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

is that once, when I was driving past the end of their street, I saw him coming out of their house and it was past eleven. A touch late for a pastoral visit, I would say.’
‘Did her husband know about the affair?’
‘Do you think the vicar would still have been walking upright if Steve Holdsworth knew about it?’ Calvert lowered his voice. ‘He’s another nasty piece of work, that one. Look, I don’t want to come over as a gossip but there was talk that Steve hit the kid. I don’t know if it’s true, but I saw Jamie with a black eye one day.’
‘Do you know if–’
‘I’ve already said too much.’ Calvert pointed a finger at him. ‘Just remember what I said. You keep my name out of this.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
Colley stood up and Calvert reached for the bottle again.
‘I wouldn’t drive home if I were you,’ said the sergeant.
‘Can’t. Banned. Drink driving.’
‘There’s a surprise,’ said Colley.
The sergeant walked out into the gathering gloom of late afternoon to find Blizzard’s car parked outside the row of shops. The inspector wound down the passenger side window and leaned over.
‘Anything?’ he asked.
‘Only that St John’s is a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah.’
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ said Blizzard. ‘Get in. You and I have got a little surprise for Mr Holdsworth.’
‘Ooh, lovely, I like surprises!’ said Colley, lowering himself into the passenger seat.
‘Well, you’ll definitely like this one,’ said Blizzard.

Chapter seventeen
Blizzard and Colley were soon sitting back in the living room of the Holdsworths’ neat little house. Steve eyed them with defiance, Marian was as cowed as she was the previous time they had met. She had clearly been crying.
‘Mr Holdsworth,’ said Blizzard. ‘We have been doing some checking up on you.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Yes, it turns out that our CID colleagues on the north side of the city questioned you four years ago for hitting your son outside a pub following a school football match.’
‘He were being lippy!’ said Holdsworth. ‘You have to discipline them.’
Marian gave a small sob.
‘Not the only time you have seen fit to discipline him, it would seem.’ Blizzard glanced down at a crumpled piece of paper which he had fished out of his jacket pocket and on which he had scrawled some notes. ‘Three years ago, Jamie was taken to hospital with a broken arm and social services came to interview you – as did one of our Western CID officers.’
‘Nowt were ever proved,’ said Holdsworth.
‘Maybe not, Steve, but it is interesting information given that your son has just been killed, is it not?’ said the inspector.
Marian burst into tears as her husband stood up and glared at the inspector with a baleful expression. Blizzard wondered if he was about to lose his temper and lunge at him but Holdsworth managed, with some difficulty, to master his fury and sat back down.
‘You can try all you like to suggest that I had something to do with Jamie’s death,’ said Holdsworth. ‘But I were on a rig in the North Sea when it happened.’
‘But were you?’ said Blizzard. He glanced down at the piece of paper again. ‘Does the name Brian Brattan mean anything to you, Mr Holdsworth?’
It was as if the big man had been punched. He gaped at the detective for a moment or two, his mouth opening and shutting several times, then slumped back into his chair.
‘Who is this Brian Brattan?’ asked his wife. She had viewed the change in her husband with amazement.
‘He’s your husband’s supervisor on the rig,’ said Blizzard. ‘Isn’t that right, Steve?’
The big man nodded.
‘They go way back,’ said the inspector. ‘They’ll do anything for each other. Indeed, Brian initially said that it was he who arranged to fly your husband home when he heard that Jamie had been killed. Except, you were not on the rig, were you, Steve? You were nowhere near it.’
Holdsworth hesitated then shook his head. His face was ashen, his cheeks were sunken and his eyes darted round the room like those of a caged animal.
‘Not on the rig?’ said Marian. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Brian Brattan made it all up,’ said Blizzard. ‘Your husband had flown over to the mainland a couple of days earlier.’
‘But why?’ said Marian. She turned horrified eyes on her husband, demanding an answer. Steve averted his gaze.
‘It’s a good question,’ said Blizzard. ‘Unfortunately, all he told Brian Brattan was that it was a personal matter. However, unless he comes up with a good explanation, it means he has no alibi for the time of your son’s death. Anything to say, Steve?’
Holdsworth shook his head.
‘In which case,’ said Blizzard, ‘Steve Holdsworth, I have no alternative but to arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Jamie Holdsworth. Inform him of his rights, please, Sergeant.’
As Marian Holdsworth slumped in her chair in floods of tears, Colley led the stunned Holdsworth into the cold evening air. Following him to the car, Blizzard tried to push to the back of his mind the nagging doubts that they had just arrested the wrong man.
* * *
The chief constable was halfway through his talk to the Neighbourhood Forum being staged that evening in the hall attached to St Cuthbert’s Church when the protestors barged their way into the room. He watched angrily as Margaret Hatton, followed by a number of placard-wielding followers, made their way down the central aisle, followed by a television crew.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ asked the Chief.
‘We represent the people opposed to the hostel at St John’s,’ said Hatton. ‘And since we can get no sense out of your officers, we have come to demand answers from you.’
‘Well, if you care to wait until the end of–’
‘Is it true that you have arrested the