No. 1 Suspect

Mulgray Twins The

Description

When a murder is witnessed on a webcam at the Seabird Centre near Edinburgh, DJ Smith undercover agent for HMRC knows that drug baron Hiram J Spinks has returned to Scotland. Never one to stick to orders, Smith rents an apartment in the hunting lodge Spinks is using as a front, posing as upper-crust Vanessa Dewar-Smyth. Which of her fellow residents is involved with the drug ring? But Spinks is one step ahead of DJ and she is both the hunter and the hunted. Their battle of wits comes to a head at Edinburgh International Festival s fireworks concert, with explosive consequences...

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: eBook Versions
• Date de parution: 01 août 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781843964070
• Langue: English

Extrait

Paperback edition first
published 2016 by East Bay Publications

Copyright © 2012 Helen and Morna Mulgray
All rights reserved

Helen and Morna Mulgray have asserted
their rights nder the Copyright, Designs
and Patents ct 1988 be identified as the
authors of this work

Authors website
www.the-mulgray-twinsonline.co.uk

ISBN-13 978-1-84396-406-3

Also available in paperback
ISBN 978-1-53333-942-3

This ebook is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be copied, lent,
resold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the author s
prior consent in any form without
similar conditions being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.

Ebook production
eBookVersions
27 Old Gloucester Street
London WC1N 3AX
www.ebookversions.com
Contents


Cover
Copyright Credits
Also in the DJ Smith and Goronzola series
Acknowledgements

Title Page
Dedication

Fife Coastal Path

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
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three

Acknowledgements


Our grateful thanks to all who have helped us in the research for this novel and in particular to:
Jack Brown , member of Musselburgh Links, The Old Golf Course, for showing us round the Old Course and pointing out the perfect spot for the solution of a plot difficulty.
Kenny Armstrong , Golf Starter at Musselburgh Links, The Old Golf Course, who was a fount of knowledge on the World Hickory Golf Championship and who patiently answered our questions about the course.
Jimmy Dingwall , whose fascinating guided tour of the Old Course at St Andrews enabled us to walk the course with DJ Smith.
Virginia Fowler of Historic Scotland, guide at St Andrews Cathedral, who allowed us to talk over our ideas for the plot.
Harry Cummings , retired Chief Superintendent, Lothian Borders Police, for police procedure at different points of the plot.
Maurice and Jennifer Pettigrew , who introduced us to thepreview evening of the Pittenweem Festival and its delights over the years.
And, of course, to our agent Bill Hanna , Acacia House Publishing Services Ltd, 82 Chestnut Avenue, Brantford, Ontario for his hard work on our behalf, and to our editor Gill Jackson and all at Robert Hale Ltd whose efforts have put us into print.
The poem kindly supplied by Norman Bissett is from Painting the Bridge , published by Indigo Dreams Publishing of Stoney Stanton, Leicestershire.

BOOKS

If you are inspired to follow in the footsteps of DJ Smith, consult the admirable Along the Fife Coastal Path by Hamish Brown,published by Mercat Press.
But for those who may be tempted to follow DJ Smith’s route along the Elie Chain Walk, we draw attention to this notice atthe Earlsferry end:

WARNING
Hazardous coastal terrain. Beware of becoming trapped by the tide, being struck by falling stones or rock and falling from steep rock. If you decide to proceed, please do so with great care and wear suitable clothing and footwear.

And for those readers interested in the phenomenon of cats that paint (or find the idea totally incredible), we refer you tothe amazing works of art in Why Cats Paint - a theory of felineaesthetics by Burton Silver and Heather Busch, published by Ten Speed Press, Toronto, and Seven Dials, Orion, London.
For our fellow writers,
Alanna and Norman, in friendship
and admiration.
NO. 1 SUSPECT


A DJ Smith and Gorgonzola mission

The Mulgray Twins





EAST BAY PUBLICATIONS
Fife Coastal Path
(Authors research)


Anchored at intervals to the cliff face
a rusty chain offers hand holds, robust
enough to tether the Titanic. Carved
in the dark age by some frail anchorite
wielding an adze, the rough hewn steps climb up
from bladder wrack and shingle to the top
where marram grass and machair rim the path
and gulls cavort in the winnowing wind.
Two septuagenarians confront
the rimy chain, the hand holds, wailing gulls
and wind, the gouged out upward leading steps.
Thrift beckons, encouraging their ascent.
In anoraks and bobble hats, stiff kneed,
they designate the climb required research.

