Blow Down Read online

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 1537

  Burnsville, NC 28714

  www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Blow Down

  Copyright © 2016, 2018 by JL Merrow

  Cover art: Christine Coffee, coffeecreatescovers.com

  Editor: Carole-ann Galloway

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-725-2

  Second edition

  March, 2018

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-726-9

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  Death is what happens while you’re making other plans . . .

  The last thing newly engaged plumber Tom Paretski needs is to stumble over another dead body. He’s got enough on his mind already as the reality of his impending marriage sinks in. Not only is his family situation complicated, but his heroism at a pub fire has made him a local celebrity, and now everyone knows about his psychic talents—and wants a piece of them.

  Hired to recover a missing necklace, Tom and his fiancé, private investigator Phil Morrison, find themselves trying to unmask a killer. And there’s no shortage of suspects, including the local bishop.

  As Tom and Phil try to uncover the truth, they’re pulled in all directions by the conflicting pressures of their families and their own desires. But the murderer they’re up against is a ruthless schemer who won’t baulk at killing again. If Tom and Phil don’t watch out, their love—and all their plans for the future—could be blown down like a house of straw.

  Publisher's note: This is a lightly edited reprint of a previously published novel.

  This book is dedicated to the late Roger Margason, aka Dorien Grey, author of the Dick Hardesty mysteries, who sadly passed away while I was writing Blow Down. His words will live on.

  With grateful thanks for all their help to Josephine Myles, Pender Mackie, Kristin Matherley, Susan Sorrentino, Jennifer Bales, Victor Banis, Rachel Jeffrey, and everyone at VWC.

  About Blow Down

  Prologue

  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

  Dear Reader

  Also JL Merrow

  About the Author

  More like this

  She was still warm—and yeah, I knew who it was the minute I touched her. Had known all along, really—so I made myself feel for a pulse, for signs of breathing, anything. Just because the vibes had felt like death didn’t mean she was actually dead, right?

  Right?

  Wrong. There was something around her neck, making it hard to find a pulse point, but her slender wrists were bare, and neither of ’em had a pulse. Should I try to loosen the thing round her neck, give her a bit more room to breathe? Yeah, I know, messing with the evidence—but what if she was still saveable?

  I scrabbled at the stuff round her neck, gagging when it came away bloody from where it’d sunk into the skin. I recoiled again when I realised what it was.

  There was no sign of movement or life from the body I’d just been manhandling.

  Woman-handling? Corpse-handling?

  I shuddered. Should I try CPR? You weren’t supposed to do mouth-to-mouth anymore, were you? Vinnie Jones said so in that TV ad.

  “Staying Alive” thudded through my brain, and I wished I’d been paying more attention to the telly at the time rather than having a quick grope with Phil.

  Christ, what I wouldn’t give to be back on my sofa with my bloke right now.

  Then again, I imagined the woman I’d just fallen over might have felt pretty much the same.

  These days, when my big sister phones me, I don’t expect anything worse than an invite to lunch and the latest gossip, so I hit Accept Call that night without even a hint of a suspicion of foreboding.

  Just goes to show, this being-psychic lark really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

  “’Lo, Sis. What’s up?” I held the phone to my ear with my left hand while I stirred the pasta sauce with my right. Phil was coming round for tea but wasn’t sure when, so I was doing something I could leave on a low heat to keep warm if need be.

  “Oh, hello, Tom.” Cherry paused. “Um, how are you?”

  I sighed. The only time she ever opens with How are you? is when she’s desperate to ask for a favour but thinks it’d be rude to launch straight in without a bit of chitchat. “What is it?” I asked, resigned to doing another job for mates’ rates for someone who was no mate of mine.

  At least, I hoped it was a job, not anything family related. Especially seeing as my family had recently got a bit more complicated.

  “Amelia Fenchurch-Majors,” Cherry said. “She asked me to ask you to do a job for her. She’s based in St. Leonards—I know it’s a bit further afield than you’d usually go, but honestly, you’d be doing me a huge favour if you could go over and see her. At your earliest convenience.”

  From the sharp tone in Cherry’s voice, I guessed (a) she was hoping I’d focus on earliest rather than convenience, and (b) she’d been getting her ear bent by Mrs. Double-Barrelled Shotgun. “Friend of yours, is she?”

  “She’s not a friend. We just happen to know one another.”

  “Let me guess—through Greg?”

