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    Deadly North
    Deadly North
    Deadly North
    Ebook201 pages1 hour

    Deadly North

    By S.D. Gripton and Sally Dillon-Snape

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    About this ebook

    The Fourth Andy North Crime Novel by the brilliant S.D. Gripton -a little longer than the 50,000 words it should be-sends Andy and his indomitable Detective Sergeant Ellie Tonbridge on more hard-bitten adventures, including a pimp who sells young boys bodies - a false priest who is nothing more than a conman-and the disappearance of several ladies who were conducing a survey for a University that doesn't care about their safely. Chaos reigns throughout the novel as Ellie struggles with emotional problems and Andy loses himself in problems associated with his promotion. Meet another book full of new characters, good and bad who cause Andy and Ellie all kinds of problems. It all leads to the terrifying conclusion where both Andy and Ellie's lives are threatened; where luck and instinct on behalf of Andy almost get him killed in the rain and the mud of yet another farm. Electrifying, engaging and hard-bitten. Welcome to another Andy North novel.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherS.D. Gripton
    Release dateFeb 17, 2017
    ISBN9781370995950
    Deadly North
    Author

    S.D. Gripton

    S.D. Gripton novels and real crime books are written by Dennis Snape, who is married to Sally who originate from North Wales and Manchester respectively and who met 18 years ago. I work very hard to make a reading experience a good one, with good plots and earthy language. I enjoy writing and hope readers enjoy what I have written. I thank everyone who has ever looked at at one of my books.

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      Book preview

      Deadly North - S.D. Gripton

      Deadly North

      An Andy North Crime Novel

      Book Four

      By

      S.D. Gripton & Sally Dillon-Snape

      Copyright © Sally Dillon-Snape & Dennis Snape (2023)

      The moral right of the authors is hereby asserted in accordance with The Copyright Act 1988

      All characters and events in this publication other than those of fact and historical significance available in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living and dead is purely coincidental

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher

      cover by Snape

      ***

      Chapter 1

      Norman Kelp was dead.

      He was scared to death, the coroner concluded; there were no injuries to his body, no marks to indicate assault, just a look of sheer horror etched onto his round dead face, and a previously unknown weak heart that had given up. Somebody else was believed to have been waiting on the graffiti-lined walkway. joining apartments along which Norman walked when he visited his mother, which he did Monday night at 2 a.m.; quietly, on his own; the only time the drug dealer, rapist and thug ever walked out alone.

      Somebody discovered that fact.

      That somebody clubbed a lookout unconscious.

      Norman Kelp was surrounded by lookouts but only one was deemed necessary for the secret visit to his mother.

      That somebody waited for Norman Kelp.

      That somebody scared him to death.

      That was the coroner’s verdict.

      Norman Kelp died of a massive heart attack, just five short steps away from his mother’s tidy apartment, inside of which awaited warmth and love and a small snack. Norman falling flat on his face, lifting a bruised hand, looking up, begging for help.

      None of which was forthcoming.

      The biggest thug on The Wellington Estate was gone; the biggest gang leader and drug dealer on The Wellington Estate was dead; the ugliest defiler of young boys was dead; all these people being the same person; Norman Kelp. His organisation was in disarray; Norman was gone; Taylor Sanchez was locked up; Karson Insane Dewter was locked up; Lawton Crices was locked up; all of them Lieutenants to Norman Kelp; the top men; the organisation men and the killers; the cold-blooded killers. All locked up.

      Meetings were called by the police; what should we do, they wailed; a chance is at hand; we should take advantage but what should we do?

      Detective Sergeant Andy North knew what to do.

      Get a hundred or so police officers from our County, together with officers from any other County he implored; pay them overtime, make it like the miners strikes of the eighties; make it conservatory time; money earned from overtime payments being used to build conservatories on hundreds of properties owned by police officers. Gather them together like a military force and storm The Wellington Estate, take back control of the block of apartments that Norman Kelp and his ilk had taken over years earlier, and from that block terrorised a whole estate; every single resident. Take it back, Andy North shouted.

      Take the fucking thing back.

      Amazingly, The Brass listened.

      One hundred and four police officers of the law were gathered together in the largest force seen since the Poll Tax riots; another conservatory time; they were dressed in riot gear with riot shields and enough tear gas to stop an army. As well as the tear gas, they had their truncheons and their Tasers and snipers on the roofs and when they marched onto the estate they marched as a military unit; fifteen days following the death of Norman Kelp. On behalf of the decent folk of The Wellington Estate, the police were taking back the flats.

