DEAD MAN'S GAME: A gripping UK Murder Mystery (DCI Garrick Crime Thrillers Book 4)

  DEAD MAN’S GAME

  Book 4

  M.G. COLE

  DEAD MAN’S GAME

  A DCI Garrick mystery - Book 4

  Copyright © 2021 by Max Cole (M.G.Cole)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover art: Shutterstock

  Contents

  Read the free prequel…

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Also by M.G. COLE

  Read the free prequel…

  SNOWBLIND

  Start the puzzle here…

  … and get inside DCI David Garrick’s head.

  1

  She thumped the keyboard in frustration. An irrational act, but one that gave a little sense of satisfaction knowing it was attached to the rest of the computer. And it seemed to do the trick as her email finally loaded up again. The system had been acting sluggish for days, no matter which workstation she sat at. In the small office everybody had to hot desk, taking whatever computer was available on the day, so the problem must be with her email program.

  As her messages loaded, she glanced at her Apple Watch which told her it was 17:26. A raft of emails came through. Eighty per cent spam, but amongst them some of the emails she had been anxiously waiting for. One stood out with the striking name of WHISTLE-BLOWER. She’d checked it out only to discover it was a free Yahoo email address that anybody could have created, but the information contained within was gold dust.

  She double clicked it. With intolerable slowness, the message opened. Just a few short lines, but it was everything she had been hoping. Finally, they were meeting. It ended with an ominous, be careful.

  For days, she had the growing sense that she was being followed and watched. The erratic computer compounded to her growing paranoia. She hurriedly logged off the system and crammed her phone and a few printed research papers into her Louis Vuitton bag. Her hands were shaking. She had little time to make the rendezvous; one that would change everything.

  Calm down, she warned herself. Focus was the key to the evening. The day had ticked by with agonising slowness as she went through the motions of work.

  She took off the glasses she wore for reading, but often kept on to lend a more sophisticated, intelligence edge to her persona, and rubbed her tired eyes. Holding the breath for a slow count of three, she slowly exhaled.

  “You can do this,” she said aloud to the empty office.

  Another glance at her watch, and her mind began planning. It would take about fifty-minutes to get home, and then…

  Taking the stairs to the ground floor, she gave quick goodbyes to everybody she passed, but didn’t linger for a reply. Hurrying from the building and through the busy street, she didn’t register the usual noise of the town, or the knots of chatting people heading home or out to eat. If she was being watched, then there was plenty of cover for them to hide. A group of noisy school kids was the only detail she processed as she reached the multistorey carpark. She passed the elevator, which she never took on principle, but this evening the stench of stale piss coming from it made her walk even faster to the staircase.

  She bounded up two at a time. Her car was on the fourth level, but she had only reached level two when she heard the door below squeak open as somebody stepped through.

  Her heart hammered from a surge of anxiety. It was still daylight and at a busy time of day, in a popular town centre car park – she told herself that she had nothing to be nervous about.

  The soft shuffle of footsteps below indicated somebody was trotting up the steps. It was foolish to think it was anybody who harboured any malicious intentions towards her…

  And yet…

  She rushed up the steps again, this time keeping her weight on her toes to minimise noise. She felt foolish, as if acting like a child, but she was too much on edge to take any chances. Fishing the key fob from her coat pocket, she kept a steady pace, aided by her weekly jogging routine. It ensured that she wasn’t out of breath by the time she reached the door leading to level four. She yanked it open, wincing as the squeals from the worn hinges amplified through the narrow concrete stairwell. If the person below wasn’t aware of her, they certainly were now.

  Was it her imagination, or did the footsteps suddenly pick up pace? It was difficult to ascertain, and now her mind was screaming at her to run. Just as it was when she’d arrived, the car park was full, yet there was nobody around. No sound of engines starting up, or people eagerly heading home. Even the noise of traffic outside didn’t seem able to penetrate through the open spaces, allowing light to flood in. She ran towards her white Volkswagen Beetle, which she’d deliberately parked facing out the bay to facilitate a quick exit. Her plan was thwarted because the car next to her had parked so close there was no way she could open the driver’s side door and get in.

  “Bastard!”

  The word tumbled around the car park. She darted around to the passenger side, just as she heard the whine of the door opening as somebody joined her on the fourth level. Thumbing the unlock button on the fob, she winced as the vehicle’s indicator lights flashed and the doors clicked open. She didn’t waste any time in climbing in. She clambered over the gear selector, banging her head against the mirror in her haste, and was in the driver’s seat before realising that she hadn’t locked the doors. A shaking finger stabbed the central locking button – but nothing happened.

