The york minster killing.., p.1
The York Minster Killings, page 1
THE YORK MINSTER KILLINGS
WES MARKIN
To Andy’s Man Club – it’s good to talk.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Thank you!
Acknowledgements
More from Wes Markin
About the Author
Also by Wes Markin
The Murder List
About Boldwood Books
PROLOGUE
In the shadow of York Minster another stone hit him.
He gritted his teeth against the pain. The bullies laughed.
He waited for it to stop, to go quiet, and then opened his eyes.
They were leaving.
He didn’t get to his feet just yet, content to stare at the Gothic towers spearing into a blood-red sky.
Was this a dream or was this real?
Did it matter?
Maybe not – the bullies were real. Always had been.
Always would be.
Crows circled now.
A few at first, though they quickly multiplied. Suddenly, there were hundreds, descending from the Minster’s towers like a black avalanche.
Always.
He closed his eyes, willing them to leave, but when he opened them again, they were all around him. Hopping. Cocking heads. Penetrating with eyes locked somewhere between life and death.
He thought of his Irish gran; dead almost five years. The only person who ever really seemed to have time for him.
Who fought his corner.
She once told him a story of battlefield crows. ‘The ones that would choose who lived, and who died.’
There was the Morrigan, though he’d thought it sounded more like ‘Morgan’ when he was younger. ‘A queen who became a crow.’
Or maybe she was always a crow?
It had been many years since she’d told him the story, and he’d read a great deal since then.
Three crows came close.
Three sisters?
The first pecked at his hands where the stones had cut. The second at his cheek where tears mixed with blood. The third watched. But that was so much worse.
Those that watch. That allow this. That somehow relish this.
‘Washer at the ford,’ his gran’s voice echoed. ‘She washes the blood from your clothes before you die.’
But there was no water.
Then there were more beaks and feathers.
Brothers and sisters.
A thousand tiny wounds opening across his skin.
But it didn’t hurt any more.
There was only release.
Yes… he lay, still encouraging them.
Peck deeper.
Find the poison in my veins.
The fever in my brain.
Make me clean. Make me empty.
Take away the grief in my heart…
‘It’s a good heart,’ DI Paul Riddick said.
‘Can you please not talk for another moment, Paul?’ Dr Mitchell said.
‘Strong,’ Riddick said, ignoring the command. ‘I mean, I’d know, wouldn’t I?’
‘Please, Paul…’ Jerome, the assisting nurse, added.
The cardiologist withdrew the biopsy forceps from the catheter threaded through his jugular.
Riddick sighed, as he always did during these quarterly endomyocardial biopsies, over the peculiar sensation, which he assumed to be psychological.
Ice water trickling backward through his bloodstream towards his transplanted heart.
A gauze pad was pressed firmly against the puncture site in his neck. ‘All done,’ Mitchell said.
‘Rejection results in forty-eight hours?’ Riddick said with a raised eyebrow.
Mitchell smiled. ‘Have I become that predictable?’
‘Well, maybe we can start cutting it down to twice a year or even once a year?’ Riddick asked. ‘Like I said, it’s a good heart…’
‘Sorry, Paul, not yet. I’m sure it is a good heart, but we follow the procedures for a reason.’
Procedures, Riddick thought. Speak to most people and they will tell you that I’ve always had a problem with procedures. He thought it best to keep this to himself.
Riddick nodded, acknowledging that Mitchell was right. After all, it’d only been just over a year since the esteemed heart surgeon, Dr Gresham, had given him this second chance at life with this good heart. Although, a notable mention should go to the poor twenty-four-year-old motorcyclist from Leeds who’d supplied it.
‘I know it’s difficult,’ Mitchell said. ‘But so far so good… Let’s not put it into jeopardy.’
‘I agree,’ Riddick said, despite the inner turmoil he felt over the frequent tests, as well as the medication schedules.
It was a good job he had his smartphone to keep him on track – he wondered how people used to manage their medication regimes.
Tacrolimus with breakfast to suppress his immune system, prednisolone with lunch despite the weight gain it caused, omeprazole before bed to protect his stomach from the cocktail of other medications slowly poisoning him to keep him alive.
