The Dead Of Night (The DS Jack Townsend Crime Series Book 1), page 1
THE DEAD OF NIGHT
A DS JACK TOWNSEND NOVEL
ROBERT ENRIGHT
CONTENTS
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
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
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CHAPTER ONE
The walk home in the early morning was always Lauren Grainger’s favourite part of the day.
Just shy of four o’clock, it felt like she existed in a part of the world that was designed only for her. Every single shop on the high street was closed, the shutters pulled down, each displaying a mural of graffiti. The streets themselves were clear, meaning there were no people to shoot leering glances at her as she strode by. There was no constant buzz of traffic, be it impatient drivers honking their horns or large buses whooshing open their doors.
It was peaceful.
Tranquil.
Hers.
And as she lit her cigarette, as had become her routine, she allowed the smoke to filter into her lungs a few feet from the back door of ‘Paradise’ before she blew a plume of it into the gentle breeze. As always, the gentleman’s club was the only business still awake at this time of the morning, and once again, she had enjoyed a profitable night. Her seven-hour shift involved her standard three dance routine, where she would parade onto the stage in a revealing outfit, usually to the cheers of the pathetic men who comprised the membership. A raunchy song would hit the speakers and underneath the strobe lighting, she would take to the pole, looking to outdo her fellow dancers with her expertise and upper body strength, swirling around it in ways that defied gravity. As the song progressed, her clothing fell to the stage, and she gladly displayed her immaculate body to the leering punters, snapping up the money they desperately threw onto the stage.
She considered that a tip.
Five minutes' work would usually result in over one hundred pounds that she had no intention of sharing with either her manager, Mr Sykes, or the tax man. But in reality, all that dance was for was advertising.
It was the most enjoyable part of her job, as she enjoyed the healthy competition with the other dancers.
The rest of the night was spent in the company of the pathetic men who paid for her attention, sidling up to their tables and allowing their drunken urges to pour out. On that night, however, she'd been a little distracted. She could have sworn she'd seen her ex-boyfriend in the crowd when she emerged for her first dance, but as the evening went on, she couldn’t locate him anywhere.
The last thing she wanted was for her personal life to spill into her professional one. Especially if it meant the other punters could learn more about her.
Part of her allure was her mystique. And a lot of that mystique came from her anonymity.
Lauren was the star of the show, although none of them would know her by that name.
They knew her only as Athena.
Named after the Greek goddess of war, Lauren knew she symbolised something that should be unattainable to the many men who threw money her way, and it was no surprise that she racked up the most private dances. At the back of the club, which was immaculately decorated with a long, well-stocked bar, and numerous booths, were three private areas, watched over by Benny, the bouncer, and Sykes himself. The men could only pass Benny once they'd paid Sykes, and then they allowed five minutes alone with their chosen dancer.
Lauren had rules.
They could touch her breasts and her buttocks, but not her vagina, nor could they kiss her. Inside the booth, the dance was tantamount to a dry hump, with her writhing over the trousers of her punter, taking them to the brink and sometimes over the edge of ecstasy.
That was their problem to deal with and, judging by the number of men who touched her with a hand with a wedding ring attached to it, an explanation they’d need to give to their wives.
All they were to Lauren were cash machines, and as she drew the most business, she got the biggest cut and Sykes, who, despite the odd, inappropriate comment, looked after his girls well enough, made sure she was handsomely rewarded. She was making over three hundred pounds a night, including her tips, which for a woman of twenty-three years of age, with little to no education, wasn’t bad going. In the near two years she'd been dancing at Paradise, Lauren had been able to save for a mortgage.
She’d been able to work on her future.
In fact, she found the whole thing empowering, especially as she'd witnessed her mother achieve nothing in her life besides substance abuse before Lauren was taken into care at fourteen years of age.
Now, she was a working woman, mastering her craft, and becoming one of the most revered dancers in High Wycombe. She planned to continue for as long as she needed to, until she could open her own dance school and hopefully, empower as many women as possible.
‘Good night, Benny.’ Lauren smiled, and the burly bouncer, his arms thick with tattoos, offered her a wave. The summer morning was mild and knowing it would add another ten minutes to her walk home, she decided to take in the glorious setting of Wycombe Rye at dawn. With the cigarette wafting in her hand, she meandered down the silent high street, past the slew of popular shops, as well as the giant Eden Shopping Centre that housed many more.
