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A cold wet January in 1951, a man's body stabbed through the heart is found tangled up in fishing nets. Scotland Yard's Inspector Ryga is sent to Brixham, Devon to investigate. Former war photographer, Eva Paisley, insists that Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Ryga, return with her to the Devon coast where she has been staying with a friend, a former refugee from Belgium. Eva remains tight-lipped about the reason, saying only that she's puzzled and concerned over something she has heard since arriving there a week ago. Ryga, off duty for the weekend, is only too pleased to escape London for the sea air and spend time in Eva's company. She takes him to a house in the fishing port of Brixham where the son of her friend is adamant that he's seen a body on the shore 'all bashed up'. Eva claims the little boy has been talking of nothing more for a week. The boy's mother dismisses it as an over-active imagination but Eva's not convinced. Now the child is adamant the body he saw was on the very night of their arrival. Ryga asks the child to take them to the location, not expecting to see anything, but is stunned to find the child has been telling the truth; on the dark shore, on the wet January night is indeed the body of a man, stabbed through the heart and tangled up in fishing nets. After making some preliminary enquiries, Ryga, who has no jurisdiction to investigate, has to hand the case over to the local police. Very soon though, after a series of startling revelations, he is summoned back to Devon to discover why the dead man who left the town eleven years ago has returned and why someone hated him enough to murder him.

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Thriller

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Publié par	Rowmark
Date de parution	04 octobre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780955618970
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0340€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

DEATH IN THE NETS

An Inspector Alun Ryga Mystery

Pauline Rowson

Death in the Nets
First published in 2021 by Fathom ISBN: (paperback) 978-09556189-6-3 ISBN: (ebook) 978-09556189-7-0

Copyright © Pauline Rowson 2021

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. 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 actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. The right of Pauline Rowson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd. 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England W1P 9HE. Applications for the copyright owner's written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.

Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.

Fathom is an imprint of Rowmark, Hampshire, England PO11 0PL

Acknowledgement and Author's Note

With grateful thanks to Mark Rothwell and Friends of the South West Police Heritage Trust, and to Colin Moore for his invaluable insight into policing in the 1950s, his anecdotes and experience of his time as a police officer in Brixham and in the wider community of Devon.

Sharp-eyed Brixham residents of the 1950s may note that some of the places and street names have been changed. I hope you will forgive me for using poetic licence. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations and characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

Pauline Rowson
Adventure, mystery and heroes have always fascinated and thrilled Pauline. That and her love of the sea have led her to create her critically acclaimed gripping range of crime novels set against the backdrop of the sea on the south coast of England.

The Inspector Andy Horton Series
Tide of Death Deadly Waters The Suffocating Sea Dead Man's Wharf Blood on the Sand Footsteps on the Shore A Killing Coast Death Lies Beneath Undercurrent Death Surge Shroud of Evil Fatal Catch Lethal Waves Deadly Passage A Deadly Wake

Art Marvik Mystery/Thrillers
Silent Running Dangerous Cargo Lost Voyage Dead Sea

Inspector Ryga 1950 set mysteries
Death in the Cove Death in the Harbour Death in the Nets

Mystery/Thrillers
In Cold Daylight In For the Kill

For more information on Pauline Rowson and her books visit www.rowmark.co.uk
CONTENTS

One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty-One Twenty-Two Twenty-Three Twenty-Four Twenty-Five
One

