A Case of Missing on Midthorpe Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by David W Robinson

  Cover Photography by Adobe Stock © aanbetta

  Design by soqoqo

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Books except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously.

  First Dark Edition, darkstroke, Crooked Cat Books 2019

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  The Author

  David Robinson is a Yorkshireman now living in Manchester. Driven by a huge, cynical sense of humour, he’s been a writer for over thirty years having begun with magazine articles before moving on to novels and TV scripts.

  He has little to do with his life other than write, as a consequence of which his output is prodigious. Thankfully most of it is never seen by the great reading public of the world.

  He has worked closely with Crooked Cat Books and darkstroke since 2012, when The Filey Connection, the very first Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery, was published.

  Describing himself as the Doyen of Domestic Disasters he can be found blogging at www.dwrob.com and he appears frequently on video (written, produced and starring himself) dispensing his mocking humour at www.youtube.com/user/Dwrob96/videos

  The Midthorpe Murder Mystery series:

  A Case of Missing on Midthorpe

  A Case of Bloodshed in Benidorm

  The STAC Mystery series:

  The Filey Connection

  The I-Spy Murders

  A Halloween Homicide

  A Murder for Christmas

  Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

  My Deadly Valentine

  The Chocolate Egg Murders

  The Summer Wedding Murder

  Costa del Murder

  Christmas Crackers

  Death in Distribution

  A Killing in the Family

  A Theatrical Murder

  Trial by Fire

  Peril in Palmanova

  The Squire’s Lodge Murders

  Murder at the Treasure Hunt

  A Cornish Killing

  A Case of

  Missing on Midthorpe

  A Midthorpe Murder Mystery (#1)

  Chapter One

  “Careful… I mean it, Nate. This thing’s loaded.”

  Nathan Perry’s eyes narrowed to tiny points of malevolence. “I’m sick of you and your toffees. This punter wants his money back or the real thing, and if you don’t pay up, I’ll make sure he comes looking for you.”

  “You’ll keep your mouth shut. You’re in this just as deeply as the rest of us. And if he wants his money back, that’s your pigeon, not mine. What the hell were you doing selling to a man like him in the first place?”

  “Making money for you, that’s what.”

  “And you didn’t get your share? No, forget it, Nate. You got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out of it.”

  Nathan moved forward, the twin barrels of the Webley twelve gauge confronted him again. He grabbed the barrel.

  “Don’t you threaten me.”

  He dragged the gun towards him. Both barrels exploded into his chest, and he fell back to the cold, concrete floor.

  “Damn. Damn and blast you, you bloody idiot.” Panic gripped him temporarily, and he had to force himself to calm down, taking deep breaths, letting them out slowly, evenly. He’d been in this position before, and it was not intractable.

  He replaced the shotgun in the locker, then stepped outside, looking up and down the rough lane. No one to be seen. It was hardly surprising. At this time on a bitterly cold January evening, most people were at home sitting in front of the box.

  He reversed his car up to the shutter, opened the boot, then went back into the small workshop. Digging out a set of overalls, he put them on, raised the shutter and, his stomach heaving, limbs trembling, manhandled the dead youth into the car boot, slammed the lid down, and locked it.

  Then he lowered and secured the shutter, before setting about cleaning up the mess of blood on the concrete floor. It was hard work, but fortunately, the nature of his operation meant he had plenty of serious cleaning fluids available.

  Half an hour later the job was done. All that remained now was to get rid of the rest of the evidence: Nate Perry.

  From the back of the workshop, he took out a shovel, and stripped off his overalls. They were covered in blood, too. They would have to be burned. He couldn’t leave them lying around here. His operation was (in his opinion) not really illegal, but he couldn’t risk the filth turning up and finding a set of bloodstained working clothes. By the same token, he couldn’t dump them with Nate’s body, just in case someone found the lad, and the forensic scientists employed by the police, linked them to him.

  Throwing a shovel and the overalls into the boot, he locked up the workshop, and climbed behind the wheel. There was only one place to get rid of the boy. It would be hard work, and he’d be lucky if he got to bed this side of two in the morning.

  “Might have to chuck a sickie tomorrow,” he said to himself as he started the engine and drove away.

  ***

  Aside from a dim glow penetrating the thick, blood red curtains, the house appeared to be in total darkness. They looked around the well-kept front garden, and up the paved drive to the side of the house. There was no one, and nothing to be seen. The biting cold of a January night kept the occupants and their neighbours indoors.

  Dressed from head to toe in dark clothing, they pulled balaclava masks down, covering their faces. Their hands were shrouded in woolly gloves, keeping out the cold, keeping out the fingerprints. Caution was the watchword. Neither of them had ever been in serious trouble with the police, and now was not the time to start.

  “You ready, man?” The first man’s voice was not much above a whisper.

  The other held up the wheelbrace and scissor-jack. “You got the props?”

  The first held up three house bricks. “Go for it.”