Food chains.
Clothes shops.
Mobile phones.
Games.
Everything you’d expect from a town centre, and considering the train to London was less than a half hour journey, Lauren thoroughly enjoyed living in the humble town. It wasn’t flush with cash, but she found the enterprising buzz infectious.
As she finished her cigarette, she turned under the underpass, wanting to avoid walking down the main street where High Wycombe Police Station was situated. A stone's throw from the Rye, the Thames Valley Police had always been polite on the few occasions they'd crossed paths, but Lauren had failed to meet a police officer who looked at her with any ounce of respect.
It was, unfortunately, one of the pitfalls of being a dancer in a strip club.
Judgement.
She cut across the magic roundabout, taking advantage of the empty roads. The giant roundabout, surrounded by six smaller ones, was a magnet for traffic and every time Lauren’s taxi approached it, she appreciated the fact that she didn’t drive. Finally, she came to the entrance of the Rye and then lit another cigarette. The magnificent park was bathed in a dull shadow, as the rising sun was slowly trying to edge its way through the thick clouds to illuminate the stunning vista. Usually, the place was alive with families and animals, all of them swarming upon the wide-open fields to play games of football, or to cram into the two recreation parks. Beyond both was Lauren’s favourite part of the Rye.
The lake.
As she approached it, she walked past the kiosk, which offered pedalo boat rides and overpriced snacks. It was closed.
Everything was closed.
Asleep.
The Rye was hers.
As she stopped to enjoy her cigarette, she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps shuffling beyond the trees, which shielded the winding road that ventured through the woodlands on the other side of the lake. Lauren felt her muscles tighten, her mind darting back to the sighting of her ex in the crowd.
Visions of the abuse flashed in her mind.
The punching.
The spitting.
The forcing her down onto the bed.
As the figure emerged around the final tree, she realised she'd been holding her breath and she released it with relief. A smile spread across her face, one of joy, and as the person approached her, she flicked her cigarette away.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked politely, and then she grunted, and her eyes bulge d. The instant pain of the knife ripping into her stomach stopped her world. Everything went still.
Colour faded from everything, and with her final few moments of strength, she turned and stared into the eyes of her killer, trying to ask for a reason.
Her arm feebly flailed.
Warm blood gushed from her stomach, and she felt the knife slide out, and then bury itself into her again.
And again.
As the world faded to black and she felt herself falling, she thought about the beauty of Wycombe Rye when the sun hit it, and how there was no better place to die.
CHAPTER TWO
‘Ah, crap.’
Jack Townsend uttered his disappointment as he stepped into the garage that ran along the side of their new house, and his eyes fell onto the pyramid of boxes that still hadn’t been unpacked. The move to Flackwell Heath had been relatively smooth, but the upheaval for his family wasn’t something he’d enjoyed.
Especially as it had undone the work he’d put into his relationship with his daughter, Eve.
It was necessary, though.
Born and bred in Edge Hill in Merseyside, Townsend had grown up navigating the rough streets of Toxteth. What could have been an easy path into a life of crime and hardship was corrected by his father, Malcolm, who had proudly served the Merseyside Police Service as one of its most respected police officers. Townsend would often think back to the awe in which he had regarded his father back then, knowing that his dad would be out on the streets, fighting crime, and stopping the bad guys. It was only when he himself became a police officer in his early twenties did he realise the amount of red tape and paperwork that came with it.
But his father had never moaned.
Never complained.
Even when he suffered a life altering injury during the Toxteth riots in the early 80s, something he kept hidden from Townsend for most of his childhood. As one of the first on scene, his father had been set upon and ended up with a stress fracture to his lower spine. Although he recovered enough to walk the beat for another decade, the long-term effects soon caught up with him, eventually confining Malcolm to a desk and a severe bout of depression that soon saw him separate from Townsend’s mum. A few days after Townsend’s seventeenth birthday, his father lost his battle with cancer.
With no guidance or clear career path, Townsend came agonisingly close to betraying his father’s memory, and had it not been for his wife, he was certain he’d have spent most of his adult life behind bars.
