The Chirk Castle Killings: A Snowdonia Murder Mystery (A DI Ruth Hunter Crime Thriller Book 12) by Simon McCleave

Author:Simon McCleave [McCleave, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stamford Publishing
Published: 2022-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

It was an hour later by the time Georgie and Garrow got to the outskirts of Rhyl, one of the most deprived towns in the UK. The centre looked like a ghost town as shops were boarded up or derelict. A couple of teenagers in black hoodies glared at them as they vaped on a bench.

‘Welcome to Rhyl,’ Georgie quipped sardonically.

‘Don’t think I’ve ever been,’ Garrow admitted.

Georgie rolled her eyes. ‘And why doesn’t that surprise me?’

Garrow gave an expression of mock offence. ‘That’s not very nice.’

‘Nice university-educated boy like you wouldn’t survive five minutes in a place like this,’ Georgie remarked.

‘Yeah, well neither would the SAS,’ Garrow joked.

That’s what she liked about Garrow. Unlike most male coppers she had worked with, he never felt the need to demonstrate his masculinity. And despite her teasing, she liked his quiet assuredness. In her experience, the male coppers who puffed out their chests and went toe to toe with every criminal they met were overcompensating for something.

‘True,’ Georgie laughed. ‘There used to be a sign as you came in to the town. It said Welcome to Rhyl. Some joker had graffitied under it Twinned with Kandahar.’

‘Good one.’ Garrow rolled his eyes. ‘You’ve spent a lot of time in Rhyl then?’

‘My Taid used to live up here,’ she explained quietly. It made her sad to think of him.

‘Spoilt you rotten, did he?’ Garrow asked brightly.

‘Not really. He was a junkie,’ Georgie replied. ‘He died from a smack overdose when I was nine.’

‘God. Sorry,’ Garrow said pulling a face.

‘You weren’t to know. It’s just a bit weird when I come back here, that’s all.’

Garrow nodded. ‘Yeah, I can imagine. Sounds horrible.’

For the next few minutes, they didn’t speak. Georgie could feel the emotion of being back weighing on her. By the end, her taid had been a skeletal seven stone. He had been ravaged and eventually killed by his addiction.

They drove along the seafront, with the dark, black, choppy Irish Sea stretching away to their left as far as the eye could see. To the right, a long terrace of cream-coloured Victorian houses that housed B&Bs. Paintwork was old, damp and covered in mould. Guttering was broken and pathways strewn with weeds. Next came a string of gaudy amusement arcades in lurid colours – Playzone, Casino Lounge and Geronimo’s.

Turning left, they soon found the address where Vince and Daniel had lived before they moved to Llancastell. What they were hoping for was some kind of link to Kevin Parks or anything that might shed light on Vince’s life.

Getting out of the car, Georgie looked at the house. It was pebble-dashed with a bright blue front door. The house to the left had been boarded up.

‘Let’s try the neighbours to start with,’ Garrow suggested as they walked up to the adjacent house.

Knocking at the door, they got out their warrant cards.

A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman in a grey tracksuit peered out at them. ‘Hello?’ It sounded like she had some kind of accent. Maybe Eastern European.

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