Blood On the Wall by Jim Eldridge Read Free Book Online Page B

Taggartcorrected her. ‘Not true. Take Nick, for example. Like I say, a good guy. Genuine.’
    When she saw Seward looking at her with a curious expression, Taggart laughed out loud.
    ‘Nothing like that! I’m a married woman!’
    Seward shrugged. ‘I didn’t say anything,’ she said.
    ‘Anyway, if we can’t get hold of Drake, Nick suggests we talk to someone called Paul Morrison. He’s an occasional lecturer in film at the place. Nick says he’s the guy who has most to do with Drake. Today is one of the days when Morrison is in, lecturing.’ Kirsty grinned. ‘Nick also says Morrison is a pretentious wanker.’
     
    DC Conway looked at the pile of papers in front of him and shook his head. Social Services reports. Charge sheets. Medical reports. He groaned.
    Little looked up from his own paperwork and shot a glance at him.
    ‘What’s up?’ he asked.
    ‘Michelle bloody Nixon,’ groaned Conway. ‘A complete nightmare. Thank God I didn’t live next door to her. Punters. Drugs. Violent and abusive when drunk, which was most of the time. Apart from her being a woman, there is absolutely nothing here which links her in any way to Tamara Armstrong.’
    ‘The names?’ murmured Little.
    Conway looked at Little and frowned. ‘Michelle and Tamara?’
    Little shook his head. Then, almost as if he was embarrassed by it, he said: ‘Nixon and Armstrong.’

    Conway frowned. ‘What about them?’ he asked.
    ‘They’re Reiver names,’ he explained.
    ‘So what?’ said Conway, shrugging. ‘Half the people in the Carlisle phone book have got Reiver names. Graham. Armstrong. Nixon.’
    ‘And Little,’ added Little. ‘That’s what made me think of it.’
    Conway shook his head.
    ‘This case is hard enough without bringing the bloody Border Reivers into it.’
    Conway remembered being taught about the Border Reivers at school in ‘local history’. The Border Reivers were the families who lived in what was known as the Debateable Lands, on the border between England and Scotland between the 1200s and the sixteenth century. It had been a time when there was no law and order in the border region between England and Scotland, and the Reiver families had taken advantage of it. For hundreds of years they lived by robbing on both sides of the border. English or Scottish, it didn’t matter. The most notorious were the Armstrongs, the Nixons, the Grahams, the Littles and the Bells. They plundered, murdered and raped, and no one could touch them. Not until James VI of Scotland became James I of England, and he took a hard line with them. He had them rounded up and hanged without trial. It had been known as Jeddart Justice. Those who weren’t killed on the spot were given a choice: execution or exile. A lot of them chose exile.
    ‘I don’t see it,’ said Conway. ‘The Reivers died out.’
    ‘Their families didn’t,’ pointed out Little. ‘You said it yourself, just look in the local phone book and see how manypeople have Reiver names. Thousands.’
    ‘So you’re saying this is a family feud from six hundred years ago? That after all this time someone’s decided to take revenge and start cutting some heads off? Or maybe it’s a ghost coming back and cutting heads off. Like in that film,
Highlander.’
    Little looked at the disbelief on Conway’s face, heard the sarcasm in his voice, and sighed ruefully.
    ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But it’s the only thing I can see that connects the two women in any way at all.’
    ‘Maybe that’s the point,’ said Conway. ‘Maybe chummy chose them because they
were
completely different.’ He looked at the papers in front of him and let out a long and agonized sigh. ‘In which case, us doing this is a complete and utter waste of time.’
     
    Seward and Taggart parked outside the large 1960s building in Brampton Road that housed the University of Cumbria and walked into reception, making their way through a crowd of students who were either soaking up the summer sun or