A Shot In The Night (John Harper Series Book 2) Read online

  A Shot In The Night

  By

  E. J. Holmes

  Text Copyright © 2014 Edward J Holmes

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design by James, GoOnWrite.com

  For James and all who have endured with me and made me smile.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Chapter Forty Five

  Chapter Forty Six

  Chapter Forty Seven

  Chapter Forty Eight

  Chapter Forty Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty One

  Chapter Fifty Two

  Chapter Fifty Three

  Chapter Fifty Four

  Chapter Fifty Five

  Chapter Fifty Six

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  Chapter Fifty Eight

  Chapter Fifty Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty One

  Chapter Sixty Two

  Chapter Sixty Three

  Chapter Sixty Four

  Chapter Sixty Five

  Chapter Sixty Six

  Chapter Sixty Seven

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  In a country where owning handguns is illegal and to own any other firearm is a difficulty, you would expect gun crime to be low. In the United Kingdom it is, in comparison to the likes of America, but for some their lives are ruled by the weapons. In some cities it is cheaper to buy a gun than a pair of trainers. The gun is an equaliser; it allows for the weak to become strong and the strong to become ruthless. It was a handgun that was about to change the life of one young man.

  The weapon was a pistol, one with a well travelled history from where it was made in Eastern Europe to the streets of Liverpool where it had been bought to commit a crime. Now in early December it was in the hands of Joey Boulton, a young lad three weeks shy of his fifteenth birthday. He knew that there would be little in the way of presents for him, what with it coming after Christmas and his mother having to buy toys for his brothers and sisters. No, Joey would be getting his own money from now on and he knew where to start.

  Wearing a black tracksuit with a grey hooded jumper underneath, he crossed the boundary between his own little part of the city of Rakspeath, into the Elsworth area. Too many suburbs of the city were at war with each other and these two were no different. The gangs here nothing compared to crews operating in Croxteth or Norris Green, the hatred of the young men here growing over the influx of drugs into their small communities.

  Joey was quiet, walking with his hood up and a baseball cap on his head as well. He walked the streets, his hands stuffed in the front pocket of his jacket. His palms were sweating as he held the pistol, the metal warming next to his constant touch. Joey was on edge now, the further he went into Elsworth the worse he felt. The streets looked different at night, and it had been nearly three years since he had been around that area, since he was too young to be mixed up in the gangs. He had played football on the small park with boys from school; back then it had been about who was a better player, now they were his enemies.

  The streets had an orderly outline to them, the houses built after the war, not meant to last but still standing with minimal council maintenance. At that hour, seeing a youth on the street was not something to be questioned. No police patrolled here in the night, partially out of safety, mostly out of fear. The aim here was much like in a warzone; to win over the hearts and minds of the populace, but just like in Iraq or Afghanistan the authority figures were so far from the everyday lives of the people, there was no connection. These people had lives, they were not just statistics of drug users or days truant, anti-social behaviour orders or crimes; they were individuals and needed to be treated as such.

  Using that to his advantage Joey moved silently along, the thin material of this clothing doing little to protect him from the chill night air and the sweat on his forehead making him colder every passing second as he looked around for a target. The cold was however keeping people off the streets making his mission much harder. All he wanted was one mark so he could tax them. He did not have the tools to hit a house but he had enough to make a street dealer lose his cut this week.

  Joey was struggling to find someone willing to stand out on the streets, other than some young kids who were drinking near the convenience store. Then he saw the park from his youth and three lads on the corner under a street light. They were dressed like him but with bottles of beers in their hands and one of them was smoking. Even from across the road he could smell the sweet odour of weed. The smoker passed the blunt on as he blew the smoke out into the air and then took a swig from his bottle. He stood in the middle of the group; the others laughing at his joke as they leant against the chain-link fence. Joey reckoned that was the leader; the money man he wanted.

  Joey was a good hundred yards away from them when a car pulled up. One of the lads walked over to the driver’s window and passed him something before walking back. He was in shadow from the broken street lamps near him. Once the car was gone he ducked onto the street with the pistol drawn. Raising it, he took aim and started firing, turning it on its side like something out of an action film. The bullets flew across the street, the recoil something Joey was not expecting sending round after round away from his targets.

  The boys on the corner started to run, heading off in all directions. He heard a scream and a man yelled, dragging his leg before falling to the ground. Joey continued firing, keeping the others running away. He walked over to the lad who was on the floor the weapon pointed at the boy’s chest.

