Nowhere to Hide: An exciting British crime novel (Inspector Drake Book 7) by stephen Puleston

Author:stephen Puleston [Puleston, stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stephen Puleston
Published: 2019-07-22T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

Drake stood before the Incident Room board staring over at the rest of his team, clenching his jaw. Since the beginning of the investigation when Jim Finch had referred to Jack Beltrami’s possible involvement, the gangster from Rhyl had never been far from Drake’s mind. He was unprincipled enough, aggressive enough and hated Drake enough to have organised the ramming of Sian’s car. How did Beltrami think he would react, Drake thought? Driving back to headquarters he had smothered every instinct that suggested he should go to Beltrami’s amusement arcade in Rhyl, arrest him on suspicion of murder and seize the two black Audi vehicles he owned.

He couldn’t afford to lose his objectivity but involving his family had crossed a line. ‘Do we know where Beltrami’s Audis are actually located?’

Luned gave a puzzled frown. Winder gave Sara a worried glance.

‘We haven’t got any basis for suspecting that either vehicle owned by Beltrami was involved,’ Sara announced slowly.

She was right, of course, Drake gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement and continued. ‘Have you been able to check any of the CCTV around Colwyn Bay?’

Winder replied, ‘We found snippets of footage with Dr Drake’s BMW, but we couldn’t find a black Audi and nothing to establish she had been followed.’

Luned added, ‘We did look at footage on the A55 for an hour either side of the accident but again, there was no sign of a black Audi.’

Drake nodded. ‘The car could have kept to the side streets. It might take us days to track it down.’

‘How much more time do you want to spend on it, sir?’ Sara said, although Drake guessed the same question was uppermost in the mind of the other two officers. Without evidence that his inquiry was linked to the incident, it was nothing more than a road traffic collision – hardly a priority for any police force these days.

‘We leave it for now.’ Drake saw the tension ebb away as face muscles relaxed. ‘I need progress on Beltrami’s known associates and…’ Drake recalled the shopkeeper and the unreliable CCTV system. ‘Chase up the footage from the Queensferry convenience store. And chase the care home in Liverpool again – someone must have seen those girls in the company of a person they could describe.’ He raised his voice. ‘Go there if you have to.’

Drake paced over to his office and reached the threshold where he turned and marched back to the board. ‘And chase the taxi companies for details of the drivers near the rugby club.’ He sounded angry, he felt angry. He stalked back to his office.

He had to focus on unpicking the threads, but he kept returning to Jack Beltrami. He had to be involved, it was the only conclusion and there was evidence, somewhere.

All they had to do was find it.

He chided himself when he contemplated the possibility that he was obsessed with the Beltrami family. But they were an organised crime group that deserved to be prosecuted. As was Paul Kenny and O’Brien and any one of them would be capable of ramming Sian’s car and threatening his children.

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