A Poison Tree Read online

  A Poison Tree

  A DCI Will Blake Novel

  J.E.Mayhew

  OBOLUS BOOKS

  Copyright © 2020 Jon Mayhew

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The right of Jon Mayhew to be identified as the author of this

  work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and

  Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be

  reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written

  permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN- 978-1-9998407-4-7

  Cover design by: Meg Cowley Epic Fantasy Covers

  For Tommy, Barry, The Collective and The Lair.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  More from DCI Blake

  Books By This Author

  I was angry with my friend;

  I told my wrath; my wrath did end.

  I was angry with my foe:

  I told it not, my wrath did grow.

  A Poison Tree (William Blake)

  Tuesday October 22nd

  CHAPTER 1

  Six boxes. Plain. Brown. Gerald Rees could tell they were shoe boxes from their size and the fold-down lids. They looked old in a way that only a certain type of brown card can look old. It would be hard to say what it was that made them betray their age; they weren’t ripped or scuffed or dirty. Decades of sitting in a closed cupboard had dulled them and given them an airless, musty scent. Each one had a number carefully written on the corner of the lid 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

  It was eight in the morning; an hour before St Joseph’s Hospice charity shop opened and the good people of Bromborough came to rifle the shelves for bargains. Gerald was alone in the sorting room. He could see Natalie Murphy, the store manager in the back office, her face illuminated by a computer screen, but she was deep in thought. The cluttered sorting room leaned in towards Gerald as he toyed with the lid of the box. Wire cages filled with old clothes pressed silently against stacks of boxes full of dog-eared books. A few mannequins peered over his shoulder, their eyes blank and expressionless. Most of the stuff that came into the shop was run-of-the-mill; paperbacks, DVDs, old suits and dresses, chests of drawers. But every now and then, something came in that was different. Something curious. Something interesting.

  Gerald opened the first, relishing the scrape of cardboard on cardboard. He loved the way these boxes fitted together. If only life were like that. Inside lay a gleaming pair of stilettos; poppy red, egg-shell finish with only a few small scratches on the tip of the pointed heel. They looked almost new but the brand lettering in the insole and the plastic sheen of the toes dated them. A name had been written carefully in thick black letters inside them: Carly Simmonds. Gerald felt a twinge of unease twist in his gut and he caught his breath; he knew that name. He’d buried it under a lifetime of grey, boring office work, pub quizzes and hours of TV soaps. But the name always surfaced when he least expected it. Just like the others. Gerald glanced over his shoulder then shook himself. It wasn’t that unusual a name, there must be hundreds, if not thousands of people called Carly Simmonds. He gave a nervous chuckle. “Idiot,” he muttered to himself.

  The second box contained a well-worn pair of old slippers, wrapped in tissue paper. What colour would you call that? Gerald thought, stroking the soft, furry fabric with his forefinger. Mauve? The tiniest spot of something brown matted in the creamy fur around the ankle. Not much but enough to make them unsaleable. Gerald hadn’t worked in the charity shop long but he was learning to distinguish between what was rubbish and what might make a sale. He knew that a mark like that on the slippers wouldn’t go down well. Hope it’s just brown sauce, he thought dropping them back into their rustling tissue nest. It was then that he spied the name in the insole, written in the same thick, black capitals: Josie Lock. He swallowed hard. “No,” he hissed, pushing the box away. “It can’t be.” Again, he glanced around. Was this some kind of macabre trick? Were there cameras hidden in amongst all the tat that surrounded him? He looked up at the office, but Natalie sat hunched over her desk, oblivious. The third box awaited his attention. He didn’t want to open it. What might he find in there? But some dark compulsion pulled him towards it, and, with trembling hands, he lifted the lid.

  An old-fashioned pair of children’s sandals with natural rubber soles and a flower stencil cut out of the dull red leather lay nestled in the tissue. Gerald closed his eyes and exhaled. He knew the name without even looking. Tears blurred his eyes. What sadist had engineered this situation? It couldn’t just be coincidence that he, of all people, was exhuming these relics from a past that should stay buried?

  He stared down at the fourth box, his stomach plummeting. “Go on then,” he muttered. “Do your worst.” These shoes looked well-used. The flat plastic sole had worn at the heel and wispy filaments of silky material poked out at all angles. Almost not daring to look, he squinted at the name in the court shoes: Fiona James. He gave a squeak of surprise and glanced back at the sandals still sitting innocently in their own box. “It’s not fair,” he hissed and slammed the shoes down, knuckling his moist eyes. That’s what you get for coming back to your roots, Gerald, for raking up old memories. For picking at old scabs. Well. Bring it on! He dragged the next box across the table and tore the lid open.