  “Where’s your goddamn money?” Joey yelled at him knowing his time was short. The young dealer on the floor was holding his leg, screaming in pain as blood pooled beneath him. Joey could see his scared face, and it dawned on him that he knew the boy.

  It was the last thing that Joey ever thought as a bullet went through his skull, dropping him to the floor like he was a rag doll, his pistol clattering to the ground. A bloody hole expanded from the back of his grey hooded shirt, where the bullet had entered. Just another dead boy on a city street, killed by a bullet fired in anger.

  Chapter One

  I’m one of those strange people who like the cold; probably because I run hot co
mpared to most people. It’s why I prefer the winter compared to the summer; still either one is better than spring and autumn. So it was with some annoyance that I turned up the thermostat on the heating in my office. I was an employer now so I had to make that personal sacrifice when one of them complained.

  It wasn’t a big office and it was only streets away from another private investigation department, not that it really mattered; since I’d opened the office I’d had only three cases. Two of them had been the work I really didn’t want, following cheating spouses and the third was a missing persons case that the police had had no luck with.

  I, on the other hand, had more luck. Since most routes of search had gone cold I went technical, tracking down the money and finding a husband who had absconded to the Caribbean rather than tell his distressed wife he had lost all of their money in a failed business venture. Well, not me specifically, but Harris Barkley. I’d been using him for years to run down leads for me since he was such a whiz when it came to computers. I’m not saying he was the super genius you see on television who could hack into the Pentagon and steal launch codes but he wasn’t far off.

  Harris was in his early twenties, weedy as is the geek stereotype and with bright red hair. He had got in deep with the Irish mob when he was younger because they to realised his usefulness and had him helping them launder their money. Harris had been clever enough to make himself a rich man by skimming off the top. What he hadn’t been too smart about was where he had placed himself, and that was in the house of one of the weed farms. It was raided as part of a general crackdown and fortune was on his side when I was involved. I kept him out of jail by getting him to turn on his employers that day. They never knew it was him that had resulted in five of their top guys getting sent down after shipments worth over a hundred million pounds had been taken over the course of the investigation.

  Harris was, however, paranoid and I’d made sure that he had gone off their radar by faking his death and getting him set up in out in the suburbs away from trouble. He did the rest; he made a new identity for himself, which had lead to his new name Harris Barkley. I knew all of his real details which made us close, closer than anyone he had left living from his past life. I had a soft spot for him since then and he had been working for just over minimum wage at a call centre doing technical support; so I offered him a job working for me. He wasn’t stupid and had asked for a big pay raise and at the moment I could afford it. I’d smiled at him when he had made that demand knowing full well that the man had enough money stashed away to live an easy life.

  Earlier in the year I’d had a big win at the bookies. It took over a month to get the money from the tight independent but it had been worth it. With my paycheck from the police after taking time off for stress; the less I get into that the better; I had enough to start up the office and still have a nice nest egg after a blowout trip to Oktoberfest. Not that the trip to Germany hadn’t been without incident or monetary reimbursement from a thankful German police force but that’s a story for another time.

  So it was me and him in that small office space in between Piccadilly and the Northern Quarter. It was boring sat there; him typing away on his computer occasionally taking phone calls still doing his technical support gig and me slowly reading my way through Manchester Central Library. At the moment I didn’t care; I was enjoying the peace and quiet. However that was about to change with a knock on our door.

  It was a tentative tap that roused me from a near slumber, so much so I nearly fell off my plush desk chair. Harris was far too interested in his computer to do anything so I stood up and walked around my desk towards the frosted glass door. I stopped in front of it and tried to make myself look as presentable as possible in the small mirror that hung next to the opening. I took my blue suit jacket from the hook at the side and put it on, deciding against wearing a tie. I opened it to be greeted by a middle aged woman. She was nothing like the femme fatales you read about; no, she was just an ordinary person.

  “Can I help you, miss?” I asked in my politest voice.

  “I hope so. Are you John Harper?” she asked in a thick Liverpudlian accent.

  “Yes ma’am would you like to come in and sit down. How about a cup of tea?”

  She smiled, “A cuppa would go down a treat; milk and three sugars if you don’t mind.”

  I let her inside and put on the kettle, Harris still not paying any attention to our guest. I’m not the greatest people person in the world but that man preferred his online pals to real world interaction. Considering some of the people I had met, that was a good idea. Taking over a cup for her and one for myself, I sat down at my desk opposite the woman.

