Slaughter At Simonstone Hall: A DI Ellis Yorkshire Crime Thriller by Oliver Davies

Author:Oliver Davies [Davies, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

18

The kidnapper was Ronald Vincent, the groom’s second cousin.

As I stood there with Lylah and quickly read Ron’s file, my lips curled with disgust. Each word was more unpleasant than the last. For a moment there was silence as we analysed the records, but after a few minutes Lylah broke it.

“How can you kidnap your own wife?” Lylah asked in startled confusion as she gripped my hand.

“Ex-wife after all of that,” I added with distaste as I squeezed her hand in return. “And I can’t say I blame her.”

I looked at the photo of Ron. Not for the first time in my life, I was taken aback by how normal he looked. Years on the job had shown me no criminal had a distinct look, but seeing an everyday sort of bloke and knowing what they’d done always felt bizarre. It was like looking at a puppy and reading that it had brutally attacked someone.

In the image, Ron had short, well-trimmed ginger hair, a clean-shaven square jaw, wide blue eyes, and a slender frame. While I would never have described Ron as particularly handsome—the mugshot was far from flattering—he was unmemorable but harmless looking.

They say looks can be deceiving, I thought to myself with revulsion.

I looked at the photo again and couldn’t quite remember seeing that man in the room, but I knew he had to be somewhere. People changed their appearance all the time, so he must have looked different from the photo in his police file. Plus, the crime had been committed over a decade ago, so I was looking for a man considerably older than his photo.

“Clearly, the dude is a bit of a creep,” Lylah said with a huff. “But going from kidnapping your wife to murdering two men at a wedding? Seems like a big jump, doesn’t it?”

“I agree it’s a bit of a jump, but stranger things have happened. Anyone can become a killer if they feel desperate enough.” I hesitated and squeezed her shoulder as I looked around the room. “We don’t know anything other than what’s on file. He could have all manner of grievances to want Christian dead.”

I sensed Lylah nodding beside me, but my eyes were still focused on looking around the room. I did a double take when I saw a man with thinning red hair. At a glance, the man looked nothing like Ron, but when I took in everything about him, I realised it was him. Somehow, he looked even worse than his already unflattering mugshot.

Much, much worse.

I had never seen a man look so woebegone before, especially at a wedding. People usually made an effort to look their best at a wedding, but Ron clearly didn’t feel the need to dress to impress. Although he wasn’t exactly dressed in casual clothing, his clothes looked shabby, as though he’d purchased them from a charity shop and hadn’t bothered to wash and iron them. He wore oversized brown trousers that were done up with a broken brown belt, and a white shirt that had a horrid looking stain down the right side of it.

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