Murder Has No Guilt Read online

  Murder Has No Guilt

  Phillip Strang

  Books By Phillip Strang

  DCI Isaac Cook Series

  MURDER IS A TRICKY BUSINESS

  MURDER HOUSE

  MURDER IS ONLY A NUMBER

  MURDER IN LITTLE VENICE

  MURDER IS THE ONLY OPTION

  MURDER IN NOTTING HILL

  MURDER IN ROOM 346

  MURDER OF A SILENT MAN

  MURDER HAS NO GUILT

  MURDER WITHOUT REASON

  DI Keith Tremayne Series

  DEATH UNHOLY

  DEATH AND THE ASSASSIN’S BLADE

  DEATH AND THE LUCKY MAN

  DEATH AT COOMBE FARM

  DEATH BY A DEAD MAN’S HAND

  DEATH IN THE VILLAGE

  Steve Case Series

  HOSTAGE OF ISLAM

  THE HABERMAN VIRUS

  PRELUDE TO WAR

  Standalone Books

  MALIKA’S REVENGE

  Copyright Page

  Copyright © 2018 Phillip Strang

  Cover Design by Phillip Strang

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This work is registered with the UK Copyright Service.

  Author’s Website: http://www.phillipstrang.com

  Table of Contents

  Murder Has No Guilt

  DCI Isaac Cook Series

  DI Keith Tremayne Series

  Steve Case Series

  Standalone Books

  Copyright Page

  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

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  Murder in Room 346 – A DCI Cook Thriller

  Murder in Notting Hill – A DCI Cook Thriller

  Murder is the Only Option – A DCI Cook Thriller

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dedication

  For Eli and Tais, who both had the perseverance to make me sit down and write.

  Chapter 1

  Giuseppe Briganti had come over from Italy fifteen years previously with a smattering of English and not much else. Life had been tough back home for Giuseppe, or Peppe as everyone called him, the third son of a farmer. Not that he had reason to complain, as his father was a good man, and he loved his mother dearly. It was just that Peppe was not cut out for farming. So much so that at the age of twenty he left for Milan.

  He learnt his trade well, so well that within five years he was at the top of his profession, and constantly in demand in the hairdressing salon that was owned by a man who treated Peppe as if he was his own son.

  Yet it was the salon’s owner who had by his actions been responsible for Peppe’s hasty departure for England; the reason Peppe was in his salon in London cutting the hair of Alphonso Abano, another immigrant to England, although Abano came from Sicily, mafioso country.

  Back in Milan, Peppe had been in love, but she had preferred the salon owner, clearly apparent when Peppe had walked in on the two, in flagrante delicto, in the back room of the salon.

  Peppe knew that he should have hit her first, and then the old man second, but he did neither. Without saying a word, he moved back out through the salon, only stopping long enough to pick up his scissors and a couple of combs. Peppe was never a man for material possessions, and it took him just one hour to pack his suitcase, pay the outstanding rent, and catch the first train heading north. One day later, a train pulled into London, and Peppe stepped off. He had sufficient money not to worry for a few days, and he checked into a hotel.

  On the fourth day, he answered an advert for a hairdresser at the salon where he now worked, and in time purchased the business from the man who had first employed him.

  Life now consisted of enjoying his nights alone, his days in the salon catering to celebrities, the upwardly-mobile bankers and financiers, and, thankfully, only one gangster.

  In Italy, Peppe had catered to both sexes, but in Kensington, on Kensington High Street, not far from the palace, it was strictly men only, although women came in with their men.

  In one chair sat Guy Hendry, talk show host, a man about town, and a man who graced the front page of the celebrity-obsessed magazines on account of his film star looks, his perpetual suntan, and the women he took out. Peppe thought he was a Dorian Gray character, in as much as the man was ten years older than when he had first walked in the door of the salon, yet his women had become progressively younger, and the one he had now in tow, Gillian Dickenson, was five years younger than the previous one.

  Peppe would have said she was vivacious, with a permanent smile, a bust that looked artificial, and a skirt that barely covered her underwear, and yet she looked as if she had just left school.

  On another chair, having his hair cut, the vain and obnoxious Paul Waverton. The whizz kid they called him in the press for his ability to read the financial markets and to make the right call. His Bentley was parked outside, close enough to be admired by Waverton and the people on the street, illegally enough to get a ticket for parking where it shouldn’t be. Not that it worried Waverton as he flaunted his money, even giving a fifty-pound tip to whoever worked on his hair. And work was the word, for Waverton, in spite of all his financial acumen, was an unattractive man with hair like steel wool, almost like a Brillo pad, and as hard to keep in shape.

  Peppe focussed back on Abano. ‘Not so busy today,’ the little man said. Peppe would have happily refused his custom, but Abano was not a man to fall out with, the sort of man who had friends in low places who wouldn’t have any issues about giving someone a savage beating.

