The Hero's Fall (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 14) Read online

  The Hero’s Fall

  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 IN HYDE PARK

  SIX YEARS TOO LATE

  GRAVE PASSION

  THE SLAYING OF JOE FOSTER

  THE HERO’S FALL

  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

  BURIAL MOUND

  THE BODY IN THE DITCH

  THE HORSE’S MOUTH

  Steve Case Series

  PRELUDE TO WAR

  THE HABERMAN VIRUS

  HOSTAGE OF FEAR

  Standalone Books

  MALIKA’S REVENGE

  Copyright Page

  Copyright © 2021 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

  Dedication

  For Elli and Tais, without whose support and encouragement, I would never have discovered the infinite joy of crafting stories.

  Contents

  Title 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 1

  Angus Simmons, the host of a popular television programme, a house in Chelsea, a beautiful girlfriend and an expensive car in the garage, had it made – up until the moment he fell.

  He had been thirty-nine years of age, a wiry physique in his teens, a natural athlete, graced with an irrepressible need for adventure and challenge, the ultimate belief in self.

  At the age of eighteen, he had climbed the three tallest buildings in London, the first two with ropes and a partner, the third, and more difficult, solo and with no safety gear. His exploits had shot him to national attention.

  Seven years later, he had made the first of three ascents of Mount Everest, and he was regarded as one of the leading mountaineers of his generation. On the last climb, six years after the first and leading a group of climbers, one had died of asphyxia, and another had fallen to his death on the descent back to Camp Four. Simmons was emotionally upset at the tragic waste of good men’s lives. A subsequent inquiry exonerated him.

  Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook had seen death before, but not a body that had fallen over eight hundred feet, hitting the building as it plummeted, before finally impacting on the roof of a parked truck.

  Usually unemotional, he had to admit to surprise at seeing the man dead on the truck.

  ‘And you were filming this?’ Isaac Cook asked a film crew that stood to one side, separated from the body by crime scene tape and a couple of uniforms.

  ‘We had permission,’ an upset woman said.

  ‘Tricia Warburton?’

  ‘I was Angus’s co-host,’ the attractive and on-screen ebullient co-host of the weekly programme that showed obscure and unusual news stories from around the world, said.

  ‘Permission from who?’ Isaac asked. ‘Climbing the Shard, London’s tallest building isn’t usually allowed, sensitive about the bad publicity when some fool falls off.’

  ‘Not my area.’

  ‘I assume you took advice, informed your legal team?’

  ‘I followed procedure, not that it matters now, does it? Angus is dead.’

  The woman was right, Isaac knew. The reason for the man being there, for his climb, and the situation’s stupidity weren’t important. It was that there was a suspicion as to why he fell.

  Isaac could only imagine the panic at the television station: the fire-fighting, the pointing of fingers, a scapegoat to find.

  ‘A friend of yours, Angus?’ Isaac asked. ‘Were you close?’

  ‘My co-host, I’ve already told you that. We got on well enough, but we weren’t dating, not lovers if that’s what you’re implying.’

  ‘The truth’s best in situations such as this,’ Isaac said. He wasn’t going to push the point.

  ‘He fell, killed himself. Why ask these questions now?’

  ‘For one good reason, and regardless of the stupidity of you and your television station’s stunt, he didn’t fall through losing his grip.’

  ‘Then how?’

  ‘Someone took a shot at him. Anyone you might know, enemies of his?’

  Isaac felt that he was hard on the woman, but it was the early stage of an investigation, and quick action was essential. The person most likely to know some of the innermost secrets that everyone carries, and the dynamics of the programme that she had co-hosted was Tricia Warburton.

  ‘Are you saying he was murdered?’

  ‘Yes, elegant in its execution.’

  ‘Elegant? That sounds as if you admire the person who did this,’ Tricia said.

  ‘Not admire, but it’s original, and all because of a stunt. Good for ratings, was it?’

  ‘It would have been. It was Angus’s idea. The man was fearless.’

  ‘And dead,’ Isaac added. ‘Whoever took the shot knew when he intended to climb.’

  ‘Before I became a television presenter, I studied nursing. I didn’t see a gunshot wound on the body.’

  ‘You saw it?’

  ‘What I could. Isn’t it instinctive to check if the person’s alive? Besides, it was surreal; none of us could comprehend what we had seen happen.’

  Isaac had to concede the woman the point. In its immediacy, just after it has occurred, death often has an unexpected effect on people.

  Out on the street, the crowds restrained by uniformed police officers, people staring out of office block windows, cameras with zoom lenses attempting to get a better view. After all, the death of Angus Simmons, the conqueror of Everest, the adventurer and generally acknowledged good guy, was big news.

