The Cold Hand of Malice Read online

  Table of Contents

  Also by Frank Smith

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Also by Frank Smith

  The Chief Inspector Paget Mysteries

  ACTS OF VENGEANCE

  THREAD OF EVIDENCE

  CANDLES FOR THE DEAD

  STONE DEAD

  FATAL FLAW

  BREAKING POINT

  THE COLD HAND OF MALICE

  Other Novels

  DRAGON’S BREATH

  THE TRAITOR MASK

  DEFECTORS ARE DEAD MEN

  CORPSE IN HANDCUFFS

  SOUND THE SILENT TRUMPETS

  THE COLD HAND OF MALICE

  A DCI Neil Paget Mystery

  Frank Smith

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2009 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2009 by Frank Smith.

  The right of Frank Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Smith, Frank, 1927-

  The cold hand of malice. – (A DCI Neil Paget mystery)

  1. Paget, Neil (Fictitious character) – Fiction 2. Police –

  Great Britain – Fiction 3. Murder – Investigation – Fiction

  4. Couple–owned business enterprises – Fiction

  5. Detective and mystery stories

  I. Title

  813.5'4[F]

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-375-4 (epub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6749-0 (cased)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  One

  Monday, March 2

  Detective Sergeant John Tregalles stirred in his chair as the television screen went blank. ‘What did you do that for?’ he demanded of his wife. ‘I was watching that.’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ Audrey said placidly as she set the remote aside and went on with her knitting. ‘You were miles away; have been all evening. Hardly said a word since dinner. It’s not enough that you worked all through the weekend and now you’re into another week without a break and your mind’s still there, isn’t it? And you were quite short with Olivia when she came to say goodnight.’

  ‘Yes well, sorry, love. I didn’t mean to be. But you’re right, I was thinking about work. Perhaps I should go up and say goodnight properly.’

  Audrey shook her head. ‘No need,’ she said. ‘The kids can read you just as well as I can. Olivia just looked at me and rolled her eyes as if to say “Dad’s off again”. She understands.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with her in the morning,’ he said, settling back in his chair. ‘It’s just that I’ve been trying to work out what to do about these burglaries. I spent all day today going over everything again, but I’ll be damned if I can see what else we can do. Trouble is, I’m lead on this one, and Paget phoned this afternoon to tell me he’ll be in tomorrow, and he wants to see a progress report. The problem is, there isn’t any progress, so God knows what I’m going to give him. And if Alcott decides to sit in, I’m dead!’

  Audrey paused to look up and catch her husband’s eye. ‘I’m sure it can’t be quite that bad,’ she said soothingly. ‘What is it that makes this one so difficult, anyway? I know you’ve been on it for quite a while and I know you’ve not been happy about the way it’s going, but I don’t know much else except what I read in the papers. Would it help to talk it through the way we used to? I used to like to hear what was going on at work, but we haven’t done that for ages, and to tell the truth I miss it.

  ‘What’s it been now?’ she coaxed when Tregalles remained silent. ‘Must be a couple of months since all this started. How many have there been since then? Four . . .? Five . . .?’

  ‘Four more. The one last Wednesday makes it five altogether, and we’re no closer to a solution today than we were back then at New Year. It’s not so much what they take as it is the damage they do once they’re inside. Its getting worse each time, and that’s what worries me. God knows what might happen if an owner comes back while they’re in the house.’

  ‘So it’s vandalism, then.’ Audrey said. ‘I thought you said they were burglaries?’

  ‘They are burglaries, technically, according to the 1968 Theft Act,’ he said, ‘but you’re right, they do have more to do with vandalism than theft. Although unlawful damage is also part of the act as well, so—’

  ‘Dunbar Road, wasn’t it?’ Audrey broke in. She had no intention of being sidetracked into a discussion of what was or wasn’t a burglary. ‘The first one? New Year’s Eve? I remember reading about it in the paper.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Tregalles hunched forward on the edge of his chair, hands clasped in front of him. ‘Broke in through the back door. It looked straightforward enough at the time. Kids or young tearaways looking for money, making a mess of the place just for the hell of it when they didn’t find much. They took a few bits of cheap jewellery and odds and ends, then smashed a radio and the glass in a china cabinet in a fit of pique on their way out. Took some food with them as well; some cheese and cold beef from the fridge.

