Suspicious Minds (Harry Devlin) by Edwards Martin

Author:Edwards, Martin [Edwards, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Murder, detective, noire, petrocelli, suspense, marple, crime, whodunnit, death, police, morse, taggart, christie, legal, shoestring, poirot, ironside, killer, holmes, clue, columbo, law, hoskins, thriller, solicitor, hitchcock, cluedo, cracker, diagnosis
ISBN: 9781781662779
Publisher: AUK Authors
Published: 2012-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

One glance at Kuiper convinced Harry that the student would not be leaving in a hurry. The boy’s face was buried in the dirt. He was making a strange noise, the muffled weeping of pain and rage and defeat.

Panting after his exertion, Harry trudged towards the main building. He did not relish explaining to Jack Stirrup that his daughter’s boyfriend had used the grounds of Prospect House as an operational base in an attempt to hold Bharat Kaiwar’s business empire to ransom. Nor would words of persuasion alone convince Jack that the lad had not also killed Claire. If not checked, Stirrup’s interrogative techniques would leave Peter Kuiper yearning for a little genteel police brutality. As Harry pressed the doorbell, he steeled himself for his third physical confrontation of the evening and wondered why Liverpool Poly’s careers adviser hadn’t warned him that success in the law was marked by the award of a Lonsdale Belt.

No lights snapped on in response to his ring. After a minute he tried a second time. Again no answer.

Harry walked round the side of the building. No sign of life. Just the flickering red light of a burglar alarm box high up on the side wall. No window or door had been left conveniently open to allow him access to a telephone in the deserted house. Harry swore. Feeling hungry as well as tired, he was beginning to regret his failure to finish the microwaved pizza. To get the police here fast and leave them to sort everything out was all he wanted right now.

He picked up a half-brick left by the builders and hurled it through the kitchen window. The lack of finesse would have appalled the least sophisticated of his criminal clients, but he was past caring. He pushed in what was left of the shattered pane and opened the window. No casement lock: Stirrup should have consulted his neighbourhood crime prevention officer rather than frittering money on electronic gimmickry. An alarm siren started wailing, but there was no one to hear it except the crippled young man who lay prostrate fifty yards away. It was the work of a moment for Harry to heave himself up and inside. He found the phone and dialled a number he knew by heart; it belonged to Quentin Pike.

“Got a client for you,” he said and described in half a dozen sentences what had happened.

“Good God! Blackmail, you say? And you’re not able to act?”

“Conflict of interests. The kid doesn’t know you exist yet. But he’ll need a good brief.”

“Incidentally, what’s that bloody awful racket in the background?”

“The sound of a wasted investment.” Harry had already been in the house longer than it would take a seasoned burglar to strip everything of value. So much for home security.

He rang off and after trial and error in opening cupboard doors, discovered the control box inside a walk-in pantry and switched the siren off. It seemed easier than it ought to be. He put on an outside light, then rang 999 to summon the police and medical help.

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