The Initial Blow Read online

  The Initial Blow

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  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 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  The Initial Blow

  {Previously published as: “Defending Joe.”}

  Paul Vincent Lee

  Also by Paul Vincent Lee

  The Thea Spiteri Crime Series

  The Maltese Orphans

  The Maltese Dahlia

  {To Be Released as a film in 2018}

  The Maltese Hunter

  *

  The Initial Blow

  {featuring Matt Healy}

  Previously published in 2012 as

  Defending Joe.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

  First published in Great Britain by Weeryan Ltd 2012 under the title: “Defending Joe.”

  2nd edition published as “The Initial Blow” by Weeryan Ltd 2016

  Copyright © Paul Vincent Lee 2012

  www.paulvincentlee.com

  EBOOK EDITION

  Paul Vincent Lee asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Song lyrics by and © Lori McTear reproduced by permission of songwriter and available on soundcloud.com; Amazon and I Tunes.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-0-9572399-0-6

  For Ryan....my joy,

  Upon whose smile and wellbeing my own happiness depends.

  [Albert Einstein – paraphrased]

  &

  In memory of my late father; John. I never really knew you and I know I disappointed you; but at the end you tried to understand me, and for that I love and miss you.

  To - Ann Marie my fellow traveller in the most complex journey of all – life, especially when the darkness comes – thank you.

  Prologue

  1960’s Glasgow

  We were kids. We had slipped through the hedge of “The Witch’s” cottage and were lifting as many apples as we could stuff down our jumpers before she set her dog, or black cat, on us. I was terrified, Joe was laughing. We turned to see our escape blocked by Mrs Perducci. She was dressed in black and her long grey hair lay lifeless, covering her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing a peaked hat.

  ‘You’re stealing, that’s a matter for the police,’ she croaked.

  My fear intensified, Joe kept laughing.

  ‘Technically we’re not stealing. The apples were on the ground so legally anyone can lift them’ I said. I had no idea where the words had come from. I wasn’t even sure it was me who said them. The crone examined me.

  ‘You planning on being a lawyer, Mr Ford?’ she whispered. My fears compounded that she knew my name.

  ‘No, a footballer,’ I replied.

  She turned her gaze on Joe.

  ‘And what about you, young man? What are your plans?’

  ‘Getting to fuck out of here,’ Joe shouted as he darted past the old woman leaving me stranded.

  ‘He’s not a bad person, Mrs Perducci,’ I said ‘his family havn’t much money and the apples are a treat for them. His mum makes pies from them.’

  ‘You seem like a good friend to him, Mr Ford; I hope you don’t live to regret it.’

  1970’s Glasgow

  ‘Who the fuck are you looking at?’ Joe shouted.

  The four boys on the other side of the street; who I hadn’t seen doing anything other than walk along talking and laughing, stopped in their tracks.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing Joe?’ I whispered, ‘There’s four of them, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Good, two each.’

  ‘We know who you are Turner, you’re a prick. Piss off before we come over there and do you’ one of the group shouted over. ‘Yeah, we’d do it now but we’re gonna meet our burds, not that you’d know anything about that ya ugly cunt.’

  ‘For Christ sake, Joe let’s go,’ I whispered again, pushing Joe along. I turned to the group across the road ‘he didnae mean anything, too much of the singin ginger.’

  ‘I fucking hate that tall one,’ Joe mumbled. Two nights later Joe stabbed him. Two months later I stood in the witness box and failed miserably to defend his actions. He was sentenced to three years in prison.

  I wouldn’t have to defend Joe again for another 30 years.

  Chapter 1

  I don’t know for sure when I first realised that my friend was a killer. I’ve known him since we were wee boys running around the streets and he had had a rage towards nothing in particular and everything in general even then. But this was different. Much different.

  When we were kids, Joe Turner and I had lived a few yards, yet worlds, apart. Joe was brought up in a council house by working, or mostly drinking, class parents. His was a staunch Protestant household without the inconvenience of actually having to go to church. I was born into a Catholic, middle class family with a father who was convinced that the way to show his love to his son was to have him privately educated at a Jesuit-run school. He saw attending church at every opportunity as no inconvenience at all, and, most importantly, he taught me not to mix with anyone who wasn’t “like us.” Somehow though, as a youngster, I had managed to form some friendships with local kids. Joe was one of them. We kicked a few balls together, kicked a few rivals and kissed a few girls but as our childhood years passed into teen years the differences in our circumstances inevitably meant that our lives went in separate directions. I somehow got through my education and became a lawyer. Joe received a different sort of education when he was sent to prison for three years for stabbing a rival gang member. But as the years past, Joe got it together and ended up making a good life for himself in Spain, after turning a summer job into a career. Often years passed without contact other than a belated Christmas card, but Joe came back to Glasgow from time to time to see his parents, or to see his favourite football team, and we were able to take up seamlessly from where we had left off. But now I had no option but to condemn him. I knew he had killed two people. Good people, loving people, one of whom had loved him. I had no real qualms about turning him in. I believed in the law after all. I just didn’t want him to know I had betrayed him. I just wanted the killing to stop.

