Victims , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Edmund Romilly

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139 pages

English

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Twenty-eight year old casino worker, Giles Jones, is a disturbed and dangerous man. Having endured a tortured childhood and adolescence on account of his drug-addicted father, who later committed suicide, Giles has a lot of pent up anger. When Giles discovers that he has been defrauded of his inheritance from his late father's estate, he vows to exact his revenge. The first to die is Aylmer Jones, one of the trustees of the estate, followed by solicitor, Derek Bradshaw, who is gunned down with his wife in their home. Next Giles targets his stepmother, Coral, and her father, the other estate trustee, who has moved into Giles old family home where Giles is eventually arrested. Whilst Giles waits in prison to discover his fate, he is visited by his friend, Jessica Wu, another victim of theft and what she has to come to tell him throws him into a whole new agony of mind. Victims explores what can happen when a man is pushed to the limit and how the past impacts our present. A powerful and, in places, gruesome novel that will leave all crime fans wanting more.

Sujets

Thriller

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	27 février 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780993152375
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Title Page
VICTIMS
A Tale of Betrayal and Revenge
By Edmund Romilly

Publisher Information
First published in 2014 by
Apex Publishing Ltd
12A St. John’s Road, Clacton on Sea
Essex, CO15 4BP, United Kingdom
www.apexpublishing.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed in 2015 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Please email any queries to Chris Cowlin
mail@apexpublishing.co .uk
Copyright © 2014 Edmund Romilly
The author has asserted his moral rights
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition, that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder.
Cover design: Hannah Blamires
Cover model: Chris Cowlin

About the Author
Edmund Romilly was born at Huntington Park, Herefordshire in 1951. When he was ten years old, his mother walked out of the family home and his father moved to America taking Edmund with him. Upon their return to England, Edmund was placed in a boarding school. His father committed suicide shortly after having remarried, when Edmund had just turned 16. His father died intestate and his second wife subsequently became insane. Having read Philosophy at University College London, Edmund worked at a number of jobs before being called to the Bar in 1983. Thereafter, he practised in the criminal courts for 24 years before retiring to the Dorset coast with his wife, Deborah, where he now writes full-time.