      On their march through the estate, they were bombarded with bottles and bricks but they kept going, like an indomitable force; like the three hundred Spartans; they kept going, marching, fending off the bottles and bricks with their shields, marching ever forward; eventually reaching their destination, spreading out, smashing down doors, occasional shots being exchanged between snipers and druggies, windows being blown out, doors smashed down, officers in.

      It would become known as The Battle of The Wellington Estate.

      Four people would die.

      All of them gang members.

      One policeman would be shot in the shoulder; he would recover; he would retire and take the money; nobody blamed him.

      The Battle would last for three hours.

      All the flats previously occupied by Norman Kemp and his Lieutenants would be cleared; some gang members and drug dealers ran away; those who weren’t arrested on the spot or shot, were picked up by police officers waiting on the periphery of the estate, picking them off as they ran, biff bang bam. Cells were full throughout the County; early morning Magistrates held court; criminals were detained without bail.

      As soon as the apartments were cleared a whole host of Council Workers followed the police in and forty-six hours later new people were moving into them; civilisation had won; the bad guys had been driven from their dens; the land had been cleansed.

      Once it was over, Andy North and Ellie Tonbridge strolled through the area; neither of them armed, nobody watching over them, John Philips’ snipers just a memory; pleasure sweeping through police officers like a treasured dream; they did it, they rid The Wellington of the druggies; they cleared out the gangsters. It wouldn’t last, of course; they would be back, a whole new swathe of them, gangsters of whom the police had never heard would soon be jostling for position in the months and years to come; somebody would rise to the top. Somebody would develop into the new Norman Kemp.

      The wheel would begin to turn again.

      For the time being though, Andy and Ellie were free to be verbally abused by residents as they strolled on their way and they were abused, mostly, by kids who’d lost their heroes, they’d lost their incomes, doing favours for the gangers, running drugs for them; having sex with overweight Norman; all gone. The only option for them would be to return to school, but few would do that, the kids could wait, they had time on their side; other dealers would come; other gangsters would require their services. Maybe they would become the new gangsters. The circle would turn. Everybody knew it.

      But for now, Andy and Ellie enjoyed their walk before retiring to the rear table of Bruno’s café for lunch, parking in a supermarket car park and walking across a busy road to a small Café owned and run by a Turk and a Welshwoman. That was where they were sitting, at the only rear table in the place, hidden from view, in happy unison at an action that had gone remarkably well, when Andy’s mobile rang.

      When he answered it, he discovered he’d been promoted to Detective Inspector.

      When Ellie’s phone rang, she discovered she’d been promoted to Detective Sergeant.

      They had a second cup of coffee and a cheese toastie to celebrate.

      ***

      Currently, there was nobody in the police force thought of as being luckier than Andy North, following the successful arrest and successful prosecution of those responsible for the rape and murder of Dolores Kitchen, and the further successful action on The Wellie Estate which he personally drove forward; much like a younger, though more driven, Churchill.

      Brian Peacher, the Acting D.I. was the only other serious candidate for the position of Detective Inspector following the suicide of the corrupt Thomas Cruise and, it has to be said, the much the preferred candidate. Thomas Cruise shot himself; that was a fact; Brian Peacher, on the other hand and rather conveniently for Andy, metaphorically blew himself out of the promotion race by spending almost the whole of his interview criticising Andy North’s attitude towards policing. He ranted about Andy’s aggressive attitude towards Senior Officers; he talked at some length about his insolence towards almost everyone above and below him; he rattled on about his propensity to go off on his own, his penchant for launching investigations without consultation with a Senior Officer, or even his own Detectives; all of which character traits the Senior Officers on the panel already knew about. Every one of them had suffered from Andy’s tongue and attitude at one time or another, but Peacher answered every question put to him by relating his answers to an action carried out by Andy North. Senior Officers, who desperately wanted Peacher in the job, hung their heads and put their faces in their hands because, quite frankly, Peacher’s interview was so bad that an intelligent sixteen-year-old could have bettered him.

      And Andy North was no sixteen-year-old; he was not regarded as being blessed with great intelligence, but he was clever enough. He swaggered into the room to face the six interviewers blooming with confidence and police knowledge and knocked down the prejudices one after another.

      He was very lucky; everybody said so.

      Some months had passed since the Battle of The Wellie and Andy’s new office had been redecorated; he certainly did not want to sit forever in an office with brains and blood and gore all over the walls and the window; Thomas Cruise’s blood and his brains; the man who’d shoved a pistol into his mouth and made the mess. The room had been cleaned and decorated in warm pastel colours; there was new hard-wearing carpets on the floor; a new desk and chair and new filing cabinets; there was even a new name on the door to make his appointment official; Detective Inspector Andy North; thirty-four next birthday; a very lucky man.

