Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry) Read Online Free PDF Page A

this whole incident was over a couple of punk-rocker girls?’
    ‘I can’t remember, mate.’
    He was lying.
    Nevertheless, Lowry said, ‘I want the names of the girls, and descriptions of your pursuers. As best you can.’
    ‘All right.’ Jones yawned. ‘Lesley Birch, blonde and cute; and her mate Kelly; don’t know her surname.’
    ‘Addresses?’
    Lowry noted them down, both Papillon Road in St Mary’s. Victorian terrace on the other side of Balkern Gate, up from Crouch Street. The young soldier let out a groan, as though he’d just remembered why he was in hospital.
    ‘So how did the trouble start?’
    ‘Can’t remember. Had a few too many beers. We were probably gobby, it being New Year’s Eve an’ all. Locals use any excuse to take a pop at a soldier. And there were only two of us.’
    ‘How many of them were there?’ Lowry’s pen was poised over his notebook.
    ‘At least half a dozen. They’d never have the balls to take us on one on one.’ This was said proudly, though the bravado was thin. The soldier’s pale face and red-rimmed eyes betrayed a young man who’d had a nasty shock.
    ‘So there was a fracas in the Golden Lion and you two scarpered. Why run through the castle grounds?’
    ‘Thought we’d lose them. Close by, and dark in there, innit?’
    ‘Too dark, it would seem.’ Lowry bowed his head and closed his notebook.
    ‘You’re not wrong.’ Jones rubbed his leg and grimaced. ‘How’s me mate, though? Daley? Nobody’s said a word.’
    Lowry chose not to break the news of his friend’s death: that could wait. The lad looked shattered and needed rest. If this lad wasn’t lying – of course he had seen who had chased him – Lowry was not fit to be a policeman, but this policeman was knackered. It could wait.
    ‘We’ll come to see you in the morning. You get some sleep.’

-5-
    7 a.m., Saturday, Great Tey village, eight miles west of Colchester
    Jacqui Lowry slipped silently into the warm house. She flicked on the kitchen light. Pushkin stirred in the cat basket on top of the fridge freezer. Running a cracked fingernail across the kitchen worktop as a pan slowly warmed on the hob for hot chocolate, she played back the scene from a few hours earlier with Nick and Paul. Bizarrely, it reminded her of when she’d first met Nick, twelve years ago at the hospital, then a good-looking, fit, young detective in a sharp suit. Yes, he’d been immaculate even in the small hours as he hovered over a teenager close to death from suspected poisoning. He stood out, with his sharp dress sense, still fixed in the mod style of the 1960s while everyone else was embracing the flamboyant, hairy 1970s. He was striking, clean and well groomed, with the handsome face to match, but it was his tenderness towards the fifteen-year-old girl that had won her heart. It was what she craved for herself, and she wanted Nick then with every fibre of her body. He was oblivious to her, concerned only with the girl’s recovery, which only inflamed her desire. He was still by the teenager’s bedside when she finished her shift, but she had felt compelled to slip him her phone number as she left the ward. They went on their first date two nights later, to the nearby Hospital Arms, after she’d finished a late shift. At closing time, Nick walked her the short distance to her parents’ house in Lexden, where, at the foot of the garden path, he delivered a heart-stopping kiss, both passionate and tender.
    Jacqui poured the milk from the frothing pan and sighed. Nick still wore the mod suits and button-down shirts, but now they just looked out of place and old-fashioned; outmoded symbols of another time and place. The passion and tenderness were equally remote – at least between the two of them.
    Upstairs in the bathroom she placed the mug of hot chocolate on the side of the basin and ran the bath. The hot water would take a good minute to feed through. Looking in the mirror, she removed her make-up to reveal