NO AGE TO DIE: The release of a dangerous prisoner leads to murder (DCI John Blizzard Book 9) by John Dean (free ebook reader for android .TXT) 📗

Blizzard tossed the newspaper onto the desk. ‘But I’m not going to let him go because some journalist says I should. I’m not running this investigation through the media, Alice. However, he finally gave us the name of the woman he’s been shagging. Turns out her husband is a kickboxer and he was worried what he might do to her when he found out. Anyway, she confirmed that he was with her when Jamie was killed.’

‘Perhaps a press release announcing his release would help,’ said Ronald hopefully.

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Greer. ‘They’ve really got their teeth into it. You’d better read page two as well.’

Blizzard picked up the paper again and flicked onto the inside pages. He read with growing anger the comment article spread over two pages and written by the editor, who had for some time argued in his editorials that the force was losing the battle against crime in the city. When Blizzard had read the article, he slid the paper over to Ronald, who read the piece with a similar sense of annoyance.

‘He’s new, this editor, isn’t he?’ asked the superintendent.

‘He is, yes,’ said Greer. ‘Grew up here then worked on the nationals for a few years – the red tops mainly, News of the World, The People, that sort of thing. Came home when the editorship came up a couple of months back. He sees criticising the police as a good way to sell papers. You’d better look at pages four and five as well.’

Ronald sighed and turned over the page. Page four was based on an interview with Margaret Hatton, in which she complained that the police were unfairly targeting the protestors. Page five featured interviews with Edgar Rose-Harvey, in which he complained that the police’s attitude had played a key role in increasing the persecution of the church; recent days had, he said, seen people hurt, and murdered in the case of Glenda Rutherford, windows smashed and several attacks with spray cans.

‘I just hope that you two have got some bright ideas,’ said the press officer. ‘Because the editor has instructed his crime reporter to ring us every hour demanding updates and our phone is already running red hot from national journalists – and quite a few from abroad as well. Paris Match are talking about sending someone over and CNN are really interested.’

‘What’s more, the Chief is never off my back,’ said Ronald. He watched as Blizzard read the articles. ‘And this little lot won’t help. Have you any bright ideas, John?’

‘I have, yes. Time to fight back. Make a big statement.’

‘Like what?’ asked Ronald.

‘Like cracking down on the demonstrators. We’ve let them get away with too much. I want to turn everyone over to finding Bob Lennox and his meathead son and bringing them in for questioning.’

‘But do we have any hard evidence linking them with the attacks on the church?’

‘Not as such,’ said Blizzard. ‘But they’ve got form for violence and they seem to have gone to ground. Hardly the actions of innocent men.’

‘There’ll be a riot if we do it,’ said Ronald. ‘The community is already a tinderbox and they’ll see it as an attack on some of their own.’

‘So, there’s a riot.’ Blizzard held up the newspaper. ‘We might not like it but the headline’s right, isn’t it? We have lost control of the situation and I, for one, am sick of being pushed around by Margaret Hatton. Besides, if we move to protect the church, it’ll keep Rory Gill off our backs for a while.’

‘But think of the headlines,’ said the press officer. ‘Margaret will have a field day. She’s already got the media wrapped round her little finger.’

Blizzard turned the newspaper towards her.

‘And are the headlines likely to be any worse than this?’ he asked. He turned to Ronald. ‘Well, are they?’

‘No,’ said the superintendent. ‘Go get them.’

A few minutes later, Blizzard was back in his office when Fee rang on his mobile.

‘I know you’re busy,’ she said, ‘but that childminder Jay mentioned can see us at half three, if you’re available.’

Blizzard was about to say that he wasn’t but thought better of it – he was acutely aware of how little time he had spent at home in recent days.

‘Sure,’ he said.

* * *

Later that afternoon, David Colley was sitting on a park bench two miles from Abbey Road Police Station, reading the articles in the newspaper, occasionally shaking his head in disbelief. After a few minutes, he glanced at his watch. His informant was late. The sergeant’s relationship with Chaz Gray owed much to an act of kindness on the part of Colley’s partner when he and Jay had been shopping in the city centre with their daughter one Saturday. Jay recognised a beggar sitting in a shop doorway as a former primary school teacher with whom she had once worked. Chaz, she told Colley, had moved on to a comprehensive school but it had not worked out. In those days, she said, he had been bright-eyed, idealistic and full of expectation, but three years in the secondary school had broken him, culminating in an incident in which a six-foot teenager struck him with a chair, resulting in three days in hospital. Chaz had resigned and eventually found himself homeless as his life spiralled out of control.

Jay’s action in stopping to talk to him that Saturday morning, and to slip him a twenty pound note, was one of the few kindnesses that Chaz had experienced since beginning to live rough on the streets and, over the months that followed, he showed his gratitude by becoming one of Colley’s informants. The two men were meeting after Chaz called the sergeant to hint at something more substantial than his usual information about low-level drug dealing. He had insisted that Colley meet him in a local park rather than