Saturday 13 January 1951

T he persistent shrill of the telephone greeted Ryga as he opened >the door of his Pimlico flat. Surely it couldn't be the Yard, he'd only left there an hour ago. Before he could recite his number a woman's voice, crisp and exasperated echoed down the line.
'At last! I've been trying you for ages, Ryga. Where have you been?'
'At work.'
'The Yard said you left there yonks ago.'
'An hour to be precise, Eva,' Ryga replied, glancing at his wrist watch and easing himself into a more comfortable position on the shabby sofa. 'What's wrong?' He hadn't heard from Eva since before Christmas when they had joined forces on an investigation in Newhaven on the coast of East Sussex.
'I can't explain over the telephone. Pack a bag.'
'I can't just––'
'Of course you can, you're a detective inspector not a constable on the beat, and you have the rest of the weekend off.'
'How do you know that? I might be in the middle of a major investigation.'
'If you were you wouldn't be at home,' she quipped.
True. In fact, it had been remarkably quiet in terms of crimes over Christmas and the New Year. Perhaps the cold, wet, windy weather had deterred most criminals. He smiled, not only at Eva's manner – which was always a little abrupt – but at the anticipation of spending a weekend in her company, which he always found invigorating. His day and a half of rest, listening to the wireless, taking a walk in St James's Park, and catching up with his reading was cancelled and he didn't mind at all. Just as long as it wasn't replaced by some tedious house party having to make polite conversation with strangers.
'Where are we going?' he asked warily.
'I'll tell you on the way. It's not formal so you don't have to pack your dinner jacket.'
'Thank goodness for that,' he replied with relief. 'A little more information might help, Eva.'
'What's your address?'
He relayed it.
'I'll be there in ten minutes. Sooner if the traffic is light.'
He shook his head with a smile, crossing to the small kitchenette wondering if his bread would last until Sunday night. He could hardly take it with him, he didn't know if his hostess or host might be offended. The same went for the milk, which he sniffed at. That certainly wouldn't last. It was already going off. He emptied the remaining milk down the sink, rinsed out the bottle, and tidied around even though it didn't need it. In the bedroom he retrieved his holdall from the wardrobe and packed a few things while wondering where Eva was taking him and more importantly who he would be staying with.
A series of impatient toots came from outside. Glancing out of the window he saw Eva's pale blue-green, two-seater sports car doubled parked. With a quick look around the cramped bachelor flat to make sure he hadn't left the gas on, or a tap running, he locked up and, with the milk bottle in one hand and his holdall in the other, hurried down the stairs, reaching the car just as a bus manoeuvred around it with an angry blast of its horn.
'Where are we going?' he asked, placing his holdall in the narrow back space as she put the car in gear and pulled away. He was thankful the top was up. It was a chill damp afternoon, with the kind of cold that seeped into your bones causing them to ache and making it hard to get warm for ages afterwards if stuck out in it for any length of time, which he had been many times as a police constable with the Thames River Police, before his promotion and transfer to the Criminal Investigations Department of Scotland Yard. Eva, he noted, was wrapped up in her usual disreputable Donkey jacket with a bright blue and yellow silk scarf at her neck and driving gloves on her slender hands.
'Devon.'
'Devon!' he repeated, shocked. 'That's over two hundred miles away, it will take ages to get there.'
'Not the way I drive.'
He remembered her driving skills from when they had worked together in Newhaven. She was fast but expert. 'It's a long way to go for just a night and day.'
'You've got nothing else to do,' she said matter-of-factly.
'How do you know that?'
'Well you haven't, have you?' She threw him a glance.
'No.' He smiled. 'How's the leg?' He glanced at the limb clothed as usual in trousers. He'd never seen her wear anything else. He was referring to the wound she'd incurred while in Korea as a war photographer, and for which she had been airlifted home at the beginning of December, along with other injured servicemen. 'All this driving can't be helping it to heal.'
'You sound like my father, Ryga. I don't take any notice of it,' she curtly dismissed.
Ryga knew better than to continue the conversation in that vein. 'Why are we going to Devon?' he asked.
'Have you eaten?'
'Yes, at the station.'
'Good then we can crack on until we feel thirsty or hungry. What do you know about Brixham?'
'Fish.'
She laughed. 'And?'
'It's about thirty miles from Exeter and about five from Paignton. A small harbour, with houses staggering up the hill behind it, protected by a breakwater––'
'With the ubiquitous lighthouse on the end.'
'Of course. And from what I can remember of my Merchant Navy days, although I've never sailed into Brixham, it being far too small and a fishing port, the lighthouse flashes red. And to the west of Brixham is piece of land jutting out into the sea called Berry Head with another lighthouse on in it. And didn't William Prince of Orange land at Brixham in 1688 and go on to conquer England to become King William III?'
'He did. You obviously paid attention in your history lessons at school.'
'It was one of a few subjects I enjoyed.'
'The others being?'
'Maths and PE, although we didn't have enough of the latter to my way of thinking.'
'We got far too much of it at my school. All that jolly hockey sticks rubbish got on my nerves but it was handy for attacking the class bully, a scrawny creature with buck teeth.'
He smiled. He deduced from that she had been privately educated, unlike him in the state school before his father had died when he'd been fifteen, after which he'd joined the Merchant Navy.
'As you said, Ryga, Brixham is a fishing port. Not as big as Hull or Grimsby and it has contracted in size since the war, nevertheless it's still very busy. And it seems to be getting busier but not with the fish trade, the holiday one, this however is not the best time of year to see Brixham and the Devon coast in all its glory,' she added, switching on the windscreen wipers as the heavens opened up. 'Don't worry it will soon stop.'
'It is the West Country we're heading for, it rains there a great dea