Gangland Killings Don't Count (DCI Grace Swan Thrillers Book 4)

Book summary

DCI Grace Swan is trapped in a life-or-death situation, while her partner, DS Terry Horton, races against time to save her. Meanwhile, a predator prowls the streets, and a young woman faces the release of her vengeful ex. In Spain, Chloe Macbeth evades a relentless assassin. All paths collide in GANGLAND KILLINGS DON’T COUNT, a gripping crime thriller.

Excerpt from Gangland Killings Don't Count (DCI Grace Swan Thrillers Book 4)

ONE

Nell Barclay, a 76-year-old widow, opened the bedroom curtains of her cottage located on the outskirts of the village of Lower Tetney, looked out, and saw thick black smoke billowing up from Tetney Hall. She quickly ran into her hallway, picked up the telephone from the console table, and called 999 for the police and the fire brigade.

TWO

Tetney Hall

Lower Tetney

Yorkshire

“It is, Mr Vickers, a crude but very effective timing device,” said the Fire and Rescue Service Group Manager, David Okonwa, to Assistant Chief Constable Martin Vickers. Okonwa was a stout man of Nigerian origin who walked with a pronounced limp. When a young firefighter, he had been with a crew fighting a warehouse fire when an internal wall had collapsed, crushing his lower leg. After recovery and recuperation, his duties became increasingly administrative, and he diligently rose through the ranks to his present senior position.

ACC Martin Vickers, head of Specialised Crime Services in the South Yorkshire Police, headquartered in Sheffield some sixteen miles from the town of West Garside, was, as usual, immaculately turned out. His shirt was crisply stiff with starch, his trousers pressed to a crease so sharp they presented a danger to the public, his jacket brushed and fitted to him as a glove, and his black Oxford shoes were so highly polished that in bright sunlight, you might almost need sunglasses to look at them. Even his epaulettes of rank, laurel wreath with crossed torches, looked to have been polished.

He had the looks of a matinee idol; he knew it and had the reputation of a ladies’ man, although his attempts to seduce DCI Grace Swan at a police convention in Birmingham had ended in acrimony when she turned down his advances. He did not forgive or forget such slights, and at one time attempted to ruin her career. Now, however, there seemed to be a sort of armed truce between them. How long that might last, nobody could say.

Vickers said nothing but nodded to Okonwa to continue as they stood in the living room of the still smoking ruins of Tetney Hall.

“Quite simply, the perpetrator, the arsonist, acquired an old electric fire. Even though it is severely burnt, you can still make out what it was. A two-bar electric fire with an open grill, probably bought in a junk shop or market stall.”

Vickers looked impatient, wanting Okonwa to get on with his explanation without the speculations, but as the Group Manager was of a high Fire Service rank, Vickers could not simply order him to hurry it up.

“He connected the fire to a simple timing device, the sort you hook up to lamps when you go on holiday or maybe to the lights on your Christmas tree or decorative outdoor lights. This one,” Okonwa said in his steady, purposeful voice, “had pins plugged into the face of the timer, which clicked on the power at the appropriate time, which apparently was just after 7 a.m. The call to the brigade was timed shortly after seven-thirty. Using a timing device obviously gives the arsonist time to be well away from the blaze before it starts.”

Okonwa looked expectantly at Vickers, as if to ascertain whether he understood.

“And?” Vickers prodded, holding on to his temper.

“About an hour before the timer clicked in, no more than that, a petrol-soaked towel had been placed over the fire, which had stood in a large plastic bowl with maybe one inch or so of petrol in it. Another cloth, possibly one of the curtains, equally soaked in petrol, had one end in the bowl, and as everything in here—the sofa, carpet, curtains—was all petrol-soaked, a conflagration very quickly ensued.

A further trail of cloths and petrol-filled bowls led down into the basement, and the petrol vapours which filled the house would have been almost explosive. Anybody trapped in here most likely would not have survived…”

“Thank you, Mr Okonwa, that was very concise and helpful.”

“Thank you, Mr Vickers, fortunately there have been no casualties…”

“So far as we can determine. However, we still need to search. How soon can our officers begin a detailed joint investigation?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but there can be nothing alive in there; not even the mice could have escaped from that blaze.”

“We still have to look,” Vickers insisted.

“And so we shall as soon as it is deemed safe to do so.”

The two men left the smoking ruin, Okonwa to continue directing the operation as firemen re-commenced pumping water into the void created by the partially collapsed roof, while other firemen directed their hoses into the building through broken windows. Vickers strode down the slope to the main gate, where his police Jaguar and driver were waiting. Without acknowledging the salutes of the two constables guarding the gate, Vickers drove away, heading for Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital, ignoring the gathered reporters, TV cameramen, and gawking bystanders.

