A FLICKER IN THE NIGHT: Detectives hunt a serial killer who plays with fire by JOHN DEAN

Author:JOHN DEAN [DEAN, JOHN]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: THE BOOK FOLKS Bestselling British crime fiction publishers
Published: 2019-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Half an hour later, Blizzard and Colley were standing in the pathology laboratory at the General Hospital, watching Peter Reynolds sew up the scorched remains of one of the victims from The Cedars.

‘Which one is this?’ asked Blizzard, eying the blackened corpse.

‘Patrick O’Reilly. Am I right in saying that the fire brigade and your forensic officers believe the seat of the blaze to be his ground floor bedroom?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘I thought so. Well, his burns are strikingly similar to those suffered by both Albert Pembridge and Bill Lowther.’

‘But couldn’t that just be because it was such a big fire?’ asked Colley. ‘I mean, the place all but burnt down.’

‘That was my initial thought,’ said the pathologist. ‘I haven’t done post-mortems on the others yet, but my guess is that they succumbed to smoke before their burns were inflicted. In the case of Mr O’Reilly, however, there is little doubt that he burned to death.’

‘Indicating that someone specifically set fire to him,’ said Blizzard.

‘Exactly, and might I suggest that you get this sick human being off the streets as quickly as possible?’

‘Now, why didn’t I think of that?’ said the inspector.

He glared at the pathologist and stalked from the examination room, slamming the door behind him.

‘You know,’ said Reynolds to the sergeant, ‘I think he’s losing his sense of humour.’

‘I wonder why that is,’ said Colley.

He headed for the car park, where Blizzard was standing next to the vehicle and talking earnestly into his mobile phone.

‘Are you sure?’ Blizzard was saying.

‘I’m sure,’ said Graham Ross at the other end. ‘The handwriting on the poetry in Hemmings’ flat does not fit the letters that were sent to you. I’m sorry, old son. Looks like another dead end.’

‘Well, dead end or not, Versace, I want that university searched top to bottom to see if there are any other poems lying about. I want every piece of handwriting checked and double-checked. Get Sarah Allatt to help you. She’s already over there in case Hemmings shows up.’

‘Right-o.’

Blizzard ended the call.

‘Bad news?’ asked Colley.

‘As bad as it gets. The letters can’t be traced back to Andy Hemmings. Tell me, what do we know about O’Reilly?’

‘Precious little. According to the manager of the home, he’s a council-funded job. No private funds to speak of and no relatives that they know about. Not locally anyway. The council is checking the records but, to all intents and purposes, Patrick O’Reilly was another nobody.’

‘The killer didn’t think that he was a nobody,’ said Blizzard. He unlocked his car and swung himself into the passenger street. ‘So, until someone tells me differently, neither do I.’

* * *

The armed gang had planned their robbery professionally. The four men, all masked and carrying sawn-off shotguns, pulled onto the housing estate in a stolen Ford Transit shortly after ten and drew up at the row of shops, where they waited for a couple of minutes outside the building society. When the security van arrived, they waited for the guard to remove the cash box and made their move.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.