Achilles Heel: Di Nathaniel Blackhewn

By Laura E Simms

DI Nathaniel Blackhewn is suspended following the start of the inquiry into the outcome of the Stacey Hayes case, but things are about to get much more personal.

 

When his 10-year-old son Harley disappears, Nathaniel believes he knows who is responsible. He, the Outlaw and Claudio must unite once more.

 

But do some wounds now run too deep?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura E Simms
• Release date: Jan 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507001387

Laura E Simms

Laura E Simms is a disabled author. She has the condition Cerebral Palsy. She has had a dream to write books since she was 6 years old.  She is now living that dream.   She would like awareness to be raised of disability in general.    Laura was born in 1987, in Tamworth near Birmingham, UK. She enjoys theatre and going to the cinema 

Book preview

Achilles Heel

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Laura E Simms

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Copyright © 2015 Laura Elizabeth Simms

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1500732869

ISBN-13: 978-1500732868

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For William Nash

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to put this into words, but here goes.

It’s taken us 9 years to get here, but 20th September 2014 is a day I’ll never forget, the day the sun, moon and stars aligned and the universe moved again, the day everything became right and suddenly made perfect sense for the first time in years, the day you came back into my life and my sleeping heart realised it could love again and didn’t have to settle for being broken.

Every day it heals a little more and grieves a little less. It’s all down to you. You might not think so, but it’s true. 

At the time of writing it’s been 14 weeks and 2 days, and I don’t remember being happier. You are my sun, moon and universe. You are my strength, my weakness, my Achilles heel all wrapped into one.

But that is fine because you see me in a light that I have never been able to see myself in. You accept me flaws and all and believe me there are many flaws.

But for your patience and love, even though at times it must feel like we’re going round in circles, I thank you with all my heart.

So this one is written for you. Here’s to the next 9 years.

The Lord's Prayer

(traditional)

Our Father, which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come.

Thy will be done in earth,

As it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive them that trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

The power, and the glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen.

The Anglican Book of Common Prayer 1662

Temptation is the desire to perform an action you may enjoy in the current climate, but may regret at a later time.

In religious terms it is considered to be a sin. The story of Eve, the snake and the apple being one such example. The idea of Original Sin.

In non-religious terms it indicates a lack of self-control

The Seven Deadly Sins

1. Greed - Wanting too much of something.

2. Gluttony - Similar to greed, but gluttony is the action of taking too much of something in.

3. Lust - The need to fulfill unspiritual desires (not just sexual desires, but this is usually what lust is associated with.)

4. Envy - Jealousy; wanting to have what someone has.

5. Sloth - Being too slow or lazy at doing something.

6. Wrath - Vindictive anger; angry revenge.

7. Pride - Being too self-satisfied

some other people may say that the seventh deadly sin is anger but this is not true; its pride.

The Seven Deadly Sins concept was first introduced by the Catholic church

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Prologue

The book in his hand shook as he smiled to himself. She was so into myths and legends it was unreal. She who thought herself above him in so many things.

But she was beneath him in reality. So far beneath him it was unreal.

She was not even fit to be his footstool and she would realise it, because he would make her realise it.

She would be begging for her life by the end and he would strike her down, the thorn in his side for so long.

She who had dared and now thought herself indispensible, but she was far from it.

He would show her and she would pay a heavy price. He would crush her like the bug she was. The natural order of things would be restored. 

There were rumours going round about him and that just would not do. He had to be top of the food chain. She had made a fool of him spectacularly.

Anyone who looked into those cold grey eyes, the colour of steel would be afraid and so they should be.

She had stared him down like he was shit on his shoe. She had figuratively laughed in his face. His fists balled just thinking about it.

Those eyes that could induce a shiver of the spine had seen murder and plenty of it.

He had sentenced people to death without barely even a flicker of the eyelid. His orders were carried out because not to do so was to risk death knocking at your door next.

People were now even suggesting he was losing his touch, going soft, admittedly very quietly, but still. How fucking dare she? He remembered the day they had met and cursed it. 

Blonde hair, blue eyes, daringly inviting him. The temptress and he had fallen hook line and sinker.

In a moment of uncharacteristic weakness she had become a part of his life, a binding never to be untangled.

He had proved himself to be culpably human, an image he had tried to deny for years.

He remembered the humiliating moment when he had discovered the undeniable truth. Taunted by a rival he had stared at three children, unprotected, just for an instant.

He had stared transfixed into his own eyes. The eyes of a mother he had almost no memory of, on a boy of about the same age he was when he’d had his last tender thought and feeling.

The day his heart had turned to stone and stopped beating, though he still lived.

The room had stood still in that moment. The world had only moved again as the three of them had moved in front of him. The protectors, she as a mother.

He had been obsessed with that small creature ever since. That ghost of a boy from 26th August 1979, sent to haunt him from a past never far from his mind, forgotten only with his own death. Maybe with oblivion in that final hour his mind would be wiped blissfully clean of the events that had proved to be the turning point in his life.

The book fell casually from his fingers quite simply because he had let it go. He barely registered the fact.

It wouldn’t dare fall of its own accord, to perhaps suggest he had dropped it.

The spine was beaten up enough. He was as harsh in his treatment of books as he was his treatment of people. They were all the same to him. Replaceable.

The abused binding held his place better than if he had put in a bookmark. The colour illustrations lay there mockingly, drawing the eye, daring the beholder to look away.

The legend was that of Achilles. He knew the story vaguely. His working knowledge was all he needed.

His great study was of weapons, torture and murder, not some fiction of people who had never existed in the first place.

There had been a baby Prince, son of some God, Zeus maybe. He was destined to be a great warrior.

The Queen had dipped him in a river to make him immortal, but the silly bitch had held him by an ankle, no the heel.

She had neglected to give the brat a second bath in the river. Drowning him might have been better

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As predicted the spoilt little shit had grown into a warrior, beating everyone, but then during one battle someone had shot a poisoned arrow into his heel and he’d died.

The  less than human grey eyes glittered as he finished the thought.

So where’s your Achilles heel Veronica? I’m going to find it and when I do its bye bye

The soft lilting Irish accent was disturbing in itself, but not nearly as much as the gesture he made.

He held his two fingers like a gun to his temple and then after removing them from that position blew imaginary smoke off the end.

Chapter One

Call yourself a policeman Veronica Smallwood asked DI Nathaniel Blackhewn as she held a cloth to his bleeding nose. His eye was puffy and half-closed. The bruise rising spectacularly.

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The eyes he loved so much danced with humour, but soon clouded over into concern.

She rinsed the cloth out in the bowl of water she’d had