At First Glance (novella)

By Paul Gitsham

‘A must read… Gripping.’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars

When a small-time drug dealer is found with his throat cut, a trail of blood leading to the weapon and killer, DCI Warren Jones looks forward to a fast resolution. But what seemed like an open-and-shut case quickly becomes a twisted trap: an innocent man set up to take the fall.

Everybody knew the victim, but witnesses are sparse – no one wants to get involved in a turf war. The one detail Warren has to go on is a mystery accomplice seen with the victim before his death: a man called Madman. A man who doesn’t seem to exist…

Readers LOVE At First Glance!

‘An enthralling thriller.’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars

‘Definitely a hit… Recommended.’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars

‘Kept me well entertained… I flew through it.’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars

‘Quick and satisfying.’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars

‘A tightly run police procedural… A huge surprise at the ending.’ NetGalley reviewer

‘A gritty story with… a tight and twisting plot… You’ll want to read more. ’ NetGalley reviewer

The DCI Warren Jones series
1 The Last Straw
2 No Smoke Without Fire
Blood is Thicker than Water (Novella)
3 Silent as the Grave
A Case Gone Cold (Novella)
4 The Common Enemy
A Deadly Lesson (Novella)
5 Forgive Me Father
At First Glance (Novella)
6 A Price to Pay
7 Out of Sight
8 Time to Kill
9 Web of Lies

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Mar 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9780008320591

Paul Gitsham

Paul Gitsham started his career as a biologist working in the UK and Canada. After stints as the world’s most over-qualified receptionist and a spell ensuring that international terrorists hadn’t opened a Child's Savings Account at a major UK bank (a job even duller than working reception) he retrained as a Science Teacher.

Book preview

Prologue

The car sits still, the engine idling. When the vehicle rolled off the production plant in Bavaria, more than ten years earlier, its makers had prided themselves on their precision engineering, its finely tuned engine producing barely a whisper.

Extra-wide stainless-steel exhaust tips had put an end to that, giving the diesel engine a throaty grumble that belied the fact that the car was the least powerful model in its range. The new M3 badge, added by the driver after he’d bought the crash-damaged car for a song in an online auction, reinforced the lie. There was no point wearing a fake Rolex to impress the foot soldiers if your choice of motor gave you away.

He pressed the throttle and the engine gave a louder growl, amplified as it bounced off the concrete walls and metal doors of the lock-up garages, adding its own discordant note to the bass beat pumped out by the top-of-the-line speakers he’d installed.

He told everyone that he kept the engine running so he could make a quick getaway if the police showed up. In reality, he did it because he could. A few months ago, some old bird came out to have a go. She knew why he was there, as did her idiot son – he could see the terror in his eyes as he hung back, his balls too small to back up his mum – but she didn’t say anything about his business.

‘If you’re going to sit here all night, switch the engine off and turn down the radio. It’s keeping the kiddies awake and polluting the atmosphere.’

She had guts – he’d give her that. But he couldn’t let that sort of disrespect go unchallenged. This was his territory. His turf.

He’d been tempted to flash the gun he kept under the seat. It was a fully loaded ancient revolver he’d bought down the pub, with half a dozen spare bullets. He only had two rounds left after he’d spent an afternoon out in the sticks trying to knock bottles off an old oil drum. Ten shots later, the drum had two new holes, and the bottles were untouched. He’d returned to the pub that night to buy some more ammunition and found out why the weapon had been so cheap. He’d been angry, but not angry enough to demand his money back for a gun that used obsolete bullets; getting into an argument with a gun dealer when all you had to back you up was an almost empty piece that you could barely aim was the very definition of stupid.

In the end, he’d told her to mind her own, and carried on revving the engine. She’d looked as though she was going to make something of it, but her son had pulled her away.

He’d won the battle, but spent the rest of the evening with one eye on the rear-view mirror, ready to floor it if the silly bitch called the police.

That had been months ago. She hadn’t called the police then and she hadn’t called them since. To be honest, he’d be surprised if she was still around; he was no doctor, but the yellow sagging skin, the hollow eyes and the sloppily tied headscarf that accentuated her lack of hair, rather than concealed it, told him all he needed to know.

He revved the engine again; this was his territory. He called the shots around here.

He looked at the dashboard clock. Where were they? Sunset was after nine this time of year, but they should have been here by now.