  ‘Considering the condition of the body, I wouldn’t expect a gunshot to be visible. Simmons, a friend of yours?’

  ‘An honest answer?’ Tricia Warburton said.

  ‘It’s always the best,�
� Isaac said, ‘and besides, the truth always comes out eventually.’

  ‘The station intends, or they did, to get rid of either Angus or me. Another cost-cutting exercise; happens every few weeks. Not that it’ll hit the back pockets of those in charge, a bunch of hypocritical money-grabbing bastards. Pardon my language, but that’s how I see them.’

  ‘Did Angus?’

  ‘What do you think this stunt was about?’

  ‘Simmons was making sure that it was you who received the literal kick up the arse out of the door.’

  ‘Not that I can blame him, and if I could have climbed that damn building, I would have, but I’m just here as eye candy.’

  ‘Did you hate Angus for what he was?’

  ‘No, why should I? He was a decent enough man, never tried it on with me, not like those bastards who intend to kick me out. Besides, I don’t need to. Angus and I were talking about forming our own production company, plenty of ideas. He was good at the stunts, a natural showman, and I’m good at logistics, putting the people in place, dealing with the finances, sweet-talking those who want to invest in two highly marketable commodities.’

  ‘You and Angus, involved?’

  Isaac’s initial impressions of Tricia Warburton hadn’t been favourable, but he found her astute as he spoke to her.

  ‘Angus didn’t fancy me, nor I, him.’

  ‘I thought he was a man about town, squiring women, living with a model.’

  ‘He was my friend, I’ll admit to that, but I’m a one-man woman, not a floozy, and besides, behind the macho-man exterior, the women, the model as you say, Angus Simmons wasn’t a lothario, quite the contrary.’

  ‘Gay?’

  ‘Bisexual. He concealed it well, probably didn’t do anything about it, not good for the image.’

  ‘Tormented?’

  ‘We’d talk about it. He knew I was not available, not that he wanted me, felt comfortable in my confidence.’

  ‘You’re telling me now.’

  ‘What else can I do, and besides, you said it yourself, the truth always comes out, and if he was gay or bisexual or asexual, pink or green, what does it matter? It’s a liberated world, be what you want, do what you want, and what I want is for you to find out who killed him.’

  ‘His death to be avenged?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Isaac cast a glance over to the crime scene, saw his team and Gordon Windsor, the senior crime scene investigator. He needed to talk to them.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘The world’s gone crazy, people killing people for no apparent reason. Angus, no reason to kill him other than his celebrity. I was his co-host; I could be a target.’

  ‘I suggest you take care for the next few days.’

  Tricia placed a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. ‘Take care of yourself as well. Who knows where this will end,’ she said.

  Tricia Warburton returned to her camera crew and picked up a microphone.

  Isaac knew that she wouldn’t take the care she should. There was a news story to film.

  Chapter 2

  Detective Inspector Larry Hill, DCI Isaac Cook’s second in charge in Homicide, was standing close to the crime scene investigators. He was forty-five years of age, struggling with his weight, the result of overeating and alcohol, much to the chagrin of his wife.

  Sergeant Wendy Gladstone, more years as a police officer than anyone else at the police station, worked through those who had seen Simmons fall. She was aware that some would have enjoyed the ghoulish entertainment, others would be traumatised, and increasingly in recent years, a dedicated group with their smartphones relaying the action to the four corners of the globe.

  Isaac walked over to where Gordon Windsor, the senior CSI, was standing.

  ‘Damn fool thing to do,’ Windsor said.

  Isaac had done foolish things in his youth, such as on a trip to Jamaica when he was sixteen. Jumping off the cliffs in Negril had seemed a good idea. However, he had hit the water at an angle, torn a muscle in his back and spent the last week of the holiday either in bed or taking it easy.

  But now, he was older and wiser, a similar age to the dead man, and married to Jenny, as white as he was black, their son at the crawling stage.

  ‘Falling was. Probably would have made it otherwise,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Even so, it doesn’t alter the fact. The man was endangering public safety, making a spectacle of himself. And what about her over there?’ Windsor said, nodding his head in the direction of Tricia Warburton.

  ‘I’m not sure what to make of her. Either she’s putting on a show for the viewing public, or she’s an emotional void. She’ll need checking, but regardless, she was down at ground level, in clear view, no way she could have taken the shot. She reckoned the bullet hadn’t penetrated.’

  ‘She was right, hit him in the back, two vertebrae down from the neck. It could have been a ricochet off the building. If he hadn’t been hanging onto the building, but somewhere more sensible, he would have been knocked over by the force, been in pain, but he would have recovered.’