  My name is Ray Ford and I am writing my story in the hope of forgiveness.

  ***

  It was an ordinary Saturday morning as two women; both oblivious to the existence of the other walked through Glasgow city centre. One woman feeling apprehensive about her immediate future and the other joyous in anticipation of hers. Although they were walking separately; their lives would soon be irrevocably entwined.

  It was a Glasgow holiday weekend and the city was doing what it does every holiday week-end
, pouring with rain; no early morning mist gently masking the promise of glorious sunshine here. Glasgow liked to wait till its subdued inhabitants were back at work before it mockingly greeted in the balmy days of summer. Unlike many women, Detective Inspector Susan Dornan wasn’t obsessed by clothes and appearance but on this particular day, this special occasion, she felt extra effort was appropriate. She had watched two episodes of “Sex in the City” the night before, chosen and discarded four “unsuitable” outfits, finally opting for something chic but practical, professional but with a hint of glamour, in a “slimming” black. She had also gone to an up-market hairdresser’s the day before where Raul, from Pollock, had informed her that her Mary Quant bob was back in fashion. She had never been aware that it had been out of fashion. She had also bought a bottle green, silk blouse but passed on new shoes. A manicure was a definite non-starter. Two weeks previously her then boyfriend Tom had not-so-subtly hinted that she could perhaps make “a little more effort in the glamour stakes” when they had met up to go to the movies one evening; his new status as an ex-boyfriend being another reason for celebration.

  She was in some ways elated to be taking on her new role at Strathclyde Police’s Pitt Street Headquarters but now that the day had arrived she was overcome with apprehension. Dornan parked her silver Audi TT in the reserved space befitting her new status and did a final facial assessment in the rear view mirror. ‘Old, haggard, out of her depth’ was her considered opinion. She grabbed her mobile phone from the facia and noticed her heirloom St Christopher medal, that somehow managed to find its way from car to car, although she herself was a confirmed “don’t know.” She’d heard a stand – up comedian joking one night that “all religions are the same. Religion is basically guilt, with different holidays.” She’d liked that.

  ‘Don’t worry, Chris. We’ll all be redundant one day’ she ventured. Chris was strangely non-committal.

  By the time she reached the sliding glass doors of Police Headquarters she was in complete police mode. She strode across the foyer, taking just three steps to clear the Strathclyde Police crest embedded in the marble tiled floor. She stood waiting for the lift to take her to the second floor, and her new domain, and acknowledged to herself that up until now she’d loved her job. She prayed that feeling would last.

  She paused before the half glass, half aluminium door to the CID room. The plaque on the door merely stated “Room 112”. The squad was made up of mainly experienced officers and one possible “plant” from the Chief Inspector. One of the experienced officers would be Matt Healy. She had already met, broken the ice, and built up an initial rapport with all the detectives except Healy. He had always either been on leave or “tied up” whenever a meeting had been suggested. She understood his position. Healy had been demoted several months before and there was a rumour that the Force wanted him out altogether. Dornan took a deep breath, pushed her shoulders back, turned the door handle and walked confidently into the room, frantically trying to remember if her desk was on the right or the left.

  ‘Morning, everyone.’

  ‘Morning, ma’am,’ nearly everyone replied.

  Newly demoted Detective Sergeant Matt Healy sat at his desk surrounded by the rest of the squad. Dornan was surprised when she actually saw him in the flesh. Although a “twenty year in” officer he was actually a lot younger than she expected, nearly her own age in fact. Although she would never admit it, especially not to Healy himself, she was desperate for him to stay, no matter the personal issues. Healy had somehow acquired a “Mad Max” persona over the years but a few officers who had worked with him previously had told her this was just a bit of a front, and exaggerated at that. It was true that he was the kind of “un–PC”, old school policeman that Police Scotland’s new Code of Practice was specifically aimed at but he knew murder, especially Glasgow murder, like no other. Dornan wanted him at her side, but only if he was “on board”.

