Lucy Spires - The Blind Detective , livre ebook

Lucy Spires – The Blind Detective
Peter Hamilton
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-01-31
Lucy Spires – The Blind Detective About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Chapter 1 15th March, 9:30 pm Chapter 2 15 th March. 11:35pm Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 17 th May Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
About the Author
Peter Hamilton was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in October 1960 to working class parents and was bred there. He has a passion for problem-solving and enjoys being challenged. He started to work in retail stores at the age of sixteen and has never been out of work since, and still continues to work full time. For many years, he has had a burning ambition of writing his own book and this first book is of a series of stories detailing the crimes solved by Lucy Spires, ‘The Blind Detective’.
Dedication
To my loyal and supportive wife, Michelle.
Copyright Information ©
Peter Hamilton (2020)
The right of Peter Hamilton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528935715 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528998710 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to Wendy O’Connor, for her advice
and support.
Many thanks to Susan Walls, for the ongoing support.
Chapter 1

15th March, 9:30 pm
Detective Chief Inspector Lucy Spires relaxed in her deep hot bath, her five feet five, well-toned frame fitted neatly into the space; her long dark brown hair floated around the top of her bath; music drifted in from her bedroom from the local independent radio station, a mixture of random nineteen-eighties pop songs. The day had been a long and a stress filled one. This was her relaxing, chill out time. She could daydream and de-stress.
She managed a team of ten detectives, some of whom had been with her for many tears. She regarded the team not just as colleagues, but also as trusted friends. She supported them in every way she could. She also realised she had to be an agony aunt for all her team. All brought their problems, with relationships, family, pets, finances and every other thing imaginable. They trusted her, she was always there if any needed to talk.
The team worked well together, with a mixture of new inspectors, and also some established inspectors with a great deal of experience. She reported to the Chief Constable, he was a man she joined the North East Police force with the same month, the same year. She had no regrets in her chosen career. The past twenty-four years in the police force had gone so fast. During her time in the force she had risen through the ranks to her senior position through extremely hard work and dedication.
She also reflected on her failed marriage. She had fallen for a man she had known since her time at university. She really loved him, even though they were complete opposites. Her idea of a holiday was two weeks on a beach or a relaxing cruise; his would be trekking through a jungle in South America, or a canoe going through river rapids. As time went on, they both realised she was already married to her work. The break up wasn’t pleasant, but eventually they ended up as friends. They both promised to keep in touch with each other. He moved around doing a variety of jobs, from repairing roads to a ranger in a national park.
Time went by and contact between them became less and less. The last she’d heard of him he was in New Zealand working on a sheep farm; he had always loved the outdoors and fresh challenges. She was a little upset to learn he had settled down and was married with children. She would have liked to have had children. However, in the time they were married it didn’t happen, and she had seen at first hand the issues brought with that; and it would have affected her work.
She had lost both her parents several years ago, her mother to breast cancer. Her mother hadn’t just been a parent, but her best friend. She had supported her in every success and failure, never passing judgement. She always felt everyone deserved a second chance, although there were always exceptions. Two years after her mother passed, her father suffered a major stroke.
Lucy Spires was working fourteen-hour days. She was trying to find a missing person, an elderly man suffering from dementia. He was found near a lake where he fished with his grandfather when he was a teenager. Luckily, he was found alive and well, although very confused. Lucy Spires was very happy with this outcome. This sparked memories of coming home from work to find her father in his garden. He had passed away several hours earlier and he had died alone. He was her rock. He taught her to drive a car, after she learned how to ride a moped. She loved that time. It was precious; long summer days of fun and a few bruises and a few scratches from falling off the little moped. Every day she thought about them. She missed them so much. Her meals would be waiting for her when she got home from work, and the conversations about her day and her parents’ days. She knew these would never return.
Following the collapse of her marriage, she had other relationships, but none lasted for various reasons. Difficult, time consuming cases meant her time was taken up. She couldn’t give her commitment to a relationship it needed. She tried very hard to build relationships. She gave a lot of herself. Most would last for a few weeks. She enjoyed the company and physical side of the relationships. She had no specific types; she liked a good personality over stunning looks. She’d learned in her university days that the good looking, charming men were too often interested in themselves. She avoided relationships within the police force. Her father used to say, “Try not to mix business with pleasure. Don’t bring your work home.”
If she were in a relationship with another police officer, all they may have in common would be cases they worked on and this may cause a conflict. The hours Lucy Spires gave meant they would never go anywhere.
She enjoyed time on her own. Her position meant she was very busy, with contacting and speaking to so many people, departments, attending meetings; her working day was an express train ride. She commanded and received a great deal of respect from all her colleagues, having earned it with her dedication and work ethic.
Lucy Spires poured a glass of her favourite Shiraz. She picked up a thick file with the title ‘Farooq El Haj. Confidential’. She had read this file many times. She wanted to go through it again as she had a meeting with her Chief Constable, James Ingram and with a director of the Crown Prosecution service, Thomas Archibald, at three o’clock the following day. This was a case she inherited from the previous Detective Chief Inspector, who had retired early with health problems. He had become too involved in the case and it led to him having a massive heart attack and staying in poor health. To get away from this case, he moved his whole family to the south of France. The case had been ongoing for almost two years. It had ground to a halt for almost six months, but once Detective Chief Inspector Lucy Spires took it over, it had developed to near conclusion. Another glass of wine poured, a packet of cheesy snacks opened in a bowl, she wasn’t ready to sleep. She decided to make sure she had prepared thoroughly for the following day.
As she opened the cover, there were several photos of Farooq El Haj. He had been arrested five years earlier for assault. The police photos made Lucy Spires shudder every time she looked at them. He had an air of arrogance, modern hairstyle and thick black wavy hair. He wore expensive jewellery; all high carat gold; a ring on almost every finger and a very expensive watch. The photographs showed he was always smartly dressed, wearing handmade suits, handmade shoes. He had a reputation to maintain. The choice of vehicle reflected the amount of money he’d made; top of the range sports cars or expensive German saloons.
Turning over the dossier, it began: born July third, nineteen eighty, to an Afghanistan father & British mother. His father left the family when the young Farooq was thirteen years old. He went to work as usual and never returned. Searchers found he had used his passport to fly to Germany, and from there he disappeared. The young Farooq took this badly and rebelled at school. He was expelled several times for his bad behaviour. His lack of respect, particularly of any female authority, Lucy Spires thought must have come from his father’s parenting skills. He was excluded from lessons for fighting and bullying. Other school children could be very cruel to a child with no father, being brought up by a single parent. Reading between the lines, Lucy Spires thought his mother had probably tried her best to bring him up through his difficult teenage years, but he was such an independent young man that he knew his own mind, and with no other person to keep him under control, he lost his way and became a man with huge issues, many now out of control.
At age eighteen he found himself joining the army. After the usual period of training he was posted to Afghanistan. As a fluent speaker of the language, he became a key member of translation teams, engaging locals in every type of communication. In his downtime, he tried t