  A glance across revealed that, in her haste, she hadn’t closed the passenger door.

  Blood pounded in her ears, deafening her to the sound of anybody approaching. She lunged across the passenger seat. Her fingers felt thick and numb and failed to make contact with the door.

  It was the chance her attacker needed.

  But he didn’t come.

  Pushing herself inches closer, she hooked the door handle and slammed it shut. She slumped back into her seat and hit the central locking button again. This time there was a satisfyingly heavy thump as the doors locked.

  Still shaking, she pressed the start button and the hybrid engine purred to life. Both hands gripped the wheel as she expected somebody to step out in front of her car.

  Seconds passed… but nobody came.

  Paranoia had laid its grubby hands on her imagination since she had first become aware of what was happening. It was sickening, cruel, and the world had to be told.

  She slipped the car into driv
e and pulled out of the parking bay. Scanning the mirrors, she couldn’t see her phantom pursuer. She let out her pent-up breath. The irony of her acting paranoid wasn’t lost on her. God knows how her whistle-blower was feeling. She imagined the pressures on him or her were ten times worse. If she felt this bad now, how was she possibly going to get through the next few hours?

  She knew she had to get a grip in case things turned bad.

  She just didn’t know how bad her life was about to become.

  2

  “Tea?”

  The cup struck the table a little too hard, spilling some of the liquid over the lip and onto the table. DCI David Garrick’s eyes fixed on the brown droplets. They held their shape, slightly elevated from the wooden surface. Two slowly rolled together to form one large bead. Despite the rusty brown colour, he couldn’t shake the image of blood droplets crawling along the surface.

  “David?”

  He looked up, wondering how much of the conversation he’d missed. Superintendent Margery Drury took the seat opposite him and cradled her head in both hands. She was tired after an exhausting twenty-four-hour work marathon, and at just past eight in the evening, caffeine was no longer having any effect on her. If anything, it was tiring her out.

  “This is going to get difficult.”

  Garrick gave a low, ironic chuckle. It was nothing more than an effort to give some sort of reply since his words continued to fail him. Drury sipped her coffee and savoured the warmth, if not the taste.

  “What I mean is, there will be no right steps forward, no matter what we do,” she clarified. “My options are limited.”

  “Mine too,” said Garrick as he placed both hands around the cup of matcha tea. Ever since arriving at the police station he’d been unable to get warm. A grim chill seeped through to his bones with icy tendrils surging through his veins. It was his body reacting to the stress, but why it thought freezing him to death was a benefit, he couldn’t imagine. He’d endured questions, refused a solicitor, and spent a sleepless night in a cell. The rest of the day had been spent in the very interview room he found himself in now. He shivered again, partly from the cold, but mostly from the gruesome image that had confronted him in his own home.

  His career had made him accustomed to death. Almost insensitive. The barbarity that one person could inflict upon another had become nothing more than a regular day at work for him. A case only got under his skin when he got to know the victim. When he discovered more about their life and their personality. That was the moment a corpse, a victim, transformed into a fully rounded human being with hopes, dreams, and ambitions.

  Except in this case, it went beyond that.

  He knew the victim.

  And he was, in a second-hand way, a victim too. One of the easily forgotten victims who had to live with the consequences of a murder. The seismic repercussions of losing a loved one were incalculable, echoing down to even those with just a casual association.

  There were thousands of questions vying for attention, but there were only a few he could ask Drury, and he knew she was in no position to give any answers. Even if she knew them. He was sitting on the wrong side of the table.

  He was the prime suspect.

  Throughout questioning, he’d only managed short, almost monosyllabic replies. As a detective he always found that those were the most infuriating, and often the most damning. However, his mind had been in a fog, so he wasn’t even sure if he was answering consistently or accidentally contradicting himself. He knew from experience that even the most coherent witnesses were prone to mistakes, incongruities, and even forming false memories. It was basic human nature when in shock.

  Matters were compounded by his own doubts. Of course, he was innocent… but…

  The growth in his head. The pressure on his brain. The hallucinations and blurred lines of reality he’d been experiencing had made him question his own innocence while he tossed and turned on the hard mattress in the bleak prison cell; all the while trying to tune out the drunk in the cell next to him who had screamed more obesities than he could recall.

  It was impossible that he could have committed such an horrific act. Completely implausible.