  Greg is my big sister’s unfeasibly reverend fiancé, canon of St. Leonards cathedral. Mrs. Fenchurch-Majors sounded like the sort of person he had over for sherry all the time. She was probably a drill sergeant in his army of gre
y-haired old dears who’d outlived their husbands by twenty years or more and now seemed to worship the ground under Greg’s unusually large feet. I could see her now, barking orders at the twinset and pearls brigade to Crochet faster and Don’t put those flowers there, put them THERE.

  “Not exactly. The bishop held a garden party over the summer, and we were introduced there. Amelia was very interested to hear about you. Well, of course she heard all about your heroics at the Dyke.”

  I winced. Not only was all this well embarrassing—they’d put a picture of me in the paper and everything—but several months down the line, I was still having nightmares about that night. Only in my dreams, I didn’t get there in time. So I wasn’t too chuffed to be reminded about it.

  “Oh yeah? So exactly what did you tell her?”

  “Nothing.” Cherry sounded hurt. “Although I don’t see why you’re so keen to have everyone forget about it all. It’s hardly something to be ashamed of.”

  “I’m not ashamed. Course I’m not. It’s just, well, you know they put that bit in the paper about me having psychic powers, yeah?” I wasn’t sure who’d blabbed—hopefully not one of my mates, but then I hadn’t exactly sworn anyone to secrecy, which was beginning to look a bit short-sighted of me. Then again, it wasn’t beyond the bounds some disgruntled copper had made an off-the-cuff remark about me being DI Southgate’s tame psychic.

  “So?”

  “So, I’ve had everyone and his bloody dog asking me all kinds of crap ever since, up to and including ‘Will it rain tomorrow?’ and ‘Can you just fill in this lottery form for me?’ ta very much.”

  “That’s just silly. You can’t do anything like that.” She paused. “Can you?”

  “Sis, I live in a two-bed semi in Fleetville. What do you think? But try telling them that. Everyone seems to think ‘psychic’ means whatever they bloody well want it to mean.”

  Look, I’ve just got a bit of a knack for finding things, that’s all. Hidden things, that is, and I have to be fairly close to them to start with, although Phil’s constantly on the lookout for ways of extending my reach. All the better to help him make a killing in his chosen profession and retire early on the profits. I used to think he was onto a loser, but ever since the fire at the Dyke, I’ve been starting to wonder. Something about that night amped the vibes up way beyond anything I’d ever felt before—and no, I’m not talking euphemisms here, ’cos by the time we’d made it home, we were too bloody knackered for anything like that.

  Phil, of course, had various theories as to what exactly might have sharpened the old spidey-senses: the danger to yours truly; the way a couple of people I cared about were also at imminent risk of getting toasted; even the heat counteracting moisture in the air (water messes with the vibes, which is handy when you’re trying to locate a leak underground but not so much the rest of the time). Fortunately, Phil’s caseload had been busy enough over the summer to take his mind off too much experimentation with my dubious talents.

  Well, that sort of experimentation. We’d managed to find time for a few experiments of a different sort. But yeah. Not your all-purpose psychic. My so-called gift doesn’t hold with multitasking. “It’s like they think it’s some kind of one-size-fits-all thing,” I muttered down the line.

  There was a weird sort of breathy sound down the phone. “I suppose that’d be medium, then. The size.”

  “I literally can’t believe you said that,” I told her after a healthy pause to let her know just how much I meant it.

  Sisters.

  “So what’s the job?” I asked before she could come up with any more comedic gems.

  “She didn’t say. I gave her one of your cards and suggested she call you direct, but she seems to have this bee in her bonnet that you’d be more likely to accept the job if it came through me.”

  “Right, gimme her number and I’ll give her a bell.”

  There was a pause. “They’re ex-directory, and she doesn’t give out her number. You’ll have to go round.”

  “You’re kidding, right? Seriously?”

  “Look, she’s very persistent,” Sis said, which was an admission of defeat if ever I heard one. “Please just go round? You can come over to Gregory’s for tea afterwards. We’ve got some very nice cakes.” Translation: the cathedral ladies had been baking again. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure they ever stopped. Maybe they took a short break every now and then for knitting bedsocks and crocheting jam-jar covers, that sort of thing.

  “Are you actually living there now?” I asked, because Sis had her own house in Pluck’s End, a village not far from St. Leonards, but every time she invited me and/or Phil anywhere lately, it’d been to the Old Deanery, currently occupied by the Youngish Canon.

  (I nearly said the Middle-Aged Canon, seeing as how Greg had to be in his midforties, but since reaching this side of thirty, I’d gained a whole new perspective on the subject. Funny, that.)

  “No, of course not,” Cherry said as if the very idea was ridiculous. “That wouldn’t be at all proper.”

