Black & Blue: Where it all began…… (D.S Hunter Kerr) by Michael Fowler Read Free Book Online Page B

me.”
    “Who?” said Hunter. “Is he still here?”
    She shook her head, “No. I managed to get to the phone to you lot. He did a runner just before you got here. He’ll probably be heading for his mates or his mum’s.” She picked up a discarded cushion from the floor, patted it and dropped it into the armchair she had straightened. Then she flopped into the chair. “I’ve had enough of him. He’ll kill me one of these days.”
    Throughout th e short conversation Hunter had one ear to his radio and he could still make out that officers were speeding towards his location. He held up a finger to shush her and interrupted the radio chatter, “You can cancel any further assistance I’m with the complainant now. The offender has left the premises I’m just getting details.” He returned his look to the woman. “Now tell me what’s happened.”
    In between sobs Hunter learned that she was 23 year old Kim Davies, and that the man who had attempted to strangle her was her boyfriend of eighteen months, Peter Jackson, two years her senior. She also told him that this attack wasn’t the first time. “You ask my friends, they’ll tell you what he’s like towards me. He’s given me many a black eye, even when they’ve been there.”
    The name, Peter Jackson didn’t mean anything to him. He asked, “Have you made a previous complaint? Has he been arrested?”
    Shaking her head she dragged away her eyes and shied them to her feet. She crossed her ankles.
    For a few seconds Hunter’s eyes were glued to her bright red painted toe nails . He broke away his gaze when she said.
    “I want to report it this time. I’ve had enough. You ought to have seen the look in his eyes. I’m telling you if I hadn’t have managed to get to the phone when I did you’d be dealing with a murder now. His tempers getting worse. It’s all that wacky-baccy he’s smoking.”
    Hunter took out his pocket book. “I’ll just get a few details and some background and then I’ll take a statement.”
    “I want to press charges. I want him locked up.”
    “If you give a statement, I’ll arrest him.”
    “Will he be kept locked up? I don’t want him coming back here. He really will kill me you know, especially if he knows I’ve made a statement against him.”
    Hunter shrugged his shoulders. “Kim I can lock him up and charge him, but I honestly don’t know if he’ll be kept. That will be up to the magistrates. Has he been in trouble for this type of thing before?”
    “You mean beaten up anyone else?”
    Hunter stopped writing and nodded.
    “I’m going to tell you something now, but this hasn’t come from me , okay?”
    “You know something about Peter? He’s done something else? Serious?”
    Kim Davies dropped her gaze and started wringing her hands. She was quiet for the best part of the thirty seconds then she glanced up. “That old lady who was attacked in her home!”
    Hunter’s eyes widened, “Edith Thompson?”
    “I don’t know her name. She was beaten up and robbed the middle of last week. They said on the news that she was critical.”
    “Yes, that was Edith Thompson.”
    She pulled away her gaze again and looked at her rotating hands, “That was Peter!”
    Hunter felt a jolt run up his back. He stiffened. “Are you sure?”
    She lifted her eyes. Her look was one of earnest. “He told me he thought she would be loaded, but he only got a few quid from her purse.” Kim held Hunter’s look. “I’m right aren’t I?”
    Hunter’s thoughts began to race. He got back on his radio and requested CID.
     
    - ooOoo -
     

     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
    In the darkness of his dingy, damp surroundings Peter Jackson was furious. Earlier, while in the pub he’d taken a call from his mate to say that CID was looking for him and he had also learned that they had turned over his Mother’s house. For the last eleven hours he had kept a low profile finding refuge in an empty lock-up.
    As dawn approached he only had one thing on