Driven to Murder: Who's guiltier? The killer... or the victim?

By Farrant Fiction

Who’s guiltier, the killer…or the victim?

Newdon. A town with a dark history where sinners were tried, found guilty and murdered for their sins.

But that was in the past. Or was it?

Joel Simpson loved his job as a driving instructor. He cared about his students. A good man devoted to his wife with a burning desire to start a family. His dreams are finally coming true.

Until…

When the bodies of two men, guilty of domestic violence, are found murdered, the fingers of suspicion point to Joel. Did he risk it all to save two of his students, or has the dark history of the town once again reared its ugly head?

Read your copy of Driven to Murder and discover who is responsible for the latest dark deeds in Newdon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Farrant Fiction
• Release date: Apr 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781999979195

Book preview

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Chapter 1

The curtain twitch caught Joel Simpson’s eye.

Joel did a double take; the curtain was still.

It definitely moved.

Cairan Thornicroft came out of the red front door of the house where Joel had parked outside. She waved nervously, and glancing back at the home, gave a half-smile at an unseen observer.

Cairan opened the driver’s door and slid into the dark blue BMW next to Joel. The motor was still running, and the fan kicked in, making a loud noise.

‘How are you?’ smiled Joel, taking in Cairan’s heavier than normal foundation on her prominent cheekbones.

She forced a smile, ‘Alright thanks. Let’s get on with the lesson.’ She checked the handbrake, slipped the car into first gear, and after checking her mirrors she eased away from the kerb. Joel glanced towards the small residence, taking in the silhouette of a narrow-shouldered man stood behind the dirty net curtains.

‘At the end of the road, turn left,’ Joel said with a relaxed tone while continuing to glance at Cairan from the corner of his eye. She turned left and her grip on the steering wheel reduced, her shoulders lowered visibly now they had escaped her street.

‘Has he been hitting you again?’ Joel asked the same question that he had been inquiring for the last five months.

‘Which way at the roundabout?’ Cairan mumbled as she studied the centre mirror again.

‘I don’t think I can see him following us...’

‘Third exit, then pull into the McDonald’s drive-thru. I’ll get us a coffee and we can talk.’ Joel patted his black jeans pockets to discover where he had stashed a ten-pound note.

Five long minutes passed, Cairan parked the BMW in the corner of the car park furthest away from the road beneath a large tree that was shedding its leaves ready for the nakedness of winter. Joel removed the lid of his cappuccino with care from and took a sniff of the steam, embracing the aroma. Cairan downed half of her cup. Her glasses steamed up, but she didn’t appear to care. She gazed out of the windscreen, not focusing on nothing in particular.

Joel coughed into his fist. ‘Cairan?’

Cairan reluctantly looked at the man in the passenger seat. She exhaled and took another mouthful of her drink. ‘Sam didn’t slap me,’ she replied while staring past Joel’s ear towards the smattering of parked cars.

‘How did you get the bruise on your cheekbone?’

Cairan couldn’t stop herself from running her index fingertip over the offending mark.

The car’s stereo caught her attention, and with the speed a younger person naturally has, she sent her favourite Coldplay album by Bluetooth to give a musical soundtrack in the car. She sighed. ‘You’re right, of course. He asked me if I fancy you more than him.’ Anger flashed through her eyes, ‘Fancy? What kind of word is that? It makes him sound like a teenager.’

Joel grimaced and rolled his eyes. ‘A bloody petulant child more like. What did you say?’

‘I said don’t be stupid. I told him that you’re my driving instructor and fancying you would be like having a crush on a teacher at school.’ Cairan focussed on the tall, well-built, man beside her. Her thin face, blue eyes and delicate nose gave her the appearance of a hawk, ‘Still, at least you’re good looking, unlike that bastard.’

Joel laughed, ‘Thanks for the compliment, I guess. Why do you stay with him? I’m sure that someone would let you stay with them. Didn’t you say that you have a step-sister or something?’