  ‘It will be later,’ Peppe said as he combed Abano’s hair back over the top of his scalp, the expensive treatments for premature balding not working, and certainly not willing to tell the gangster.

  Abano liked to talk big and to show off, not that Peppe wanted to hear the stories, only to take the man’s money and to shuffle him out of the salon. Time at Peppe’s salon was by appointment only, and in another forty minutes an important customer was due, a friend of royalty. He was more the salon’s type of customer, as were Hendry and Waverton.

  It didn’t happen often, but sometimes people without appointments came in, and as it was a Tuesday, typically the slowest day of the week, there was a spare chair and a spare hairdresser. But the person who came in was not a well-heeled man, nor a celebrity, not even a gangster. It was a celebrity seeker, a woman in her thirties, carrying more weight than she should, and definitely drunk.

  ‘Mr Hendry, Guy,’ she gushed as she made her way over to the man. Gillian Dickenson stood up to impede the woman’s progress, but she was pushed to one side. One of the o
ther hairdressers attempted to grab the woman’s arm, but she wrenched herself free.

  ‘I need your autograph and a photo,’ she said to Hendry.

  ‘Not now, later,’ Hendry said in a friendly manner, in an attempt to maintain his on-screen persona.

  ‘Now, it’s got to be now. My friends will never believe that I met Guy Hendry.’

  ‘Please, now is not convenient. Send an email to my publicity company, and I’ll make sure you receive a promotional package and an invite to a recording of one of my programmes.'

  ‘You’re like all the rest of them,’ the woman sneered. ‘All smiles and teeth on the television, but total bastards in real life.’

  ‘Please, will you leave,’ Peppe said.

  ‘Who are you to tell me to do anything?’

  ‘I’m the owner, and this is private property.’

  ‘I’ll go once Guy Hendry gives me an autograph and a photo.’

  ‘Very well,’ Hendry said, raising himself from where he had been sitting, running his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Hey, you can take the photo,’ the celebrity-obsessed woman said to Hendry’s girlfriend.

  Nobody looked at the door to the salon, only at the commotion to the rear of the room. Peppe was nervously pacing around the room, Abano was on his phone calling for a couple of his men to wait outside the salon and to deal with the woman if she didn’t leave.

  Hendry, seriously annoyed and not in a good mood, smiled through gritted teeth, not even complaining when the woman put her arms around him and thrust her breasts forward.

  ‘The real stuff, you don’t know what you’re missing,’ she said.

  ‘That’s enough. Out of my establishment,’ Peppe said.

  A man who had come in unannounced stood just inside the door of the salon. He looked around him and at the people assembled. From inside the long coat that he wore, he withdrew a semi-automatic rifle. He released the safety and sprayed the salon, making sure that no one avoided the bullets. He then walked around to each of those lying or slouching or still groaning. He withdrew a pistol from his pocket and shot each person at close range in the head.

  In all, a total of twenty-eight seconds from first shot to when he left the salon. Outside, he casually walked away down Kensington High Street. Once clear of the area, he deposited the rifle and the pistol in a rubbish bin.

  Back at the salon, the screaming of the people on the street could still be heard, as could the sirens of the police cars and the ambulances. The man knew that they were too late and all they would find would be dead bodies. A most satisfying day, he thought.

  Chapter 2

  Kensington High Street, with the rush hour traffic building and multiple homicides, was not something that the local police were prepared for, although practice for terrorist attacks had helped. With no option, the busy thoroughfare had been closed, causing anger with those already stuck in traffic, and frustration with the other motorists as they were diverted around the area.

  Outside the hairdressing salon, Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook, the English-born son of Jamaican immigrants who had come over in the sixties, stood. He cut a striking figure: tall, athletic and erect. Alongside him, Detective Inspector Larry Hill, Cook’s second in command, and a man who struggled with his weight, self-induced as he was partial to overeating and drinking too many pints of beer, much to the consternation of his loyal wife.

  ‘Not good,’ Hill said, a typical understatement from the man, as he peered into the salon.

  Isaac Cook looked as well. The crime scene investigators were already on site checking the bodies, conducting their examination of the scene. On the street, barriers were being erected to isolate the scene from the view of the curious onlookers who were aggressively taking photos on their smartphones, and talking amongst themselves and to others.

  The two police inspectors donned coveralls and gloves, as well as overshoes, before entering, stepping to one side to clear the body of a young woman lying on her side, her heavily-bloodied face still visible.

  ‘Gillian Dickenson,’ Isaac Cook said.

  ‘She’s always on the television. Supposedly she was going around with Guy Hendry.’

  ‘She was. He’s over the other side.’

  Larry Hill, a man who had seen death more than once, looked around and at the young and very dead woman. ‘You never get used to it, not totally, do you?’ he said.

