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Lion Hudson - Paul Trembling

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119 pages

English

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'Paul Trembling scores a winning goal with this highly enjoyable mystery, which has more exciting twists and turns than the beautiful game itself.' AMY MYERS, author of the Nell Drury and Tom Wasp crime seriesIt was him; Graham was sure of it. He might not have seen Adi Varney for years, but no one forgets their oldest friend's face.As a football player and manager, Adi had taken his club from victory to victory before suddenly leaving it all behind. No one understood why.But now he was back... or was he? If it was Adi, why was he avoiding everyone who knew him?Convinced something is very wrong Graham is determined to work out what has happened to his friend. The game he uncovers is deadly - but if he doesn't play lives will be on the line.

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Thriller

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Publié par	Lion Hudson
Date de parution	22 novembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781782642787
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Paul Trembling scores a winning goal with this highly enjoyable mystery, which has more exciting twists and turns than the beautiful game itself.
AMY MYERS, author of the Nell Drury and Tom Wasp crime series
Trembling turns ordinary people inside out, dead or alive, and you recognize all of them, even the murderers. The biggest twist is in the reader s heart when you understand the human failings that led to murder.
Trembling s inside knowledge of people adds as much authenticity to his Local crime series as his insider knowledge of CSI procedures. Even when the crime scene has been cleaned up by the villain, Trembling knows exactly where that last trace would be found. Ultimately, he shows that the biggest crime is how people treat each other. Murder is just the fallout.
JEAN GILL, author of The Troubadours Quartet
A compelling mystery told with an extraordinary insight into the heights and depths of human nature. Paul Trembling has a gift for making heroes out of ordinary people.
FIONA VEITCH SMITH, author of The Death Beat
Books by Paul Trembling
Local Poet
Local Artist
Local Legend
Local Killer (coming in November 2020)