‘It’s not that easy Joel, I would move out if it was. He keeps asking when I’m going for my test again. I’m just glad that he can’t drive himself or he wouldn’t let me out for lessons each week. Besides, Elisa has a houseful.’ Cairan’s mouth curved down at the sides. ‘Sam hasn’t allowed see her since Christmas. He told her that I’m not talking to her.’

‘What a knob. Can’t you drop her a message and tell her that it’s not true?’ Joel said earnestly, as if his idea was amazing.

Cairan gave out a sad laugh and shook her head, ‘He checks my phone a few times a day; it’s not even a possibility to send anyone a text. It’s okay though, I do love Sam. I can’t imagine leaving him, even though I do think about it. When I took my wedding vows, I meant them.’ She looked at her fingernails and resisted chewing them. Sam hates it when I bite my nails.

Joel checked his watch, ‘We need to get you back home, Cairan. The hour is up in five minutes.’

Cairan scrambled to press on the brake lever and hit the starter button. A growl from the engine signalled that the car was ready to take her home.

The drive to her house was unremarkable, Cairan is a better driver than a lot of people who passed their test aeons ago. She parked the BMW by reverse parking into a tight space. Joel nodded with satisfaction at the manoeuvre. A short man with a rodent-like pock-marked face and a wispy moustache came out of Cairan’s home. Sam. I wonder what he’ll say? Joel got out of his prized car and attached a fake beam on his face. He held a hand out to Sam, his palm facing down. Sam grasped Joel’s hand and shook it a couple of times. His fingers are bony; it’s like shaking hands with a skeleton. I doubt that he has ever read about psychology and won’t know I’m dominating him by having my hand on top of his.

‘Joel, great to see you mate,’ Sam enthused, his eyes darting around the road as though he was wary of other people on the street.

‘You too, buddy,’ Joel smiled, but only with his mouth and not his eyes.

Sam managed to keep his eyes on Joel as he asked, ‘So, when is Cairan going to be ready to take her driving test again? I mean, I know it’s my own fault for getting banned but I can’t keep having to get the bus… bad for my image.’

Joel frowned. Three times the drink-drive limit wasn’t it? ‘Be a while yet Sam, maybe another five or six lessons to nail it to the mast.’

‘What does that mean?’ Asked Sam, his full attention now on the much bigger man.

Joel shrugged. ‘It just means that Cairan needs a little more polishing in a couple of areas, then she’ll be good to go.’ He forced himself to smile at Sam, hoping that he came across with more confidence than he was feeling. ‘Same time next week, Cairan?’

‘See you later, Joel, I’ll try to check the mirrors more next time,’ his pupil said before wandering back towards her home with her shoulders sagged down.

Chapter 2

Sergeant Laura Love sat in the Incident Response Team (IRT) office in Newdon police station. She looked out of the first-floor window at the people milling about outside in the sunshine. A little old lady dawdled, pushing a frame on wheels caught her eye. She was a stereotypical looking pensioner, with a paisley patterned headscarf and long coat despite the hot weather. The woman pushed her frame onto the zebra crossing, but had to jump back in quick time to avoid being made into roadkill by a black cab. Laura shook her head in despair and turned back to her computer. She was on supervision duties and stuck in the office unless a decent job came in.

Laura found herself looking at the Force Intranet while using half an ear to listen to her Airwaves police radio. It was about a year or so since they had involved her in the case of Benjamin McGuinness and the Death Dolls saga. In the local countryside, an entrepreneur had started several small firms. He ran a tattoo studio, one employee came up with the Death Doll design. It seemed that everyone got that tattoo. Benjamin branched out into leather goods, in particular, human leather. The bodies came from illegal sources, and he found himself in jail.

She stared at the internal opportunities page, looking at the job adverts. One asked for officers to make the change from being on a neighbourhood or response team and become a detective. Laura felt butterflies fluttering in her stomach and realised that it was time for a change. She stood and walked across the office and knocked on Inspector Beth Lightowler’s door.

