Hot Blood (Bloodwords Book 1) Read online

  ‘No it doesn’t love.’ The table set, Mike had hobbled painfully down the three steps to their huge living area, which with its mezzanine gallery and two storey high windows giving views over their fields, was his favourite room in the whole house. ‘We bought the buildings true enough, but not the fields and the land the barn stands on. Your Dad gifted those to us. So now that the old man is gone, your brother has decided that they are all half his. And if he can get his grubby little hands on the land, then since our house stands on it, the house comes for free as well. No my love, your dear brother is claiming his half of everything as though it still belonged to your Dad and hadn’t been gifted in the first place; your Dad is no longer with us so he knows that there is nobody to contradict him. I think that he is going for the jugular.’

  ‘Oh Mike’ she exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that melodramatic? Surely my own brother wouldn’t try to grab it all for himself and leave me homeless? And what about the original documents – they will show that it was all legal.’

  ‘Only if they exist’ Mike responded. ‘There’s a lot at stake so brotherly love might well have gone out the window. As for documents, your dear brother is using your Dad’s solicitor. That’s convenient to say the least. He drew the gift up but what’s the betting that he’ll say that there are no records of anything and he doesn’t recall any such gift.’

  ‘If I could find our copies then it would all be cut and dried.’.

  ‘Of course it would. But we can’t. We’ve been through this a million times. We were in such a mess when we were converting the barn that we didn’t know where anything was and it’s my guess that when the contractors cleared the site, some boxes of things we should have kept were thrown away with the rubbish, so documentation of the gift is among the things we don’t have. All we have is the record at the Land Registry. That proves that we own everything. But that’s not the issue. It’s how we came to own it all that he is jumping up and down about. We know the land was gifted, your brother knows it was gifted, bloody hell, everyone knows that it was gifted, but he feels left out of your Pop’s will and is fighting for what he believes is his inheritance. At least, that is what he is claiming. You and I both know that that is not the real motive. He’s desperate, needs money and land, and this is a way to get both. If that wasn’t the case my guts wouldn’t be as raw as the meat on the butcher’s slab and I wouldn’t be walking about like a cripple or living on pain killers.’

  Before she could answer, the doorbell rang. Their discussion cut abruptly, the unspoken question of who their visitor might be hung in the air as they looked worriedly at each other. Was this the big guns coming out? Was somebody coming to add some weight to the previous pressure? Was this unfinished business? Mike raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips and, looking at his wife, shook his head slowly from side to side in a visual ‘I’ve no idea’ response.

  Joan brought two strangers into the room. ‘It’s the police Mike.’

  ‘Good evening Mr Johnson.’ The older of the two, a tall and immaculately dressed man in his fifties, with clean features and greying hair beginning to recede introduced himself as Detective Inspector Radcliffe and his sidekick as Detective Sergeant Fraser. ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions about the attack please.’

  Rubbing his bruised ribs, Mike struggled to rise then fell back into his chair. Normally placid, pain had taken its toll on his patience. His face ruddy and veins starting to protrude, the prospect of repeating yet again what he had already said several times pushed him even closer to snapping.

  ‘For Christ’s sake inspector’ he stormed, ‘I know who worked me over and I’m trying to forget it as much as I can, but you lot keep turning up to remind me. Pardon my cynicism but I’ve already told you exactly what happened and who attacked me but nobody seems to care a shit. I suggest that you check back in your reports if you want the details. Now if that’s all, we are about to eat our evening meal. Goodbye inspector.’

  ‘I’m sorry if you’ve been troubled that much sir,’ said the tall officer. ‘I am not surprised that you want to put it all behind you as much as possible but a beating of the severity you received is a serious crime and we cannot just ignore it. As for who did it, at the moment we don’t know. But please Mr Johnson, don’t keep blaming your brother-in-law. At the time you were being attacked he was nowhere near here. We have witnesses corroborating that.’

  ‘No he wasn’t. I tell you it was definitely him. I know that it was dark and by the time I was facing him my vision had gone anyway, but it was him. There’s no doubt at all. It’s not just the attack. He’s breaking my family and trying to steal my house, so if you cannot sort him out then he’ll have another go at me. Before I’ll let that happen I will kill the bugger myself.’

  ‘Mr Johnson,’ the young sergeant cut in. ‘I advise you not to make rash accusations like that. We want a conclusion just as much as you do and I assure you that we are making progress. We’ve taken on-board what you have said and we are continuing to make enquiries, both with respect to your brother-in-law and to any other potential suspect. But at the moment he’s in the clear.’

  ‘Like hell he is!’

  ‘Mr Johnson, please keep an open mind.’ Why did everybody get bogged down with their own agenda instead of accepting the facts thought the inspector. ‘We need to check up on a few things to help us resolve this. Did you come straight back here to the house that evening or did you divert somewhere else on the way?’

  ‘Why is that important? I was jumped at the back of my car in my own driveway so what the devil has my route from work to home got to do with anything?’