Norman Bissett
From his collection of poems, Painting The Bridge , 2010
Chapter One


The pamphlet showed two cute orange -beaked puffins, a gold-lichened rock, and a cloudless blue sky. With our high quality cameras you can be close enough to read the rings on the birds legs! Seabirds nesting, gannets diving, seal pups snoozing ... You ll see them all at the Scottish Seabird Centre.
It didn t say I d see a murder.
My name is DJ Smith, Deborah Jane Smith if you re being more formal, undercover investigator for Her Majesty s Revenue & Customs, but even an undercover investigator gets time off between operations. After my last case, I d stayed on in Edinburgh in my Portobello B&B, determined to enjoy the city and its surrounding area, and today I d headed off down the coast to the small East Lothian town of North Berwick.
The Seabird Centre there is a pointed-roofed building jutting out from a small beach fringed along the high tide mark with clumps of black seaweed. No pamphlet-blue sky today, just white-caps on a grey sea, an ominously dark cloud threatening rain, and a cold wind blowing sand along pavements and gutters. In the air, the smell of salt and a faint whiff of fish. The volcanic plug of the Bass Rock rose dramatically out of a choppy sea, its vertical brown cliffs topped with a white icing of nesting seabirds. Farther out still, I could just make out the misty outline of the Isle of May, a long flat slab in sharp contrast to the muffin-shaped Bass Rock.
At this time of the morning only a handful of visitors were wandering round the interactive screens in the Seabird Centre s viewing room. You are controlling pictures shown live around the world . One cam was showing a clear view of the Bass Rock s sheer cliffs. At sea level, water foamed and swirled over the top of green-brown reefs. I operated the control stick to zoom in on the small stony beach. Perched on seabird-splattered rocks, long-necked cormorants were hanging out their wings to dry in the strong breeze.
But it was the Isle of May cam that held a particular interest for me. As soon as the family clustered round the controls moved away, I hurried over. I d very nearly lost my life there on a previous mission and this was the chance to see Pilgrims Haven free from fear and tension. One screen was showing a boulder-strewn grassy slope pockmarked with puffin burrows. I panned round ... a grey drystone wall ... grey-lichened rocks ... a clump of white campion, the fragile stems bending in the stiff breeze.
The other cam was focused on the bay. White breakers pounded on a grey finger of rock rising from the sea. I zoomed in, quite an expert now, able to pan, tilt and focus with the control stick. The fawn tidemark round the bottom of the rock stack filled the screen. I zoomed out to view the entire stack ... the beach ... the background of white-spattered cliff, then slowly up ... up ... to the cliff top. A man was standing near the edge, making a panoramic sweep of the sea through binoculars. As I watched, he lowered them.
I zoomed in on him. Eyes shielded by heavy horn-rimmed glasses stared straight into mine, the razor nick on the side of his chin as clear as if he was standing only two feet away. Long strands of hair, brushed across to camouflage the balding patch on the top of his head, fluttered in the wind. His lips moved as he put the binoculars to his eyes again.
I zoomed the camera out a fraction. A tall, thin man was striding along the cliff edge towards him. The foreshortened camera angle gave the impression that he was approaching at a run, faster, faster, as in the speeded-up action of an old movie film. All at once I realized that he was indeed running, running as if his life depended on it.
Amusement turned to alarm. He was about to collide with the balding man with the binoculars who was still staring out to sea. The running man s shoulder smashed squarely into the other man s back, hurling him violently forward. I caught a glimpse of the victim s mouth, wide open in surprise. Now on the screen, only empty cliff top and grey sky. And the assailant, smiling , looking down over the edge as if to satisfy himself that all had gone according to plan. A sudden flurry of raindrops spattered the camera lens, distorting the image, but in the split second before he turned away and ran out of camera shot, I recognized him.
Hands shaking, I jiggled the control stick, trying to catch the man on camera again. I must be mistaken. I was allowing terrifying memories associated with Pilgrims Haven to cloud my judgement - seeing in the features of a stranger the face of the man who had so very nearly succeeded in killing me on that previous mission. My heart hammered in my chest. No, I wasn t mistaken. His was a face I d never forget.
I pushed the control stick too forcibly to the right, sending cliff and sky whirling by in an indistinct grey blur, then took a deep breath, steadied my hand, and slowly ... very slowly ... inched the lens back till I caught him again on camera as he made his way along the cliff top, the attention-attracting run replaced by a brisk walk. Any lingering doubt about his identity vanished: few can disguise the way they move or the distinctive set of their shoulders. The man I d just witnessed committing cold-blooded murder was undoubtedly the