He wasn’t worried; even if they had been lifted and the police turned up, the gear was safe. He kept it in a hollowed-out compartment accessible only by a secret panel hidden in the glovebox. The bloke who’d installed it reckoned it would easily fool the local plods in Middlesbury. On the downside, if the car was ever in a head-on collision, the front passenger was screwed; wraps of heroin and bundles of twenties were no substitute for an airbag. He’d thought it best not to mention that to his girlfriend.

He saw a flash of movement in the rear-view mirror. An individual in a hoodie, head down, face concealed by the peak of a baseball cap, shuffled into sight.

Finally. Where had they been? Their customers would be crawling up the wall by now. Not that he gave a shit about some junkie’s cravings, but he wasn’t the only game in town and even heroin addicts had minimum service expectations.

He released the door lock as the figure drew alongside the car.

This was his territory.

He ran it.

Nobody was going to mess with him on his own turf.

Were they?

Day 1

Friday

The blood covering the interior of the BMW 3 series was already partly clotted by the time DCI Warren Jones arrived at the scene. Early June and it had been dark for less than two hours by 11 p.m. The hastily erected arc lamps threw confusing shadows against the white screens that shielded the scene, interspersed with the blue, strobing effect of the half-dozen police cars sealing the immediate area around the lock-up garages where the car had been found.

‘Any idea who the victim is yet?’

Detective Sergeant David Hutchinson flicked the page over in his notepad, his paper suit rustling. ‘The car is registered to a Kyle Hicks, known to his associates as Kicks. He’s on the computer for a range of drugs offences. I sent a photo back to Rachel Pymm and she says it matches his mugshot.’

Warren leaned through the open driver-side window; the smell of blood mingled nauseatingly with the man’s post-mortem bowel movement. The Christmas-tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror didn’t stand a chance.

‘Looks like a single swipe, right through the carotids. It must have been a very sharp blade.’

The man’s head was arched back, his glassy eyes wide with terror, his mouth agape in a silent scream. The man’s right hand was still pressed ineffectually against his ruined throat, but the crimson stains on his left hand and sleeve suggested that he’d tried to stem the bleeding with both hands. The sheer volume of blood coating the windscreen, dashboard and steering wheel attested to the futility of the gesture.

Warren stood up straight – he’d seen Crime Scene Manager Andy Harrison approaching.

‘Any indication of how long ago it happened?’ Warren greeted him.

‘Coagulation of the blood was well underway by the time the first responders arrived, so I’d say it happened at least fifteen minutes before then,’ said Harrison.

‘That’s consistent with the time given by the dog-walker who found the body. He called 999 at 21:55 hours and they arrived in less than five minutes,’ confirmed Hutchinson.

‘Any witnesses?’ asked Warren.

Hutchinson shook his head. ‘None so far. Most of the rubberneckers turned up to see what all the fuss was about.’

‘What’s the status of the cordon?’

‘An inner exclusion zone around the lock-ups, roadblocks on all surrounding streets, with Stop and Search in force. The Brownnose Brothers are supervising, but the streets are a maze.’ Hutchinson scowled. ‘If the killer didn’t hang about, he’s probably long gone.’

‘Can’t be helped, Hutch. Get Mags Richardson to start collecting CCTV, I want to know who was in the area. Get Jorge and Shaun to organise a house-to-house, let’s see if we can loosen some tongues.’ Warren refrained from calling the two new sergeants, Martinez and Grimshaw, by their less than flattering moniker, however apt it may be. He was the boss, after all, and they weren’t the only officers in the force to be so transparent about their future career ambitions.

‘If the victim’s a dealer and this is his patch, then the locals may know something. Get Rachel to set up an incident desk and start entering everything into HOLMES.’

‘If it’s drugs, we should probably let Serious and Organised Crime know sooner rather than later, you know what SOC are like,’ said Hutchinson.

Warren sighed. ‘You’re right. Is DSI Grayson back on duty?’

Hutchinson smirked slightly. ‘I believe he was seen going back into the office dressed for the theatre and looking pretty pissed off.’

‘Then I shall let the Superintendent inform our colleagues in Welwyn. Who knows, we might even get a couple of hours to do some detective work before SOC come and steal all the limelight.’

Paragraph break image

Lenny Seacole was a well-built, shaven-headed man of indeterminate age. He’d already spoken to the first officers on the scene after he’d reported the murder, but Warren wanted to speak to him personally, now that the adrenaline had worn off and before his memory started to cloud. However, Warren was beginning to wonder just how much of an adrenaline jolt the discovery had given the man. He’d been entirely unfazed by the CSI’s request to surrender his shoes for analysis; he’d declined