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

were scratched, his T-shirt had been ripped and his jeans were covered in mud – signs of his desperate battle for life.
The body had been found by an angler. The fisherman, having spent all day on the canal and with the light beginning to fade, had been wending his way home when he noticed a foot sticking out from beneath undergrowth. Hardly daring to breathe, he had investigated further and found the body, partly concealed by branches that had been hurriedly snapped off nearby bushes and trees.
Within twenty minutes, the canal bank was swarming with officers, a grim-faced John Blizzard and David Colley among them. The detectives watched Sarah Allatt as she took a statement from the fisherman who sat on a log, shaking and trying to form the words to describe what he had seen.
Colley shivered as a chill wind rippled the dark waters of the canal. The sergeant turned up his anorak collar and peered into a deepening blackness pierced only by the flashing blue lights of the police cars parked on the nearby road and by the pale glow cast from their factories on the industrial estate on the far side of the waterway. He glanced over to the local newspaper reporter and photographer, who were standing beyond the tape that had been stretched across the towpath by the police. Colley frowned; it was the same team that had covered the protest outside the hostel, their story subsequently splashed across the front page.
‘How did they get here so quickly?’ asked Colley.
‘Not sure,’ said Blizzard. ‘And at the moment, I don’t care. The boy’s my big concern. Do we know who he is?’
‘Jamie Holdsworth. Mum rang in an hour or so ago, saying that he had not returned home. Uniform weren’t that worried, teenage boy and all that, but then the body was found.’
‘He not at school?’
‘Half-term,’ said Colley. ‘He left home this morning to play football with his mates but, according to Mum, their game was due to finish at twelve. She thought he was having lunch at a friend’s house, his mates thought he was going home. She raised the alarm when he didn’t turn up and none of his pals knew where he was.’
‘And would he have walked home via the canal?’ asked Blizzard. He glanced along the waterway. ‘Is this his usual route, do we know?’
‘Very possibly. He lived near St John’s Church. Didn’t Danny Lennox…?’
‘Live near the church? Yes.’
‘And isn’t…?’
‘Right again, David.’ Blizzard stared morosely into the dark waters. ‘This is the stretch of canal where he was found. And before you ask, yes, Albert Macklin did cover his victim with branches.’
Colley was silent for a few moments.
‘You think he did this then?’ he asked eventually.
‘There’ll be hell to pay if he did, particularly since people know that we were talking to him a couple of days ago. Hopefully, he really did leave the city. Relatives in Derby, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s what Jacob Reed said,’ replied Colley. ‘But he doesn’t know their names and he only had Macklin’s word for it that they even existed. I’ve asked Derby police to make some enquiries for us but there’s precious little to go on.’
Sarah Allatt completed her conversation with the angler and walked across to the detectives.
‘Anything?’ asked Blizzard.
‘Just what he told uniform.’
‘And he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary?’ asked the inspector. ‘He’s been here all day, hasn’t he?’
‘He has, yes, but he was a few hundred metres further along the bank.’ She pointed to a bend in the canal. ‘He couldn’t see where the body was found.’
‘Did he not hear anything?’
‘He had his headphones on.’
‘In which case,’ said Blizzard, looking at Colley, ‘I suggest that we find Albert Macklin and that we find him before anyone else does, otherwise we’ll have another murder on our hands. This has the potential to turn very nasty, and quickly.’
And with that, he began to stride down the towpath. Colley looked gloomily at the body and sighed.
* * *
Shortly before 10.00pm, Jacob Reed was at the hostel, sitting in the cramped office as he checked that all was well with the assistant manager before he took over from her for the night shift.
‘No problems then?’ he asked.
‘All quiet,’ said Glenda Rutherford. She looked worried; an earnest and meek middle-aged woman with mousy hair tied up in a bun, she was struggling to come to terms with the news about the death of Jamie Holdsworth. ‘So far. I’m terrified that there will be more trouble after what happened to that poor boy.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with us, Glenda.’
‘Yes, but they don’t know that, do they?’ She glanced fearfully at the office window as she recalled the fear she had experienced when the protest had unfolded two days previously. ‘What if they come back, Jacob?’
‘Don’t worry, they won’t. Albert Macklin has gone, hasn’t he?’ Jacob walked over to the window and made as if to draw the curtains. Before doing so, he turned back to look at her with a reassuring look on his face. ‘Hold strong to your faith, Glenda. We are doing the right thing here. Someone has to help these people find the right path and the Lord has the power to make miracles happen. You know that. Go on, get yourself home.’
She nodded and put on her coat. She was halfway down the street when she heard the sound of shattering glass coming from the direction of the church. She ran back to find Jacob Reed lying unconscious on the office floor, with blood pouring from a gash on his forehead. The window had been smashed and a brick lay next to him.

Chapter four
A weary John Blizzard was still at the cluster of ageing prefab buildings that comprised Abbey Road Police Station as the office wall clock ticked