Sins of the Fathers

Table of Contents

Cover

By Sally Spencer

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Whitebridge Evening Courier – 6th April 1965

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

The Charlie Woodend Mysteries

THE SALTON KILLINGS

MURDER AT SWANN'S LAKE

DEATH OF A CAVE DWELLER

THE DARK LADY

THE GOLDEN MILE TO MURDER

DEAD ON CUE

THE RED HERRING

DEATH OF AN INNOCENT

THE ENEMY WITHIN

A DEATH LEFT HANGING

THE WITCH MAKER

THE BUTCHER BEYOND

DYING IN THE DARK

STONE KILLER

A LONG TIME DEAD

SINS OF THE FATHERS

DANGEROUS GAMES

DEATH WATCH

A DYING FALL

FATAL QUEST

The Monika Paniatowski Mysteries

THE DEAD HAND OF HISTORY

THE RING OF DEATH

ECHOES OF THE DEAD

BACKLASH

LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER

A WALK WITH THE DEAD

 

 

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

 

First published in Great Britain and the USA 2006 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2006 by Sally Spencer.

The right of Sally Spencer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Spencer, Sally

Sins of the fathers

1. Woodend, Charlie (Fictitious character) - Fiction

2. Police - England - Fiction

3. Detective and mystery stories

Title

823.9'14 [F]

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6395-9 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-44830-113-3 (ePub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

F
rom the moment the shivers had taken hold of him, Jeremy Tully had been convinced that he was dying.

Now, several hours later – if it
was
hours, rather than minutes or days, both of which seemed equally possible – the shivering had almost stopped.

Tully took no consolation from this fact. He knew enough about hypothermia to understand that rather than indicating that his condition was improving, it was a sign it was getting much worse. What had happened was that his body – independent of his mind – had decided, in a desperate attempt to preserve its glucose, to partly shut itself down.

But the attempt wouldn't work.

Nothing would work.

He was dying. That was the end of it – the end of him.

There were three of them on the ledge – Tully himself, Bradley Pine and Alec Hawtrey.

Of the trio, Alec was easily in the worst shape. He was the oldest member of the party – the least physically fit from the beginning – and when he had fallen and broken his leg, it had only served to stack the odds even further against him.

Every time the other two had attempted to move the injured man, he had screamed with agony.

But it was now a long time since Alec had even had the strength to express his pain.

So he would probably go first.

Then, Tully thought, it would be his turn.

But Bradley would not follow them down the route to oblivion. He wouldn't die – however intense the blizzard grew, however long it took the rescue party to find them – because he was a survivor.

More than that – Bradley Pine was a planner, who always thought three steps ahead. So that while his
body
might be trapped on this mountainside, his mind was already back in Whitebridge, making its next move.

The snow no longer seemed to be lashing them quite as fiercely as it had been. Perhaps the blizzard had finally decided to let up, Tully thought. Perhaps he would live through the experience after all.

He uncurled a little from the foetal position that his battling body had instinctively taken. His muscles did not want to co-operate, but he forced them to, because he had to see for himself if it were really true that the weather was getting better – that there was finally some faint glimmer of hope.

What he
did
see, through the swirling snow, was that Pine had shifted position, so that now he was bent over Alec Hawtrey.

What he
did
see was the large sheath knife in Pine's hand.

He wanted to shout out to Pine that he should put the knife away. Wanted to tell him that Alec was probably past the point of conscious suffering, and it would be no act of kindness to rob him of what dignity he had left by killing him now – that he should just be allowed to die of natural causes.

But the words would not come – not as a shout, not even as a whisper.

And perhaps, he thought, with a mind half-turned to ice, it wouldn't have mattered even if the words had come. Because perhaps what he was witnessing wasn't a
mercy
killing at all.

The sudden death of Seth Johnson, Member of Parliament for the Whitebridge Constituency since 1945, has created turmoil in both the leading political parties.

Labour has been losing ground for a number of years, and, in the considered opinion of many political observers, has only maintained the slim majority it now holds because of Seth Johnson's personal prestige. The Labour candidate selected to fight for Johnson's seat in the coming by-election will, therefore, have an uphill struggle.

The Conservative Party is currently deciding between two strong candidates.

The first, Henry Marlowe, has been Chief Constable of Central Lancashire for the last three years, and was Deputy Chief Constable before that.

The second, Bradley Pine, is a local businessman, whose company (Hawtrey-Pine Holdings) is one of Whitebridge's most successful manufacturing firms. Many of our readers will remember the tragedy which occurred three years ago, when, despite Bradley Pine's heroic efforts to save him, Alec Hawtrey lost his life in a mountaineering accident.

The election promises to be one of the liveliest in quite some time, and you may rest assured that the Courier will be covering it in the greatest possible detail, every step of the way.

H
enry Marlowe stood at the very back of the Sleaburn Village Hall, watching the man on the small stage as he addressed an audience which had dragged itself out on a densely foggy evening, just for the privilege of hearing him speak.

Bradley Pine looked good, Marlowe thought reluctantly. Better than good. He looked sharp. He looked caring. He looked like a man who was confident of winning the coming by-election.

And the bastard probably
would
win!

‘For nearly twenty years, this constituency has been in the hands of a party which hates individual freedom and individual responsibility with a passion,' Pine was telling his eager listeners. ‘A party which wants to reward the scrounger for his idleness – and will do it at your expense. Well, my friends, it's time to draw a line in the sand – time to show them, with this election, that we won't stand for it!'

The audience applauded enthusiastically.

‘It should have been me standing on that platform,' Marlowe said softly to himself.

He deserved it, he thought. Nobody had worked harder to win the selection committee's approval than he had.
Nobody
had bought more drinks, slapped more backs or done more favours. And it had all been for nothing!

Now this jumped-up little creep had been handed the mantle that he – the upholder of law and order throughout the county – had been denied.

It didn't seem right.

It didn't seem fair.

And Marlowe found himself wondering if – even at this late stage in the proceedings – there was anything he could do to seize back what was properly his.

Bradley Pine opened the door of the village hall and stepped out into the chill night air. He supposed that instead of making such a rapid exit, he could always have stayed longer – shaking a few more hands, making a few more personal promises. But, on the whole, he felt that would have been running an unnecessary risk – because the more time the glittering star spends among his acolytes, the greater the danger that some of the glitter will begin to flake off.

The fog had thickened while he'd been making his speech, and his car – which was conveniently parked in the country lane behind the hall – was no more than a vague shape. Even so, he could not fail to notice, as he drew closer to it, that a man was standing beside the vehicle.

‘Who's that?' he asked.

‘It's me,' said a voice that he recognized instantly as belonging to Henry Marlowe.

‘I saw you standing at the back of the hall, Henry,' Pine said. ‘It was very good of you to put in an appearance.'

‘I didn't have much choice, did I?' Marlowe growled. ‘I couldn't have people saying I was a sore loser.'

‘No, of course you couldn't,' Pine agreed. ‘Especially since such an assumption on their part would have been so patently unfair.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?' Marlowe demanded. ‘Is it meant to be some sort of joke?'

‘Certainly not,' Pine assured him.

‘Then what's your point?'

Pine sighed. ‘I suppose I was just giving you the opportunity to show that you could accept defeat gracefully.'

‘You could have supported my nomination, you know,' Marlowe said, showing no desire to do anything of the kind. ‘You could have dropped your own candidature and given
me
your backing.'

‘I seriously thought about doing just that,' Pine said, with the kind of sincerity that only a politician can ever truly manage.

‘Did you? Well, you didn't show much sign of it!'