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Back The Kill Call
Chapters (46)
  1. Dedication
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-one
  23. Chapter Twenty-two
  24. Chapter Twenty-three
  25. Chapter Twenty-four
  26. Chapter Twenty-five
  27. Chapter Twenty-six
  28. Chapter Twenty-seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-one
  33. Chapter Thirty-two
  34. Chapter Thirty-three
  35. Chapter Thirty-four
  36. Chapter Thirty-five
  37. Chapter Thirty-six
  38. Chapter Thirty-seven
  39. Chapter Thirty-eight
  40. Chapter Thirty-nine
  41. Chapter Forty
  42. Chapter Forty-one
  43. Chapter Forty-two
  44. About the Author
  45. Also by Stephen Booth
  46. About the Publisher
Document

Chapter Twenty-three

DI HITCHENS WAS waiting for Fry expectantly when she came out of the interview room. She felt faintly grubby, and depressed by what Sean Crabbe had done with his life.

‘So, Diane. Can I tell the Super we’ve got a result?’ said Hitchens with a grin.

Fry wished for all the world that she could say ‘yes’. She very much wanted Superintendent Branagh to hear that DS Fry had brought the Rawson case to a successful conclusion. And she knew that her DI wanted to give her that opportunity.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘But we’ve finally got a suspect in custody,’ protested Hitchens.

‘Yes, sir. The trouble is, I believe he’s telling the truth.’

A FILE WOULD have to be prepared on Sean Crabbe for the Crown Prosecution Service before a decision was made on any charges he’d face. Fry supposed that theft would be on the list, given the confession. And perhaps perverting the course of justice, which was a CPS favourite.

Meanwhile, Becky Hurst and Luke Irvine had been doing their research, and the extent of the picture they were building up was alarming. Listening to them give their reports, DI Hitchens looked as though he might be starting to feel out of his depth.

‘It’s back to square one, then,’ he said. ‘If Sean Crabbe is telling the truth, the answer must lie in Patrick Rawson’s business activities. Someone he got the wrong side of.’

‘And there must be plenty of those.’

The DI listened carefully to the results of the visits to Hawley’s abattoir and the meat distributors.

‘So we could be talking seriously big money here,’ he said.

‘The value of the horse industry has been estimated at three and a half billion pounds,’ said DC Hurst, reading eagerly from her notebook. ‘Bookmakers alone generate an annual profit of more than a billion from horse racing. Owners of leading stallions can charge hundreds of thousands for a single mating, and a stallion can cover two hundred mares in a season. Big money, all right.’

‘Given all those vested interests, who’s going to be bothered in the least about what happens to the failures?’ said Hitchens. ‘Let the French and Belgians eat them, if they want to. Why not?’

‘It’s not just the French and Belgians any more,’ said Fry, remembering all too clearly the packing line at R & G Enterprises.

‘Did you know horses have the intelligence and sensitivity of a seven-year-old child?’ asked Hurst.

But Fry wasn’t impressed by that. Seven-year-old children could be obnoxious, certainly – but they didn’t usually shit on your shoes for no good reason.

‘We were told at the abattoir that they pay as much as eight hundred pounds for a large thoroughbred,’ added Cooper. ‘That’s an attractive proposition for an owner faced with the expense of disposal by some other means. It can cost anything from a hundred and fifty pounds for collection and processing by a renderer, to seven hundred and fifty or more for euthanasia by a vet. And there aren’t many animal sanctuaries for racehorses. It’s way beyond the pockets of most animal charities.’