  Isaac Cook realised that he had, and that he felt inured to the scene. It had caused him concern on more than one occasion, and it had even ended one of his relationships when he had come home ambivalent about a murder scene. That time it had been a husband and wife who had been shot by a disturbed son. The girlfriend at the time, blonde and in love with the DCI, had seen the murders on the television. She was close to tears at the story of how the dead couple had adopted the son as a child, knowing of his mental difficulties, and then the person they had heaped love and care on had murdered them.

  ‘It’s so tragic,’ she had said. Isaac’s reaction had been to turn off the television. Two days later, she moved out.

  Larry Hill’s ever-loyal wife continued to pressure him to achieve more, to allow them to upgrade their house again for the third time in ten years. He knew that he had neither the motivation for study nor the inclination for promotion with its added responsibilities. He was a man who enjoyed being out on the street, meeting with the villains, solving the crimes, not sitting in an office. And whereas he had the greatest respect for the man who had brought him into Homicide at Challis Street Police Station, he had no wish to take Isaac Cook’s position as the lead officer in the department once he had moved on.

  ‘It looks like a terrorist attack,’ Gordon Windsor, the crime scene examiner, said. He was a small man with thinning hair who Isaac Cook respected enormously.

  ‘But it’s not,’ Isaac replied. The three of them were standing to one side of the salon.

  ‘As you say. What we have are eight bodies, each with a bullet to the head.’

  ‘It looks as if they were shot more than once.’

  ‘We’ll send the bodies to Pathology, so you’ll have a more exact idea of what happened.’

  ‘Your initial observations will suffice for now.’

  ‘Okay. We believe that one person came in to the salon and used a semi-automatic rifle. We’ve no idea what make, although we’ve retrieved a bullet from the wall. It will help to narrow it down, but that’s about all. After that the man…’

  ‘Man?’ Larry said.

  ‘An assumption, and besides, we’ve got shoe prints. Typically, it’s men who commit these sorts of crimes, that’s all.’

  ‘Assume it’s a man,’ Isaac said. ‘What else do we have?’

  ‘The killer then shot each person in the head, a precise shot.’

  ‘Not all could have been the target, and this was not the act of a hot-headed idiot.’

  ‘Hot-headed idiots don’t eradicate the witnesses with such precision, and normally they have a death wish, end up shooting themselves. This was professional,’ Windsor said.

  ‘Not typical of London.’

  ‘It is now. You’ve recognised some of the dead?’

  ‘Gillian Dickenson and Guy Hendry.’

  ‘There’s one more you know.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘He’s not so easy to identify, not from here.’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘Alphonso Abano.’

  ‘Minor villain, drug dealer?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘He’d not be a target, not for a killing this elaborate,’ Larry Hill said.

  ‘Larry’s right,’ Isaac said. ‘He’s the sort to end up knifed in a back alley. These murders were orchestrated, which means whoever did it was paid well, and may not even be a local, not even English.’

  ‘That’s for you to figure out. We’re not sure who the others are, except for Giuseppe Briganti. His photo’s up on the wall.’

  ‘We’ll ID them late
r.’

  With the traffic so heavy Isaac and Larry left their car and walked two hundred yards to where they could be picked up by Sergeant Wendy Gladstone, a woman in her fifties, with enforced retirement closing in on her due to her arthritis and her general low level of fitness.

  ‘It’s chaos out there,’ she said.

  ‘It’ll be chaos for the next five to six hours. They’re attempting to clear one lane on the road which should help, but the traffic will be backed up for miles,’ Isaac said.

  ‘The ghoulish hanging around?’

  ‘As usual, not that they’ll see much.’

  ‘You’ll need to make a statement. There’s a camera crew at the police station already.’

  ‘And at the crime scene, not that I intended to talk to them there,’ Isaac said. ‘And besides, the details are sketchy. What do you know about Guy Hendry?’

  ‘He’s one of my favourites. Is he…?’

  ‘Dead. As well as Gillian Dickenson. Some of the others we’ve not identified yet, apart from that slimy weasel, Alphonso Abano.’

  ‘Guy Hendry and Gillian Dickenson were an item. The latest in his long line of conquests,’ Wendy said.

  ‘She doesn’t look so attractive now.’

  ‘Professional?’

  ‘That’s what we reckon, but why? Whoever did this must know the pressure will be on us to solve it as soon as possible, no stone unturned.’

  ‘No shortage of resources, either.’

  Wendy Gladstone eased her car through the London traffic, difficult at the best of times, horrendous as she had to divert to make her way through, even flashing her badge a couple of times to ensure the police officer on traffic duty let them through.

  ***

  Challis Street Police Station, an edifice that had been built sixty years previously, had been modernised over the years. The Homicide department on the second floor was not the best area in the station: that was reserved for Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Goddard up on the top floor. However, Homicide was clean and modern and suited those that worked there.