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In the small retirement town of Hockley, on the south coast of England, the castrated body of a man is found buried in a shallow grave on the beach. Quickly establishing that although the man obviously bled to death there is no blood around the body, it is obvious that it has been placed there post mortem; but, by whom and why?Elsewhere, the murdered body of a beautiful, young Turkish woman is found by her brother and reported to the police. Investigating Officer, Detective Inspector ‘Dibs' Beacon and his Sergeant, Australian Sophie Fletcher, believe that the murders may be related.Time is against them as their prime suspect, the dead woman's brother, leaves Hockley for London immediately after his sister's cremation. As their case builds, cultures clash in a deadly game of cat and mouse that delves deep into the heart of London's illegal immigrant population.
Citation preview
About the Author
After service in the Royal Navy, Clive Hopkins emigrated to
Canada where he joined the Ontario Provincial Government’s
Reformatory and Prison, Department, became an Auxiliary Police
Officer, Prisoner’s Welfare Officer and PR Officer.
Upon return to the UK, he joined the International Publishing Co.
(IPC)’s Industrial Press Division as writer and subsequently as
Group Editor.
He has also published a Naval Faction trilogy, well received by
the cognoscenti.
By the same author:
Challenger’s War
China Sea Challenger
Challenger’s Way
Copyright © Clive Hopkins (2015)
The right of Clive Hopkins to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication 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 permission of the
publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims
for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library.
ISBN 978 1 78455 897 0 (Paperback)
ISBN 978 1 78455 898 7 (Hardback)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2015)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LB
Printed and bound in Great Britain
1
The infidel had to die, he had defiled the girl and cheated him.
She was already dead, lying there looking beautiful and at
peace with her God. With heavy sedation, he had spared her
the pain of dying, perhaps that also was a sin, he didn’t know.
For a moment he wondered if he had done the right thing but
she was no longer his sister, she had laid with the Englishman
who now lay on the bed beside her, propped up on the cheap
satin pillows, he had paid for. The rest of the room was no
better furnished; cheap carpet, cheap curtains carelessly hung
with insufficient rings and, in the tiny kitchen, the work tops
had clearly not been scrubbed before the girl had moved in.
The Englishman had drunk, been forced to drink, enough
of Satan’s invention alcohol to render him powerless but still
sufficiently aware of his surroundings to know what had
happened to her and what was happening to him, and that his
would be an appropriate death.
Asmal Jahan, showing the Englishman the curved, shiny
bladed knife, had watched the fear appear then grow in the
man’s eyes as he placed the knife against his scrotum. He
sliced downwards strongly, separating the bag and its contents from the man’s body. He denied the infidel the coup-de-grace
and let him bleed to death so that he would know that God is
great and that the girl had been under His protection.
The Englishman had taken her from him, her brother, upon
whom responsibility for her had devolved by virtue of them
being alone in this God forsaken country, far from the
protection of their family. She was a pretty girl and her
popularity amongst his friends had provided a comfortable
income for them both but now she was pregnant by the
Englishman.
The infidel dog, the term amused him reminding him of
his own preferred sexual style, had tempted her by offering her
freedom from her brother’s control, a flat of her own and with
it a small allowance which would make possible an outward
appearance of respectability. The infidel must die for this as
she had died for bringing disgrace upon the family and penury
upon him personally.
She had sinned in the eyes of God. The Koran stated quite
clearly, Sura V, The Table, “Believer, take neither Jews nor
Christians for friends.” She had sinned and therefore both must
die; the family’s honour, its ird, demanded it and that could
only be redeemed by blood.
Though not a salafi, a true believer wishing to return Islam
to its true, thousand year old, traditions and unconcerned with
the cost to either the modern world or the millions of fellow
Moslems that had accepted a millennium of progress but, he
had not only lost a sister but also the income she had been able
to attract; someone must pay. That someone was, at least in
this instance, both identifiable and available – the Englishman.
The deep, vicious slashing of the girl’s throat would he
was sure provide the police doctor with sufficient evidence for
cause of death to render a post-mortem examination
unnecessary; they must not discover that she was pregnant, no
one must know that. He turned off the light and closed the door
on the room. He would go and see some friends who would
clean the flat and, if asked, provide him with an alibi for the
approximated time of death of his much beloved sister.
He would come back tomorrow, after the flat had been
cleaned and man’s body had been removed and discover and
report to the police his sister’s apparent murder. He would
admit in shame that she had, apparently, been prostituting
herself, this was, he had been told, a known working flat,
perhaps one of her clients…… He would demand that he be
allowed to bury the girl within twenty four hours as was
commanded by the Holy Book. In the new, spineless and
politically correct England the police would have to allow this
and the evidence of his sister’s disgrace, her pregnancy, would
be buried with her; the family need never know.
* * *
Number One Wellington Gardens had been, when built,
more than an address, it was a three dimensional statement of
British national pride and confidence as the head of an empire
upon which the sun never set; of its hegemony over more than
a quarter of the known world. Just as, she believed, Apsley
House, Number One London, the grand house built by a
grateful nation for the victorious Duke of Wellington had been
special so, to Mrs. Edwina Burton, was Number One
Wellington Gardens, Hockley. That she might be mistaken
about number One London had never occurred to her, that was
what she had been told as a child passing it on a big red bus
and she had remembered it clearly.
Outwardly unchanged in the years since its mid-Victorian
builder had completed it, the last house in what was then one
of the grandest garden squares in Sussex, Number One acted,
together with its opposite number, as a guardian of Wellington
Gardens. Although long since converted into flats, these two
houses still formed the grand endpoints of the three-sided
square, the open forth side of which permitted the residents an
unequalled view of the sea.
As Mrs. Burton was wont to explain to anyone prepared to
listen, Number One was bigger and grander than the other,
rather ordinary, run-of-terrace houses that collectively formed
the rest of the square. Together, these surrounded a railed and
gated garden to which only owners held a key; a privilege
jealously guarded by Mrs. Burton.