NO AGE TO DIE: The release of a dangerous prisoner leads to murder (DCI John Blizzard Book 9)

that was all. He didn’t have time for all that happy-clappy shite.’
‘He did!’ exclaimed his wife. She turned baleful eyes on him. ‘It is just that you never saw it. You never saw anything!’
For an uncomfortable moment there was silence as husband and wife glared at each other, then Marian’s strength seemed to leave her and she slumped back in the sofa, the tears flowing again.
‘Is there any reason why your son might have had a baseball bat with him when he was down at the canal?’ asked Blizzard, looking at Steve.
‘Baseball! T’aint a proper game. Jamie liked football! I used to take him to see City when I were home.’
Steve stared at them proudly, almost as if he expected to be congratulated.
Blizzard hesitated, trying to work out how best to phrase his next question.
‘The pathologist conducting the post-mortem on your son’s body found a number of injuries,’ he said eventually. ‘He thinks that they stretch back several years – fractures, scarring. How did your son get them?’
Marian sobs became louder.
‘Dunno nowt about that,’ said Holdsworth. His response was more guarded now. ‘Nowt to do with me.’
‘Mrs Holdsworth?’ asked Blizzard. ‘Do you know?’
For a moment, it seemed as if she was about to say something but, after a glance at her husband’s fierce expression, she shook her head.
‘He were a boy,’ said Steve. ‘Boys get bumps and scratches.’
‘These were hardly bumps and scratches,’ said Colley. ‘I talked to one of the uniform lads who remembered being called to the hospital three years ago when Jamie was there with a broken arm. He would not tell the doctors how he got it.’
‘He fell playing football,’ said Steve. ‘That’s how he got all his injuries.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Blizzard.
‘If you’re trying to suggest that we–’ began Steve angrily.
‘I’m not suggesting anything, Mr Holdsworth, but we do need to find out. Is there anything we should know?’
Mrs Holdsworth stifled another sob and her husband looked away. Neither replied. As the silence lengthened, it was clear to the detectives that neither would. After a few further moments of silence, Blizzard stood up.
‘We’ll leave it there, I think,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your help. We’ll leave you to your grief for now.’
‘If there is anything that we can do…’ began Colley.
Marian shot the sergeant a look, half gratitude, half pleading. A strange look and one that was to trouble the sergeant for the remainder of the day. It looked for a few moments as though she was about to speak.
‘We’ll sort it ourselves, thank you,’ said Steve. He stood up and gestured the detectives to walk out into the hallway, where he closed the door so that his wife could not hear.
‘I know you must think that I don’t care about Jamie,’ he said. ‘But you’ve seen what she’s like. She’s not been the same since she started going to St John’s. All that God rubbish. One of us has to stay strong – and we don’t know anything about any abuse. We’d never do anything like that to our son.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Blizzard. He opened the front door and stepped out into the street, where he turned to give Holdsworth a stern look. ‘We’ll do everything in our power to catch whoever did this, Steve, but I don’t want to hear that you and Bob have gone looking for Macklin.’
Holdsworth did not reply and closed the door behind them. Blizzard and Colley headed for the car.
‘What a bastard!’ exclaimed Colley once they had got into the vehicle. ‘What an absolute bastard! All that guff about having to stay strong. If it were my kid, I wouldn’t react the way he did. And neither would you.’
‘You’re right.’ Blizzard turned the key in the ignition and steered the vehicle out of the side street and onto the main road. ‘Run me through what criminal records said about him again, will you?’
Colley removed a computer printout from his jacket pocket.
‘All that stuff about taking his son to the football?’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll put money on the fact it wasn’t to watch the game. Holdsworth has got five convictions for football violence. Attacked a bobby during trouble outside one City match, put him in hospital for three days. I talked to the lad who made the arrest. Jamie was with him when it happened. He was nine at the time. Holdsworth was lucky to get a suspended sentence. And it’s interesting that he went to see Lennox before going home. They have form together.’
‘Violence?’
‘Yeah.’ Colley ran his eye down the document. ‘They were arrested together after a late-night brawl at a city centre pub five years ago. Both got suspended sentences for that one, as well. Sometimes, I wonder why we bother.’
‘So do I.’ Blizzard slowed the car down to let a bus emerge from a side street. The driver ignored the gesture. ‘No, don’t thank me. Git! What do you make of the wife?’
‘Like Steve said, she only speaks to Jesus. Talk about the Odd Couple. All that religious stuff was certainly weird. So, what’s our next move then?’
‘I want us to find out everything we can about Steve Holdsworth,’ said Blizzard. ‘Including his movements over the past twenty-four hours.’
‘But surely he was travelling back from the oil rig?’
‘Let’s check anyway.’
‘And I guess we lift Bob Lennox?’
‘Yeah.’ Blizzard gave a rare grin. ‘We deserve a treat, the morning we’ve had.’

Chapter ten
The detectives found Bob Lennox shortly after noon, drinking in a seedy club situated on one of the streets which had fallen on hard times as the docks fell victim to many years of recession. The city’s economy may have been recovering but Dock Street had been untouched by the investment transforming the nearby marina, with its glitzy nightspots and yachts. Instead, the club’s neighbours