  Give me strength thought Radcliffe. Who’s asking the questions here? Given the facts they knew, the dreaded brother-in-law wasn’t even in the frame for the attack so Johnson’s route home would be entirely relevant. If he had stopped off somewhere then he might have been followed, say by an opportune thief spying his chance only to be frightened off when the phone rang and lights came on.

  Or what if Johnson was playing away? Now that was a thought. In front of his wife, wouldn’t that explain why he didn’t want to disclose whether or not he had come directly home from his shop? Yes, quite a possibility. If Johnson was having something of a dalliance, what if the lady’s husband had been watching and had followed him back home. Plenty of scope in that theory wasn’t there? And opportunity too.

  ‘Well it could be important. Your shop closes at five thirty and it’s only fifteen minutes drive back here to Crosshill Village, but you said that you didn’t arrive until around eight thirty. That leaves almost three hours unaccounted for. Wherever you were, anybody could have followed you back here and unless we can check it all out we will be none the wiser. Help us out here Mr Johnson.’

  This really was getting nowhere except for round and round in circles. Radcliffe looked Johnson in the eye with a quizzical expression and left the silence to do its work. Radcliffe was a past master of the silence psychology and knew that Johnson would be the first to break. He’s also wager that no matter where he had been or what he had been doing, and despite his wife’s sudden attentiveness, the beans would be spilled.

  It wasn’t Johnson but a strident wail that suddenly broke the spell. Over in the kitchen a smoke alarm was vibrating itself to destruction, sounding like the air exiting the stretched neck of a balloon.

  Oh crikey. The carrots!’ exclaimed Joan as she flung herself up the steps into the split-level kitchen. ‘I left them on a low light and they must have boiled dry. Just look at them, burned to a cinder. Mike, can you shut that blasted siren up?’

  Crunching across the gravel, the sergeant looked at his superior. ‘What do you make of that then? He’s adamant that his brother-in-law worked him over isn’t he? Do you think that there’s any credibility in it? To me he just seems so hell bent on it that he cannot see any other alternative.’

  ‘He could be right at that Fraser. Don’t rule anything out until it is proven and cast in stone. He might look to be on th
e better side now but if I had been worked over to the extent that Johnson was and I had recognised the voice of my attacker, I would be hell bent on bringing him to justice as well, even if my attacker was a relative. Actually, probably moreso. All the same, that dratted smoke alarm stopped us getting an answer to where he was between closing his shop and getting home. There could be more than meets the eye there or it could just be a red herring, so let’s keep all our options open and not preconceive anything. We need to delve a little before we make assumptions. Maybe a look at his shop will suggest a few options.’

  ……….

  Walking down the street, Radcliffe couldn’t help but cast his mind back a decade or so. What had been a thriving area of the town centre had, without doubt, gone downhill. The supermarket had only lasted a couple of years before moving to a new site and the old store had become an eyesore; an empty shell with filthy windows and graffiti spattered walls. Further up the street, empty shops stood shoulder to shoulder with a few in which hopeful new tenants were trying their hardest to start businesses. They seldom lasted more than three months and usually lost all their money.

  Crossing over and turning the corner, about half way down a block of shops he could see The Palette. The street ran obliquely to the empty supermarket and although every shop was occupied and trading, the common view was that that was but temporary. The council’s introduction of a one-way traffic system with bollards at each end of this previously thriving thoroughfare had not turned it into a bustling pedestrianised shopping centre but, rather, an empty street devoid of any shoppers. Yet just around the corner, Chapel Street had benefited from pedestrianisation, attracting top line multiples and drawing shoppers away from Southport’s established traditional traders.

  Reputedly, Mike Johnson had made a packet out of his art shop. A career change to rid himself of the stresses of being a chef in a busy coastal resort hotel, he had invested his savings and indulged his passion – painting. Everybody in town knew The Palette. And they knew Mike Johnson. Something of an extrovert, he had become the local celebrity, regularly teaching small and large groups. In good weather, old ladies, wealthy wives with too much spare time, and anyone else who would pay the course fee, trooped out with their easels and little wooden boxes full of paint and brushes to create pretty views of the Marine Lake, Promenade or beach. And when that was not possible they sat around in Johnson’s studio above the shop.

  For Johnson it was a captive clientele. If they were having a lesson or were part of a group then they also bought their canvasses and paper from him, their paints, brushes, thinners and cleaners – and of course the essential wooden boxes to keep them all in and their easels too. The courses were inexpensive but the supplies costly and profitable.

  Unlikely then that one of his customers might have been responsible for attacking him. The blue rinse brigade would hardly be in a position to raise even a paintbrush in anger. But what about the idle rich? What about those wealthy wives with nothing to do? Had Johnson struck up a friendship with one of his more attractive and younger students and got himself worked over by an angry husband for his efforts?

  ‘This place is going down the pan.’

  ‘Seems OK to me boss’ replied the sergeant. ‘Plenty of stock in the window, some nice pictures for sale too. Looks as though he is doing fine.’

  ‘No, not the shop, the whole lot. I remember this street when you had to drive round and round just to get a parking space and there always seemed to be six people in front of you at every shop too. Now look at it, it’s desolate. Most of these shops used to trade to six or halfpast but now they close before five. Talking of which, it’s close to that now, or will be by the time we’ve got back to the station.’