1.
Narrative, 1979
It is a normal night at the Huffington Club. There is a buzz in the air as the chips are placed and the dice roll. The Punto Banco table is especially crowded. The bright light from the chandeliers sparks off the spangled dresses of the croupiers, who show their cleavages as they lean over the tables to deal. The pit bosses in their brown suits sit above them like lifeguards, watching for any irregularity. But the gamblers are only intent on the wheel. Men in suits and women in evening dresses sit hunched, stand or lean in a crooked fashion over the tables; there is a look of studied avarice on their faces. Some gasp in dismay when the ball settles into a particular slot of the still spinning wheel. Others squirm with relief or curse under their breath.
There is nothing quite like the sound of the roulette wheel when the ball, with a mind of its own, is deciding which number to choose. It is that of a hard, bright bead rattling within a coffin of well-tempered wood, finished in steel. Sometimes it beats like a drumstick on a porcelain plate, as quickly as the wings of a hummingbird; it goes on and on, until you think it will never stop, the sound interposing itself within the rhythm of your own heart; but with a pop-pop-pop it does eventually slow and startle by its unpredictability, the players craning their necks to see whether they have been favoured by the gods of chance.
It is quieter at the further end of the room, past the so-called cage where the cash is changed for chips and the chips for cash. Here there are the first floor windows which look onto a Mayfair street. The gaming floor was once the ballroom of a grand private residence and a century ago young couples in their finery would retire to the balconies for fresh air and maybe a chance to talk privately. Now, there are only blackjack tables, which is why it is quieter because they are emptier than the others, the punters preferring to play solo against a pretty house dealer. The player thinks that he and she can unwittingly establish a rhythm in the way the cards fall that is advantageous to him; and he is right. The management, therefore, change the dealer from time to time, whenever things are getting a little too hot for the bank.
Downstairs at reception, people are still arriving, though it is past eleven; in fact the casino is at its busiest between now and three o’clock in the morning, after which comes the downturn to four, when it closes.
A man of about thirty in an off-the-peg black tie of a synthetic material is busy helping the fur coat off a coarse blonde of about forty. She is with a regular punter who always sports half an unlit cigar between his lips. You can see he’s had a good dinner. He always wears a brown suit and runs a successful fruit and vegetable business. Rumour has it that he murdered his mother over an inheritance; but it is just a rumour.
As for the man in the black tie, he has a cringing manner, and his smile is too wide: it is as if the skin on his face has been pulled back from not-too-good teeth, and the stubble on his chin needs seeing to.
His name is Giles Jones, though his associates call him Gentry, and he works at the Huffington Club as a receptionist. The job entails much more than its name suggests, however, as he and the others have to be very much on the alert so far as security is concerned. At any time a pit boss might ring down and want to know who, say, the guy in the white suit and red tie is, because he is winning too much money or has been seen before in a dubious context. The receptionists have to be able to give the pit boss the information he requires within moments - how long the man has been a member, his credit history, and so on.
You get a nose for this sort of thing, a clairvoyance that even goes so far as to accurately predict which member of the club will be coming through the front door next, but you also get a nose for which of them will tip well and which won’t. This is important because the receptionists couldn’t begin to live off the meagre salaries the management pay them, and rely on tips to make up the difference. That is why Giles Jones is being so deferential at this moment: the man with the unlit cigar tips well if you put him in a good mood.
Sandy, the reception manager, is flattering him outrageously, as Giles Jones can hear. He himself is making a fuss over the coarse blonde, not because she might leave a tip - most women didn’t - but because if he puts her nose even slightly out of joint she will almost certainly convey that feeling to her partner by subtle means, and he might therefore not be so generous. But as that gentleman flings his car keys at the waiting car jockey who is standing ready to find a parking space for him, he also presses a twenty pound note into Sandy’s discreetly waiting palm.
Gamblers are superstitious people, and a lot of them tip in advance because they think it will bring them luck. Sandy waits till the couple disappear up the staircase to the gaming room before murmuring, ‘Gotcha!’
The other three receptionists are looking on in approval. He puts the twenty pound note in a cardboard box they keep hidden behind the counter, where all the tips go. He presses the notes in the box and says, ‘It’s getting a bit spongy, eh, Gentry?’
By which he means that the tips have been building up nicely during the course of the week, prior to being split four ways on Saturday, the next day being one of their days off, as the casino is closed on Sunday.
Sandy is a good sort: ex-army, he’d made the rank of major, he is short and dapper, and keeps himself well. He has a toothbrush moustache and when it comes to leaving work he always puts on his salt and pepper overcoat with meticulous care, as if it were a prized possession worthy of such elaboration.
The other two receptionists are strictly temporary - Pete, an out-of-work actor in his twenties, thin and pale-complexioned, and Marlene, who is even thinner and by far the tallest of the four. She always wears the same black chiffon evening gown, which emphasises the slightness of her figure, and to Giles’ annoyance always addresses any female customer she is attending to as “m’damn”, putting the stress on the second syllable of the word “madame”.
It is about an hour’s walk from the casino to Giles Jones’ bedsitter in Brunswick Gardens, off Westbourne Grove. After work he enjoys it: the fresh air is good compared with the fug of reception and it gives him a chance to stretch his legs, something he is not able to do in the constricted space of counter and coats. Yet along the Bayswater Road by the park he always feels fearful for his safety, particularly as now in winter time it is still dark and cold. He feels that he might get attacked and mugged, and is always hyped up just in case anybody tries it on.
Without realising it, his fists are clenched as he walks, and he looks this way and that in case someone is approaching. He feels that if anybody did try anything on with him he would kill them, acknowledging that there may be more than one. But nothing has ever happened. Once a high-powered saloon screeched past him, braked to a halt suddenly with squealing tyres and reversed till its driver was level with himself, but the man only wanted directions, which Giles Jones had been happy and able to give.
Giles Jones’ bedsitter is on the fifth floor of a substantial terraced house in the middle of a square that is not really a square but a rectangle. Its housing contains nothing but more bedsitters, small flats and cheap hotels. He is lucky enough to have a window facing the straggly gardens, the dead leaves of whose trees are scattered over the grass.
It has been raining, and you can see a dewy radiance on the black metal fencing, courtesy of the powerful street lamps. Normally at this time of morning things are quiet but as Giles stands staring out of the open window, for no reason in