  ‘Can you graduate a bullet’s trajectory and speed to ensure minimal damage, enough to cause the man to flinch, loosen his grip?’

  ‘It’s possible but seems pointless. I would need more advice before I could comment. Assuming the bullet’s speed has reduced, then there’s the wind deflecting its trajectory, and as a bullet slows, its straight line is deflected. We’d need the rifle first, get Forensics to conduct tests, but I reckon it was a lucky shot.’

  ***

  Wendy Gladstone was the only one in Homicide at Challis Street Police Station who remembered Isaac as a uniformed police sergeant. Even back then, she had seen a uniqueness in the tall, black police officer, as had others. The London Metropolitan Police, aiming to be racially embracing, tolerant of all colours and creeds, had even featured him in promotions back in the early days. And then there had been his meteoric rise up through the ranks to an inspector and then to chief inspector, only to find his promotion opportunities now stagnating.

  Commissioner Alwyn Davies, an unsmiling Welsh man, the head of the august police service, only two years in the position, did not like Chief Superintendent Richard Goddard, Isaac’s mentor and senior. By default, Isaac was tarred with the same brush, and if Goddard couldn’t progress, neither could he.

  Sergeant Wendy Gladstone was unable to advance further due to her approaching retirement age, and Larry Hill, Isaac’s detective inspector, was held back due to insufficient academic qualifications and an unwillingness to put in the necessary effort to acquire them.

  Isaac had recognised Hill’s attributes in a previous investigation, the reason he had brought him into Homicide. Larry Hill was a man-on-the-ground type of police officer, a breed who believed that on the street was where investigations were solved, not behind a computer screen or in an interminable meeting.

  It was a view shared by Wendy, and in part, by Isaac. But Isaac had benefited from a university education; he saw that with technology and the dramatic leaps forward in forensics and pathology, crimes could be solved in the sanctity of an office.

  Wendy preferred it out on the street, although her aching bones troubled her, not that she would ever complain, knowing that others in the police station were ready to pension her out of the force.

  Bridget Halloran, Wendy’s friend and Homicide’s wizard with a computer, dealt with the department’s general running and the ancillary staff.

  ‘Where was the shot taken from?’ Isaac asked Larry, who was standing in the street looking up at where the man had fallen from. Isaac, sartorially elegant, a made-to-measure navy suit, a white shirt, a matching tie; Larry, his clothes off the rack, and even though his wife had ironed his shirt that morning, it still had a faraway look, one of the collar points heading into space, his tie askew, the top button of his shirt undone, and his shoes a dull sheen compared to the chief inspector’s mirror shine.

  Isaac knew that L
arry was on a slippery slope that would not end well. His wife, a good woman and loyal, was a social climber, always pressuring her husband to extend the mortgage, to place the children in a more expensive school, whereas he would have preferred a quieter life. He knew that some social climbers, those with aspirations of grandeur and fame, were up to the hilt in debt and that behind closed doors, when the designer clothes and the makeup were off, husbands and wives fought like cats and dogs.

  Larry had tried to explain to his wife that a comfortable house, happy children and a loving environment were more critical than depreciating assets and shallow friends. Still, she wasn’t having any of it.

  ‘I’ve got uniforms checking high-rise buildings in the vicinity, looking for where the shot was fired,’ Larry said.

  ‘Keep me posted,’ Isaac said as he walked over to his sergeant.

  ‘Not a lot,’ Wendy said. She had just finished talking to another witness.

  ‘No one saw anything?’

  ‘They saw him climbing, saw him fall, saw the mess on the ground, but no one saw the shot, not that you’d expect them to.’

  ‘It may be best if you talk to the television crew, find out who had a grudge against him: discarded lovers, people who owed him money, others he had shafted.’

  ‘All-round good guy, Angus Simmons?’ Wendy said.

  ‘No one’s squeaky clean,’ Isaac said. ‘The man’s got hidden depths to him, vices we don’t know about. According to his co-host, he wasn’t quite the macho man that he appeared to be.’

  ‘If he wasn’t, he kept it concealed.’

  ‘It may not be accurate.’

  ‘Tricia Warburton’s not all she seems.’

  ‘Observation or a personal opinion?’

  ‘Too confident, full of herself, prick teaser if I was crude,’ Wendy said.

  Isaac disregarded her comments, aware that his sergeant had strong views, too quickly expressed some times. ‘Any proof?’ he said.

  ‘Not yet, but she was here, egging the man on. She knows more than she’s letting on.’

  A commotion on the other side of the road, a woman shouting. Both Isaac and Wendy looked over, acknowledged the uniform who was manning the barrier. Isaac raised his hand, the uniform nodding in return. A woman dressed in a white blouse and a short skirt, wearing stiletto heels, rushed forward.