Reginald Hill: Blood Sympathy

REGINALD HILL

A Joe Sixsmith novel

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper An imprint of HarperCollins Publisher 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 1993

Copyright © Reginald Hill 1993

Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007334865

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2015 ISBN: 9780007389155

Version: 2015-07-27

Cover

Title Page REGINALD HILL

Copyright

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Keep Reading

About Reginald Hill

By Reginald Hill

About the Publisher

This book is set in a town called Luton in Bedfordshire. This should not be confused with the town called Luton in Bedfordshire, which the author has never been nearer to than the airport. Therefore any coincidence of layout, nomenclature, or character, is simply that – a coincidence.

The man came in without knocking.

He was in his mid-thirties with gingerish hair and matching freckles. He wore a chain store suit that didn’t quite fit and an agitated expression that did.

He said, ‘I want to talk about killing my wife.’

Joe Sixsmith removed his feet from his desk. It wasn’t a pose a man of his size found very comfortable and he only put them there when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Clients expected to find private eyes with their feet on their desks, and as a short, black, balding, redundant lathe-operator was likely to disappoint most of their other expectations, it seemed only fair to satisfy them in this.

On the other hand, customer satisfaction could be a liability when the customer was confessing murder.

If that was what he was doing. Could be he was merely looking for a hit-man. Time for the subtle questioning.

‘Pardon?’ said Sixsmith.

‘And her sister, Maria. She’s there too.’

‘There? Where’s there?’

‘At the tea-table,’ said the man impatiently.

‘Dead?’ said Sixsmith, who liked things spelled out.

‘Of course. Aren’t you listening? They’re all dead.’

Sixsmith thought: All? and looked for a weapon. There was a Present-from-Paignton paperknife in the desk tidy. Casually he reached for it, felt the man’s eyes burning into his hand, and plucked out a ballpoint instead.

He said, ‘All?’

He could be really subtle when he wanted.

‘Yes. My parents-in-law too. Mr and Mrs Tomassetti.’

‘Could you spell that?’ said Joe, feeling a need to justify the pen.

‘Two s’s, two t’s. My sister-in-law is Maria Rocca. Two c’s. Is all this necessary?’

‘Bear with me,’ said Joe, scribbling. The pen wasn’t working so all he got were indentations, but at least it was activity which gave him space to think of something intelligent to say.

He said, ‘Is that it? I mean, are there any more? Dead, I mean?’

‘Are you trying to be funny.’

‘No, not at all. Hey, man, I’m just doing my job. I need the details, Mr …?’

The man slid his hand inside his jacket. Joe pushed his chair back till it hit the wall. The hand emerged with a card which he dropped on to the desk. Joe picked it up, then put it down again as it was easier to read out of his trembling fingers. It told him he was talking to Stephen Andover, Southern Area sales manager of Falcon Assurance with offices on Dartle Street.

Suddenly Joe’s mental darkness was lit by suspicion.

He said, ‘Mr Andover, you’re not by any chance trying to sell me insurance?’

The light went out immediately as the man’s freckles vanished in a flush of anger and he thundered. ‘You’re not taking me seriously, are you?’

‘Oh yes, I surely am, believe me,’ reassured Joe. ‘I just had to be sure … Listen, Mr Andover, you’ve been straight with me, so the least I can do … The thing is, I’m in the business of solving crimes, not hearing confessions. You see there’s no profit in it, not unless you’re a priest, or a cop maybe, and I’ve got to make a living, you can see that …’

But Andover wasn’t listening.

‘This was a stupid idea,’ he said bitterly. ‘I picked you specially, I thought being a primitive you might understand, but I’ll know better next time. God, you people make me sick!’

He left the room as precipitately as he’d entered it.

Emboldened by the sound of his steps clattering down the stairs, Sixsmith called, ‘Hey, “us people” ain’t no primitive, friend. “Us people” was born in Luton. And you can shut up too!’

This last injunction was to a black cat with a white eyepatch which had raised its head from a desk drawer to howl in sleepy protest at all this din. He clearly didn’t care to be spoken to in this way, but as a huffy exit would take him away from his nice warm refuge, he decided not to take offence, washed his paws as if nothing had happened and went back to sleep.

It seemed a good example to follow but Joe Sixsmith suffered from a civil conscience and in the remote contingency that Andover really had chainsawed his family, someone ought to be told.

He picked up the phone and dialled.

He asked for Detective-Sergeant Chivers, but as usual they put him through to Sergeant Brightman. Brightman was the Community Relations Officer and Joe got on well enough with him, except that he didn’t take his detective ambitions seriously. Worse, he’d met Joe’s Auntie Mirabelle at a Rasselas Estate Residents’ meeting and they’d formed an alliance to persuade Joe back into honest unemployment. Sixsmith suspected Mirabelle had persuaded Brightman to put an intercept on his phone.

‘Joe, how’re you doing? What can we do for you?’