A Malignant Death: A thrilling WWII murder mystery (Inspector James Given Investigations Book 5) by Charlie Garratt

Author:Charlie Garratt [Garratt, Charlie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2022-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Friday 26th July, 1940

I’d seen a telephone box round the corner from the Dyers’ home, so I made my way round there and phoned Bob Moore.

‘Hello, James.’ The monotone gave away the silent groan when he heard my voice. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Can I ask you a favour?’

‘You can ask.’

‘I’ve spoken to Phil Trimble, and he says you’ve always been keen to get the right result.’

‘And?’

‘There are still things about Henry’s death which make me uneasy.’

‘Like?’

‘Apart from the wallet and all the cash being found, there’s the fact that someone was causing petty damage around his home in the weeks before he died. Nothing serious, but enough to show it was malicious.’

‘Damage? Where did you hear this?’

‘A few weeks ago, Henry told me of a couple of instances. His wife has told me of others which he didn’t mention. It seems it may have stopped now he’s dead.’

I listed the events, including the incident with the Jack Russell.

‘But it’s a big jump from a bit of vandalism to killing someone, isn’t it?’

‘It is, though the poisoning of his dog ramped it up a notch.’ A lorry pulled up beside the telephone box and I had to shield the receiver so the policeman could hear me. ‘Also, Audrey told me Henry had met someone from his past recently and it had unsettled him.’

‘Interesting. Any idea who?’

I suspected Terry Gleeson, but the time wasn’t right to involve the police in chasing someone I could easily find for myself. I also needed to consider other possibilities.

‘Audrey didn’t know; she just said Henry had mentioned it when she’d asked if he had something on his mind.’

‘So what’s the favour you want, James?’

‘It’s in connection with this new information. I’d be grateful if you could find out what you can about Henry Dyer’s past. You can access his service record more easily than I can. See if anyone he put away just came out of prison. I know it’s a long shot, since he’d been behind a desk for years before he retired, but if he’d arrested someone for a violent crime they might still have been inside until recently. If they were innocent, and held a grudge for all that time, who knows what they’d do?’

The inspector paused. ‘I think I can do that. Anything else?’

‘Again, it seems unlikely there’ll be anything, but perhaps you might ask around at headquarters. Any of his old colleagues ever hear of bad blood? Friends? Family? That kind of thing.’

‘I can do that as well, James, but he always seemed so steady to me, not one to ruffle feathers.’

‘Well, he ruffled someone’s, didn’t he?’

‘Only if your argument holds water. If I’m right, and it was a random robbery, then we’re not going to find the culprit by digging through Dyer’s old files and contacts. Still, it’s a reasonable line of enquiry. I just wish I had more men to put on it.’

‘It’s good of you to do what you can, Bob. I know it’s difficult at the minute.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.