But Mandy was his angel.
Smart. Driven. Caring.
She had pulled him from a rough crowd, and as their instant connection grew, he found himself wanting to be a better person.
To be like the man he used to regard his father as.
It was why he had joined the police, and it was why now, on his first day of his new life as a detective sergeant in the Thames Valley Police Specialist Crimes Unit, he was frantically looking for his father’s watch.
He wanted to bring him along on this journey.
After rummaging through the first box, Townsend lifted it up, shuffled across the garage, and plonked it down against the far wall. They’d been in the house for just over three days, and although Mandy had worked her magic on turning the shell into something they could call home, Townsend had failed to introduce any sort of order to the garage. The only thing he’d unpacked and set up was his weight bench and punching bag, and as per his morning routine, had already used both that morning. He’d found discipline in boxing, although after the years that had threatened to rip his family apart, Mandy had insisted he never step in the ring competitively.
They both couldn’t trust that he’d put that side of himself fully to bed.
With an anxious sigh, Townsend threw open another box, rolled up the sleeves of his crisp, white shirt to reveal his muscular forearms, and began searching once more.
Knock. Knock.
His head snapped to the door of the garage.
Mandy smiled at him.
‘Tea delivery,’ she announced in her scouse accent, plonking the steaming mug down on the messy work bench as she stepped in.
‘Thanks, love,’ Townsend replied. He sighed. ‘Any chance you know which box my dad’s watch is in?’
Mandy looked at the chaos before her.
‘I’m not sure. I don’t think I understand your system.’
‘Ah, well it’s dump everything in one big pile and hope for the best,’ Townsend said dryly. He ran a hand through his short, dark hair. Mandy noticed and stepped forward and slipped an arm around him.
‘Hey, look. You’ll be great.’
As always, she knew when there was something wrong. She could read him like an open book.
‘I don’t know, Mand.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe this was all a mistake?’
‘A mistake?’ She stepped back. ‘We’ve moved a long way for this to be a mistake, Jack.’
‘I know. But detective sergeant? I barely feel like a police officer, let alone a fuckin’ detective.’
‘Hey, first thing, language. Second, you’re a police officer through and through. What you did to bring down Kovac…what you sacrificed…’
Mandy’s words trailed off as her voice began to choke. Townsend cursed himself for allowing it to creep into conversation, as Mandy had made it a condition of moving away from Liverpool.
They didn’t talk about Kovac.
They didn’t talk about the three years he had spent undercover, risking his life to infiltrate the gang of one of the most dangerous arms dealers in the country. It should have been a six-month assignment working inside a dangerous gang in Liverpool. Townsend’s handler, Inspector Sanders, allowed greed to take control, and he manipulated Townsend into something worse.
Something that stole him away from Mandy and their daughter for three years, and something that, in the two years since, had hung in the background of their lives like an unwanted echo.
It was why the Merseyside Police fast-tracked him to detective, by way of an apology.
It was why they had to relocate as far away from Liverpool as possible, due to the dangers of running into his fake life.
It was why Townsend struggled to sleep, thanks to the memories of the violent things he had to do to keep his cover.
And it was why, despite two years of work, Eve still hadn’t fully embraced having her father in her life.
Noticing his wife trying to breathe away the tears, Townsend stepped to her, and kissed her gently on her blonde hair.
‘I’ll make this work,’ he said firmly. ‘I promise.’
‘You better…or else I’ll find that watch and stuff it up your arse.’
The two of them chuckled, and Townsend wrapped his arms around her. They swayed together until a cough at the door interrupted them.
Eve.
‘Hey, Pickle,’ Townsend said with a smile. She was the spitting image of her mother, pasted onto the slight frame of an eight-year-old gymnast.
‘Can we go to the park today?’ she asked hopefully.
‘It’s my first day at work, love,’ Townsend responded. Eve, however, looked past him to her mother.
‘Yes, of course. We’ll find a good one.’
‘Thanks, Mummy.’ Eve turned and ran back to whatever she'd pulled herself away from. To the surprise of both her parents, Eve had embraced the move to a new part of the country and was keen to explore.
Townsend sighed. Mandy rubbed his back.
‘She’ll come around, Jack.’