He had a missing police officer to find and was fearful that the officer might be another victim of the killer of PC Jack Hobson, who was garrotted and dismembered by the killer now identified as Hugo Burke, half-brother of the Mannikin Killer Graham Reason, inheritor of Tetney Hall, and the highly successful ‘Hair by Hélène’ franchise. Hugo Burke was also wanted for the murder of two transvestite men found hanging from trees.

Vickers was not a happy man, and he needed some answers.

Quickly.

THREE

West Garside

Yorkshire

Earlier that morning

It was just before 7.00 a.m. when the council dustbin lorry, the workforce on foot, turned into Cotton Mill Street, only to find their passage blocked by a red Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

The lorry driver gave his horn a blast to get it to move out of the way before realising that there was no driver inside.

“There’s some fucking stupid people about, leaving a car like that out in the middle of the street.” He leaned his head out of the cab window and shouted to one of the dustbin men. “Mick, see if you can find out who the fuck has left his car out like this, the stupid sod.”

“Yeah, right.”

Mick looked around and saw a man several doors away just leaving his front door, preparing to walk away.

“Oi, mate,” he shouted, “you know who owns this car?” and pointed at the Alfa.

“Yes, it belongs to the policewoman, senior detective she is, I think. She lives at number 2, the end house. Grace, she’s called. Grace.”

“Thanks, mate.”

Mick ran over to the front door of number 2, rang the doorbell, and getting no immediate response, hammered on the door with his fist.

After a minute or so, he shouted, “No answer!” to the dustbin lorry driver, who shouted, “Fuck!” and then began to reverse away. He would have to drive around the adjoining streets and enter Cotton Mill Street from the opposite direction.

DS Terry Horton was in a deep, paracetamol-induced sleep. He had been running a high temperature, and his headache, lodged firmly behind his eyes, had been fierce in the extreme. He had left work early; he was a Detective Sergeant with West Garside CID, but despite the pounding headache and high fever, he had been reluctant to leave the office and go home to rest and recover.

The CID, under the direction of DCI Grace Swan, had been investigating a particularly brutal set of murders in which transsexual men were garrotted and then left hanging from trees in secluded locations, and Terry, deeply involved in the case, had to be ordered home by the DCI, despite his protestations that he was all right to carry on.

It was at the end of the coronavirus Covid-19 crisis, and although Terry tested negative for Covid and was up to date with all his vaccine jabs, Grace was still very concerned for his health. For not only was she his boss, she was also his lover and partner, and together they shared a 3-storey townhouse in Cotton Mill Street, West Garside. Outside of which now stood the apparently abandoned red Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

Terry vaguely heard the doorbell ringing and then the hammering on the door and, wondering what all the fuss was about, gingerly lifted his head from the pillow and then with a groan got to his feet, picked up his blue M&S dressing gown, and groggily made his way down the three flights of stairs to the front door.

He ran his hand through his silver hair, which was longer than usual, but hairdressers and barbers had been closed due to Covid lockdown restrictions, and he had been unable to get it cut. He opened the door and peered out into the street.

As soon as he saw the red Alfa, he knew—just knew—what had happened and was suddenly afraid, terribly afraid. The Alfa belonged to Grace, and Terry immediately realised that she had been snatched. And he knew by whom and where he would have taken her.

With a shout of anguish, he ran back upstairs, casting off his dressing gown as he did so. He did not shower or shave but dressed as quickly as he could, ignoring the intense pain throbbing through his head. Running back down the stairs, in his desperate hurry, he almost tripped and had to grab the handrail to prevent himself from tumbling headfirst down the stairway. He snatched up the spare keys to the Alfa from the carved wooden bowl, a souvenir from a holiday spent in western Canada, and dashed out of the house.

He had to calm himself, taking deep breaths before his hand stopped shaking enough for him to click the key fob and climb into the Alfa and drive off as quickly as he could, regardless of speed limits, heading for Tetney Hall in the village of Lower Tetney, some 15 miles away.

As he drove, he tried to use his mobile phone to call for backup but found it impossible to drive at high speed and manipulate his mobile at the same time. It was more important to get to Tetney as soon as possible rather than risk a crash. A crash at such speed could be fatal. And if she were not already dead, it could condemn Grace to death.

His heart racing in anguish, he sped through the quiet lanes and fields, the low morning sun sharp as needles in his vision, his headache pounding in protest, but he gave it no mind.

If he did not get there as soon as he could, Grace would die.