No Going Back by Casey Kelleher (bill gates books recommendations TXT) 📕

Riley?’ Ashley said, holding the bar up and threatening to hit him again if he didn’t speak. ‘You attacked my wife and you took our son.’ Ashley watched the recognition of who he was sink in on the man’s face. His furious anger at being attacked replaced by something else. Shock? Confusion? He held his hands up, begging Ashley to stop.

But Ashley wasn’t going to stop. Not until he told him where his son was. The bar came down again, splitting the man’s scalp and sending a stream of blood trickling down his forehead. Jay-Jay fought back. Scrabbling to his feet, he punched out, his fist locking with Ashley’s jaw, sending the man flying across the room with the brute force of pent-up rage now, incensed at being so viciously attacked.

‘I haven’t got your kid. And I didn’t attack your fucking wife.’

He grabbed the bar, smashing it down on Ashley’s body; losing control, he hit Ashley over and over again, as the younger man cowered on the floor amongst all the dirt and debris.

Suddenly, light filled the room as the sound of a commotion came through the lounge door.

‘Put the weapon down. NOW!’ Lucy Murphy shouted, holding up her badge, two other officers behind her.

She took in the scene: the mess that was Ashley Cooke, lying on the floor battered. Jay-Jay Andrews looming over him.

Jay-Jay shook his head.

‘And what are you lot? The fucking cavalry? Can’t a man even get a few hours’ kip in peace?’ Jay-Jay smirked, dropping the bar and holding his hands in the air to show compliance. Part of him glad that it was now over.

43

‘Well, that was a turn up for the books!’ Holder said now that they were back at the station and going through a quick briefing before they talked to Jay-Jay Andrews once again.

‘The last person I was expecting to arrest today was Pete Baker. Looks like we got there just in time though, Sarge. Him and Carl Rangers are both insisting that they just “popped into the Bolands for a friendly chat”, if you’d believe that. Only the Bolands aren’t saying any different. Though I’m sure the fact that no one’s talking isn’t going to come as much of a surprise!’

‘It’s the law of the land, isn’t it? Don’t grass and don’t incriminate anyone. Not even your enemies.’ DS Morgan frowned, knowing that this would be the case. ‘What about the shotgun?’

‘Two handguns and a shotgun have been seized from the property and sent to Forensics. No one’s staking a claim on them. I’d happily bet my life that the shotgun, at least, belongs to either Pete Baker or Carl Rangers, because there’s no way that they turned up at the Bolands’ place empty-handed. They were there for blood. Only without any evidence or allegations, we’ve got nothing on them. We’ll have to let them go. And the Bolands will be the ones taking the rap for the firearms,’ Holder said, glad that they had managed to have something concrete on the Boland brothers at least.

‘Well, I’m getting nowhere with Jay-Jay Andrews,’ Lucy said. ‘He won’t talk either. But it’s pretty much a given now that he’s linked to the Boland brothers, isn’t it? Now that we’ve managed to link Ashley to both parties too.’

‘And what about Ashley Cooke? How is he doing?’ DS Morgan asked, knowing that the man had been taken to St George’s in an ambulance. That Jay-Jay Andrews had left him in a bad way.

‘It looked worse than it was, Sarge. He’s got a broken wrist and a mild concussion, but luckily for him he’ll live. At least until Pete Baker gets his hands on him, now that he knows that it was Ashley who fleeced him for the ransom money so that he could pay off the loan sharks he owed. Good intentions or not.’

‘And still, we are no closer to finding out where Riley Cooke is.’ DS Morgan rubbed his head, frustrated beyond belief. The first twenty-four hours of a child abduction investigation were the most critical and they were already twelve hours in, and still no nearer to finding who took the child. ‘I want you in with Jay-Jay Andrews again. Something isn’t right. Everything we have leads back to him. He must know something.’

‘That’s just it though, Sarge. Something doesn’t feel right, does it? When I got to the house, he was bellowing at Ashley, saying he didn’t have Riley and that he didn’t attack Shelby,’ Lucy said.

‘And you believe him?’

Lucy nodded. ‘He didn’t know we were there at that point. Why would he say it if it wasn’t true? And it doesn’t fit. Why would Jay-Jay Andrews cut the babies from his victims’ stomach? What’s his motive?’

‘Why do any of these sick fuckers do anything that they do?’ Holder interjected, knowing that there wasn’t always rhyme or reason to most crimes that were committed. ‘Half the time, I don’t think they know what motivates them. It’s just an urge. Like some sick fetish…’

‘But Jay-Jay doesn’t fit the profile,’ Lucy said, taking a sip of her coffee and drinking it down, despite the fact that it had now gone freezing cold. Currently twelve hours into her shift, with no sign of being able to finish for the day anytime soon, she figured she would need all the caffeine she could get.

‘Zack Lownrey said something that stuck with me. Kidnappers’ motives are usually money or power, so it would make sense if Jay-Jay had ordered a ransom for Riley’s return, but he didn’t. That was Ashley,’ Lucy said, still trying to piece the puzzle together. Because they were trying to make Jay-Jay Andrews fit, but it didn’t sit right with her.

‘And if Jay-Jay did carry out the attacks on Liza Fitzgerald and Shelby, what was his motive? Because so far, none of this is adding up,’ Lucy said as the penny finally dropped amongst her colleagues then, too, that she was right.

They were on the wrong track.

Then looking at her sergeant, Lucy added,