  ‘The next-door neighbour caught a glimpse of them when they knocked over a dustbin as they nipped over the garden wall. She was out in her greenhouse setting the heat for the night, so she went straight back in and phoned us. Uniforms found several footprints at the bottom of the wall, trainers by the look of the tread, which was almost worn off. Forensic said they could get a match – if we can bring them the shoes. They’d tracked in a bit of mud from the garden, but not enough to leave any worthwhile impressions behind, so all we were left with were a few bits of thread cau
ght on the corner of a cabinet.

  ‘It was too dark for the neighbour to get a good look at them, but she was quite sure they were young by the way they went over the wall. Apart from that, we don’t have any kind of description. Uniforms reckoned they were dealing with a spur-of-the-moment job – kids looking for drug money, probably. They took down statements, spoke to some of the neighbours, but they knew from the start they were wasting their time.

  ‘Couple of weeks later there was another one in Abbey Road. Same sort of thing. Broke in through the back door while the owner was away at her sister’s wedding in Chester. She was only away the one night, but they must have known they wouldn’t be disturbed, because they stayed long enough to have a sit-down meal before they left. Took something like forty quid from a jug tucked away in one of the kitchen cupboards, but nothing else as far as she could tell. That’s when Uniforms decided it could be the same pair and the case was handed off to me.’

  Audrey frowned. ‘And no one saw or heard anything suspicious? Didn’t see them come or go? Didn’t hear anything?’

  Tregalles shook his head. ‘Not as far as we can find out. But then it was the middle of January, pitch dark from five o’clock on, and there were no lights anywhere near the back of the houses, so it’s hardly surprising that no one saw them. Which means we don’t even know when they went in. The house was empty from the Friday afternoon until midday Sunday, so it could have been any time after dark on Friday or Saturday night.

  ‘Ten days later there was another one in Westfield Lane. The couple there are both teachers, and they were out for the evening at a retirement party for a colleague. They left the house just before six, and came back around midnight to find the place had been broken into. Once again, nothing of any real value was missing, but there was broken crockery all over the kitchen floor. It looked as if someone had simply opened the cupboards and swept everything out, then gone through the house lashing out at anything that caught their eye. Mindless, stupid, idiotic vandalism. And to top it off they stopped to make sandwiches and drink two cans of beer before they left. SOCO’s done their best, but apart from a few dog hairs that shouldn’t have been there, and a few threads that might or might not belong to the villains, they couldn’t come up with anything worthwhile.’

  Tregalles sat back in his chair, brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Number four was in View Street about three weeks ago,’ he continued. ‘Same sort of thing, but they did even more damage there. Went through every room. Broke good china, mirrors – they seem to have a thing about mirrors and glass – pictures, TV set. And they didn’t just bash the screen in; they battered the thing to bits. One of them uses some sort of pry bar – the one they use to break in the door, flat and heavy – while the other one uses a piece of pipe to bash things with. And, as usual, they stopped to have a meal. Took their time about it, too; a proper fry-up, which meant they had to know that the owners would be away for some time and they wouldn’t be disturbed. We found more dog hair on one of the kitchen chairs, but Forensic tells us they aren’t from the same dog.

  ‘Which isn’t exactly a fat lot of help in a country that’s got almost more bloody dogs than people, is it?’ He paused, and Audrey could hear the tension in his voice when he spoke again. ‘But this latest one in Holywell Street has me really worried,’ he said, ‘because it looked as if the place had been hit by a tornado. The woman, Mrs Pettifer, collapsed when she saw the damage. China, mirrors, TV, chair seats ripped, and a lovely old grandfather clock literally smashed to bits. And then they sat down and ate half an apple pie. Even heated up some custard to go with it, and the only clue they left behind was – you guessed it – more dog hair, but from different dogs again.’

  Tregalles spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘I’m afraid it’s got me stumped, love,’ he confessed. ‘When I first took on the case I thought we were dealing with a couple of kids on drugs who liked to smash things, but these two are too careful. They haven’t left a single print behind, not even on the plates and knives and forks and spoons they used. In fact they washed them afterwards. About the only other thing we have are the marks made by the tools they used to get in and to smash things, but that won’t get us anywhere until we catch them – if we ever do. I keep telling myself that they simply have to make a mistake sometime, or someone will spot them going in or coming out, but that hasn’t happened so far.

  ‘We’ve had the word out on the street for weeks, but we’ve had nothing back. I’ve had the profiler working on it, but she hasn’t come up with anything, so I’m stumped. The local papers have been on our backs, as you know – not that you can blame them; people out there are worried that they could be next. And of course New Street isn’t happy about all the bad publicity. They want results! Paget understands the problem, and I think Superintendent Alcott does, too, but they’re getting pressure from above as well.’