  The fifth pair stopped his breath.

  Rust red, the colour of dried blood. Baseball boots was what they used to call them back in the seventies. They’d become trendy again, recently. Converse was the trademark, now. He’d seen adverts for them a few years back and it had made him feel nauseous, even after all this time. What he was looking at now made the bile rise to the back of his throat. They were short ankle boots with rubber soles and a circular rubber patch at the side. The star symbol on the patch had worn away and someone had drawn a smiley face in its place. The white laces had been striped with a red felt tip. The stripes had faded over the years, but they were still visible. Silver eyelets; th
ird one on the left boot missing.

  Gerald felt as though he was falling down a dark well. He dropped the shoes and staggered backwards from the table, crashing into a trolley full of unwanted DVDs behind him. His heart punched against his ribs. The world closed in. It spun around the boots, which crouched on the sorting table staring up at him, malevolently. He couldn’t breathe. How could they be here? Now?

  Natalie Murphy appeared from the back room, concern etched across her face as she hurried across the cluttered sorting area to where Gerald stood at the table, staring, ashen faced.

  “Are you alright, love? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said, laying a hand on Gerald’s arm.

  “Those boots,” he whispered. “These b-boxes…”

  “What about them?”

  Gerald felt his breath return but he gripped the trolley behind him tightly, not trusting his legs. “Where did they come from?”

  Natalie shrugged. “They were dropped off last thing yesterday. House clearance I think…”

  Gerald’s eyes widened. “Which house? Where?”

  “I dunno, love,” she said. “You look like you’re in shock. Come to the back office and have a cup of tea.”

  Gerald let himself be led away from the hideous things on the table and into the back room. Natalie sat him down amid the clutter of coats and papers, tables and coffee mugs. She busied herself with the kettle and the teabags. A moment later he cradled a mug of steaming, sugary tea in trembling hands. “Thank you,” he said and looked up at her.

  “Not a problem, dearie,” she said. “Look, if you want to take yourself off home, that’s fine. Better still, see a doctor. You look like you’ve had a funny turn.”

  Gerald nodded and sipped at the tea. The sweetness invaded his mouth and he winced a little. He’d not had sugar in tea since he was a teenager and he wasn’t sure he liked it now. “I-I’m sorry if I alarmed you,” he said. Natalie was about ten years younger than him, late forties, a thin woman in every sense. Her thin, brown hair was cut into a bob that framed her pinched face. Her thin lips were always pursed in a look of frustrated disapproval that was accentuated by a long, thin nose. Her dark green dress hung off her bony shoulders. Jamie, Gerald’s coworker on the first day had said, ‘she needs a few pies in her,” and given him a rather annoying elbow in the ribs.

  Natalie gave a tight smile. “I thought you were having a heart attack.”

  “No. No, I’m fine. It was just seeing… those boots…” Gerald said and glanced at the woman. He couldn’t tell her. She’d think he was a nutcase. Or worse. “They… they reminded me of something… someone… a long time ago… Just took me back.” He felt his face reddening. “Y’know. School days. Bad memories some of them.”

  “I know what you mean.” Natalie looked distantly over Gerald’s head. “Never too keen on school myself…”

  Gerald stared into his mug. “Our teens were meant to be one big adventure. But, somehow, it all went sour.”

  “Yeah,” Natalie muttered. “Didn’t it just.” An awkward silence filled the room.

  Gerald set the mug down on the table, making the milk bottle, assorted spoons and all the other mugs clink. “I’ll get off, if you don’t mind. I do feel a bit shaken, to be honest. Sounds silly, I know but…” He glanced out of the office window onto the sorting floor where the boxes sat on the table.

  Natalie leaned forward and he felt her hand on his knee. “Doesn’t sound silly at all,” she said. “You get off home.” She nodded towards the sorting room. “Jamie’s on in half an hour. I’ll be fine until then.”

  Spluttering thanks and excuses, Gerald jumped up and hurried back across the room. He had to pass the table to get to the door that led into the main shop and out into the street. The top of the boots glowered over the edge of the box and it was all Gerald could do not to press himself against the pile of cardboard boxes that lined the wall. He gave one backward glance to the office and saw Natalie’s dark outline standing at the office window, watching him. With a faltering grin and half a wave, he banged open the double doors into the shop and almost ran out.

  Wednesday October 23rd

  CHAPTER 2

  The girl staggered down the shadowy path, panting for breath. Darkness filled the whole wood around her, but her eyes had become accustomed to it. Tree trunks stood in mute rows, their branches casting long, twisting shadows across the path. She stopped for a minute, bending over to kill the stitch that stabbed in her side.