  So why did he have a gnawing doubt that he was somehow responsible? A faint whispering that hinted at implied guilt. On second thoughts, he cautioned himself that hearing voices, whispering or any other kind, was a sure step towards the pit of insanity he feared he was teetering over.

  “David?”

  The sound of Drury’s voice brought him back to the moment. She looked up from her phone and her eyebrow fluttered inquisitively.

  “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?” Garrick shook his head. She indicated her phone. “He’s on his way.”

  The words had the effect of a pair of hands laying pressure on Garrick’s shoulders. The next few minutes would dictate which way his future lay. From his point of view, both were shrouded in shadow and stretched beyond the event horizon of acceptable reality.

  Drury sipped her coffee and gave a little cough to lubricate her dry throat. “Doing the right thing may sometimes seem to be the most callous.” Garrick knew she was covering herself as best as possible for what lay ahead. “But I have your back, David. Even if you think I don’t. That’s what friends do.”

  That he and Drury were friends was certainly news to Garrick.

  The door to the interview room squeaked open its dry hinge. Garrick had always prevented maintenance from oiling it. He thought the drawn-out metal groan as the door closed slowly was ominous enough to put his suspects off-balance. Now it was having the same effect on him as DCI Oliver Kane entered.

  His greying beard seemed longer and more unkempt than when Garrick had last seen him, and his naturally craggy face showed a lack of sleep. The last time he’d been in the room his arms were laden with printouts and folders related to the murder in Garrick’s home. This time he carried nothing as he sat down next to Drury and idly scratched the side of his salt-and-pepper hair. Drury reached over to start the digital recorder, but Kane held up a hand.

  “If it’s all the same to you, perhaps we can do that in a second.”

  Drury moved away and sat back in her seat, linking her fingers together as she rested her hands on the table. Garrick forced himself to look the London Met officer directly in the eyes. He didn’t like the man. He was too full of secrets and, right now, he was playing the role of Garrick’s judge and jury.

  “The initial autopsy results came in along with some forensic data,” he said in a low voice.

  Garrick wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the details, but he had little choice.

  “The victim was abducted from her vehicle. We found it in a ditch. There were signs of a struggle. Defensive marks on her arms and bruising on her throat as she was gripped as her head slammed against the rear driver’s side window. Hard enough to fracture the glass and cause a hairline fracture in her skull. Then she was drugged. Kept unconscious with flunitrapam.”

  Garrick stirred in his seat and looked away. He really didn’t want to know more. He knew the drug under its more commonly used name: Rohypnol. The infamous date-rape drug.

  Kane pressed on. “There is no sign of any sexual assault. From the quantity found in her blood, she was just coming around by the time the first knife wound struck her chest. And that would have been on the landing in your house.”

  Kane paused as Garrick’s brow knitted together. Tears were forming in the corners of his eyes, but with a sharp intake of breath through his nose, he cleared the initial impulse to cry.

  “She was carved up there. The coroner thinks the wounds were deliberately designed for a slow death. This wasn’t a savage attack. It was calculated. The writing on the wall,” Garrick grimaced as he recalled the crudely written words, Miss Me? “was her blood. Looks like the culprit wore latex gloves. There are no prints anywhere.”

  Garrick rubbed his temples as his migraine danced merrily on his patience. The Met officer finally took the h
int that he didn’t want to know the details.

  Kane tapped the table with his right hand. His nails clicked against the wooden top.

  “Lividity suggests an estimated time of death at about 9:00 pm.” Garrick’s gaze locked on his. “Which of course places you here,” Kane gestured around, “with your team.” He smiled, although Garrick wasn’t sure if it was forced or not. “Which obviously eliminates you as a suspect.”

  If Kane had been expecting a gasp of relief from him, then he was bang out of luck.

  “It was John Howard,” Garrick stated with certainty.

  “You know he’s dead, David,” Drury said with an unhindered tone of relief. “You were there.”

  Garrick leaned across the table, his expression hardening. “I was unconscious in the snow at that point.”

  “They found his body in the remains of his house–”

  “A badly burned corpse,” Garrick corrected her.

  “He was identified through dental records.”

  Garrick leaned back in his chair as any further argument escaped him.

  Kane spoke up. “Everything points to an accomplice of Howard’s. Somebody enacting revenge on you, for…?” He left the sentence hanging.

  “You tell me,” Garrick snapped. “My sister’s voice over the phone, the empty envelope sealed by her, the fucking brand-new Range Rover bought in my name and turning up at my house. This is some serious twisted thinking. Which is exactly why I think it’s him.”