The Killing Club by Angela Dracup Read Free Book Online Page A

usual biker’s leathers but a bomber jacket paired with a short, tight skirt. Her heavy black bikers’ boots completed the retro beatnik look, helped along with some bright pink tights and her spiky hair, currently black, streaked with burgundy.
    ‘Hi, there!’ she called out as he raised his hand in a welcoming wave from the doorway.
    A few minutes later they were sitting on either side of the desk, hot coffee and biscuits on the desk top. Events seemed to drive on quickly when Georgie was around. Swift had known her for a couple of years. She was an ambitious newshound, hungry for advancement and the big time in journalism.
    ‘How’s the Yorkshire Echo ?’ Swift asked.
    ‘Still nicely afloat and not able to do without me yet.’ Georgie crunched hungrily on a chocolate biscuit and took another one.
    ‘And you’ve been promoted to an office of your own,’ he commented.
    ‘Uh huh, and a column of my own. Don’t you read the papers, DCI Swift?’
    ‘It has been known,’ he admitted. ‘What sort of column?’
    ‘Basically, it’s all about me being on a bad-tempered rant and pulling people to bits. You know, writing about footballers’ taste in casual clothes, and actors who speak at political rallies in support of causes they know fuck-all about.’
    ‘Sounds just right for your talents,’ Swift observed.
    ‘Mmm, sometimes even I am a touch shame-faced about what I write, but the public seem to lap it up. And articulating the nation’s annoyances pays a lot better than reporting on grubby dealings in the local council and so forth. And I’ve been able to buy my own place. I’m as chuffed with it as a little kid with a Wendy House.’ She eyed him like a hawk considering its next swoop. ‘So what can I do you for, Chief Inspector?’
    ‘The body on the Fellbeck Crag,’ he said.
    ‘Ah, yes. Your press officer’s being very cagey about that.’ She didn’t sound really interested. ‘Some drunk staggering about and bumping his head on some inconvenient boulder, I’d have thought. All we know is that it’s a man. Do you know who he is?’
    ‘No,’ said Swift. ‘But I just thought you might.’
    Her eyes widened. ‘Me! Nah. I don’t get out enough. Always got my nose to the grindstone.’
    Swift took out the photograph Tanya Blake had given him and laid it on the desk in front of Georgie.
    Her body stilled. ‘Good God … that’s Christian Hartwell.’ She stared across at Swift, and he could tell that she was truly upset.
    He was fairly unnerved himself. It had just been a shot in the dark to talk to Georgie Tyson. He had expected no more than a few ideas, possible leads. But this was something else.
    ‘He’s … he was … a journalist. He’s been the top writer on our sports section for the past four or five years. God! I can’t believe this. What happened to him?’
    Swift gave a small smile. ‘That is what I’m trying to find out.’
    ‘Do you think he’s been the victim of dirty work at the crossroads?’ Georgie asked, pulling herself back into professional mode. ‘Murder? Assassination? It happens to journalists all the time.’
    ‘Your words, not mine,’ Swift said, ‘so don’t think you’ll get away with going to press and putting your words in my mouth.’
    ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. You’re far too nice a guy to play dirty tricks on.’
    ‘And you are far too kind,’ he said. ‘Listen Georgie, I want to know more about Christian Hartwell, and if you’ll keep quiet now, there are likely to be some goodies later. And, of course, if you don’t keep quiet I’ll be in the mire, and most definitely sent out to grass … in which case you’ll get nothing. I give you my word as a decent guy.’
    ‘Yeah. Fair dos, as my old granddad used to say. OK, Christian Hartwell, let’s see. He joined the Echo around five years ago. He’d worked for local papers all over the place before that, and also done a spell of volunteer work in East Nepal and other places in the back