  She took the drink and nursed it, warming her hands. I looked at her with my trained detective eye and saw a worried woman who hadn’t been sleeping. She was wearing a sturdy coat and thick trousers and considering the early hour must have caught one of the early trains. It had been over a minute of silence and I guessed she was a little nervous about speaking first so I asked again, “So what can I do to help you, miss?”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here to be honest but I’m at my wits end with everything that has gone on recently. My brother said he knew you back in the day; and that if I ever had any trouble to look you up. Now I don’t mind admitting that I ain’t got no time for busies, but I don’t know where else to turn,” she said shaking as if to start crying; it must have meant a lot to come to one of the dreaded busies aka a police officer. One of my weaknesses I suppose and I nearly got up from my seat but she held up her hand, “I’m sorry. It’s just been so difficult.”

  “Ok, well how about you tell me what has happened and who you are and I’ll try and sort out your problem.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t say. Where are my manners? I’m Sheila Morrison, my son killed a man and I’d like you to get him off.”

  Chapter Two

  To say I was a little taken aback by what Sheila had said was a massive understatement. That must have shown on my face as she leant forward and put the cup on the table, “Mister Harper, I know what I said must sound crazy but my son is under arrest for a murder he didn’t commit. I can’t prove it and the police are happy with locking him up for the crime. I don’t know where else to turn. Please help me.”

  I ran my hands through my short brown hair and blew out a sigh, “Right you’d better start from the top. First however I want to know who your brother is, the man who recommends me so highly.”

  “My brother was James McNeal,” Sheila said giving me my second shock for the day. Jay, as I knew, him had been in the army in Ireland when I had been undercover. He had pulled me out of a pub during a riot, saving me from myself. I was in deep then and although he knew who I was, he kept my cover by giving me a beating. He’d done me a service back then dragging me out of there before it got bad; I owed him for that, however getting his nephew off on a murder charge was another thing.

  “I’m sorry to hear he passed.”

  Sheila nodded, “Cancer runs in my family. After all the stuff he saw in the forces it was sod’s law that would be what caught him. I just pray that my boy Tom doesn’t get it. You see, he’s a young lad, but he’s clever. Thing is, he got in with a bad crowd at school; just lads from the neighbourhood. Anyway some kid from across the way got killed earlier this month and they’ve got my boy copping to it. I know he didn’t do it, Mister Harper, but they say he did and he’s going to go down for a long time. You know how they punish gun crime in Liverpool these days; they’ve been cracking down for years.”

  “To be brutally honest ma’am I’ve heard a lot of mothers say the same thing about their sons. Some are telling the truth, some bald face lie to me, and others, well they don’t really know their kids. What makes you say he didn’t do it?” I asked. It was a brutal question but I needed to know. The more information I had the better a job I could do; not that I felt particularly confident.

  She looked up at me, eyes wet with tears and despair etched on h
er face, “My boy was at home that night. The thing is, he’s got caught up in that Elsworth Warriors as they call themselves and he thinks he is the big I am by not saying anything and letting people think he did it. Since then I’ve had a drive by attack on my house, someone threw a grenade through the kitchen window and I’m scared to go outside my door. I was petrified this morning getting the train to Manchester. The only saving grace is that no one knows me here.”

  I ran my hand across my jaw and noted the stubble, after years of shaving for work it was a saving grace that I didn’t have to anymore. Taking a sip of my cooling drink, I leant back and tried to collect my thoughts. The whole thing sounded bad to me but Sheila was an old friend’s kin and I owed him. I don’t have many rules in my life but I pay my debts if I ever run them and I wasn’t about to back away from a woman in need, “So what do you want me to do, ma’am? If the police have enough to hold your son they must be serious.”

  “Apparently they got a confession from him. Ever since he has kept his mouth shut. I want you to talk sense into my son, get him recant his statement or something. He can’t go down for this,” she was close to pleading with me and it was enough to tug on my desensitised heartstrings. I’d worked murder cases for years as well as undercover work involving drug running and gang crime and it had taken a lot to become as distant as I had to be to deal with that sort of work. Sheila Morrison had just removed years of walls over a boy I didn’t even know. The more she said the worse it seemed to get for her son and in doing so the worse it got for me. Still, I liked a challenge.

  Chapter Three

  Sheila Harrison filled me in on the killing of Joey Boulton and how her son had been at home. She was well organised with times and dates of what had happened including her son’s arrest. Considering what she was asking, I was surprised when she brought up the subject of money. James had left her a small fortune; since she was his only living family, she had enough cash to hire a good lawyer to defend her son and me. It felt wrong taking money from her but she insisted.