Grave Intent: an addictive and gripping crime thriller (a DCI Jack Lambert Novel Book 2) by A.M. Peacock

Author:A.M. Peacock [Peacock, A.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Published: 2019-07-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Four

They stopped off in Felling on the way back to the station but McCullagh’s estranged daughter wasn’t at home. Apparently, like her father, she had a habit of absconding at a moment’s notice. Her husband, a man not too dissimilar in appearance from the pub landlord, bar his ethnicity, had conveyed this news to them in a bitter tone.

Screaming kids in the background had dragged his attention away from them so Jack had left a card and asked him to pass on the message that they would like her to call the station. The partner had nodded, picked at a clump of dried sick on his Gordon Ramsay apron, and said his goodbyes.

Back at the station, the officers in the MIR were operating with a spring in their step, due to the advent of new information in the case.

‘So,’ DI Russell said, ‘we now know that Gus Fenwick was close to Brian McCullagh, indeed so close that he saw fit to lamp a bloke who called him a poof.’

Jack raised an eyebrow in surprise.

‘Sorry!’ she spluttered.

Jack couldn’t recall ever having heard her apologise before and decided to make her squirm. ‘Why?’

‘I didn’t mean…’

‘Of course you didn’t,’ he cut in, resisting the urge to smirk. ‘We can argue the merits of being PC later though. Right now, let’s stick to the case.’

Watkins interjected. ‘Everything McCullagh originally told us has proven to be false.’

‘But they weren’t involved in any shady activities whilst there?’ Gerrard asked.

Watkins did a show of pulling his head from side to side, ginger afro remaining perfectly still. ‘Andy “Chip” Henson told us he didn’t know of anything like that going on but I’m not sure I entirely believe him.’

‘How come?’ Gerrard asked.

‘There’s clearly a code in that place, and this is a former hard man who isn’t going to rat on his fellow employees, no matter what he originally thought of them. Also,’ he added, ‘he told us that most people were on the take in some way back in the day.’

‘Yes,’ Jack said. ‘It stands to reason that he wouldn’t want to implicate Fenwick or McCullagh in anything, particularly given the fact that he, at one time, terrorised them both.’

‘Could he be involved?’ DI Russell asked.

‘My gut says no,’ Jack replied. ‘But I’ve been wrong before.’

‘I don’t think he is either,’ Watkins said. ‘But I do think there is more to their time at the port than Chip was letting on. The problem we have is that there is nobody else there from that time and there isn’t exactly a record of who was doing what back in the early nineties.’

Jack saw the life drain from Gerrard and Jane’s eyes. ‘This isn’t a dead end,’ Jack said, keen to allay their fears. ‘Think about it, we know more than we did at the start of the day. We know that Fenwick and McCullagh have a history and that McCullagh lied about this history for some reason. I don’t buy that we weren’t asking the right questions—he was holding back.

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