Retribution

Charles Collins

Description

Having recovered from a nervous breakdown following the sudden death of his wife, Detective Inspector Jaxon Wolfe returns to full-time duties with West Yorkshire Police. Retaining the rank of detective inspector for a trial period of one year, he is assigned to the Fraud Squad, not his preferred option. Six months later, as a result of staff shortage and funding issues, he is transferred to Criminal Investigations to resume his previous tenure. Shortly thereafter, the body of a young man is discovered in bizarre circumstances on a moorland near Wolfe's hometown, Carlton, in West Yorkshire.Less than 48 hours later, another body is discovered in a multi-storey car park in Leeds' city centre. Wolfe soon finds a link between the two victims - a photograph and a manuscript - which leads the investigation from West Yorkshire of today to the city of Sarajevo twelve years ago and the disappearance of a university lecturer.When the third corpse is found, Wolfe realises he is in a race against time. He knows who the next victim will be, but to stop further bloodshed, he has to understand the past and the reasons behind the events that happened in Bosnia more than a decade earlier. It seems, however far-fetched the possibility might be, the discovery and removal of gold bullion from the catacombs of a bomb-damaged building in Sarajevo, where it had lain for more than 100 years, is the catalyst behind the events happening on his patch in West Yorkshire.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 28 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528960274
• Langue: English

Extrait

Retribution
Charles Collins
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-08-28
Retribution About the Author Dedications Copyright Information © Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Year: 2005 Chapter 2 Year: 2017 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35
About the Author
Charles Collins is the pseudonym of a first-time author born and raised in West Yorkshire where this novel is set. Charles currently works in the construction industry for a company predominately involved in house building. He and his wife have three daughters living and working in other parts of the UK. Charles is a keen supporter of the Rugby League, a lifelong fan of the Leeds Rhinos.
Having spent forty years working in construction, this middle-aged man decided to write a crime fiction novel for no other reason than personal enjoyment; his eclectic taste in music is reflected in the lead characters’ choice of songs liberally sprinkled throughout the novel. The writer hopes you, the reader, gets as much enjoyment from reading this story as he did writing it.
Dedications
This work is dedicated to the author’s wife and three daughters; their support has been so important in the production of this novel. The time and space afforded to the author is and will always be gratefully appreciated.
Copyright Information ©
Charles Collins (2020)
The right of Charles Collins to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him 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 9781528912822 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528960274 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges and thanks all those who helped and assisted in the proofreading stage of this piece of work, his wife, their three daughters and Liz, a close friend, not forgetting the team at Austin Macauley, he will be forever grateful for their unbiased opinions and comments, thank you.

Songs and artists featured in the novel in the order they are referred to:
Songs / Artists
Riders on the Storm The Doors
Double Trouble Lynard Skynard
That Don’t Make It Junk Haley Tuck
Cocaine JJ Cale
5446 That’s My Number Toots and the Maytalls
Rotterdam The Beautiful South
Get It On T Rex
Jobseeker Sleaford Mods
16 Sells From a 30.6 Tom Waites
Jubilee Street Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
You Think I Don’t Know (But I Know) Charles Bradley
My Conversation Slim Smith and The Uniques
Run Through the Jungle Creedence Clearwater Revival
Big Shot Dr John
Chapter 1

