THE VENGEANCE MAN: vigilante justice meets mob rule in this murder mystery (DCI John Blizzard Book 10) by John Dean

Author:John Dean [Dean, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Book Folks - bestselling British crime fiction publisher
Published: 2021-11-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter eighteen

Any sense of well-being that Blizzard might have felt as he went to bed later that night was rudely shattered by the phone call which shook him from sleep shortly after 1.00am. Struggling to get his bearings for a moment, he scrabbled around for the bedside phone, cursing as he knocked the receiver onto the floor.

‘Blizzard,’ he mumbled once he had located it.

‘Sorry to ring at such an ungodly hour,’ said Ramsey.

‘It’s one in the morning,’ groaned Blizzard, glancing at the digital read-out on the bedside clock. ‘This has better be good.’

‘Not the word I would use. You had better get down to Atherley Cemetery. The Vengeance Man got to Roger Colclough before we did.’

‘I’ll see you down there,’ said Blizzard.

Fee sat up as he replaced the receiver and swung his legs out of bed.

‘Who was that?’ she asked blearily.

‘Chris Ramsey,’ said Blizzard as he got out of bed. ‘Sorry, love, got to go.’

* * *

Twenty-five minutes later, Blizzard and Ramsey stood in the graveyard, thirty metres from the main gates, and stared in silence at the body, their collars turned up against the foggy night chill.

‘Is it definitely Colclough?’ asked Blizzard.

‘Apparently.’ Ramsey glanced at a uniformed officer who was standing nearby. ‘Gerry knows him from when he was in trouble as a juvenile, don’t you?’

PC Gerry Paton nodded.

‘It’s him alright,’ he said. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. Not sure many people will mourn his passing.’

Blizzard said nothing but continued to survey the gruesome scene, which had been given an eerie hue by the orange glow of the streetlights. The young man had been propped up against a gravestone, blood dribbling from his mouth and eyes rolled into the top of his head. The cause of death was the spiked metal fence railing which had been thrust into his chest, the crimson bloodstain having spread across his windcheater. Although the detectives were used to seeing dead bodies after years in the job, they still had to pause for a moment to gather their thoughts and steady their stomachs.

‘You got to be a psycho to do something like that,’ said Paton.

‘That’s the second time I’ve heard that word tonight,’ said Blizzard. ‘Only the first time it was used to describe him.’

‘He was certainly a boy only his mother could love,’ said Paton.

‘Was it you who found him?’

‘Yeah. We were already in the area. Chief Inspector Edwards has ordered more patrols. Control received an anonymous call from someone who had seen the Vengeance Man walking across Market Place. By the time we got there, he had gone but we had a scout round and found Colclough.’

‘And no idea of where the Vengeance Man went?’ asked Blizzard.

‘He just vanished into thin air, like he did the other times,’ said Paton. ‘It’s kinda spooky.’

‘Yes, well he’s not a ghost,’ said Blizzard curtly. He looked back towards Colclough. ‘Whoever did this is real enough. He must have gone somewhere after killing him.’

‘Well, we didn’t see him.’

Blizzard was silent for a few moments.

‘What are you thinking?’ asked Ramsey.

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