  ***

  Glasgow is not considered by many to be a romantic city, but Kate Turner thought it was. Especially now. It was Kate’s adopted home town. She visited regularly either with her husband, Joe, when he took trips home, or to see her own mother who still lived there after she retired from a teaching post she had taken up in the city many years previously. It was, therefore, an ideal cover for their first illicit rendezvous. Her boyfriend couldn’t see it. He had suggested somewhere like Paris or Rome but Kate had convinced him that Glasgow made the “cover” she needed so much easier. He had picked the hotel from the Internet, The Cathedral House Hotel, central enough but not stuck in the middle of Glasgow’s night scene. Kate had never heard of it but when they booked in she felt it was just right. She never checked if he had booked in as Mr and Mrs but smiled wistfully for a moment at the thought of it.

  Two intimate restaurants illuminated by candle light, narrow winding stone staircases leading to the bedrooms adding to the romance of the moment, even if it was overlooked by one of Glasgow’s ancient Necropolis. “Her man” as Kate rejoiced in calling him, also approved of the setting he had painstakingly chosen. The appropriateness of the huge ornate angels silhouetted against the east end sky, their unblinking gaze watching him with approval and their bedroom subtly lit by the periphery of the floodlights shining on Glasgow’s Protestant Cathedral nearby; a perfect combination in his mind.

  Although the longing was there in Kate, at his insistence, they were going to do the whole tourist thing before the whole duvet thing. ‘Christ, does the sun ever shine here for more than five minutes? Told you we should have gone somewhere else’ he said as they walked hand in hand through some square surrounded by monoliths of empire builders; they, and their empires, long gone.

  ‘Glasgow prefers crisp to sunshine,’ she replied.

  ‘Yeah, family size bags by the size of some of the arses.’

  ‘We can’t all be perfect like you.’

  They were headed for The Gallery of Modern Art that was just off the square they were walking through. A number of people were gathered at the entrance, some just sheltering from the travails of the weather, others admiring the Grecian colonnades unaware that the building was originally the private house of a wealthy Glasgow slave trader, which decency should have demolished many moons ago. Inside the gallery, Peter Howson originals sat side by side with total bollocks originals. The irony of a black and white photo exhibit portraying African slaves working in present day diamond mines lost on most.

  ‘Life’s so unfair. Nothing really seems to change does it?’ said Kate.

  ‘It appears that way,’ her boyfriend replied. ‘Anyway, let’s go and get something to eat.’

  ‘OK. Oh, by the way, I’ve arranged to meet Mum tomorrow afternoon and, early evening, around six, Pete for a quick drink.....wife troubles!’ she added quickly.

  ‘Don’t know about the Pete thing; you might run off together, might never see you again.’

  Kate knew her husband, Joe Turner, was never pleased about the “Pete” arrangements either, but he had had to accept that he couldn’t do much about it. He had told her that he “supposed” he didn’t think there was anything going on between them, other than friendship, but Pete Harris had been her “first love” after all and so it was obvious that he would wonder if they ever revived the old days.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. You know I’ve got to do all the usual trip home things, keep things as normal looking as possible. I’ll meet up with you in The Counting House about nine, half past. OK?’

  ‘Here, in case you forget me,’ he said.

  He handed over an intricate gold necklace; the name “Tunstall” hanging from a delicate gold chain.

  She loved it; loved it even more when he explained its meaning. And, she was beginning to think, she loved him.

  ***

  Susan Dornan knew her priority was to get Matt Healy into her office and hopefully get any awkwardness out of the way. She wandered out of her office into “the body of the kirk” but instead of calling Healy over she decided t
o listen into his well trumpeted theory on murder which he was regaling the squad with, in a way that was most certainly non - PC like.

  ‘Somebody you know dun it. Fucking family member, so called fucking friend, pissed-off lover, arse hole colleague, doesn’t matter... they fucking knew you before they fucking killed you. Bastards might even like you. Take that case through in Auld Reekie last month. The happy couple sitting in the hot tub in the garden, her 23 him 42, lucky bastard, or so he thinks. Guy strolls into the garden, bosh bosh, thank you very much, game over. Who was it? Ex fucking husband, that’s who.’

  ‘He not like Jacuzzis, then, boss?’ ventured DC John Frame.

  Everyone, including Healy and Dornan smiled, black humour being the release valve in all police squads.

  ‘Well, what about serial killers? They don’t know their victims.’ suggested one of the new members of the squad, Detective Constable Jill French, a psychology graduate and “accelerated promotion” entrant.

  ‘Serial killers? Do me a favour. Listen, more chance of being fucked by lightning on the same day you win a fucking Lottery Rollover than being fucked by a fucking serial killer”.

  ‘Do all your sentences require at least three fucks?’ Jill French rather bravely replied.