  “Course not. What was I thinking of? Fine, I’ll go and see this pushy old biddy of yours. Tell her I’ll be round Friday afternoon—I’ve got a couple of hours free then.”

  There was another of those breathy sounds.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Cherry said brightly, and reeled off the address.

  Just as I finished writing it down, Phil walked in followed by his adoring public, otherwise known as Merlin and Arthur, my two cats. “Emergency call-out?” he asked after I’d hung up.

  “Nah, just an extra job for tomorrow,” I told him, expertly dodging the cats so I could give him a welcome snog and a grope of that magnificent arse, which he returned with interest. “Nothing serious,” I muttered into his shoulder.

  Like I said, Nostradamus I am not. If anyone was daft enough to hand me a crystal ball, I’d see bugger all. And then drop it on my foot.

  Mrs. F-M.’s gaff on the outskirts of St. Leonards turned out, when I got there the following afternoon, to be your actual Grade II listed farmhouse, and she had plenty of acreage to go with it. I felt like a right pleb parking the van on a posh, red-brick driveway only slightly less extensive than the M25 and going up to knock on a front door built to withstand siege, battering ram, and revolting peasants.

  It didn’t help there was a choice of two doors with nothing much to distinguish between ’em. I went for the slightly larger one, in the end, on the basis I was doing the old girl a favour, so I was buggered if I was going cap in hand to the tradesman’s entrance.

  Hey, I might actually be a tradesman, but I doff my cap to no man. Or woman, as it might be. Metaphorically speaking, obviously. Hats and me have never really got on. You’d think putting something on your head would make you look taller, but I just end up looking like the sort of stable lad who wants to be a jockey when he grows up.

  The door was opened by a young woman who could have been a model, if that hadn’t been something only common people did. Well, she was a bit on the short side—her sharp green eyes were on a level with mine—but otherwise, she’d have made a pretty good showing on the cover of Vogue. She even had the expression down pat—that one where they glare at the photographer like he or she’s something they just scraped off their shoe. God knows how fashion photographers cope with all that negativity shoved in their faces day in day out. Give me happy-smiley wedding pics any day, or those ones you see mums queuing up for in Boots, with the baby poking its head up out of a flowerpot.

  “Tom Paretski?” she said, sizing me up with one unhurried glance and not bothering to crack a smile in welcome. “I’m Mrs. Fenchurch-Majors. Do come in.”

  I blinked. She was Mrs. F-M.? I’d taken her for some kind of PA, hired by the lady of the house to deal with tedious and/or unpleasant matters like correspondence and talking to members of the working classes.

  No wonder Cherry had laughed when I’d called her an old biddy.

  “Cheers, love
,” I said, mostly to annoy her.

  She winced and glanced pointedly at the doormat, despite the fact it wasn’t raining outside, so I obligingly went through the motions.

  And no, I hadn’t missed the fact I got a first name and she didn’t. I bet if I was lucky enough to get a cuppa, it’d be made with the second-best tea bags and come in a chipped mug kept ’specially for workmen and other oiks.

  “Right, love, what’s the problem?” I flashed Mrs. F-M. my best smile.

  She didn’t return it. “Less of the endearments, please. I am not your love. This way, please.”

  She click-clacked ahead of me on sky-high heels, and I swear I heard the ancient timber floors groan as she approached. And who wears stilettos in their own house, anyhow? Speaking of which, her skirt and blouse were tight and tailored, more like a posh version of office wear than something you’d wear to clean the bathroom. Or show the plumber where the problem was, for that matter. So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when she led me not to a bathroom, downstairs loo, or even the kitchen or utility room, but right up several flights of creaking stairs to an attic bedroom. The door was locked, but she had a key.

  Which made me wonder a bit, because this clearly wasn’t Mrs. F-M.’s bedroom. Despite the double bed, I was fairly sure it was a single woman’s room, and there was ample evidence the occupant was several clothing sizes larger than Mrs. F-M. To be perfectly frank, it looked like an explosion in a TK Maxx. Designer handbags and shoes littered the floor and the furniture indiscriminately, and there was a pile of frocks on the bed that could keep the Chelsea Oxfam shop going for a month.

  As you’ve probably guessed, it was a pretty big room, as attics go. I mean, when most people talk about attics, they mean the space under the roof like I’ve got in my house where you can just about manage to shove a few suitcases and your Christmas decorations so they’re out of sight, out of mind. Or maybe, if you’re lucky, put up a couple of starving artists and a mad first wife for similar reasons. This was definitely more at the luxury loft conversion end of the market, with large dormer windows and more floor space than my whole upstairs.