Category: Mystery

Here’s an extract from Chapter 4 of It Never Rains

Detective Sergeant Sunita Roy has just arrived at a footballer’s mansion near Worcester after it was raided by burglars. The player’s stepson and bodyguard are missing.

As she parked her white Peugeot 208 next to the BMW and climbed out, an amiable uniformed constable approached.

‘All right, Sarge?’ asked PC Derek Underhill.  ‘You’ve missed a bit of excitement.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘They’ve just taken the housekeeper away in an ambulance.’

‘I saw an ambulance travelling down the lane.’

‘That was her,’ he said. ‘They’re taking her to Queensbridge General.’

‘What happened?’

‘The poor woman was in the house on her own when she spotted three men in ski-masks. One of them threatened her with a gun and tied her up.’

Sunita was concerned. ‘Is she all right?’

‘I think so.  They just roughed her up a bit.’

Sunita shook her head. ‘Must have been a hell of an ordeal for her.’

‘Yes, poor soul,’ said Underhill. ’They’ve taken her away for a check-up. Her husband’s here, but he didn’t see anything. He was out at the time, walking the dog.’

Sunita found the chief inspector talking to Dr Ling beside the main doorway to the house. A police photographer was taking pictures of a pool of blood on the block-paved forecourt. Three forensic staff in white coats were examining the entrance area. A fourth was inspecting possible tyremarks left among leaves, still damp following that morning’s light rain. Rubber anti-contamination plates had been placed at certain points along the ground so that detectives and forensic staff could walk around without the risk of damaging potential evidence. The scene was bathed in the white glow of arc lights.

Sunita stepped across carefully to join her boss.

‘Ah, Sergeant,’ said Roscoe sternly, ‘I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know how much you know but around four o’clock a gang of burglars appear to have disabled the alarm, cut the landline and disconnected the CCTV. Then they got in through the first-floor bathroom window on the other side of the house using a ladder and stole valuables and designer goods.’

‘Do we have any idea how many were in the gang?’ asked Sunita.

‘Not at the moment,’ he said. ‘The housekeeper, Mrs Willis, believes there were three, but there may have been more.’

‘What happened to Mrs Willis, sir?’

‘She was tied up and threatened with a gun.’

‘You’ve managed to speak to her, sir?’

‘Yes, I just grabbed a few words. She’s still in a state, of course. Underhill and another constable from Queensbridge were the first here and called an ambulance. She’s not badly hurt – just bruised wrists. It’s more the shock than anything else. Anyway, about ten minutes later she heard a bit of conversation, a car engine and soon after that two gunshots. Bear in mind she was strapped to a chair with her hands and feet tied and her mouth gagged.’

Sunita frowned. ‘Terrible, sir.’

‘After that, she heard what sounded like two cars driving away. Roughly twenty minutes later, our officers from Queensbridge arrived and untied her. The husband came back half an hour later.’

‘Where’s the husband now?’ she asked.

‘In their staff quarters just behind us. Police were alerted by a firm called Top Rank Protection in Wiltshire. One of their operatives, a guy called Danny Jukes, has been hired by the family as a bodyguard.  He called the company’s boss, Ken Woodman, at around ten minutes past four. He’d been given charge of the footballer’s sixteen-year-old stepson, Marcel, for the afternoon. Jukes told his boss they’d arrived at the house to find a guy with a balaclava loading gear into a Range Rover.’

‘Have we got the registration?’ Sunita asked.

‘Yes, but you know what these people are like,’ said Roscoe. ‘Chances are they were false plates and may have been replaced by now in any case.  Anyway, Danny Jukes’ last words to Ken were, “Can you call the cops and alert the family? I’m going in.” And since then he and the boy have vanished off the face of the earth.’

Sunita shook her head and stared across at the blood stains on the ground and at the hedge beyond. 

 ‘We know two shots were fired by someone,’ her boss continued. ‘As you can see, there are traces of blood on the forecourt here but we don’t know what the outcome of that was – although someone was obviously harmed.’

Sunita cast her eyes towards the hedge and trees on the far side of the forecourt.

‘What about the family, sir?’ she asked.

‘Jean-Jacques and his wife Camille are on their way back from watching the team play in Newcastle and should be here in a few hours,’ he said. ‘We obviously need to speak to them. In the meantime, I suggest you have a chat with the gardener, David Willis, and see if he can add anything to what we know.’

He handed her a scrap of paper with a phone number scribbled on it.

‘Maybe you could also have a word with Woodman. Here’s his number. Whatever you do, don’t go into the house right now. The forensic team are up to their eyes.’

‘Sir, do we have any idea at all what might have happened to Danny Jukes and Marcel?’ she said. 

The chief inspector shook his head. ‘No. But it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they’ve both fallen victim to foul play.’

Here’s the blurb

It never rains but it pours . . .
When a ruthless gang burgles the home of a Premier League football player, DCI Gavin Roscoe and DS Sunita Roy suddenly have a murder and a kidnap on their hands.
The footballer’s stepson, Marcel, is taken from the palatial property whilst it is being ransacked, and his bodyguard is shot, stone cold dead.
To help them with their task, DI Parkes from the National Crime Agency’s Kidnap Unit joins the investigation but he has very different ideas about how the operation should be run.
While rain lashes the surrounding countryside, tempers rise, as do the flood waters.
Can the police track down this dangerous gang, unmask its malevolent ringleader, and reunite the boy with his family before it’s too late?
IT NEVER RAINS is the sixth book in the detectives Roy and Roscoe crime fiction series by Tony Bassett.

Purchase Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DGLRJLVZ/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DGLRJLVZ/

Meet the author

Tony Bassett is a former journalist who worked on regional and national newspapers in Britain for more than 40 years. He mainly reported on crime, show business, human interest and consumer topics. Now retired, he writes crime fiction.
Tony is best known for his series of novels set in the West Midlands. They feature Detective Chief Inspector Gavin Roscoe, an experienced detective and family man, and his sergeant, law graduate and resourceful problem-solver Sunita Roy.
The fifth book in the series, Heir To Murder, was judged first in the Mystery and Suspense (Police Procedurals) category in the American Fiction Awards in June 2024.
The novel concerns a peer of the realm’s son found axed to death after a row over loud music. Two years earlier, his older brother mysteriously disappeared while hiking in Spain.
Here is the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CPFNJNQJ
The series is published by The Book Folks, an independent London publisher specialising in crime fiction.
Other books in the series (in order) are: Murder On Oxford Lane, The Crossbow Stalker, Murder Of A Doctor and Out for Revenge.
His stand-alone thriller Seat 97, about a man shot dead at a London concert hall, has also been published by The Book Folks.
Two further works (the crime novel Smile Of The Stowaway and the spy novel The Lazarus Charter) were published by The Conrad Press.
Tony first developed a love of writing at the age of nine when he produced a junior school magazine.
A few years later, his local vicar in Tunbridge Wells staged his play about the Biblical story of Naboth’s Vineyard.
At Hull University, Tony was judged Time-Life Magazine student journalist of the year in 1971.
Tony, who has five grown-up children, is a Life Member of the National Union of Journalists. He lives in South-East London with his partner Lin.

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