  They crept up the drive, crouching low, taking advantage of the hedgerows to keep them even deeper in the shadows.

  “What if he’s got one of them automatic lights at the door?”

  “Well, we’re not gonna knock on the door, are we?”

  “Yeah, but, they have a wide field.”

  Behind his mask, the second man’s eyes screwed up into a puzzled stare. “We’re not in a field, you numpty. This is his drive. That’s why it’s got the car parked in it.”

  The first man clucked impatiently. “I keep forgetting I’m working with a banana. Any hassle, and we leg it. Right? Drop everything and run for it.”

  The second man held up the jack and wheelbrace. “These are my dad’s. No way am I leaving these behind.”

  They continued their slow ascent up the steep drive, crouching even lower as they neared the black BMW, keeping to the offside, away from the house wall and the danger of motion-sensitive security lights.

  Gently sliding the jack under the car, the second man chortled with glee. “Alloys. No badge. Bloke like him, an’all. I thought they was supposed to be all for the poor.”

  The first man fiddled with the wheelbrace, attaching it to the nuts. “Yeah? Since when did he drop you a coupla bob? They’re all the same, man. Get it jacked up.”

  His partner began to turn the screw at the end of the jack. I
t gave a tiny squeak, and they paused, freezing, looking around, expecting someone, anyone, coming to investigate the noise. When nothing happened, he turned the jack again.

  The door of the house opened, the far side of the car was flooded with light, and they froze again. Whoever was there could not see them, but every muscle in their bodies was tense, ready to run for it.

  His voice, a cultured, educated English accent, reached them. “Go on. Go and have a wee. That’s a good girl.”

  They heard the door close again and breathed a silent sigh of relief.

  The first man was struggling to fit the wheelbrace onto the nuts. “Vicious bastard. Don’t tell me they’re locking nuts.”

  His pal turned the scissor jack again. “You can do it.”

  From behind came a strange, panting sound. The wheelbrace operator turned his head and stared into the dark, evil eyes of the hound from hell. She probably weighed more than the pair of them put together. Saliva dripped from the slobbering lips, the eyes were narrowed on their target, which as far as the first man was concerned, was his backside.

  Without warning, she gave a bark loud enough to be heard three streets away.

  With cries of terror, they stood up and ran for it, and while the first man dropped his bricks and the wheelbrace, the second had enough sense permeating his dread, to collect his father’s jack and that same wheelbrace before hurrying after his partner.

  The Rottweiler bounded after them, her stumpy tail wagging from side to side, her bark reaching their ears, and spurring them to greater speed.

  They dashed across the road, leapt over the low wall into Midthorpe Park, and scuttled away into the small clutch of trees just inside the boundary wall. Pausing, looking back, they could see the giant dog, her paws resting on the wall, barking after them.

  Back at the house, the door opened, and a security light came on once again. The householder raised his voice. “Sue. Come on, Sue. That’s enough of that. Come on. Good girl.”

  Responding to her master’s voice, the dog turned and padded back across the road.

  “You dummy. I thought you’d cased the place. How come you didn’t know they had a bleeding lion for a pet?”

  The second raised his balaclava, and ran a shaking hand across his forehead. “I checked the car, not the bod what owns it. Did you get rid of the bricks?”

  “Do fish crap in the sea? Anyway, you should know, you nearly fell over them.” The first man pulled back his sleeve and checked his watch. “Ten o’clock. Anywhere else you can think of?”

  “Not with alloys. Suppose we could do a couple of regular wheels.”

  “Yeah, and end up with half the dosh we should have.”

  “It’s called cutting your losses. Better with a tenner each than nothing at all.” He sighed. “You got any toffees?”

  His partner ferreted through his pockets and came out with a single pill smothered in cheap bubblewrap. “One Fiagara. You on a promise or something?”

  “Since when do I need help getting it up?” The other tutted. “I was thinking of hitting the Midden and selling a few.”

  “Well, we could make a fiver with this.”

  “Forget it. I’m going home, taking me dad’s tackle back.”

  Removing the masks, they trudged back towards the main entrance, and as they passed through the stone pillars, the beam of headlights coming from the road opposite, the one that led back to the estate, picked them out.

  The car came straight down the hill, paused at the main road, and drove across, stopping in the park gates.

  The window came down. “All right, lads? Up to your usual tricks?”

  “Looking for a bit of action, that’s all,” the first man said. “You got any gear?”

  The driver laughed. “Not tonight. On a promise down there.” He nodded into the park. “I’ll catch you both later.” He put the car in gear, and drove off, leaving them staring enviously after him.

  ***

  Everyone knew that the gardeners’ compound in Midthorpe Park was about as secure as a frayed washing line in a hurricane.

  True, there was a padlock on the gate, but a pair of bolt cutters would soon take care of it. The trouble was, he had no bolt cutters. Instead, he employed a couple of bricks as a makeshift hammer and anvil, and after a few hefty cracks, the lock snapped away. Tossing the bricks to one side, he made his way into the compound, collected a wheelbarrow, and retraced his steps, pushing the gate closed behind him, before ambling off to his car, 200 yards away.

