The Tower: A Lancashire Detective Mystery (DCI Walker Crime Thrillers Book 3) by JJ Richards

Author:JJ Richards [Richards, JJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simulacrum Press Publishers
Published: 2024-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

With several days having now gone by, Walker and his team had been able to recharge, somewhat, as there’d been no further violence or incidents concerning the Kindness Matters Movement in the interim– not that they knew of, anyhow. Things had certainly calmed down some in Blackpool, and they’d all had time to take stock, go over everything they had– which was a lot– and start to analyse all that data. There had been some disappointments along the way– Blackpool’s CCTV Control Centre had surprisingly turned up nothing of use, despite all that money invested in the facility. But, despite this setback, Walker still felt they were making some tentative progress, although there was still some way to go yet.

After Jonny Scawthorn’s confession to the murders of Anthony Singelmann and Michael Tracy, they’d got permission to hold him for ninety-six hours– as these were exceptional circumstances– so they could run extensive background checks on him. And these checks had turned up even more than Walker had hoped. What they’d found was that Jonny’s sister, one Samantha Taylor, had been involved in a rape case that had gone to court, and a couple of years later, she’d committed suicide. Her marital name– Taylor– had jumped right out at Walker: that had been the surname of the journalist from the Blackpool Gazette, the one who kept turning up at all the press conferences. He’d been her bloody husband, Jonny’s brother-in-law of all things. It seemed too much of a coincidence.

The problem was that Jonny’s claims of bludgeoning Michael Tracy to death with a piece of driftwood did not add up– they knew the death blow had come from a snooker cue with the “Thurston and Co” branding on it. So, while he knew things he certainly shouldn’t, which made him a very prominent person of interest, he didn’t know everything, and that probably meant someone else did the killing– unless he’d mistaken an old snooker cue lying on the beach for a piece of driftwood, which seemed unlikely. It wouldn’t be the first time some lunatic had claimed to be a killer when they weren’t, though, and it wouldn’t be the last; the world, Walker thought, was a funny old place. This seemed the more likely scenario, then, as things stood– that he was such an imposter. He wondered whether Jonny might be protecting someone, or whether he just wanted to claim the killings as his own, like a trophy, like a badge of honour. He wasn’t sure yet– wasn’t sure about anything– had only his policing instincts to go on. And these instincts were telling him to look deeper.

They were back in the Incident Room now– Walker, DCs Briggs and Hardman, and DI Hogarth– going over things together, when DC Ainscough– the only member of their team who’d not been in the room– entered. He was carrying a pile of newspapers, at least twenty or thirty of them. Walker had sent him out on a mission to get them. He had a hunch.

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