CRIME
IN THE HEAT
A fiercely addictive crime thriller
CATHERINE MOLONEY
Detective Markham Mystery Book 7
First published in Great Britain 2020
Joffe Books, London
© Catherine Moloney
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Catherine Moloney to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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ISBN 978-1-78931-347-5
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. And So It Begins
2. A Neighbourhood of Spies
3. Auld Lang Syne
4. Stranger Than Fiction
5. The Paths of Glory
6. Conundrum
7. Distant Rumbles
8. A Trinity
9. Backs to the Wall
10. That’s for Remembrance
11. An Opening
12. Little by Little
13. Baiting the Trap
14. The Figure in the Carpet
15. Resolution
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For Ma and Percy
Prologue
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Thinking about it afterwards, DS George Noakes supposed there was something weirdly appropriate about him being on the spot when Rebecca Shawcross’s body was discovered.
There had been no hint of the impending drama when he arrived at the surgery waiting room at Bromgrove Community Centre. The time was 4:30 on a wet Monday afternoon in June. For a wonder, he appeared to be the only patient with an appointment.
‘How come, luv?’ he asked the youthful trainee receptionist, jerking a pudgy finger at the rows of empty chairs.
‘Bit of a lull today. Only the locum and ANP in.’ Observing Noakes’s look of bewilderment, she translated patiently. ‘That’s the advanced nurse practitioner.’
‘Oh aye,’ he grunted, none the wiser. ‘The missus made an appointment. For my annual review . . . Noakes.’
‘Just a minute . . . Ah yes, Sergeant Noakes, isn’t it?’ From the disappointed look she cast him, it was clear he didn’t exactly measure up to her idea of CID’s finest.
Actually, he’d made a bit of an effort clothes-wise. Muriel had insisted on it. ‘This is one time I’m putting my foot down, George. We have a certain standing in the community after all.’ He hated it when she started on at him. Like that screechy Hyacinth Bucket woman from the sitcom. And once she embarked on the subject of his boss, DI Gilbert ‘Gil’ Markham, she became even worse. ‘It must be a real trial for poor Gilbert to have you trailing about after him looking like some sort of vagrant. He has such refinement.’ She grew positively misty-eyed at the thought of his superior’s dark good looks. The boss tended to have that effect on the opposite sex, he thought sourly. You could bet if he walked into the surgery waiting room, little miss muffet on the desk would be oohing and aahing like James Bond had turned up.
‘Mr Noakes?’
He was so lost in the contemplation of his shortcomings, that he came to with a start. ‘Eh?’
‘I said, your appointment is with Doctor Neil Troughton at 4:45 . . .’ Her voice trailed off uncertainly. ‘If you’d like to sit down.’
God, the poor lass probably thought he was losing his marbles.
With an embarrassed duck of the head, he lurched away from the counter and plonked himself down in the farthest corner of the room.
Some sort of creepy aquatic-style soundtrack was playing over speakers. The kind of stuff that was meant to keep you calm. Unfortunately, it made him want to pee. He’d just have to hold it in. Didn’t want them thinking he was nuts and incontinent.
Trying to ignore his importunate bladder, Noakes contemplated the video footage playing on a wall-mounted screen. And promptly wished he hadn’t. How to examine your stools.
God, the whole set-up was starting to make him feel like some sort of decrepit coffin-dodger.
Catching sight of his reflection in a glass-fronted literature display unit, he sucked in his paunch and smoothed down the rumpled salt-and-pepper thatch that, despite his best efforts, declined to lie flat. There was nothing to be done about his pug-like features (‘lived-in,’ he told himself hopefully), but the regimental tie was bound to create a favourable impression. Granted, he needed to lose some poundage, but no way was he joining that poncey gym Muriel kept rabbiting on about. Spinning classes. Pilates. Tai chi. Avocado smoothies. Lycra.
Jesus. There had to be another way.
Perhaps he might check out Bromgrove Police Boxing Club, the place in Marsh Lane that Markham visited whenever he wanted to beat seven bells out of DCI Sidney (or Slimy Sid, as their senior officer was popularly known). The proprietor ‘Doggie’ Dickerson looked a right old villain, but at least there’d be no danger of encountering the kind of right-on veganistas who invariably brought him out in hives.
Strange that his fastidious, famously discerning boss should be perfectly comfortable slumming it at Doggie’s. But that was Markham. Hidden depths . . .
He had never quite fathomed how he was still at Markham’s side and acting as his bagman in the face of the DCI’s ill-disguised desire to have him put out to grass. But the rising star of CID had stubbornly resisted all Sidney’s attempts to remove Noakes. At a level deeper than words, they were an unbreakable team. He felt a glow of gratification at
