Syn (The Merseyside Crime Series Book 2) - Malcolm Hollingdrake (world of reading TXT) 📗

bloody trampled … there might be a second killing.’ He winked holding up both hands. ‘Kidding!’

She smiled, turned and walked towards the farmhouse. Jack barked twice but followed Unsworth back into the barn.

It was the third YouTube video she had watched as she ate cheese and onion on toast and sipped a bottle of Prospect Silver Tally ale. She had Googled “Merseyside Police Drones” and was reminded of the loss of the £13,000 drone and had a quiet chuckle. She had heard about it during training; it had occurred years before at the birth of the technology. Now it was very different, she was aware of just how efficient the drone pilots were. These tools were a vital resource when linked with the force and the emergency services. She had seen the results of their work on many occasions. From watching the videos what did impress her was the way technology had developed over such a short time and now very sophisticated drones were readily available for purchase by the general public. Many had to be registered with the CAA, but there were some that were still extremely capable that legally did not have to comply.

‘Nike, the winged goddess,’ she wrote down above the notes she had made, before collecting her beer and a rug that lay on the back of the sofa. She walked into the garden. The sky was a mix of colours. It was dark directly above her and awash with various shades of inky blue. Her eyes rested on the tree-topped horizon. The layer of aquamarine seemed an incongruous hue but there was clearly a line just above a fiery orangey yellow. An owl called from somewhere within the silhouetted trees as a heron flew large, its shape distinctive, its flight steady. ‘Prophetic Wicca.’ She watched it vanish on silent wing into the darkness.

Does this person want to be caught? she thought as she swigged another mouthful of beer. Taking out her phone she checked the signal and dialled. It rang longer than she anticipated.

‘Wicca? Do you know what time it is? What do you want?’ Tony’s voice sounded hostile but then she heard his giggle.

‘“When you’re down and troubled …”’ she began to sing.

‘Are you pissed?’

‘No! I need to talk to a friend and a colleague. A trouble shared is a trouble halved, they tell me. I’ve been thinking over a few things to do with the Sharpe case.’ She heard a groan.

‘It’s play time, Wicca. It’s time to relax, watch telly or drink beer.’

‘No telly, and I’m relaxed. Sitting in the garden with a beer. I need just five minutes, promise.’

‘Your time starts now!’

‘Ta! We have three bodies, right? Each found at different times but not killed in the order in which they were found, right? So, my thinking is, there comes a point when an act of surprise will work, when people will trust and let down their guard if they have one. However, once there’s an awareness that friends or acquaintances are going missing or dying, alarm bells will ring and trust will be withdrawn. Even though we don’t trust naturally, it’s encouraged within today’s society – it’s now firmly fixed in our DNA. Kids are told to trust certain people – priests, teachers, the police, doctors. Occasionally that trust is betrayed, with dire consequences at times, but it doesn’t stop the rest of us from trusting. We might be more conscious of this betrayal, but in times of what might be classed as an emergency, we trust. My question to you, my friend: do those linked in some way to this case stop trusting strangers or do they stop trusting friends knowing that the crimes are close to them?’

‘If I were in that circle of friends, it would be both. I’d trust neither, strangers nor friends, until the killer is caught. Now ask me one about sport.’

She chuckled.

‘Right, agreed, but if we see a smile on the face of friend or stranger, it disarms us, we drop our guard, particularly if we know them or we think we know them. When our backs are against a metaphorical wall, we need to find people on whom we can rely, and it’s then that we’re at our most vulnerable. People will turn to friends for support. Friends will turn to help friends and that could be their mistake. It was for Jennings and it may well have been for Groves. Tony, was Carla purely the bait to bring in the bigger fish? Is he or she picking them off one by one to instil a fear until the killer gets the person he truly wants?’

‘Suspended retribution? We believe there’s a strong possibility this is a vendetta. Vengeance may well be the motive considering some of the evidence but that could be a smoke screen. Open mind, isn’t that what’s drummed into us since basic training?’

‘In my mind, the killer is like the guy painting the floor. He’s started to paint, and realised he’ll have to wait for it to dry to finish and leave as he’s painted himself into the corner. He had all the time in the world at first to take, keep and kill. They went voluntarily as neither knew of the others’ deaths and now as the news breaks the room is getting tighter. He’s lost the luxury of their trust, their possible co-operation and the luxury of time.’

‘Right. If you say so. I’ll talk to you in the morning. Have another beer or two to take your mind off the case and put the paint brush away. Maybe Michael the magician will have developed a cunning plan.’

She chuckled. ‘Thanks, Tony, for listening to the ramblings of a mad woman.’

The sky had now become a uniform black and the occasional star glinted. Finishing the dregs from the bottle she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and stared into the darkness. She was tired but she knew the tumbling within her head would deny her the opportunity of