Text copyright 2019 Paul Trembling
This edition copyright 2019 Lion Hudson IP Limited
The right of Paul Trembling to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published by
Lion Hudson Limited
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Business Park
Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com
ISBN 978 1 78264 277 0
e-ISBN 978 1 78264 278 7
First edition 2019
Acknowledgments
Cover Photos: Tunnel by Jake Oates/
Unsplash; Children Amirul Syaidi/
Shutterstock
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
I too have lost a brother: this book is dedicated to his memory. No matter how much time passes, Philip, you are never forgotten and always missed .
CONTENTS
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 1
I m not saying that sport is corrupt. But money and corruption go together like nuts and bolts. And there s a lot of money in sport.
Adi Varney, quoted in Adi Varney - A True Legend by Graham Deeson
A lot of things start at weddings. A new life for the happy couple, obviously. New relationships among the guests, quite frequently. A fight, sometimes.
For me, June and Rob s wedding was the beginning of the end to a very long story.
I picked my place card out of the detritus of the meal, and ran my thumb over the name. Nice clear font, slightly embossed printing, and they d spelled my name right.
GRAHAM DEESON .
Perhaps a bit more businesslike than was right for a wedding, but on the whole I approved. Having some good contacts in the area, I d been asked to recommend a printer who d do a quality job at a reasonable price: I was glad to see that they hadn t let me down.
I picked up the card next to mine, and checked that as well.
SANDRA DEESON .
It had a smudge of something on it, which I carefully wiped off. And finally admitted to myself that I was bored. Weddings are OK, up to a point. I like the ceremony and I m always ready for a free meal. But I ve never been one for parties. Not the loud and crowded sort, anyway. My idea of a social occasion is a quiet meal in a good restaurant with a few friends, and the reception was well past that point.
It had taken a while, since Rob s mates - mostly van drivers - had been wary of June s colleagues, who were all coppers. However, with a bit of alcohol to remove inhibitions, they realized that police officers were basically just people, and the party took off.
The live band helped. A local group - pretty good, actually, but they were really hammering it out, and it wasn t doing my ears much good.
But now the wedding photographer was on the prowl, looking for less formal but more revealing images of people celebrating. I don t look good in photos. Even when I was younger, my lugubrious features had always made me appear miserable, however hard I smiled. Now, with thinning grey hair and sagging jowls it looked as if I had something to be miserable about.
Time to make a move.
I turned to my wife, who was deep in conversation with a young woman I had been introduced to earlier. David Macrae s wife, I recalled. I hadn t realized that the Detective Inspector was married - apparently she d just moved down from Scotland, and was giving Sandy the full details.
Sandy - I m going for a walk, get some fresh air, I told her.
She nodded, looked around. Where s Sam?
Over there by the buffet table, talking to that CSI girl. Alison, is it? Discussing something technical about photography. Our son had spent a good many years wandering the globe and in the process had discovered an interest.
I glanced over to the far side of the room, checking he hadn t moved, but his dark blond hair was still where I d last seen it, along with a paler-blonde ponytail. Sam had been fortunate enough to inherit his hair colour and good looks from his mother: I often wondered what he d got from me.
Sandra peered through the crowd until she d identified Sam, and nodded again. There was still a part of her that was afraid he d take off again and disappear back into the world. I was almost certain he would. OK, love. She returned to her conversation.
I weaved between the tables, picking up odd scraps of conversation on the way. Old habits. I ve had a lot of useful leads that way.
I kid you not, this bloke must have been seven foot tall
If you know you can t handle them, why do you keep on
I bet you ve arrested every one of my mates!
That one sounded interesting, but I moved on, found an exit, and stepped out into a cool summer evening.
The Stag is a bit of an architectural disaster. It started off as an unremarkable village inn. Then it had a big single-storey dining area added on and became a gastropub. The development of a major road network nearby suggested other possibilities to the owners, and they built a two-storey extension and made it into a hotel - or motel. Do we still use that word? Finally, as an afterthought, they put in a semi-permanent marquee at the back and advertised it as a function room , which was where I d just escaped from.
It wasn t the place I d want to begin married life, but it wasn t my choice. Apparently, Rob and June had some history with the place, first date or something. And at least the catering had been OK. Especially the gateaux. I m very fond of gateaux.
There was a wide terrace along the back of the gastro section of the pub, opened up for eating during the day but closed now it was dark. The restaurant itself was crowded and doing good business, but I ignored that, preferring the relative quiet of the lawn on the other side. It ran down to a stand of trees and some picturesque ruins a few hundred feet away. They had made a nice backdrop for the photographs earlier. I suspected that they had been placed there for just that purpose. I wondered if there were builders who specialized in fake ruins.
The original pub building at the end of the terrace was now a separate bar for guests in the hotel section, which stretched off beyond it - a drab and featureless concrete slab that should never have been given planning permission in my opinion. But nobody had asked me.
I glanced into the bar as I strolled past. It was crammed full of rustic charm - horse brasses, quaintly rusting farm implements, and, of course, a stag s head. Not nearly as crowded as the restaurant, just a few people sitting here and there, nursing drinks.
And sitting on a bar stool was Adi Varney.
I nearly missed seeing him altogether. He was with two other people, half hidden by a tall, thin man in a suit. But just as I glanced that way, he was leaning back, glass to his lips, and I saw him in profile.
I stopped. And stared.
Of course it wasn t him. It couldn t be him. Not back in England, back home again. Not after all these years.
But it looked like him, just like him, and a big bubble of joy burst out of me and even while I was still not believing it in my head, my body was at the window, banging on it and shouting, Adi! Adi! Hey - Adi - it s me!
A middle-aged woman sitting nearby jumped, and splashed her drink. She gave me a furious look which I barely noticed.
Adi didn t respond, perhaps didn t hear me. They d put some thick double glazing in the old windows, and the bar was on the other side of the room. He just sat there, cradling a drink and looking at something in his hand. A mobile, probably.
The thin man looked round as I continued to bang on the window. He touched Adi s shoulder and said something. Adi glanced up and saw me.
He looked puzzled. Frowning. Looked right at me - and looked away again.
Not a flicker of recognition. As if he didn t know me at all.
I stood, staring through the window, not understanding. It must be the light , I thought. There s a reflection on the glass or something. He can t see who it is .
I moved along to another window, a bit closer to where Adi was, and tried again. A bit more carefully this time. No frenzied banging, just a gentle tap. Less gentle, though, as he continued to ignore me.
The other man with him looked around, and frowned at me. Not a puzzled frown. More of a warning, a back off sort of frown. He was a big bloke, wide shoulders straining at a black leather jacket. He looked as though he was used to telling pe