The inspector saw Sergeant Love through the window, smiled and said, ‘Come in Laura’.

The sergeant entered the office and the inspector motioned with a hand at the empty chair on the opposite side of her desk. Laura sat down.

‘What can I do for you, Laura?’ asked Beth with a genuine smile. The two police officers got on well and always watched each other’s backs.

‘Ma’am, I see on the intranet that the force is looking to recruit new detectives. I’ve been on response and neighbourhood teams for ages. It really is time for a change. What do you think?’ she asked nervously, fiddling with a zip.

Beth studied her sergeant for a moment or two, took a deep breath and said, ‘If you want to go for it, I will support your application. You really would make an excellent detective. From a personal point of view, it would be a great shame to lose you in IRT. I know that and Emma would miss you too.’ PC Hooker-Wolfe had worked with Laura for several years and had been Laura’s partner on the day that James Dean, the serial killer, had got away. Laura and Emma had been key to finding out about in the nefarious goings-on at Benjamin McGuinness’ businesses a year or so earlier.

‘However, I do think that you will be a great addition to the CID team as you are exceptionally hard-working and diligent.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Laura said. ‘I best go back to the desk in case I am needed.’

Beth watched Laura walk back to her desk, and muttered under her breath, ‘I best get looking for a new sergeant. There is no way that CID won’t recruit Laura. Dammit.’

Chapter 3

Joel pulled up to the kerb outside Cairan’s house. He looked at the clock on the car’s dashboard and turned off the ignition, there was another ten minutes before Cairan’s next lesson was due to start. A moment later, Cairan emerged from the house, ready for her lesson. As she got into the car, Joel couldn’t stop himself from looking to see how the bruise on her cheekbone was healing. That one had faded, but there was a matching one on the opposite cheekbone now. Joel gave Cairan a sympathetic smile as she settled down into the driver’s seat. He couldn’t help seeing that Sam was standing inside the house and looking out of the window at him. Joel gave a short wave in salutation. Cairan didn’t wait to be told to start the car and pulled away from the kerb with a touch of wheel spin.

‘Steady on there,’ laughed Joel, ‘I need these tyres to last me for at least another fortnight.’

Cairan didn’t laugh back. Instead, she prodded her foot harder on the accelerator as if she was trying to escape. In truth, that’s probably what was happening. ‘You need to slow down a bit, you know, under the speed limit. You don’t want to be getting points on your licence before you’ve even passed your test,’ Joel said with urgency.

Cairan eased off the accelerator and let the small BMW bleed off some speed until it dipped under 30mph again.

The traffic lights were on red. Cairan stopped and looked in the rear-view mirror. She cursed when she saw who was in the car behind. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Joel.

‘Sam is following us; his mate Dave is driving. He really thinks that we’re getting up to something other than driving lessons. Stupid man.’ Cairan sighed, ‘I guess that means there’ll be no coffee for us today. I’ll show him that I’m a great driver. He keeps saying to me that I must be really shit if I still need a few more lessons before my test. I want to show him that he couldn’t be further from the truth.’

‘Well Cairan, you are a good driver,’ said Joel, ‘Maybe we should put in for your test and then you’d be able to drive away from that idiot, forever.’

Cairan wound down her window a little to let in some fresh air. ‘It’s suffocating. Maybe I’d be better off without him,’ she sighed. ‘But he’d never let me leave him, so killing myself seems an attractive option right now.’

Joel looked at her, his mouth dropped open in surprise. ‘You are so much better than that. I could ask my wife if you could stay in our spare room until you get someplace else to live.’ He seemed to steel himself, ‘I will ask her later.’

‘Mrs Simpson sounds great,’ Cairan said with a hint of envy in her voice, ‘I doubt that she’d want another woman in the house though. How is your quest to have a baby coming along?’

Joel felt a sense of relief at the opportunity to change the subject. He pointed at a convertible sports car with its roof down. ‘Reverse park behind that silver Porsche. Sam and his mate have