‘Any chest pain, shortness of breath, unusual fatigue, or bleeding from the site, call immediately,’ Mitchell said. ‘So, it goes without saying that there is no heavy lifting for twenty-four hours.’ Just before he turned to leave the room, Mitchell turned back. ‘Oh, and I strongly advise you to take the rest of the day off… maybe tomorrow too.’
Riddick smiled and said, ‘Bye, Doc.’
Mitchell sighed, interpreting that smile for exactly what it meant.
Time off?
Are you mad?
1
He didn’t even make it to the car before the option of the rest of the day off disappeared in a puff of smoke.
One of his mobile phones rang. And not his personal one.
He tried to stem the surge of adrenaline, for obvious health reasons, but this was a tall order, especially when the only person who contacted him on this mobile was his informant, who was not due to check in for another couple of days.
Jamie Morrison.
Nineteen-year-old Jamie was a small-time dealer from Tang Hall with fingernails bitten down to an eye-watering degree. Jamie was certainly no rock – in fact, he was as shaky as they came – but he remained Riddick’s best source of intelligence on the recent spate of commercial burglaries plaguing York’s city centre.
Also, the paranoid ones always came good – it made them more observant. If they could get away with jumping at every shadow and staying alive, then they were absolute gold dust.
The fact that the phone was ringing right now suggested one of two things. Hopefully, something was about to happen that he had the inside scoop on. Or, probably more likely, he’d been spotted jumping at shadows and was in mortal danger.
Riddick was about to answer the phone when a few nurses came close, and he was subject to their conversation about long shifts, so he waited a moment to answer. When the sound of the nurses was behind him, and all he could hear was the traffic humming along the ring road close to York Hospital, he contacted Jamie.
‘Jamie?’
The voice that came through was high-pitched and breathless. ‘Thank God you picked up.’
Riddick tried his best to not jump immediately to the most negative conclusion – after all, Jamie nearly always sounded like this anyway. ‘Go on, Jamie.’
‘They know… they bloody know!’
Riddick felt the icy February wind, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples with his available hand. The news was bad. Still… rein it in… calm it down. ‘Okay, Jamie. Slow down. Deep breaths. Who knows what?’
‘Danny Hurren.’
‘He’s been asking questions about who I’ve been talking to. I’m buggered. I’m absolutely fu—’
‘Jamie,’ Riddick said, moving away from the hospital entrance, seeking privacy near the car park’s edge. ‘You don’t know he discovered anything. Who gave you this information?’
‘Christ… Shit… I’ve got to run…’
‘Jamie… tell me where you are and what’s happening?’
‘A black BMW, been following me since I left the betting shop.’
‘Are you sure? You’ve been jumpy lately…’ Well, always, but…
‘No, it’s them. I recognise the driver – it’s one of Hurren’s boys. Big lad with the scar through his eyebrow.’
Riddick’s stomach dropped. This wasn’t paranoia – this was real. Jamie in genuine danger, and Riddick potentially too far away to help.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Jamie said.
‘Where are you?’
‘Tang Hall Explore Library. The car park.’
‘Go into the library… Stay visible…’
The line was already dead.
Riddick jogged to his car.
No heavy lifting for twenty-four hours.
He suddenly felt like he had a twenty-kilo dumbbell in each hand.
2
It was a cold February morning and the heater in Graham Blank’s 2008 Ford Focus was broken.
Still, it didn’t stop the sweat pooling in the small of his back and the steering wheel slipping under his wet palms.
The traffic jam hadn’t moved in twenty-three minutes.
He stared at his dashboard, trying to concentrate despite his vision swimming in and out of focus. One hundred and eighty thousand miles on the clock.
The time caught his eye next.
Missing Lucy’s hospital appointment now seemed a foregone conclusion. She was due at 10 a.m. and he’d not even picked her up. The way it was going, it’d already be ten by the time he did.
He looked back up. The windscreen was fogging from the heat of his fever. He coughed and hit the steering wheel.
Bollocks!
He rolled his head, trying to ease the tension in his neck. He swallowed; his throat burned and he closed his eyes.
Stay calm. Stay focused. Everything depends on that ten o’clock appointment. Everything.
You can still do it.
