Random Acts of Unkindness Read Online Free PDF

messages. Then a couple of threatening emails. There’d been a dead rat left on my doorstep and my car door handles had been covered in anti-vandal paint.
    I’d dutifully reported all these things, and they were linked to the case I’d been working on for the past two years. Operation Hurricane. I wasn’t the only officer receiving threats.
    Julie Winters was told that someone would shave her head. Stuart Peterson received a letter with a picture of his Jack Russell saying that it would be decapitated. All par for the operational course, when you’re dealing with a lowlife like Connelly. Even so, nothing had actually happened so far.
    Connelly’s henchmen concentrate on killing or maiming rival gang members, or occasionally each other. They leave us alone because, let’s face it, to harm one of us would launch a major, blood-fuelled investigation.
    Or so you would think. When I went to Jim Stewart and spewed out my accusation, that Connelly had kidnapped Aiden in an attempt to get revenge, he shook his head.
    ‘Has he threatened you? Is there something you haven’t told us? Because all I can see in your Hurricane report log is a couple of texts and emails and some notes telling you to be careful and so on. No mention of your family. And we don’t even know all these texts and emails and associated behaviour are from Connelly’s lot. Don’t forget. Innocent until proven guilty. We don’t have anything at all on Connelly yet. Looks like it, but all bark and no bite so far. And we’ve got undercover around them, as you know, and no mention of a kidnap.’
    He might as well have hung a huge sign on me saying ‘I am paranoid. Disregard anything I say.’ He was tapping away at his keyboard, checking my file, running a search on Aiden’s case. Not really listening, but I answered all the same.
    ‘No. He hasn’t threatened my family directly. But I know it’s him. There’s something funny going on with Connelly. It’s not just the drugs and the violence, sir. It’s more than that. I’ve put it in a detailed report. I think there’s more going on here.’
    He was nodding, and I could see pity in his eyes.
    ‘Right. To be honest, Jan, I think you should take a break from it. Just for a few weeks. I’m putting together a renewed campaign against Connelly, one that’ll work this time. One where we all focus just on one case, with no distraction. Focused on the most probable place that he can be operating from, based on renewed activity. Old Mill. We know that much. So until then, just everyday work. Got that? If we get any evidence about Aiden you’ll be the first to know. But my opinion is that it’s nothing to do with Connelly. And until we have some solid evidence, neither is anything else. Have you considered that it might not be Connelly running Old Mill? Maybe he’s retired now and someone else is at the bottom of all this. What we do know is that he runs a kitchen factory and he’s inherited a property business. Both of which are legal. We do know there are criminal goings on, but maybe we’re on the wrong track and the girls on the game and the drugs are down to someone else. But I think that it’s a hierarchy that’s hiding him. Always someone else to do the dirty work while he looks clean. Until we get some evidence, no one’s in the frame. We won’t know until we’ve completed the investigation, will we?’
    I wanted to believe him, I wanted to believe that I was obsessed with Connelly and on the wrong track, but as soon as Aiden disappeared the threats stopped. A week later I was back in Jim’s office.
    ‘The messages stopped. They’ve got him. I know it.’
    My hand was shaking around my coffee cup, splashing coffee onto my jeans. He stood up and opened the door.
    ‘Get a grip. You know we’re near to Connelly. If Aiden is there, which I don’t think he is, we’ll find him. We’re all over that place.’
    Sean Connelly had a little empire. He and his own family lived on a bought