  Three

  Yet again the council had done something stupid. Of that they could be relied on. Everything they did upset somebody, and this time it was him.

  For several years, David Preston had operated from an office at the end of a row of shops. It was ideal. Located at a road junction, with its typical mid-wars architecture of metal framed windows with stone sills high from the ground and an impressive stone framed entry door, the former bank was high visibility from all four directions, saving a small fortune on marketing. Since taking the building over, Preston had parked his car right outside his office. Originally a garden but asphalted years ago by the bank to create hard standing, the area between the pavement and the building could easily accommodate eight cars, four along each side of the corner unit. The first space, the only one with lowered kerb access, was always bagged by David himself, but none of his clients had ever complained about having to drive over the kerb to park. It all worked just fine.

  Then along came the council to upset everybody. The road surface at the cross road had been raised to the level of the pavement in a sort of big flat road hump that they referred to as a raised table, supposedly for traffic calming. An existing pedestrian crossing had then been relocated closer to the junction – actually on the raised part – and white lines painted on the pavement with cycle symbols. The overall result had been to create a launch pad for vehicles that did not reduce speed, and which couldn’t then stop for pedestrians trying to use the crossing, some of whom had already been scared out of their wits on the pavement as they approached the crossing by harum scarum youths on bikes.

  It all seemed sheer folly to Preston. Long recognised locally as unsafe, since the works had been completed it had become much worse, making a previously problem junction decidedly dangerous. And in any case, what right had the council to mark up part of the pavement for cycles? Riding cycles on the pavement was illegal wasn’t it? As a solicitor he should know. But the worst of it all was that for more than fifty metres from the junction, bollards had been fixed along the pavement, leaving the dropped kerb at David’s parking spot the only means of access. If he parked in his usual spot, nobody else could gain entry and any already parked were blocked in. A once valuable client facility had become a small staff car park with only a four-car capacity. So how long before the loss of client car parking affected his business?

  Hanging his jacket on a coat stand and setting a monogrammed leather brief case down at his side, he dropped into his comfy high backed executive chair and pulled himself up to his desk. A brown folder was to his left while half a dozen letters and other sheets of paper had been set out in front of him. Each had another sheet with neatly written notes and questions folded around from the side and held by a paper clip. One by one he worked through them, reading his assistant’s notes for each one, then signing the letters and adding his responses to the questions on the others.

  The door opened as he completed the last one. A cup of freshly brewed tea was placed on his desk and the sheaf of papers, including the now signed letters, gathered up. He didn’t thank her for the tea and didn’t comment on any of the things she had worked hard to prepare for him. He never did. She had worked for him since he had opened the office and knew his ways inside out. Always in the office an hour before he arrived, she always had any papers needing signing on his desk, his diary open at the day’s appointments and the associated files ready. She knew that next he would quip that she must have been early that day and would ask who his first appointment was. Even if he had nothing else to do he would keep them waiting. He always did, regular as clockwork. Even if they arrived late. The whole episode was a ritual of which recently she was beginning to get more and more infuriated every day. Why couldn’t he just be normal instead of being so pompous and assumptive?

  ‘You must have been in early this morning to get everything sorted before I arrived. That’s good, it means you won’t have to break in to my first session. Who’s up first? What time is my first appointment? What do you think of my new pen – it’s a Mont Blanc?’

  One of these days she would really tell him what she thought. And not just the pen either. If it wasn’t for the fact that her salary went into the bank as regular as clockwork she would have let fly long ago. ‘It’s
very nice. But I wouldn’t know the difference between that and a Parker myself’ she said. ‘It’s the family feud first. They are on time and waiting in reception. Shall I show them in?’

  ‘No. Let them wait. Tell them I am on a conference call. Show them in in about ten minutes.’

  Preston liked family feuds. Surpassed only by property conveyancing, family disputes gave his legal practise a regular income and the particular problem now stewing in his reception had the potential to out-perform most others. Not only had he taken on their side of their dispute, with newly split loyalties he stood to also to pick up the guy’s business account. Oh bully for families. And bravo for feuds and disputes.

  David Preston had known them for as long as he could remember, though more as acquaintances than friends. The wife’s father had been a small-time local farmer. Her brother was well known around the area. All the family used the father’s solicitor, so although Preston played golf with her husband he had never been able to take his legal business until the feud had blown up.

  Family feuds were never pleasant (except for the solicitor raking in his fees) but when all you had worked for was at stake it was bound to have an effect. The woman looked apprehensively at her husband who sat awkwardly in one of the two upright chairs facing the solicitor’s desk. He hadn’t complained, but it had been obvious that even the short walk from the car had caused him pain and he was tired and edgy.

  ‘Let’s get this over as quickly as we can’ he snapped. ‘We’ve driven round and round the block trying to find somewhere to park and ended up outside the Post Office. We are stuck between a big truck unloading potatoes for the chip shop and a Spar van delivering to the supermarket. God knows how many dents there will be by the time we get back. And with the state of my ribs and legs I was dead on my feet by the time we had walked to here. Let’s get on with it.’