Monday October 8th. Tunbridge Wells. 11am
Mick Neale had never said much, but these days he said even less. He was used to death – he’d been a soldier and he’d been a cop – but finding Tim Brown’s corpse had given him nightmares. Thelma’s body had been the only one he’d been hoping to see that weekend.
On the days when he didn’t have his son, Mick would gravitate to the Toad Rock Retreat in Denny Bottom, which meant passing the murder scene. It made him shudder. Still, the first sip of Glenfiddich single-malt helped ease the pain. Something, some old cop instinct, intrigued him about the death. Not that the scumbag didn’t deserve to die. Interfere with kids and you should forfeit your right to life. But this wasn’t a crime of passion, and it certainly wasn’t accidental. Brown had been deliberately, ruthlessly assassinated. Gunned down. Rubbed out. Blown away...whatever way you said it, it was disturbing.
It suddenly struck him that, in a cruelly ironic twist of fate, Toad Rock was in Harmony Lane...
Thelma wasn’t on today, Len the landlord was behind the jump.
Mick ordered a fry-up.
“Two sausages, three rashers, two fried eggs and two toast…”
“That’s bad for your heart, Mick.”
“Yeah? Okay, make it three bangers, a fried slice and as much bacon as Lynn can fit on the plate. Hold the Holy Ghost.”
“More people commit suicide with a fork than a gun.”
“Fuck me, Leonard, who’s boiled your piss today?”
Len nearly grinned. “It’s being so cheerful as keeps me going,” he said, as he took the order through to the kitchen.
“Terrible business, this,” he said as he returned carrying a bottle of tomato sauce. “We had some DI in here today asking question. Gary Shaw. Know him?”
“Nope.”
“Londoner. He said he’d heard of you.”
“Yeah?”
“Did the Stevens girl know that other fella who got shot in Essex the same day, the one they’re calling Donkey Don in the papers?”
“Donkey Don!”
“Because he did animal porn, not cos he was hung like one. Did the Stevens girl know him?”
“Charlie? Don’t think so, why?”
“Only our Alice thought she’d seen them together at a bar in Brentwood the night before.”
“Can’t see it, she’d have said. It’s not every day someone you know gets topped.”
“I’ll say.”
“And what would she have been doing in Essex? The old fella doesn’t like her drinking in the Pantiles, let alone over the water.”
Mick did manual labour on a couple of local farms, including the Stevens one, so he knew the spiky curmudgeon about as well as anyone. The old man had a face like a depressed bloodhound and made the ancient Up Pompeii soothsayer seem like one of life’s eternal optimists. Mind you, those bat ears of his would make anyone grumpy.
“It’s amazing she’s turned out so normal with the old man such an emotional cripple.”
“Blimey Len, you need to knock Loose Women on the head.”
“Ha. How is the old bastard, Mick? I saw him in town and he seemed a bit...disorientated. He told me the same story twice.”
“Crankier than usual. He found a couple of pikies in the yard the other morning and fired off the 12-bore.”
“He wants to watch that. The cops would sooner bang him up for defending his property than take on the gyppoes.”
“That’s what I told him, but he’s spitting mad. They get away with murder.”
“Different in your day, Michael.”
“Everything was different in my day.”
“Someone ought to teach them vermin a lesson.”