Killing The Taxman (DCI Grace Swan Thrillers Book 3)

Book summary

In Giles Ekins's suspenseful sequel, 'Killing the Taxman', DCI Grace Swan encounters her most daunting challenge yet: a merciless serial killer targeting her. Concurrently, Chloe Macbeth's escape to Spain ensnares her in a lethal drug gang's web. As the body count escalates, both women must marshal their wits and courage in a harrowing fight for survival. This intricate thriller is a must-read for aficionados of the genre, continuing the gripping narratives established in 'Dead Girl Found' and 'I Know It Was You'.

Excerpt from Killing The Taxman (DCI Grace Swan Thrillers Book 3)

The Flight of Chloe McMurderess …

A blog by Chloe Macbeth, AKA Chloe McMurderess.

Shit, there was a fucking big black guy sitting on the swing seat outside my caravan and my heart began to pound furiously. Whoever the fuck he was, it was not good news, of that I was certain.

I’d started this blog or whatever you want to call it, some time ago, when I began to receive threatening letters, letters threatening me with rape or worse. I named the then anonymous sender ‘Psychoman’, which I thought was a great name and called the blog ‘The Haunting of Chloe McMurderess.’

Then, following ‘a series of unfortunate events’, I had to flee to Spain and renamed the blog ‘The Flight of Chloe McMurderess.’ I had used a sto-len passport, driven a stolen car, and settled in Benidorm, thinking that I was safe living under the name of Sally Harriman, whose passport it was that I had stolen. I looked a bit like her, except I was blonde and she brunette, but some hair dye soon solved that problem. I thought I was safe. But then.

But then there was this fucking big black guy sitting on the swing seat outside my caravan in a Benidorm holiday park.

He stood up as I approached.

‘Hello Sally,’ he said in a deep resonant voice. ’Or should I say, hello Chloe?’

Jesus, shit, I near on had a heart attack! I could feel the colour draining from my face, I was hyperventilating, and my heart was pounding at a thou-sand fucking miles an hour. My legs turned to jelly, and I had to lean against a lamppost to hold myself up.

‘Who, who are you?’ I managed to gasp.

‘Well, I’m either your new best friend or your worst nightmare … it’s up to you, Chloe Macbeth.’

Well shit, I ran out of best friends a long time ago, so my bet was that he was going to be my worst nightmare. Whoever the fuck he was.

How in God’s Good Name did he track me down? I didn’t think he was police;, otherwise, he would simply have said, ‘Chloe Macbeth, you are under arrest for murder,’ slapped on the handcuffs, and led me away to spend the rest of my life in jail for three killings. Mind you, one of the killings was acci-dental, as I had acted in self-defence with no intention of killing. Thinking about it, two of the killings were in self-defence. So truly, I have only deliber-ately killed the once, but who is going to believe that?

Let’s face it, I fled the country using a passport stolen from Sally Har-riman’s car and made my way to Benidorm in a stolen car, bought a caravan on a resort site, and got a job using Sally’s name. Hardly the actions of an in-nocent, were they?

True, I had killed Psychoman DeWayne Radford-Mitchell, the sender of those threatening letters but the bastard had attacked me in my own flat and had been bent on doing me some very serious harm, including rape and God knows what the fuck else. It was self-defence, no doubt about it, but since I had already killed Donald Jarrett (a vile bastard who raped me and turned my life to rat-shit) and his wife Janet, who came at me with a pair of scissors in her hand (so that was definitely self-defence) and had then framed their adopted son David, David Jarrett, for their murders, I was hardly guiltless, was I? David Jarrett later hanged himself in jail when his appeal against conviction was refused.

So, I suppose you could say I had killed him as well. Mind you, the bas-tard had deserved it. He had for years sexually abused both me and my best friend ever, his sister Julia, before finally raping her. Afterwards, her life had turned to rat-shit. Rape does that to a girl, you know. Breaks you inside and nothing is ever the same again. After the rape, her life in tatters, Julia had taken to drugs, eventually dying from an overdose, her death undeniably re-sulting from the rape—so, as I said, David Jarrett deserved it when he hanged himself.

‘Callous bitch, aren’t you?’ asked Jeremy.

Jeremy was my teddy bear, the only thing from my hateful childhood that I had left. I talked to him a lot. He was my confidante, counsellor, sound-ing board and friend whom I sometimes call the ‘dumb bear’ … which he didn’t like. ‘Do you, dumb bear?’

‘No!’

So, there were four deaths to be laid at my door. Which was why I called myself Chloe McMurderess when I started this blog.

So, when this big black guy, the size of a small tank, turned up outside my caravan, no wonder I flipped out. Who wouldn’t?

Because you see, Psychoman DeWayne Radford-Mitchell had been a drug dealer, a big-time dealer. I say big-time because I had poured tons of his shit, be it heroin, cocaine, whatever the fuck it was, down the drains of a back street in West Garside,

For certain, it wasn’t baby powder he’d hidden in quantity in the boot of his Audi A4 Avant. That was the car that I used to flee to Spain and which was now parked outside my caravan under a cover sheet. Thinking about it now, I should have got rid of that car as soon as I got to Benidorm, took it up into the hills and burnt it or dropped down a deep ravine. Still 20/20 hindsight and all that, eh?

So, was this guy from the same drugs gang, out to take revenge for both DeWayne’s death and the tons of missing shit? I mean, they weren’t to know it was all down a drain in West Garside, were they? I’d bet those sewer rats are still high, even after all these months, there was just so much of the fuck-ing stuff.

Consequently, there I was on my bike, having taken a couple of days off from my job as a barmaid at Molly Malone’s, an Irish bar on Calle Gerona, and I thought about pedalling off as quickly as I could, but my legs were so jellied, I doubt I could have got very far.

Anyway, as if reading my mind, he moved very quickly for a big guy and grabbed the handlebars with a hand the size of a dinner plate.

‘I don’t think that would be a very good idea, do you?’ he said, strange-ly without menace in his voice, but very scary just the same.

‘Who, who are you?’ I managed to ask again.

‘I hope for your sake that I’m going to be your new best friend because the alternative, your worst nightmare, is not recommended. No, I promise you that your worst nightmare is not recommended at all. So, what’s it going to be?’

‘I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I, new best friend?’

‘No, Chloe, you don’t.’