ERROR OF JUDGEMENT: A cold case ignites in this gripping murder mystery (Detective Chief Inspector Jack Harris Book 6) by John Dean

Author:John Dean [Dean, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: THE BOOK FOLKS bestselling British crime fiction publisher
Published: 2019-04-21T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter sixteen

It was mid-afternoon when Jack Harris eventually took the Land Rover off the northbound M6 and made for the eastern fringes of the Lake District. After a few miles travelling on minor roads, he arrived at a sign that advertised a commercial stables and pointed the way up a winding drive to a large detached white house standing in its own landscaped grounds. Getting out of the vehicle outside the house, Harris stretched his right leg to ease the stiffness after all the driving, sniffed the crisp, fresh air and looked appreciatively at the hills with their snow-capped summits. His gaze roamed across to the range of stables and paddocks.

‘Now this is more like it,’ he said.

The door to the house was opened by a slim woman in her late forties. She smiled a welcome. Within minutes, Harris was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping at tea from a mug and enjoying a slice of home-made cake.

‘Were you close to your brother?’ asked Harris. He licked his fingers. ‘This is excellent cake, by the way.’

‘Thank you. It was my grandmother’s recipe. I could tell you what’s in it but I’d have to kill you afterwards. And, presumably, one of your colleagues would have to come to arrest me.’

Harris smiled. There was something refreshing about the openness of Laura Mayhew after all the lies and evasive behaviour that he had encountered over recent days.

‘You were going to tell me about Edward,’ he said.

‘We weren’t really that close. We were as kids, growing up here. Absolutely inseparable. My dad always hoped that we would take over the business together when he retired but my brother had other ideas. He couldn’t wait to get away.’

‘I’m not sure that I’d ever want to leave here.’

‘Well, Eddie did. Fell in with the wrong crowd when he was a teenager. Some lads from the village who were into drugs. Made him realise that there was more to life.’

‘A common enough story,’ said Harris. He did not mention that, as a teenager growing up in Levton Bridge, it had been his story. That it had been the reason he joined the Army. To escape bad influences and avoid taking the route that Edward Gough had followed.

‘He spent some time in youth custody,’ continued Laura. ‘They broke into a couple of houses in the village to get money to buy heroin.’

‘So I heard.’

She looked quizzically at him.

‘Greater Manchester Police told me,’ he said.

She nodded. Her demeanour had changed, taken over by a deep sense of regret.

‘Things were awful when he came out,’ she said quietly. ‘He and Dad fought all the time. That’s why Eddie ended up going to Manchester. They had a furious row the day he left and Eddie struck Dad. After he’d gone, Dad was in tears and he never saw Eddie again. He never came back here and Dad refused to go looking for him.’

‘A sad story. And I’m sorry for making you tell it again after all these years.’ Harris took a sip of tea and a bite of cake.

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