Rising Tides: Phil Tyler Thrillers Book 3 by Barry Litherland

Author:Barry Litherland [Litherland, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bleaknorth Publishing
Published: 2022-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

I’m in the lounge of Slattery’s house at Windsor Gardens. I still can’t get used to the idea of Slattery in the Sefton-on-Sea retirement zone. It’s a semi-detached bungalow, not unlike Matty’s, but minus the gorillas, with a neat garden at the front – he pays a gardener – and a sun lounge and some decking at the back, leading onto a small lawn with fruit trees. Very suburban. Very conservative. Very everything you don’t associate with Slattery. I used to think he didn’t have a fixed home and that he just drifted from work to bar to club and back. He moved down here after he retired, anticipating a nice, quiet life. He even bought a lawnmower.

Turns out, quiet didn’t really suit him, and Slattery’s unconventional routines didn’t really suit his neighbours. I notice the fence between him and the adjoining property is now one of the seven-foot, interwoven variety.

‘George Mackie?’ Slattery whistles. He’s sitting on a grey fabric sofa with plump cushions. He’s got a drink in his hands, and jazz is playing in the background. Vinyl. He has a collection which dates back decades – another surprising feature of his private life. There are also a couple of new cookery books in the kitchen, which is a bit like discovering Stalin had a cuddly toy stash.

I haven’t bothered with a drink because I’m due at Elaine Higson’s at six. I phoned her to rearrange, but she was cool about it. I don’t want to ruin things by turning up smelling of a single malt, no matter how rare and expensive it is. Slattery has quite a collection – a connoisseur’s treasure trove with many bottles which will never be opened, all carefully displayed in a specially built cabinet in the dining room.

‘I thought that bastard had gone forever,’ Slattery says, ‘after we made him too hot to handle. I guess he disappeared into the dark depths of the underworld and reformed himself.’ He looks at me, almost sympathetically. ‘I don’t suppose hearing his name made your day. You’re hardly on his Christmas card list, are you?’

‘Neither are you,’ I remind him.

‘True,’ he nods. ‘George and I shared a mutual loathing. Most of the time I only went down to The Lucky Seven to wind him up.’

‘You were very good at it, I recall.’

‘You’re very kind.’

I steer us back onto the subject in hand. ‘But what the hell has he got to do with Tom Higson? Blackmail, you reckon?’

‘It’s hard to imagine what else it could be. If Mackie has got hold of something on Higson, he’ll have bled him dry and then some. The fact that the data card held financial statements would suggest something irregular has been going on.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so. Only there’s something which doesn’t compute. I can’t get my head round it.’

‘Go on,’ Slattery says. ‘You’re the thinker. Do some thinking. I’ll sit here and watch.’

He takes a sip from his malt and pretends to focus on me, as if deep in contemplation. I pour myself a drink.

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.