Year: 2005
Matthew Tanner was 61 years old when he died, shot in the back of the head, no warning, fast, clinical, professional. It’s very unlikely that he heard the gun shot or felt the pain of the bullet passing violently through his skull. It is, however, highly likely that in the hours immediately before death, he was feeling happy, even elated at the success and audaciousness of the venture he and his compatriots had recently conducted. The heist, or as he saw it the rescue, a liberation had been years in the planning, days in the execution and hours since its complete success. The raid in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo had gone well, just as planned; gold bullion, hidden for nearly 100 years, had been found, freed and now resided in the false bottom of the truck parked next to his felled body.
In a dense secluded forest, somewhere within the state of Bosnia, Matthew’s life, had been abruptly cut short, all that remained was his collapsed corpse lying face down on the dry rutted earth. As his body twitched its final reflexes of life, blood slowly oozed from the exit wound high in the centre of his forehead and began to spread gently away.
Hearing the shot, a man jumped down from the cab of the truck.
“What the fuck! Tommy?” screamed Davy Watts as he looked in disbelief at the body of Matthew Tanner laying prone on the ground the plume of blood spreading away from his head, staining the dust a dark, almost black red. With both arms raised, Watts pushed the man standing over the felled body so hard his quarry also fell to the ground, two bodies on the ground, one dead, one alive.
Thomas Henry Smythe (aka Tommy Smith), the self-proclaimed leader of this band of men, had already holstered his Smith and Wesson before Watts could see the gun, conscious not to appear trigger happy. Smythe lifted himself back onto his feet, Watts stared at Tanner’s body the next few seconds would determine whether this, Smythe’s pre-planned action, would be a success.
Then as expected, the fourth member of the gang, Frank Jessop, joined in the condemnation of Smythe as he too jumped down from the truck after hearing the gunshot and witnessing Watts’ reaction. In his broad Yorkshire accent, he shouted,
“Oh my god, that’s it, we’re well and truly fucked now. When the Bosnian coppers turn up, we’ll be locked up … forever! Shit, shit, shit … you dozy bastard, Tommy.”
Smythe had to appear to be in control, even relaxed, to give himself the best chance of getting the other two men to accept the situation. In truth, they had no choice. In as calm a voice as he could muster trying to control the effect of the adrenalin pumping hard and fast through his body, he explained,
“I told you both before we came out here, if this job was successful, Tanner was going to go to the press with this little escapade of ours. We would lose all the gold, he was gonna write a book about it, for fuck’s sake and even if he didn’t name us directly, it wouldn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to find out who we were. We all agreed, even him,” he shouted pointing to the corpse on the ground; the other two turned their heads to look once again at the dead man. That gave Smythe a split second to take a deep breath, to stay in control. “No publicity, that’s what we all agreed, but we knew that Matthew had different ideas. We agreed that nobody needs to know the real reason for this trip or what we’ve got in this truck, other than the four of us, we agreed to keep all of this quiet.”
“How the fuck can we keep it quiet, Tommy? Someone will have heard the shot,” questioned Watts, his barrel shaped body making a threatening stance now standing directly in front of Smythe, his fists clenched. It wouldn’t just be a push this time.
“There’s no one within ten miles of here. The Bosnian army use this forest for military training, gunshots sound regularly around here,” replied Smythe moving one step back away from Watts in a way calculated to be subordinate. “I noticed about a mile or so back, there was an area of sapling trees, and you both know from your experiences in the TA that new planted woodland is not used for military exercises and that’s the same here. We will dispose of the body there; we’ve got plenty of tools in the truck.”
“How do you know it’s the same here?” said a calmer more collected Davy Watts.
“This forest belongs to a Bosnian logging company, they allow the army to use it but their business is timber and I don’t think they would be too pleased if spotty young squaddies were running around, blowing holes in their precious commodity of young fast-growing trees, do you?”
Jessop responded with childish sarcasm, “What happens when they harvest the trees?”
Smythe took another deep breath, he’d hoped for this reaction, sensing he was beginning to win the argument and could begin to relax the adrenalin rush was beginning to subside.
“Those trees won’t be harvested for another ten years; I researched it long before we came out here. The ground is soft; the area was the site of a mass war grave before they filled it and planted trees two years ago. In ten years’ time, if a body is found, they’ll think it was one that was missed previously. With no identification, the remains will probably get buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery somewhere. Matthew has no living relatives in England and after all, he’s Eastern European by birth, with no living relatives here either, no friends other than us, no –”
“Yeah and one so called friend just put a big hole in his head … the poor bastard,” interrupted Jessop.
“Yes, I’m his best pal, was his best pal, I’m the one that has to live with this and if either of you decide to tell the authorities, there’s nothing I could do to stop you.”
“Oh, nicely put, Tommy, you arrogant fuck,” said Watts as he again began making menacing steps towards Smythe. “Me and Frank are now accomplices, we’d lose all that ‘stuff’ in the back of the truck and we’d end up in the same boat as you, without our share. Hell, it’s not just my future in that gold but my wife and kids as well, if it all goes tits up now, I would never forgive myself.”
Smythe felt a sense of satisfaction begin to grow in his chest, Watts was the first to mention family back home, it was now only a matter of time before he and Jessop would relinquish their objections in favour of