      He was meeting with his Detective Sergeant over a cup of coffee in his fancy new office. During the months Andy had been in charge, there had been many serious crimes committed, the Major Crimes Unit had not been under-employed; there had been several rapes and attempted rapes; Andy blamed the internet, idiots who watched stuff happening and believed all women wanted to do such things, idiots who thought women liked to be forced into doing things; the fucking idiots. There had been the odd robbery with violence and various other cases for the Unit to investigate. He had fought off orders for manpower reductions by explaining to the floors above that his men were stretched to the very limit. It seemed to be working.

      Andy loved running the Unit. It was in his blood; it caused his heart to beat quicker; it enhanced his senses much as Astrid Kristiansen did when she climbed into bed next to him; the beautiful Astrid, his Norwegian Assistant Pathologist, the current love of his life.

      He’d made no organisational changes to the Unit since being in charge; he’d kept his men and women; they worked the same shifts and were easily the best police Unit in the County. The Detectives liked him; they’d always liked him; and that helped him in other situations.

      Like today, as he sat in his office, sipping coffee with his Detective Sergeant, Ellie Tonbridge, the thirty-one-years-old, who lived in his house with her lover Stacy Carrington. Ellie was his long-time friend, his confidante, the one person in the world he would trust with his life; though Astrid Kristiansen now ran her a close second.

      You know, Ellie said, as she sipped on her coffee, a brand-new coffee machine on top of the new filing cabinet making delicious coffee, I never mentioned it at the time, but on the night Norman Kelp died, I could have sworn I heard you go out. I was sure I heard your car being driven away from the house, and when I glanced through the curtains it was confirmed by its absence. I’m pretty sure I heard the gun cabinet in the kitchen being opened; could have sworn it was you climbing into your car. What you think?

      Andy looked up from his desk, gazed at her expressionlessly whilst sipping on his own coffee.

      Detective Sergeant, he said, you either have one hell of an imagination or you have weird dreams.

      Yeah, Ellie said, that’s what I thought. No point reporting to anybody what I might have seen, when it was just a dream.

      No point, Andy agreed, in reporting something that was only a dream.

      Mind you boss, somebody was on the walkway with Norman Kelp; somebody scared the fat one to death.

      I guess that must be true, Andy agreed again. Coroner said so. Somebody probably scared him to death; the lookout was clubbed into unconsciousness; it all adds up.

      Nobody has really asked, but what do you think scared Norman so much as to give him a heart attack?

      Dunno, Detective Sergeant; any guesses?

      Maybe somebody pointed a gun at him; that would have made his weak criminal heart stop in its tracks.

      I guess that would do it.

      Yeah, I would guess so; especially if the person holding the gun might have been wearing a balaclava or a ski-mask or something like that. Maybe the pistol wasn’t loaded but Norman wouldn’t have known that; he would have just seen the gun being pointed at him, held by a very scary looking person.

      That might’ve worked, Andy agreed.

      They finished their coffees in silence, Ellie with a smirk on her face, Andy deadpan in his own expression, studying papers that lay on his desk.

      This kid, Samuel Tillson, Andy said as deflection, do we need to look at him, or for him; got a report lying here in front of me on my desk?

      Ellie sighed and removed the smirk.

      The subject of Kemp’s death would never be mentioned again.

      Parents visited the station yesterday and reported their son missing but he’s seventeen, old enough to walk away from family if he wants to; the desk sent it to Missing Persons who will do nothing about him for a couple of days; the desk phoned upstairs to the Unit and I asked Dafydd to walk down and speak to the parents, make them think we cared. The report is from him.

      D.C. Dafydd Glyn was now regarded as the next Detective Sergeant if everyone moved up again; he was well thought of by almost everyone in the Unit.

      The report is up to Dafydd’s normal excellence, Andy confirmed, the question is, does the Unit need to look for Samuel, yeah or nay?

      Dafydd gleaned from the parents that Samuel had never been a bad boy; never taken drugs; never taken too much alcohol; which is something alien to you and me and those we know; an intelligent boy, which is one mighty step up from us; rarely late when making appointments; who recently walked out of college and never returned; told his parents he was moving out of the house and that was it; he left no forwarding address. I have no idea why we would be looking for him, or how we could find him; he could have gone to the seaside for all we know, gone abroad, he could have gone anywhere. He’s seventeen, he’s allowed to go.

      Okay, and Andy pulled open the top drawer of his desk and slid Dafydd Glyn’s report into it, closing the drawer.

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