  Audrey set her knitting aside, got up and walked over to stand behind her husband’s chair. Her strong fingers probed the knotted muscles around the base of his neck. ‘I know it’s serious,’ she said quietly, ‘but worrying yourself sick isn’t going to help anyone, and it won’t solve anything either. Would it do any good to have more cars patrolling the streets at night? If nothing else, it might make people feel safer if they could see a police car on their street from time to time, and they just might see something.’

  Tregalles shook his head. ‘They’re stretched to the limit now,’ he told her. ‘They’re twelve men short – have been for six months or more, and New Street doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to replace them.’ He moved his head from side to side. ‘Just a bit lower on the left,’ he instructed. ‘Aaahh, yes! That feels good. Now you’ve got it.’

  ‘Are you quite sure it’s two boys or men doing all this?’ Audrey ventured tentatively. ‘I mean except for that woman in Dunbar Street, nobody’s actually seen them, have they? Did she say they were both boys?’

  ‘No. She said she thought they were both young by the way they went over the wall, but that was all. She couldn’t give us a description at all. Why? What are you getting at?’

  ‘It’s just that I couldn’t help wondering while you were telling me about this sort of pattern they have, especially having a meal and all, if it could be a boy and a girl? I mean, you know what it’s been like with the gangs lately; it isn’t only boys any more; some of the girls can be just as bad or even worse than the boys. It’s probably a silly idea, but I wondered if it started out by some boy trying to impress his girlfriend and it sort of escalated so they were trying to outdo each other.’

  Tregalles eased his neck back and forward, enjoying the sensation as his muscles began to relax. ‘It could be something like that, I suppose,’ he said, sounding doubtful. ‘It’s worth considering. In fact, anything and everything is worth considering at this stage.’

  ‘What about the houses they choose? Any connection there?’

  ‘Not that we can find. They’re spread out all over town, and the victims are from all walks of life. They don’t know each other; they have completely different jobs; they don’t belong to the same church, clubs, associations or anything like that. A couple of them went to the same school many years ago, but they were something like ten years apart. We’ve run them backwards and forwards through every computer programme we have and come up with nothing.’

  Audrey moved back to her seat and picked up her knitting. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ she said as she slipped a needle under a stitch and began another row, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t been much help, but for the life of me I can’t think of anything else to suggest.’

  ‘Nor me,’ he said. ‘We’ll just have to carry on doing what we’ve been doing, I expect. Someone has to know something about these two bastards, and we’ll just have to keep pounding the streets and knocking on doors until we find that someone. If only they would steal something of value and try to flog it . . .’ He shrugged the thought away.

  ‘What I would really like to know,’ he continued,
‘is where they get their information from. How do they know they’re not going to be disturbed? That’s the key. If we could find that out we’d have ’em!’

  He rose from his chair and stretched. ‘Time for bed, love,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘And thanks for listening. Even if we didn’t solve anything, it helps to talk it through.’

  Audrey finished the row. She tucked her knitting behind a cushion and took her husband’s hand. ‘So what will you do tomorrow?’ she asked as they mounted the stairs.

  ‘Damned if I know,’ Tregalles said almost cheerfully. ‘Just say an extra prayer tonight and hope to God something turns up by morning!’

  Two

  Tuesday, March 3

  ‘And that’s it, Sergeant?’ Detective Superintendent Alcott demanded sharply as Tregalles concluded his report. His narrowed bird-like eyes bored into those of Tregalles accusingly. ‘That is almost exactly the same as you told me last week and the week before that, and it isn’t good enough. These people have to be stopped, but I didn’t hear anything in your report that suggests they will be.’

  They were in Alcott’s office. DCI Paget was there as well. Normally Tregalles would have made his report to him, but since Paget had been out of the office on assignment for much of the time during the past few weeks, he had taken time out to catch up on whatever progress had been made during his absence.

  And it was becoming very clear that ‘progress’ was hardly the word for it.

  ‘Dog hair, for God’s sake!’ Alcott snorted. ‘Are you trying to tell me that the only physical evidence you have after all this time is dog hair? Well, let me tell you, Sergeant, it simply isn’t possible to go through a house doing the amount of damage they do without leaving more evidence than that behind them. Prints, man, prints! Footprints, palm prints, fingerprints. Even if they were wearing gloves, they must have had to take them off at some point, especially when they stopped to have a meal. Knives, forks, plates, the inside of the fridge, under the edge of the table, on some of the food . . .’