed fairly cheerful. Despite the early hour.
“Have you seen the crime scene?” Curtis at a crime scene was something Hazel couldn’t actually comprehend but she asked anyway.
“Are you kidding? They say it’s like a slaughterhouse in there. You wouldn’t catch me taking a look.”
“Charming,” Hazel looked at the house without enthusiasm. It was probably just as well she’d missed her breakfast. It never tastes as nice coming up as it does going down. All the houses here were the same. Not exactly identical, of course, but they were the same in that they were all expensive and detached. Three bedroomed, four bedroomed, Hazel estimated. All with neat brick walls around them about a metre high. Nice gardens. Nice lawns. Lawns did well in Temple Caneston. Lots of lovely refreshing rain to make them nice and green. The gardens, compared to the houses, were not exactly large, but they were well kept and well stocked with colourful plants and shrubs. One or two even had miniature apple or pear trees. They all had very expensive cars parked outside.
Dutchman’s Yard had originally belonged to a businessman who was, unsurprisingly, Dutch. As with so many of his countrymen who emigrated to the UK, he had a liking for plants and flowers. He’d made a good living running a garden centre. When he retired, he sold it, and the land, off to some development company. He got to live in comfort and people who could afford to live here had themselves some very nice homes.
Hazel glanced inside the BMW parked in the driveway. Newish car, under three years old. Still looking showroom shiny. Well cared for. No rubbish inside. She was well aware she was putting off going inside. The two police constables by the door looked pale and slightly sweaty despite the cool morning. Even taking into account the fact that the local police wouldn’t be used to violent death, it was clear this was something very bad.
They didn’t stop her going in.
The house was delightful. It was relatively new and spotlessly clean. The kitchen looked to be modern and well equipped.
“I’d leave any food or drink until later,” Inspector Jim Montgomery was in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and a lot of official forms on the dining table. A big Scots man in his late forties, Montgomery was a former crime squad detective inspector. These days he had an administrative job with the forensic people. “Hello, Jim,” Hazel said, “What happened?”
“You don’t know?” he was filling out the forms. Now and then he’d check one against the other and then go back to the one he was filling out originally.
“I was told to report here as soon as I reached the station,” Hazel rested her hands on the back of a chair. “I know there’s been a shooting here because it was all over the news on the car radio.”
“Four dead,” Montgomery said.
“Bloody hell,” Hazel looked up, “Upstairs?”
“In the bedroom,” Montgomery said.
“Four? What was it? An orgy?” the humour fell flat.
“Looks like it. We haven’t yet identified all the bodies. One is certainly the householder. Ms Sandra Latimer.”
“You say that name as if I should recognise it,” Hazel said. She didn’t. Latimer? It wasn’t a familiar name.
“Try Tangerine,” Montgomery said.
He clearly didn’t mean either the fruit or the song, “The investment company?” Hazel said, making an educated guess.
“Building Better Businesses,” Montgomery quoted the company slogan. “Everything you need to succeed.”
Hazel looked around her, “Business is good. Who was she?”
“Sandra Latimer created the company twelve years ago,” Montgomery said,
“She was some kind of sales marketing person at the time. She just decided to use her contacts to buy into various profitable businesses. Turned out to be a good idea. Until now, of course.”
“So, who are the other people?” Hazel said.
Montgomery shrugged, “Two juveniles and a black female who looks to be in her late twenties or early thirties.”
“Juveniles? How juvenile?” Hazel said, “Slowly,” she didn’t like the way this was starting to look.
“A boy and a girl,” Montgomery picked up a form. Hazel recognised it as the forensic initial crime scene report. Basically, it detailed all they knew from their first appearance on the scene. More detailed reports were expected to follow as more was discovered. “The boy appears to be in his mid-teens. The girl appears to be a