Six Bells

By Ruby Binns-Cagney

Blanchflower's latest case has his faithful companion Ferraud in a bit of a stir.

The case of a missing child, the Mother lost in the depths of despair, sends Blanchflower and Ferraud into London's East End.
Ferraud calls in Chief Superintendent Luke Stevens when its clear that the case is more complicated than the duo had first estimated.

What starts as a clear cut case evolves into something much darker, and this time its Ferraud who is out of his depths as six bells toll.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BinnsCagneyPublishing Co
• Release date: Oct 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370004157

Ruby Binns-Cagney

Keep in touch - sign up for new releases and save on publication day:http://books2read.com/author/ruby-binns-cagney/subscribe/1/41373/Ruby Binns-Cagney is a successful independently published Author who writes women's fiction (chick-lit) and American-based crime thrillers.Ruby's 'Detective Macaulay' crime series has a following on Twitter https://www.twitter.com/detmacaulay (@DetMacaulay)Ruby has a website and blog - read more details of her publishing services.Through her publishing company - BinnsCagneyPublishing Co - Ruby empowers others to become self-published Authors, and her Team also mentor new Authors.Free Marketing Help Signup:http://eepurl.com/3IsJPAdd her to your Google+ Circles https://plus.google.com/+RubyBinnsCagney/postsPlease visit her website:http://author-tales-of-self-publishing-books.blogspot.co.uk

Book preview

SIX BELLS

The Blanchflower Mysteries

Ruby Binns-Cagney

Copyright ©BinnsCagneyPublishing Co 2017

Cover Image Copyright ©BinnsCagneyPublishing Co 2017

All rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work by any means is prohibited without written permission.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the Author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to locales or to actual persons is purely coincidental.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

FURTHER READING

CHAPTER ONE

1870. Bishopsgate Terminus. Blanchflower waited in the small airless Station Master’s office until the train approached the building. The 18:42 to Stoke Newington screeched along the tracks as it belched white clouds of smoke into the London fog.

Blanchflower, dressed in his trademark black coat and fedora, boarded the train, reluctantly. His penchant for the completion of crossword puzzles over a leisurely breakfast had been supplanted with a last-minute telegram from the Chief Superintendent of Shoreditch Police with an urgent case.

A missing child.

He’d painstakingly toured London’s East End, mired with its slums and slaughterhouses; in a desperate search for news of the child’s return. Now he needed rest and sustenance.

Men in pinstriped suits and bowler hats walked among the filth to take stock of the impoverished, the poor, the needy; crammed into the vermin-infested ramshackle-roofed dwellings.

Board and lodgings had been prepared for him at the Shepherd and Shepherdess cottages; a stone’s throw from Stoke Newington, and easily reached on foot from the train station.

***

1912. Hackney, London. Ferraud abhorred London’s East End but a case as important as this could not be passed over.

We’ve got a case. Get washed and dressed. Ferraud stared, one eyebrow raised. Blanchflower folded the piece of parchment he’d written on in his long-handed scrawl, taking time to let the words dry before he slipped it into his bureau’s drawer, turning the small gold key twice, and sliding the key into the pocket where he fob watch now resided. Ferraud knew not to go in the drawer; no matter how insistently curiosity pricked at his thumbs.

Anywhere interesting? Blanchflower breathed on his spectacles and used the discarded dish rag to clean them, before casting it aside along with the scraps on his plate. The landlady, Mrs Donleavy had served up a dish of lukewarm eggs with bread and cold fat which now left Blanchflower feeling rather lugubrious,