He cracked the window, allowing the glass to clear, and then looked around.
Who was he kidding?
York’s Viking Festival had turned Hull Road into a car park. Tourist coaches lined up like siege engines along the Heslington Road junction, disgorging crowds in plastic horned helmets and fake fur cloaks. Red and white banners fluttered from every lamppost: Jorvik Viking Festival – Experience the Past!
York University’s accommodation blocks rose like concrete monuments. Students walked freely along the pavements, carrying coffee cups. Laughing.
Look at them living their lives while I stay trapped in this metal box. While the whole world around me shrinks to—
A coughing fit seized him.
He spat crap out the window.
His eyes went back to the LED dashboard.
I’m like a fly around lights…
Nine fifteen.
I’ve no fucking chance.
He needed to call his ex-wife’s mother, Samantha. Warn her that she needed to get Lucy to the hospital in a taxi before it was too late. He grabbed his phone from the other seat. Three per cent battery remaining.
‘Piece of shit.’
It beeped its disgusted reply. A warning that the battery was now 2 per cent. A notification showed a missed voicemail. He needed the battery for Samantha, but what if Samantha had phoned him already…
What if Lucy had phoned him?
The message incensed him. Not because it wasn’t from either of them, but because it was so damned antagonistic.
‘You have missed your 9 a.m. appointment at Jobcentre Plus, York. This is your third consecutive missed appointment. A sanction decision will be made within seven to fourteen working days. Your Universal Credit payments may be reduced during the sanction period.’
Shit! He’d forgotten! Again.
Third consecutive missed appointment meant automatic sanctions.
The ‘may’ was bollocks. He was certain to lose over ten pounds a day.
‘Stone the fucking crows,’ he said.
For Graham Blanks, things were going from bad to worse.
3
Three months into his deployment with York’s Intelligence Analysis Unit, Riddick was finally starting to feel useful again.
The workload was manageable, but since it was practically a desk job, it was difficult at first. Gone were the adrenaline-filled days of chasing suspects up flights of stairs.
However, it was at least keeping his brain active. The only alternative really was daytime TV or early retirement and then work doing God knows what. And it was much easier to stay on the straight and narrow this way. No temptations, and limited opportunities for maverick behaviours which had cost him so dearly in the past.
This moment, this high-speed race towards Tang Hall Explore Library, was an anomaly.
Riddick wouldn’t go so far as to say he was enjoying it – after all, a man’s life was on the line – but he couldn’t deny that he was suddenly feeling alive again.
And his heart was thrashing in his chest.
Or, rather, the motorcyclist’s heart.
He tried calling the other member of the Intelligence Analysis team while driving. They didn’t answer. He recalled last night’s leaving event organised for DC Michael Webb who was taking a secondment to Counterterrorism in some other part of the country. They were probably nursing a hangover. Riddick had been happy to give the morning hospital appointment as his excuse, as well as the need for someone to be on hand to welcome Webb’s replacement. Plus, he didn’t go to bars or pubs any more for obvious reasons. It was rather insensitive of them to arrange the farewell in such a location. The fact that he was a recovering alcoholic was no secret.
From Jamie’s call, it did sound like their operation was about to go up in flames.
They’d been tracking Danny Hurren’s crew for months, building a case around what had started as petty shop burglaries but showed signs of escalating into something far more serious. Also, if Jamie’s cover was blown, he may need witness protection. That required authorisation from above, safe houses arranged through proper channels – it was a lot of faff. The situation was going to get messy.
He tried Jamie again. Straight to voicemail. He resisted the urge to tell him to get inside the library and act like he was reading. If Jamie was collared by Hurren, he may end up hearing Riddick’s message, thus confirming Jamie’s betrayal, and possibly condemning him to… well… who knows? It certainly wouldn’t be pretty whatever the outcome.
The route from York Hospital to Tang Hall would normally take him down Hull Road, but he was aware of the Viking Festival chaos choking the main arteries. Three months of surveillance work had given him intimate knowledge of these alternative approaches: the network of residential roads, the mix of social housing and newer developments that comprised this corner of York. He took the A1237 outer ring road, then cut in via the A1079 – a longer route but one that avoided the tourist gridlock.