  Once there, he cast a final check round to ensure there was no one watching him. Even at this time of year, Midthorpe Park had a reputation as the ideal spot for a bit of extramarital, horizontal PT.

  Satisfied that he was totally alone, he opened the boot, put on the overalls, and rolled Nate’s body into the barrow. Dropping the shovel in on top of the body, he closed the boot, switched on his flashlight, and with it held awkwardly in one hand, made his way into Midthorpe Woods.

  It was a bit unfortunate bumping into those two clowns at the park gates. When news of Nate’s disappearance spread, they would ask awkward questions. As luck would have it, neither of them was blessed with any great intelligence, and they would be easy to shut up. They worked for him just as Nate had done, and he knew enough about their trade in stolen wheels to keep them quiet.

  Thinking about it as he made his way along the pitch dark path through the woods, there would be no need for them to know that Nate was dead. This was Midthorpe; one of the worst council estates in Leeds. Its reputation meant the police considered it a no-go area, and young people regularly disappeared from this part of the city, most of them making for London, Blackpool in Scarborough, or even Bradford… Anywhere but Midthorpe.

  He reached his destination, a small hollow deep in the woods. Letting the wheelbarrow stand, he began to dig.

  Circumstances favoured him once more. The winter had been wet rather than icy, and the ground was soft, yielding. Even so, it was hard work digging out a hole large enough to accommodate a body, and then shovelling earth back in, and finally topping it off with a layer of dead vegetation.

  Bathed in sweat, he dropped the shovel in the empty wheelbarrow and began to make his way back to his car.

  As he reached the end of the path, close to the car park, he killed his flashlight. Security! Bugger. He’d forgotten about them.

  With the same caution as utilised by the police, there were two of them, and they were checking his car. He waited, hidden in the darkness. They would soon be gone.

  “Tougher man than I am,” he heard one of them say. “I meanersay, it’s one thing getting your legover in this kinda weather, but you should be on the back seat of the car, not in the woods.”

  “It could be nicked. Are we gonna log it?”

  “Nah. The boss’ll only wanna know why we didn’t follow it up with Swansea to find out who owns it. Let’s leave it this time, and if it’s still here on the next round, then we’ll log it.”

  Listening to them, he buried the silent sigh of relief. Who said there were no advantages to the general laziness of Midthorpers?

  He watched them drive off, gave it another few minutes, then stepped out of the inky blackness, hurried to his car, dropped the shovel into the boot, and finally returned the wheelbarrow to the gardeners’ compound, leaving it exactly as he found it, propped up against a stack of compost bags.

  Returning to the car, he removed the overalls, and dropped them in the boot, and as a final check shone his torch around the interior of the boot. There were traces of what looked like blood here and there. Another item to add to his checklist. The interior of the car would need a thorough scrubbing with cleaning fluid and disinfectant.

  Five minutes later, he drove out of the park and back to his workshop. Further down the rough lane was a skip outside a pallet yard. They used it for dumping broken pallets, and it caught fire (deliberately) so often that he was forced to wonder why the contractor who owned the skip was prepared to go on
leaving it there.

  Such questions were irrelevant to him. Siphoning a half litre of petrol from his car, he dropped the overalls in the skip, soaked them in unleaded, and then dug out a cigarette lighter. He was tempted to light a cigarette first, but he realised that he stank of petrol. His intention was to burn the overalls, not himself. Subduing his nicotine craving, he rolled a sheet of newspaper into a tight knot, lit it, and dropped it on the overalls.

  With a WHOOSH, flames leapt into the dark, winter sky, and he was forced to back off. Indeed, the speed at which the fire took hold, compelled him to leap back into his car, turn round and get the hell out of there before half the lane went up in smoke.

  As he reached the main road at the top, turning right and then left into Midthorpe estate, the glow of his hastily conceived efforts at disposing of evidence could be seen in the rearview mirror. Making a mental note that he still had to attend to the shovel and the boot of his car, he turned into the street where he lived, and reversed sedately into his drive.

  Aside from the unexpected ferocity of the conflagration in the skip (he would later learn that the owner of the pallet yard had planned to torch the skip the following night, and the wood was already soaked in various fuel oils) it had been a successful evening’s work.

  Chapter Two

  Raymond Baldock placed a tube of mints and a small bottle of water on the counter. “I’d like two first class stamps, please.”

  Ivan Haigh reached below the counter, into a drawer, came out with a book of first class stamps, from which he tore off two, and placed them on the counter with the other items. He then took a pencil from his ear, snatched a notebook and scribbled down the prices.

  “Mints, sixty-five pee, water, seventy-nine pee, one first class stamp, sixty-seven pee, one first class stamp, sixty-seven pee. Right, chief, all up, that’s…” He ran through them with his pencil, adding up the numbers. “Two pounds seventy-seven, for cash.” He held out his hand.