  The weirdo had chased her along Allport Road but he was slow. She was pretty sure he was still behind somewhere. As her breath settled into a more regular pattern and her nerves jangled a little less, she became aware of a cold damp feeling around her calves. Looking down, she swore. Her new boots were soaking and her jeans were wet. They were clean on today. She must have run through a puddle. Mum would go mad. Nothing new there.

  She put her hand into her jacket pocket. “Shit.” Her phone had gone. It must have fallen out when she was running away from that old pervert. “Shit. Shit. Shit” She couldn’t go back. Her heart thumping, she peered into the blackness that filled the gaps between the trees like a solid wall. Had something moved? A twig snapped behind her, making her turn and run.

  She veered off the path, brambles dragging at her jeans and jacket; thin branches whipping her face. She could hear the old perv behind her, blundering through the undergrowth too. Then she burst out onto a clearing, recognising the railings of the old bear pit; a relic of an older time when this wood was a pleasure garden.

  A black shape rose up, making her yelp. But the noise ended abruptly as cold fingers clamped around her neck, forcing her throat against the cold metal railings. She clawed at the arms behind her, trying desperately to break free, but the fingers tightened, crushing the scream from her lips. A bony knee pressed into her back, sending a sharp pain through her and increasing the force. The blood boiled around her temples, pulsing and thudding as she kicked and bucked to escape. The hands held fast, the metal crushing her windpipe. She felt as if her head would explode and the branches above her blurred. The taste of blood flooded her mouth and the strength ebbed from her limbs. Slowly the red faded to blackness and oblivion.

  ◆◆◆

  This wasn’t the first time Detective Chief Inspector Blake had sat in his 1988 Opel Manta outside the Wirral RSPCA centre; he’d driven to the Wallasey site several times after work. It was late and dark. He wondered if he should just go home to bed. His phone told him that the place closed at three. To the public at least. But Blake wasn’t ‘the public.’ Sometimes a warrant card got you into places even when they were closed. Although the lights were out in the main office, the gates of the Animal Centre were still open and a bulb gleamed in what Blake took to be the main cattery.

  He dragged his huge frame out of his car. The hiss of the traffic on the M53 filled the air, punctuated by the occasional explosion of early fireworks. This was buffer land between the sprawling housing estates of Wallasey and the main road artery that ran the length of the Wirral and on, under the River Mersey, to Liverpool. Warehouses and a building wholesaler rubbed shoulders with a fleet hire storage yard and the local rugby club. He paused for a moment, turning back to the car, then changed his mind, striding into the carpark and across to the dark building. He had to do something. He couldn’t carry on like this.

  A woman answered his knock. She was tall and slim with black spiky hair. Her green eyes struck him as cat-like which seemed kind of funny under the circumstances. “I’m sorry, love, we closed at three. I’m just here to look after the cats.”

  Blake flashed his warrant card and she looked surprised. “I know you’re closed but I couldn’t get here sooner,” Blake felt his throat close up and his cheeks blaze. “I-I just wondered if… you see… it’s my mother… her cat… she can’t look after it anymore and…” He ran his fingers through his greying blond hair.

  The woman frowned slightly and then said. “Just hang on a second. I’ll get you a fo
rm to fill in and a card. You’ll have to bring the cat tomorrow. We can’t accept it today…” She disappeared into the back of the room. Blake could hear the plaintive meows from inside the building and immediately felt ashamed.

  The woman returned and handed him a sheaf of forms.

  “I’m sorry,” Blake said. “I wouldn’t normally. I can’t look after her myself. The job… I would but…”

  The woman gave him a brief smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It sounds like you’re struggling.” She frowned. “You look kind of familiar… Do I know you?”

  Blake felt himself reddening even more. “Not unless you’ve had dealings with the police.” That usually shut them up. Few people wanted to admit to that.

  It worked and she broke eye contact with him. “No, no. I just thought I recognised you, that’s all.”

  Blake didn’t answer at first. Some people recognised him but often, it was lost so deep in their memories that they never found the answer for themselves. He took the brief silence that descended to pull her back on track. “The cats… if they don’t find an owner… do you…?” He left the fate of the unwanted cats hanging in the air between them.

  She shook her head fiercely. “Oh no,” she said. “We always find a home. Just takes time, that’s all, and there might be other options. What kind of cat is she?”

  “A grey one,” Blake said, then felt ridiculous. “Persian. Orange eyes.”

  “A cat like that won’t be here for long. They’re very popular, valuable too…”

  “She does have… issues… seems to have a pathological hatred of me, for a start.”

  The woman laughed. “Well if we rehome her, you won’t be there to hate, will you?”

  “And she’s always getting stuck up trees…”