NO AGE TO DIE: The release of a dangerous prisoner leads to murder (DCI John Blizzard Book 9) by John Dean (digital ebook reader .txt) 📕

Silence settled on the car again as the officers watched the final lights being switched off in the terraced houses surrounding the church. By midnight, the detectives had the streets to themselves, having watched as the last of the drunks had reeled past their vehicles, wending their weary way home.

‘Maybe Phil Calvert sold us out, after all,’ said Blizzard. ‘Maybe they’ve called it off.’

‘No, I think we’re OK,’ said the sergeant. ‘According to the surveillance lads, Margaret Hatton is still at the hotel. Has been since St Clair visited her this afternoon. If she thought that we’d rumbled them, she’d have had it away on her toes that fast, wouldn’t she?’

‘Maybe,’ said Blizzard. ‘But the team we put on St Clair hasn’t seen him since they lost him after he left the hotel, have they? Maybe it is a blowout.’

Colley did not reply; the thought that he was kidding himself had been increasingly nagging away at him for the best part of an hour. However, just before one o’clock, with Blizzard wondering whether or not to call off the operation as the officers shared the streets with only the occasional skulking cat, Colley spotted a movement in the darkest corner of the garden, beyond the church.

‘There,’ he said quietly.

The detectives sank deeper into their seats and peered into the night as best they could from their low vantage point. There was definitely someone picking their way between the apple trees. Two people, both dressed in dark clothes and with their faces partially obscured by balaclavas. One of them appeared to have a haversack on his back. They spent several seconds looking hard at the detectives’ car but eventually concluded that it was empty, unable to make out the detectives in the darkness.

The new arrivals walked tentatively across the garden, towards the church, constantly looking around to make sure that no one was watching them. As they edged their way along the side of the church and slipped round to the front, standing beneath the picture window, they were briefly illuminated by one of the street lights.

‘I’m pretty sure that Calvert’s the one without the bag,’ said Colley.

The men gave the street a final scan then each grabbed a drainpipe on either side of the glass window. The watching detectives could see some loose brickwork come away in the hands of one of the men. Blizzard reached for his radio.

‘Nobody moves,’ he said quietly. ‘On my command only.’

The detectives watched as the men swiftly climbed the drainpipes. Having reached the top, they swung themselves over the guttering and onto the roof. The man with the haversack then lowered the bag and together they bundled out a bulky object. As they unfurled it, it soon revealed itself as the banner but the detectives could not make out the words from such distance and in such darkness. Standing on the roof edge, the man held a hurried conversation then stretched out the banner. Quickly, they started to tie the ends to the drainpipes and lowered the material over the top half of the window, obscuring Jesus Christ’s face.

‘All units go!’ exclaimed Blizzard into his radio. ‘All units go!’

He and the sergeant leapt from their cars and ran towards the church. Ramsay and Allatt did likewise from the other end, able to make out the words on the banner as they approached. No More Perverts. The men on the roof heard them coming and glanced down. One of them seemed rooted to the spot but the one with the bag swung himself recklessly over the edge and started to shin down the drainpipe, hands grasping frantically for secure holds.

‘Stop, police!’ shouted Blizzard.

The man ignored the command and kept climbing. Halfway down, though, he caught his foot between pipe and wall, and with a yell, twisted outwards. Making a desperate grab for the drainpipe, he screamed as it came away in his hands. Desperately, he hurled himself towards the wall but missed and with a shattering of glass and a terrified screech, he plunged through the window, into the darkness of the church. They heard a dull thud from inside – then silence.

Leaving Ramsay and Allatt to coax down a horrified Phil Calvert, Blizzard and Colley rushed round to the front of the church. Colley kicked in the door savagely and, snapping on lights as they went, the detectives raced over to the window, coming to a halt and staring down at the sight which met their gaze. There, sprawled obscenely across the floor, his limbs twisted beneath him, was the man, a huge shard of glass jutting out of his chest. Blizzard reached down and pulled aside the balaclava.

‘Is it him?’ asked Colley, ashen-faced.

‘It is.’ Blizzard looked into the lifeless face of Edgar Rose-Harvey. ‘Meet Matthew St Clair.’

‘I take it he’s dead?’

Blizzard felt for a pulse.

‘He is,’ he said. The inspector noticed several shards of the shattered window lying nearby, smeared with blood.

‘I guess they got their stained glass, after all,’ he said. ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’

And he walked out of the church and into the night.

Chapter thirty-three

The next morning, a weary John Blizzard, thick-headed and still short of sleep, arrived early at Abbey Road Police Station and drove through the group of journalists who had gathered in front of the building, having received the press release revealing the death at St John’s. The inspector ignored the shouted questions and had just walked into his office and switched on the kettle when Arthur Ronald entered the room.

‘I see the jackals are gathering again,’ said the superintendent. He sat down at the desk.

‘Big story,’ said Blizzard, reaching for the teabags. ‘And it’s going to get bigger.’

‘But is it one we can tell now that Matthew St Clair